Rattan cane

Caning is a form of corporal punishment (see that article for generalities and alternatives) consisting of a number of hits (known as "strokes" or "cuts") with a single cane usually made of rattan, generally applied to the offender's bare or clothed buttocks (see spanking) or hand(s) (on the palm). Application of a cane to the knuckles or the shoulders has been much less common. Caning can also be applied to the soles of the feet (foot whipping). The size and flexibility of the cane and the mode of application, as well as the number of the strokes, vary greatly—from a couple of light strokes with a small cane across the seat of a junior schoolboy's trousers, to 24 very hard, wounding cuts on the bare buttocks with a large, heavy, soaked rattan as a judicial punishment in south-east Asia.

The thin cane generally used for corporal punishment is not to be confused with a walking stick, sometimes also called (especially in American English) a "cane" but which is thicker and much more rigid, and more likely to be made of stronger wood than of cane.

Scope of use[link]

Caning was a common official school and judicial punishment in many parts of the world in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Corporal punishment (with a cane or any other implement) has now been outlawed in much, but not all, of Europe.^{[citation needed]} However, caning remains legal in numerous other countries in home, school, religious, judicial or military contexts, and is also in common use^[1] in some countries where it is no longer legal.

Use in schools[link]

The frequency and severity of canings in educational settings have varied greatly, often being determined by the written rules or unwritten traditions of the school. The western educational use of the cane dates principally to the late nineteenth century, gradually replacing birching—effective only if applied to the bare bottom—with a form of punishment more suited to contemporary sensibilities, once it had been discovered that a flexible rattan cane can provide the offender with a substantial degree of pain even when delivered through a layer of clothing.

Caning as a school punishment is strongly associated in the English-speaking world with England, but it was also used in other European countries in earlier times, notably Scandinavia, Germany and the countries of the former Austrian empire.

In some schools corporal punishment was administered solely by the headmaster, while in others the task was delegated to other teachers. In many English and Commonwealth private schools, authority to punish was also traditionally given to certain senior students (often called prefects). In the early 20th century, such permission for prefects to cane other boys was widespread in British public schools. The perceived advantages of this were promptness of punishment and avoiding bothering the teaching staff with minor disciplinary matters. Canings from prefects took place for a wide variety of failings, including lack of enthusiasm in sport, with the punishment repeated, if necessary, until the younger boy's performance or attitude improved.^[2] From at least the late 19th century onwards, prefects had also used canings to enforce youngsters' participation in other character-building aspects of public school life, such as compulsory cold baths in winter.^[3]

Another claimed advantage was that boys who misbehaved would be chastised more effectively by receiving a caning from a prefect than from a teacher, because pupils associate more closely with each other than with teachers, and thus the impact would be better known in the culprit's immediate peergroup.^[4] Such systems were not limited to secondary age pupils. From at least the early 1860s onwards, some private preparatory schools relied heavily on "self-government" by prefects for even their youngest pupils (around eight years old), with caning the standard punishment for even minor offences. It was regarded as having "no sense of indignity" for the recipient of the punishment.^[5]

As early as the 1920s, the tradition of prefects at British public schools repeatedly caning new boys for trivial offences was criticised by psychologists as producing "a high state of nervous excitement" in some of the youngsters subjected to it. It was felt that granting untrained and unsupervised older adolescents the power to impose comprehensive thrashings on their younger schoolmates whenever they chose, might have adverse psychological effects.^[6]

Some British private schools still permitted caning to be administered by prefects in the 1960s, with opportunities for it provided by complex sets of rules on school uniform and behaviour.^[7] In 1969, when the question was raised in Parliament, it was thought that relatively few schools still permitted this.^[8] By contrast, caning in British state schools in the later 20th century was often, in theory at least, administered by the head teacher only. Canings for primary school age pupils at state schools in this period could be extremely rare; one study found that over an eight-year timespan, one head teacher had only caned two boys in total, but made more frequent use of slippering, while another had caned no pupils at all.^[9]

Like their British counterparts, South African private schools also gave prefects free rein to administer canings whenever they felt it appropriate, from at least the late 19th century onwards.^[10] South African schools continued to use the cane to emphasise sporting priorities well into the late 20th century, caning boys for commonplace gameplay errors such as being caught offside in an association football match, as well as for poor batting performance in cricket, not applauding their school team's performance sufficiently, missing sport practice sessions, or even "to build up team spirit".^[11] The use of corporal punishment within the school setting was prohibited by the South African Schools Act of 1996. According to Chapter 2 Section 10 of the act, (1) No person may administer corporal punishment at a school to a learner and (2) Any person who contravenes subsection (1) is guilty of an offence and liable on conviction to a sentence, which could be imposed for assault.^[12]

In many state secondary schools in England and Wales it was in use, mostly for boys, until 1987,^[13] while elsewhere other implements prevailed, such as the Scottish tawse. The cane was generally administered in a formal ceremony to the seat of the trousers, typically with the student bending over a desk or chair. Usually there was a maximum of six strokes (known as "six of the best"). Such a caning would typically leave the offender with uncomfortable weals and bruises lasting for many days after the immediate intense pain had worn off. A headmaster's caning of a 13-year-old schoolboy at an English grammar school in 1987—five strokes for poor exam results—left "severe bruising", and, according to the family doctor, five separate weals. The headmaster who gave the punishment was cleared of the offence of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, with the judge commenting "If you get a beating you must expect it to be with force."^[14]

Schoolgirls were caned much more rarely than boys, and if the punishment was given by a male teacher, nearly always on the palm of the hand. Rarely, girls were caned on the clothed bottom, in which case the punishment would probably be applied by a female teacher.

