Charles Sumner

He married Alice Mason Hooper, the widowed daughter-in-law of Massachusetts Representative Samuel Hooper, in 1866. The marriage was unhappy and ended in a divorce in 1873.

Charles Sumner died of a heart attack at his home in Washington, D.C., on March 11, 1874.

Several educational institutions are named in his honor; these include Charles Sumner High School in St. Louis, Missouri, Charles Sumner Elementary School in Roslindale, Massachusetts, and Charles Sumner School and museum in Washington.

Charles Sumner was born in Boston on January 6, 1811, to Charles Pinckney Sumner and his wife. His father was a liberal Harvard-educated lawyer, abolitionist, and early proponent of racially integrated schools. His family was a middle-class one.

He went to the Boston Latin School, where he befriended Robert Charles Winthrop, James Freeman Clarke, and Samuel Francis Smith; all of whom would one day grow up to be famous men in their own rights.

After school, he studied at the Harvard College, graduating in 1830 following which he went to the Harvard Law School. He was admitted to the bar in 1834.

He entered into a partnership with George Stillman Hillard and started their private law practice. He also lectured at Harvard Law School from 1836 to 1837.

Sumner traveled to Europe in 1837 and began studying French in Paris. There he observed that black people interacted freely with the whites and this openness of the European society made him realize how rampant racism was in the United States.

He returned to the U.S. in 1840 and continued lecturing at Harvard Law School, editing court reports, and contributing to law journals.

He ventured into the political scenario in 1845 when the Mexican–American War was going on. He delivered an Independence Day oration on "The True Grandeur of Nations" in Boston, denouncing the use of war for settling international disputes and promoted arbitration in its place. His excellent speech ensured that he became a much sought after speaker on public affairs.

In 1851, a Democratic-Free-Soil coalition in the Massachusetts legislature named him the United States Senator from Massachusetts. He became very active in the anti-slavery movement and delivered his first major speech, "Freedom National; Slavery Sectional" in 1852 in which he attacked the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act.

Charles Sumner was the leader of the antislavery forces in Massachusetts, noted for being a very vocal champion of civil rights for blacks. A powerful orator, he gave many hard hitting speeches including the “Crime against Kansas" speech in 1856 during the Bleeding Kansas crisis.

He co-authored what was eventually passed as the Civil Rights Act of 1875, working alongside John Mercer Langston, a prominent African American who established the law department at Howard University. Sumner had started work on the Act in the early 1870s but did not live to see its eventual enactment.