Charles Sumner Statue

Charles Sumner was born on January 6, 1811 in Boston, Massachusetts. His father, Charles Pickney Sumner, was a Harvard-educated lawyer and abolitionist who was serving as clerk of the Massachusetts House of Representatives at the time of his son’s birth. Sumner attended Boston Latin School before following in his father’s footsteps and enrolling at Harvard College. After graduating in 1830, he attended Harvard Law School, where he came under the influence of Joseph Story, a revered lawyer and social reformer who later became a justice on the United States Supreme Court. Sumner earned his degree in 1833, after which he practiced law in Boston for a few years before studying abroad in Europe. His experiences in France led him to reason that the differences between whites and Blacks were not inherent, but rather a result of unequal educational opportunities. 

In the years following his return to the United States in 1840, Sumner resumed his legal career, but spent much of his time writing, lecturing, and advocating for the causes about which he felt most strongly. He called for penal reform, worked with Horace Mann, secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, on educational reforms, spoke out against the Mexican War, and attempted to desegregate Boston public schools. A lifelong Whig, Sumner and others broke away from the political party when it selected southern slaveholder Zachary Taylor to be its candidate for President of the United States in 1848. Soon after, he helped organize the Free Soil Party in Massachusetts. A coalition composed mostly of anti-slavery northern Democrats and Whigs, the short-lived political party helped to bring the issue of slavery firmly into the national political spotlight. 

In 1851, Sumner won a seat in the U.S. Senate representing Massachusetts, commencing what would prove to be a lengthy career in Congress. Five years later, the now-Republican spoke out against the Kansas-Nebraska Act in his most famous speech, “The Crime Against Kansas.” In the oration, which he delivered over a two-day period from May 19 to May 20, 1856, Sumner criticized several U.S. senators, but saved some of his most biting, personal remarks for one of the legislation’s co-sponsors, Andrew Butler of South Carolina. Two days later, seeking to defend his cousin’s honor, Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina entered the U.S. Senate chamber, where Sumner was seated at his desk. Brooks then proceeded to beat the Massachusetts senator unconscious with his wooden cane. The vicious attack left Sumner with serious physical injuries and emotional disabilities, which prevented him from returning to the U.S. Senate for three years. Despite this, he won reelection later that year. 

During the Civil War, Sumner advocated for emancipation and called for the raising of Black troops. He also served as chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, helping to diffuse the 1861 Trent Affair and thus prevent Great Britain from intervening in the conflict. During Reconstruction, Sumner and other Radical Republicans sought to punish the South for the war by treating it as a conquered province and requiring southern states to guarantee citizenship and voting rights for African Americans before being readmitted to the Union. On March 10, 1874, longtime U.S. Senator from Massachusetts suffered a heart attack. He died the next day at the age of sixty-three. 

The year after Sumner died, the Boston Art Committee held a national design competition for a statue it planned to erect in his honor. After painstakingly reviewing the anonymous submissions, the committee finally chose one. When members of the committee discovered that the entry that they selected was submitted by a woman (Anne Whitney), they decided to go with Thomas Ball’s proposal. Dedicated on December 23, 1878 in Boston’s Public Garden, the over-life-sized bronze statue depicts Sumner standing, as if about to deliver a speech. He holds a roll of papers in his left hand close to his chest, while his right makes a gesture at his side. The sculpture rests on a granite pedestal. 

"A Tale of Two Statues: Memorials to Charles Sumner." Longfellow House Bulletin 14 no. 2 (December 2010): 1-8 <https://www.nps.gov/long/learn/news/upload/LHB-14-2-2010.pdf>.

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"Charles Sumner." battlefields.org. American Battlefield Trust. Web. 28 May 2021 <https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/charles-sumner>.

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"Charles Sumner, (sculpture)." Art Inventories Catalog. Smithsonian American Art Museum. Smithsonian Institution Research Information System (SIRIS). Web. 28 May 2021 <https://siris-artinventories.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?&profile=ariall&source=~!siartinventories&uri=full=3100001~!15810~!0#focus>.