Caning as a school punishment for boys is still routine in a number of formerly British territories including Singapore,^[15] Malaysia and Zimbabwe. See Caning in Singapore#School caning. Until recently it had also been common in Australia (now banned in public schools; and abolished in practice (though not strictly in theory) by the vast majority of all independent schools),^[16] New Zealand (banned from 1990)^[17] and South Africa (banned in public and private schools alike from 1996).^[18] In the UK, all corporal punishment in private schools was finally banned in 1999 for England and Wales,^[19] 2000 in Scotland,^[20][21] and 2003 in Northern Ireland.^[22]

A picture showing the marks left on a student's hand after a caning

In Malaysia, although the Education Ordinance 1957 specifically outlaws the caning of girls in school,^[23] the caning of girls, usually on the palm of the hand, is still rather common, especially in primary schools but also occasionally in secondary schools, sometimes even for minor mistakes like being unable to answer questions correctly.^{[24][25][26][27][28][29]} In November 2007, in response to a perceived increase in indiscipline among female students, the National Seminar on Education Regulations (Student Discipline) passed a resolution recommending allowing the caning of female students at school.^[30] The resolution is currently in its consultation process.

The cane was also used more or less frequently on boy inmates at the British youth reformatories known from 1933 to 1970 as Approved Schools, and rarely for girls in such schools. In Approved schools the cane was applied to the buttocks for boys and to the hands for girls, but after Approved Schools became "Community Homes with Education" under the Children and Young Persons Act 1969,^[31] girls could be caned on the buttocks.^[32] Caning is still used in the equivalent institutions in some countries, such as Singapore.

In nineteenth-century France it was dubbed "The English Vice", probably because of its widespread use in British schools.^[33] The regular depiction of caning in British novels about school life from the 19th century onwards, as well as widely screened movies such as If.... which includes a dramatic scene of boys caned by prefects, contributed to the French perception of caning as being central to the British educational system.^[34] Caning was not unknown for French boys in the 19th century, but they were described as "extremely sensitive" to corporal punishment and tended to make a fuss about its imposition.^[35]

Judicial use[link]

A display of rattan judicial canes from the Johor Bahru Prison museum, Malaysia.

Judicial caning, administered with a long, heavy rattan and generally much more severe than the canings given in schools, was/is a feature of some British colonial judicial systems, though the cane was never used judicially in Britain itself (the specified implements there, until abolition in 1948, being the birch and the cat-o'-nine-tails). In some countries caning is still in use in the post-independence era, particularly in Southeast Asia (where it is now being used far more than it was under British rule), and in some African countries.

The practice is retained, for male offenders only, under the criminal law in Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei.^[36] (In Malaysia there is also a separate system of religious courts for Muslims only, which can order a much milder form of caning for women as well as men.) Caning in Indonesia is a recent introduction, in the special case of Aceh, on Sumatra, which since its 2005 autonomy has introduced a form of sharia law for Muslims only (male or female), applying the cane to the clothed upper back of the offender.^[37]

African countries still using judicial caning include Botswana, Tanzania, Nigeria and, for juvenile offenders only, Swaziland and Zimbabwe. Other countries that used it until the late 20th century, generally only for male offenders, included Kenya, Uganda and South Africa, while some Caribbean countries such as Trinidad and Tobago use birching, another punishment in the British tradition, involving the use of a bundle of branches, not a single cane.

In Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei, healthy males under 50 years of age can be sentenced to a maximum of 24 strokes of the rotan (rattan) cane on the bare buttocks; the punishment is mandatory for many offences, mostly violent or drug crimes, but also immigration violations, sexual offences and (in Singapore) acts of vandalism. It is also imposed for certain breaches of prison rules. The punishment is applied to foreigners and locals alike.

Two examples of the caning of foreigners which received worldwide media scrutiny are the canings in Singapore in 1994 of Michael P. Fay, an American student who had vandalised several automobiles, and in the United Arab Emirates in 1996 of Sarah Balabagan, a Filipina maid convicted of homicide.

Caning is also used in the Singapore armed forces to punish serious offences against military discipline, especially in the case of recalcitrant young conscripts. Unlike judicial caning, this punishment is delivered to the soldier's clothed buttocks. See Caning in Singapore#Military caning.

Parental use[link]

Also known as domestic corporal punishment, parents can cane a child as a punishment for disobedience, which is a common practice in Asian countries such as Singapore and Malaysia. See Caning in Singapore#Parental caning.

Voluntary use[link]

Caning may also be a part of consensual sadomasochistic activities between adults.

Cane types and terminology[link]

Canes can be manufactured for disciplinary purpose in different sizes and weights, determining the potential severity of the punishment. The main types are sometimes known by the age groups of the intended recipients, especially in the domestic context:

"Light" canes (about 8 mm in diameter and 60 cm long, according to some sources) are called junior canes, normally considered sufficient to punish young school children (except sometimes for the gravest offences), and hence also known as school cane. However, in America, where the paddle took the place of the cane for discipline, the name junior cane was rather given to a ceremonial walking stick students parade with.

