Charles Sumner

Born in Boston in 1811, Charles Sumner studied at Harvard College and Harvard Law School before building a career as a lawyer, lecturer, and reform advocate. Long before he entered national politics, he was known for speaking out on causes including abolition, prison reform, education, and peace.

Sumner served as a U.S. senator from Massachusetts from 1851 until his death in 1874. He became a leading opponent of slavery and later a powerful voice for equal rights during and after the Civil War. In 1856, after delivering a blistering antislavery speech, he was brutally attacked on the Senate floor by Representative Preston Brooks, an assault that made him a national symbol of the bitter conflict tearing the country apart.

He returned to public life and remained an influential figure in Reconstruction, pressing for civil rights and a broader meaning of freedom after emancipation. Remembered for his moral intensity as much as for his politics, Sumner stands out as one of the era's most determined advocates for human equality.