These terms are commonly used with reference to canes and caning:

• The term nursery cane or junior cane is sometimes used for the lightest cane, as it would be used for children under school age
• The senior cane is a heavier type (about 10 mm thick, 75–80 cm long) than the junior cane and is frequently used for older children (or except for the lightest offences); maybe synonymous is the adult cane.
• The reformatory cane was reserved for the worst, "(otherwise) incorrigible" juveniles. About 12 mm thick and 90–120 cm long, it was often reserved for older inmates and was used in severe cases; a similar term is Borstal cane^{[citation needed]} (mistakenly named after the Borstal, a Commonwealth type of reformatory; in fact caning was never officially a permitted punishment in borstals).
• The Singapore cane, used in Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei for the judicial and prison punishment of adult criminals, is half an inch in diameter and 4 ft (1.2 m) long, and can cause deep wounds and permanent scars if a large number of strokes is inflicted in the manner that is used there.

The different varieties of rattan used are sometimes preferred because of their intrinsic severity. Of these, the common kooboo is considered lighter (if the same size) than the denser Dragon Canes; other common types bear geographical names such as Malacca (a peninsular Malaysian state) and Palembang (a city on Sumatra, Indonesia). These esoteric distinctions may be of interest to connoisseurs, but they are not something the average schoolmaster would have been concerned with.

In some spheres the cane, which is typically used by a certain disciplinarian, might be called after him. Thus in the Royal Navy the bosun's cane was frequently used on the backsides of boys without ceremony (as opposed to publicly 'kissing the gunner's daughter', a formal bare-bottom flogging on deck ordered by the captain or a court martial, usually involving birch or cat o' nine tails) on the spot or in the gun room, for daily offences considered too insignificant to require written formalities or orders from an officer (who could and routinely also did order the cane; actually wielding it was considered unsuitable for a gentleman), but more severe than the bimmy. The cane in the hands of a corporal (especially of the Marines on board many fighting ships, often ordered to carry out formal punishment of crew members as well) was called a stonnacky. In an attempt to standardize the canes (but the effective wielding is impossible to capture in written rules) the Admiralty had specimens according to all prevailing prescriptions, called patterned cane (and birch), kept in every major dockyard.

Contrary to myth, bamboo is unsuitable, as it is too brittle and rigid, and easily breaks and cuts the flesh.

While the rattan never caught on in North America (except in one or two isolated cases such as Boston public schools), the rather equivalent hickory stick (made from the native hickory tree) was also once a frequent implement for school discipline, but like the freshly cut, flexible switch and other alternatives it gave way in the US almost exclusively (where corporal punishment persists at all) to paddling with a flat wooden implement.

Effects[link]

Caning with a heavy judicial rattan of the Singapore/Malaysia kind can leave scars for years, at any rate where a large number of strokes are inflicted. However, this should not be confused with an ordinary caning with a typical light rattan (used at home for punishing children), which, although painful at the time, would leave only reddish welts or bruises lasting a few days.

See also[link]

• Birching
• Caning in Malaysia
• Caning in Singapore
• Eton College
• Flagellation
• Judicial corporal punishment
• Paddle (spanking)
• School corporal punishment
• Spanking

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Hardy, Janet (2004). The Toybag Guide to Canes and Caning (Toybag Guide). San Francisco: Greenery Press. ISBN 1-890159-56-5. 

External links[link]

• Video clips of judicial caning in Malaysia (warning - very graphic)
• Video clips of schoolboy caning in Singapore
• Corporal punishment in British schools at World Corporal Punishment Research.

Charles Sumner
Daguerreotype of Senator Sumner, 1855
United States Senator from Massachusetts
In office April 24, 1851 – March 11, 1874
Preceded by	Robert Rantoul, Jr.
Succeeded by	William B. Washburn
Personal details
Born	(1811-01-06)January 6, 1811 Boston, Massachusetts
Died	March 11, 1874(1874-03-11) (aged 63) Washington, D.C.
Political party	Republican (earlier Whig, Free Soil, Democrat)
Spouse(s)	Alice Mason Hooper
Profession	Politician
Religion	Episcopal
Signature

Charles Sumner (January 6, 1811 – March 11, 1874) was an American politician and senator from Massachusetts. An academic lawyer and a powerful orator, Sumner was the leader of the antislavery forces in Massachusetts and a leader of the Radical Republicans in the United States Senate during the American Civil War and Reconstruction, working to punish the ex-Confederates and guarantee equal rights to the Freedmen.

Sumner changed his political party several times, gaining fame as a Republican. One of the most learned statesmen of the era, he specialized in foreign affairs, working closely with Abraham Lincoln to keep the British and the French from intervening on the side of the Confederacy during the Civil War. He devoted his enormous energies to the destruction of what he considered the Slave Power, that is the efforts of slave owners to take control of the federal government and ensure the survival and expansion of slavery.

In 1856, South Carolina Representative Preston Brooks nearly killed Sumner on the Senate floor for ridiculing his relative, Sen. Andrew Butler, as a pimp for slavery^[1] in his vitriolic denunciation of the "Crime against Kansas." After three years of medical treatment Sumner returned to the Senate as the war began. He became the chief Senate spokesman on foreign affairs, and a leader of the Radical Republicans who sought to destroy slavery and radically transform the South. As the chief Radical leader in the Senate during Reconstruction, 1865–1871, Sumner fought hard to provide equal civil and voting rights for the freedmen on the grounds that "consent of the governed" was a basic principle of American republicanism, and to block ex-Confederates from power so they would not reverse the North's victory in the Civil War. Sumner, teaming with House leader Thaddeus Stevens, defeated Andrew Johnson's reconstruction plans and imposed Radical views on the South. In 1871, however, he broke with President Ulysses Grant. Grant's Senate supporters then took away Sumner's power base, his committee chairmanship. Sumner concluded that Grant's corrupt despotism and the success of Reconstruction policies called for new national leadership. He opposed Grant's reelection by supporting the Liberal Republican candidate Horace Greeley in 1872 and lost his power inside the Republican party. Less than two years later, he died in office.

Early life, education, and law career[link]

Birthplace, Irving Street, Beacon Hill, Boston

Sumner was born on Irving Street in Boston on January 6, 1811. He was the son of Charles Pinckney Sumner, a progressive Harvard-educated lawyer, abolitionist, and early proponent of racially integrated schools, who shocked 19th century Boston by opposing anti-miscegenation laws.^[2] His father had been born in poverty^[3] and his mother shared a similar background and worked as a seamstress prior to her marriage.^[3] Sumner's parents were described as exceedingly formal and undemonstrative.^[3] His father's legal practice was a failure, and throughout Sumner's childhood his family teetered on the edge of the middle class.^[3] The family attended Trinity Church, but after 1825 the family occupied a pew in King's Chapel.^[4]

Sumner's father hated slavery and told Sumner that freeing the slaves would "do us no good" unless they were treated equally by society.^[5] Sumner was a close associate of William Ellery Channing, an influential Unitarian minister in Boston. Channing believed that human beings had an infinite potential to improve themselves. Expanding on this argument, Sumner concluded that environment had "an important, if not controlling influence" in shaping individuals.^[6] By creating a society where "knowledge, virtue and religion" took precedence, "the most forlorn shall grow into forms of unimagined strength and beauty."^[7] Moral law, he believed, was as important for governments as it was for individuals, and legal institutions that inhibited ones ability to grow—like slavery or segregation—were evil. While Sumner often viewed contemporary society critically, his faith in reform was unshakable. When accused of utopianism, he replied "The Utopias of one age have been the realities of the next."^[8]

Sumner attended the Boston Latin School, where he counted Robert Charles Winthrop, James Freeman Clarke, Samuel Francis Smith, and Wendell Phillips, among his closest friends.^[2] He graduated in 1830 from Harvard College, where he lived in Hollis Hall, and in 1834 from Harvard Law School where he became a protege of Joseph Story. At Harvard, he was a member of the Porcellian Club.

In 1834, Sumner was admitted to the bar and entered private practice in Boston in partnership with George Stillman Hillard. A visit to Washington decided him against a political career, and he returned to Boston resolved to practice law. He contributed to the quarterly American Jurist and edited Story's court decisions as well as some law texts. From 1836 to 1837, Sumner lectured at Harvard Law School.

Travels in Europe[link]

Sumner traveled to Europe in 1837. He landed at Le Havre and found the cathedral at Rouen striking: "the great lion of the north of France...transcending all that my imagination had pictured.^[9] He reached Paris in December, began to study French, and visited the Louvre "with a throb," describing how his ignorance of art made him feel "cabined cribbed, confined" until repeat visits allowed works by Raphael and Leonardo to change his understanding: "They touched my mind, untutored as it is, like a rich strain of music."^[10] He mastered French in six months and attended lectures at the Sorbonne on subjects ranging from geology to Greek history to criminal law.^[11] In his journal for January 20, 1838, he noted that one lecturer "had quite a large audience among whom I noticed two or three blacks, or rather mulattos--two-thirds black perhaps--dressed quite à la mode and having the easy, jaunty air of young men of fashion...." who were "well received" by the other students after the lecture. He continued:^[12]

They were standing in the midst of a knot of young men and their color seemed to be no objection to them. I was glad to see this, though with American impressions, it seemed very strange. It must be then that the distance between free blacks and whites among us is derived from education, and does not exist in the nature of things.

It was there that he decided that the predisposition of Americans to see blacks as inferior was a learned viewpoint. The French had no problem with blacks learning and interacting with others. Therefore, he determined to become an abolitionist upon his return to America.^[13]

He joined other Americans who were studying medicine on morning rounds at the city's great hospitals.^[14] In the course of three more years he became fluent in Spanish, German, and Italian, and he met with many of the leading statesmen in Europe.^{[citation needed]} In 1838, Sumner visited Britain, where Lord Brougham declared that he "had never met with any man of Sumner's age of such extensive legal knowledge and natural legal intellect."^[15] He returned to the U.S. in 1840.^{[citation needed]}

Early political career[link]

An 1842 bust of Charles Sumner by Thomas Crawford

Sumner ca. 1850

In 1840, at the age of 29, Sumner returned to Boston to practice law but devoted more time to lecturing at Harvard Law, editing court reports, and contributing to law journals, especially on historical and biographical themes.

Sumner developed friendships with several prominent Bostonians, particularly Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, whose house he visited regularly in the 1840s. Longfellow's daughters found his stateliness amusing. Sumner would ceremoniously open doors for the children while saying "In presequas" in a sonorous tone.^[16]

In 1845, he delivered an Independence Day oration on "The True Grandeur of Nations" in Boston. He spoke against the Mexican-American War and made an impassioned appeal for freedom and peace.

He became a sought-after orator for formal occasions. His lofty themes and stately eloquence made a profound impression. His platform presence was imposing. He stood six feet and four inches tall, with a massive frame. His voice was clear and of great power. His gestures were unconventional and individual, but vigorous and impressive. His literary style was florid, with much detail, allusion, and quotation, often from the Bible as well as the Greeks and Romans. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote that he delivered speeches "like a cannoneer ramming down cartridges," while Sumner himself said that "you might as well look for a joke in the Book of Revelation."^{[citation needed]}

Following the annexation of Texas as a new slave-holding state in 1845, Sumner took an active role in the anti-slavery movement. That same year, Sumner represented the plaintiffs in Roberts v. Boston, a case which challenged the legality of segregation. Arguing before the Massachusetts Supreme Court, Sumner noted that schools for blacks were physically inferior and that segregation bred harmful psychological and sociological effects—arguments that would be made in Brown v. Board of Education over a century later.^[17] Sumner lost the case, but the Massachusetts legislature abolished school segregation in 1855.

Sumner worked with Horace Mann to improve the system of public education in Massachusetts. He advocated prison reform. In opposing the Mexican-American War, he considered it a war of aggression, but was primarily concerned that captured territories would expand slavery westward. In 1847, Sumner denounced a Boston Representative's vote for the declaration of war against Mexico with such vigor that he became a leader of the Conscience Whigs faction of the Massachusetts Whig Party. He declined to accept their nomination for U.S Representative in 1848.

Instead, Sumner helped organize the Free Soil Party, which opposed both the Democrats and the Whigs, who had nominated Zachary Taylor, a slave-owning Southerner, for President. Sumner ran for U.S. Representative as a Free Soil candidate and lost.

In 1851, Democrats gained control of the Massachusetts state legislature in coalition with the Free Soilers. The Free Soilers named Sumner their choice for U.S. Senator. The Democrats initially opposed him and called for a less radical candidate. The impasse was broken after three months and Sumner was elected by a one-vote majority on April 24, 1851. His election marked a sharp break in Massachusetts politics, as his abolitionist politics contrasted sharply those of the senator whose seat he occupied, Daniel Webster, one of the foremost supporters of the Compromise of 1850 and its Fugitive Slave Act.^[18]

Senate service[link]

Antebellum career[link]

Sumner took his Senate seat in late 1851 as a Democrat. For the first few sessions, Sumner did not promote any of his controversial causes. On August 26, 1852, Sumner, despite strenuous efforts to dissuade him, delivered his first major speech, titled with a popular abolitionist motto: "Freedom National; Slavery Sectional". He attacked the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act.^[19] After his speech, a Senator from Alabama urged that there be no reply: "The ravings of a maniac may sometimes be dangerous, but the barking of a puppy never did any harm." Sumner's outspoken opposition to slavery made him few friends in the Senate.^[20]

Though the conventions of both major parties had just affirmed the finality of every provision of the Compromise of 1850, including the Fugitive Slave Act, Sumner called for the Act's repeal. For more than three hours he denounced it as a violation of the Constitution, an affront to the public conscience, and an offense against divine law. The speech provoked a storm of anger in the South, but it made Sumner's reputation in the North.^{[citation needed]}

"Crime against Kansas" and retaliation by Brooks[link]

Lithograph of Preston Brooks' 1856 attack on Sumner; the artist depicts the faceless assailant is bludgeoning the learned martyr

Wikisource has original text related to this article: The Crime against Kansas

In an era when Southern gentlemen emphasized chivalry and the concept of honor,^[21] Sumner cast his most famous speech in terms of the most dishonorable conduct imaginable. The Southerners' "crime against Kansas" was "to rape a virgin." Their spokesman senator Butler of South Carolina engaged in prostitution, and loved his harlot.

In 1856, during the "Bleeding Kansas" crisis, Sumner denounced the Kansas-Nebraska Act. In his "Crime against Kansas" speech on May 19 and May 20, Sumner attacked the Kansas Nebraska Act. The long speech argues for the immediate admission of Kansas as a free state. But he goes on, to denounce the "Slave Power"--the political arm of the slave owners. Their goal he alleged was to spread slavery through the free states that had made it illegal.^[22]. The motivation of the Slave Power, he said, was to rape a virgin:

"Not in any common lust for power did this uncommon tragedy have its origin. It is the rape of a virgin Territory, compelling it to the hateful embrace of slavery; and it may be clearly traced to a depraved desire for a new Slave State, hideous offspring of such a crime, in the hope of adding to the power of slavery in the National Government."^[23]

Sumner then attacked authors of the Act, Senators Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois and Andrew Butler of South Carolina. He said:

"The senator from South Carolina has read many books of chivalry, and believes himself a chivalrous knight with sentiments of honor and courage. Of course he has chosen a mistress to whom he has made his vows, and who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight -- I mean the harlot, slavery. For her his tongue is always profuse in words. Let her be impeached in character, or any proposition made to shut her out from the extension of her wantonness, and no extravagance of manner or hardihood of assertion is then too great for this senator."

According to Hoffer (2010), "It is also important to note the sexual imagery that recurred throughout the oration, which was neither accidental nor without precedent. Abolitionists routinely accused slaveholders of maintaining slavery so that they could engage in forcible sexual relations with their slaves."^[24] Sumner also attacked the honor of South Carolina having alluded in his speech that the history of the state be "blotted out of existence..."^[25] Sumner's three-hour oration also mocked the 59-year-old Butler's manner of speech and physical mannerisms, which were impaired by a stroke. Douglas said to a colleague during the speech that "this damn fool Sumner is going to get himself shot by some other damn fool."^[26]

Representative Preston Brooks, Butler's nephew, was infuriated, intended to challenge Sumner to a duel, and consulted with fellow South Carolina Representative Laurence M. Keitt on dueling etiquette. Keitt told him that dueling was for gentlemen of equal social standing, and that Sumner was no better than a drunkard, due to the supposedly coarse language he had used during his speech. Brooks concluded in turn that since Sumner was no gentlemen, it would be more appropriate to beat him with his cane.^[27]

Two days later, on the afternoon of May 22, Brooks confronted Sumner as he sat writing at his desk in the almost empty Senate chamber: "Mr. Sumner, I have read your speech twice over carefully. It is a libel on South Carolina, and Mr. Butler, who is a relative of mine." As Sumner began to stand up, Brooks beat Sumner severely on the head before he could reach his feet, using a thick gutta-percha cane with a gold head. Sumner was knocked down and trapped under the heavy desk (which was bolted to the floor), but Brooks continued to strike Sumner until Sumner ripped the desk from the floor. By this time, Sumner was blinded by his own blood, and he staggered up the aisle and collapsed, lapsing into unconsciousness. Brooks continued to beat the motionless Sumner until his cane broke at which point he left the chamber. Several other Senators attempted to help Sumner, but were blocked by Keitt who brandished a pistol and shouted, "Let them be!"^[28]

The sensational episode revealed the profound polarization in America, as Sumner became a martyr in the North and Brooks a hero in the South. Northerners were outraged. The Cincinnati Gazette said, "The South cannot tolerate free speech anywhere, and would stifle it in Washington with the bludgeon and the bowie-knife, as they are now trying to stifle it in Kansas by massacre, rapine, and murder."^[29] William Cullen Bryant of the New York Evening Post, asked, "Has it come to this, that we must speak with bated breath in the presence of our Southern masters?... Are we to be chastised as they chastise their slaves? Are we too, slaves, slaves for life, a target for their brutal blows, when we do not comport ourselves to please them?"^[30]

The outrage in the North was loud and strong. Thousands attended rallies in support of Sumner in Boston, Albany, Cleveland, Detroit, New Haven, New York, and Providence. More than a million copies of Sumner's speech were distributed. Two weeks after the caning, Ralph Waldo Emerson described the divide the incident represented: "I do not see how a barbarous community and a civilized community can constitute one state. I think we must get rid of slavery, or we must get rid of freedom."^[31] Conversely, Brooks was praised by Southern newspapers. The Richmond Enquirer editorialized that Sumner should be caned "every morning," praising the attack as "good in conception, better in execution, and best of all in consequences" and denounced "these vulgar abolitionists in the Senate" who "have been suffered to run too long without collars. They must be lashed into submission." Many Southerners sent Brooks new canes, in endorsement of his assault.^{[citation needed]} Historian William Gienapp has concluded that Brooks' "assault was of critical importance in transforming the struggling Republican party into a major political force."^[32]

Theological and legal scholar Dr. William R. Long praised the speech as “a most rebarbative and vituperative speech on the Senate floor”, which “flows with Latin quotations and references to English and Roman history.” In his eyes the speech was “a gauntlet thrown down, a challenge to the "Slave Power" to admit once and for all that it were encircling the free states with their tentacular grip and gradually siphoning off the breath of democracy-loving citizens.”^[22]

Absence from the Senate[link]

1860 steel-engraved portrait of Sumner

In addition to the head trauma, Sumner suffered from nightmares, severe headaches, and what is now understood to be post-traumatic stress disorder^[33] or "psychic wounds."^[34] When he spent months convalescing, his political enemies ridiculed him and accused him of cowardice for not resuming his duties. The Massachusetts General Court reelected him in November 1856, believing that his vacant chair in the Senate chamber served as a powerful symbol of free speech and resistance to slavery.^[35]

When he returned to the Senate in 1857, he was unable to last a day. His doctors advised a sea voyage and "a complete separation from the cares and responsibilities that must beset him at home." He sailed for Europe and immediately found relief.^[36] During two months in Paris in the spring of 1857, he renewed friendships, especially with Thomas Gold Appleton, dined out frequently, and attended the opera several nights in a row. His contacts there included Alexis de Tocqueville, poet Alphonse de Lamartine, former French Prime Minister François Guizot, Ivan Turgenev, and Harriet Beecher Stowe.^[37] Sumner then toured several countries, including Germany and Scotland, before returning to Washington where he spent only a few days in the Senate in December. Both then and during several later attempts to return to work, he found himself exhausted just listening to Senate business. He sailed once more for Europe on May 22, 1858, the second anniversary of Brooks' attack.^[38]

In Paris, prominent physician Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard diagnosed Sumner's condition as spinal cord damage that he could treat by burning the skin along the spinal cord. Sumner chose to refuse anesthesia, which was thought to reduce the effectiveness of the procedure. Observers both at the time and since doubt Brown-Séquard's efforts were of value.^[39] After spending weeks recovering from these treatments, Sumner resumed his touring, this time traveling as far east as Dresden and Prague and south to Italy twice. In France he visited Brittany and Normandy, as well as Montpellier. He wrote his brother: "If anyone cares to know how I am doing, you can say better and better."^[40]

Returned to Senate[link]

Sumner returned to the Senate in 1859. When fellow Republicans advised taking a less strident tone than he had years earlier, he answered: "When crime and criminals are thrust before us they are to be met by all the energies that God has given us by argument, scorn, sarcasm and denunciation." He delivered his first speech following his return on June 4, 1860, during the 1860 presidential election. In "The Barbarism of Slavery", he attacked attempts to depict slavery as a benevolent institution, said it had stifled economic development in the South and that it left slaveholders reliant on "the bludgeon, the revolver, and the bowie-knife." He addressed an anticipated objection on the part of one of his colleagues: "Say, sir, in your madness, that you own the sun, the stars, the moon; but do not say that you own a man, endowed with a soul that shall live immortal, when sun and moon and stars have passed away." Even allies found his language too strong, one calling it "harsh, vindictive, and slightly brutal."^[41] He spent the summer rallying the anti-slavery forces and opposing talk of compromise.^[42]

Civil War[link]

Radicals[link]

Sen. Sumner was a member of a faction of the Republican Party known as the Radicals.^[43] In March 1861, after the withdrawal of Southern Senators, Sumner became chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations. The Radicals primarily advocated the immediate abolition of slavery and the destruction of the Southern planter class. Senate Radicals included Sumner, Sen. Zachariah Chandler, and Sen. Benjamin Wade.^[43] During the American Civil War, after the fall of Fort Sumter, in April 1861, Sumner, Chandler and Wade repeatedly visited President Abraham Lincoln at the White House speaking on slavery and the rebellion.^[43] Although like-minded on slavery, the Radicals were loosely organized and disagreed with one another on other issues such as the tariff and currency issues.^[44]

Slave emancipation[link]

Sen. Sumner and friend Longfellow, 1863

Although the Radical Senators desired the immediate emancipation of slaves, President Lincoln, in 1861, was initially resistant to freeing the slaves, since the Union slaves states Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri would be encouraged to join the Confederacy.^[43] Sumner, however, knew that the pressure of the Civil War would eventually cause President Lincoln to free the slaves. As a compromise, the Radicals and President Lincoln passed two Confiscation Acts in 1861 and 1862 that allowed the Union military to free confiscated slaves who were carrying weapons, among other tasks, for the Confederate army. Sen. Sumner and other Radicals had persistently advocated that President Lincoln emancipate the slaves.^[43] Lincoln, however, had adopted a moderated plan of gradual emancipation of slaves and compensation to the slave owners. Sen. Sumner believed that emancipating the slaves would keep Britain from entering the Civil War and the millions of slaves freed from bondage would give America higher moral standing. Lincoln described Sumner as "my idea of a bishop", and consulted him as an embodiment of the conscience of the American people.^[45] On January 1, 1863 President Lincoln, out of military necessity, issued the Emancipation Proclamation.^[43]

Castigated Union Brig. Gen. Stone[link]

On December 9, 1861 the Senate Radicals established the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, whose purpose was to investigate battle defeats and determine the loyalty of generals fighting for the Union War effort.^[46] The committee was formed at the instigation of Radical Sen. Chandler after the Union defeat at the Battle of Ball's Bluff, under the command of Union Brig. General Charles P. Stone.^[46] At the Ball's Bluff battle on October 21, 1861, Union Senator and Colonel Edward D. Baker, who was a close friend of President Lincoln's, was killed and Brig. Gen. Stone was blamed for the defeat by the Union press. Sen. Sumner, upset at having learned Brig. Gen. Stone had ordered two runaway slaves to be denied asylum in the Union Army, castigated Brig. Gen. Stone in a Senate speech.^[46] Brig. Gen. Stone wrote Sen. Sumner a terse letter and demanded satisfaction from Sen. Sumner. On January 31, 1862 Brig. Gen. Stone defended himself in front of the Senate Committee under Radical chairman Sen. Wade.^[46] Indicted under suspicion of treason, without any trial, Brig. Gen. Stone was arrested on February 8, 1862 and federally imprisoned for 189 days.^[46]

Martial law, emancipation, speech controversy[link]

On the onset of the American Civil War in 1861, President Lincoln's administration made a great effort to ensure the war would not be a revolution waged against slavery.^[47] Sen. Sumner had counseled President Lincoln in May to make the end of slavery the primary objective. Sen. Sumner believed President Lincoln's policy to save the Union, rather than abolish slavery, was a mistake.^[47] In October 1861, at the Massachusetts state Republican Convention in Worcester, Sen. Sumner took an unprecedented step and spoke openly in a speech that the Civil War's sole cause was slavery and the primary objective of the Union government was to destroy slavery. Sen. Sumner stated that the Union government had the power to invoke martial law and emancipate the slaves.^[47] The speech caused controversy among the conservative Boston press. Sen. Sumner's speech was denounced as incendiary and Sumner was viewed as mentally ill and a "candidate for the insane asylum".^[47] The Free Soil faction of the Republican Party fully endorsed Sen. Sumner's speech. Sumner continued to make public speeches that the goal of the Civil War was to end slavery by emancipation.^[47]

Trent Affair[link]

On November 8, 1861 the Union naval ship, USS San Jacinto, under the command of Capt. Charles Wilkes, intercepted the British steamer, RMS Trent, captured and put into U.S. port custody two Confederate diplomats James M. Mason and John Slidell.^[48] The northern people and press were in favor of the capture, however, there was concern that the British would use this as grounds to go to war with the United States. The British government dispatched 8,000 British troops on the Canadian border and efforts were made to strengthen the British fleet.^[48] Sec. Seward believed that Mason and Slidell were contraband of war. Sen. Sumner, however, believed that the men did not qualify as war contraband, since they were unarmed, and that their release with an apology by the U.S. Government was appropriate. In the Senate, Sen. Sumner suppressed open debate in order to save Lincoln’s administration from embarrassment. On December 25, 1861 at Lincoln's invitation, Sumner read letters he received from prominent British political figures, including Cobden, Bright, Gladstone, and the Duke of Argyll, to Lincoln's Cabinet. The letters provided critical information on political sentiment in Britain and supported the envoys' return to the British.^[49] President Lincoln reluctantly ordered the release of the Confederate captives to British custody and apologized for their capture. After the Trent Affair, Sen. Sumner's reputation improved among conservative Northerners.^[48]

Haitian recognition[link]

As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sumner renewed his efforts to win U.S. diplomatic recognition of Haiti. Haiti had sought recognition since winning independence in 1804 but faced opposition from Southern Senators. In their absence, the U.S. recognized Haiti in 1862.^[50]

Two civilizations argument[link]

Osofsky argues that Sumner (and like minded Yankees) saw the war as a "death struggle" between "two mutually contradictory civilizations." The solution for Sumner, "the way to 'civilize' and 'Americanize' the South was to make it over into an idealized version of New England. It was to be conquered and then forcibly molded into a society defined in northern terms.^[51]

Objected to Taney memorial[link]

In February 1865, there was considerable debate over authorizing the creation of a memorial to United States Chief Justice Roger Taney . Sumner was a longtime enemy of Chief Justice Taney and attacked his decision in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case. Speaking on the Senate Floor of the United States, in an argument with Sen. Lyman Trumbull, Sen. Sumner, who objected to the memorial's creation, stated:^[52]

I speak what cannot be denied when I declare that the opinion of the Chief Justice in the case of Dred Scott was more thoroughly abominable than anything of the kind in the history of courts. Judicial baseness reached its lowest point on that occasion. You have not forgotten that terrible decision where a most unrighteous judgment was sustained by a falsification of history. Of course, the Constitution of the United States and every principle of Liberty was falsified, but historical truth was falsified also ...

Reconstruction and Civil rights[link]

Sumner ca. 1865, by Brady

Throughout the war, Sumner had been the special champion of blacks, being the most vigorous advocate of emancipation, of enlisting blacks in the Union army, and of the establishment of the Freedmen's Bureau. As the Radical Republican leader in the post-war Senate, Sumner fought to provide equal civil and voting rights for the freedmen on the grounds that "consent of the governed" was a basic principle of American republicanism and in order to keep ex-Confederates from gaining political offices and undoing the North's victory in the Civil War.

The Reconstruction Era of the United States after the American Civil War has traditionally been viewed as one of Southern exploitation and corruption by Northern politicians and harsh federal policies by the Radical Republicans.^[53] The plight of the freedmen during Reconstruction was largely ignored by conservative historians who followed the Dunning School. According to historian Eric Foner, during the 1960s, revisionist historians have reinterpreted Reconstruction "in the light of changed attitudes toward the place of blacks within American society."^[53] Charles Sumner, a Radical Republican, has emerged as an idealist and a champion for African American civil rights through this turbulent and controversial period of United States History.^[53]

Sumner and his fellow Radicals overrode President Johnson's vetoes and imposed some of their views, though Sumner's most radical ideas were not implemented.

Sumner's radical theory of Reconstruction proposed that nothing restricted the Congress in determining how to treat the 11 defeated states. He argued that by declaring secession they had committed felo de se (state suicide) and were now conquered territories that should be treated as if they had never been states. He objected to Lincoln's and later Andrew Johnson's more lenient Reconstruction policies as too generous to the South and an encroachment upon the powers of Congress.^{[citation needed]}

Sumner was a friend of Samuel Gridley Howe and a guiding force for the American Freedmen's Inquiry Commission, started in 1863. He was one of the most prominent advocates for suffrage for blacks, along with free homesteads and free public schools. His uncompromising attitude did not endear him to moderates and sometimes inhibited his effectiveness as a legislator. He was largely excluded from work on the Thirteenth Amendment, in part because he did not get along with Illinois Senator Lyman Trumbull, who chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee and did much of the work on it. Sumner introduced an alternative amendment that combined the Thirteenth Amendment with elements of the Fourteenth Amendment. It would have abolished slavery and declared that "all people are equal before the law". During Reconstruction, he often attacked civil rights legislation as inadequate and fought for legislation to give land to freed slaves. He viewed segregation and slavery as two sides of the same coin.^[54] He introduced a civil rights bill in 1872 to mandate equal accommodation in all public places and required suits brought under the bill to be argued in the federal courts.^[55] The bill failed, but Sumner still spoke of it on his deathbed.^[56]

Sumner repeatedly tried to remove the word "white" from naturalization laws. He introduced bills to that effect in 1868 and 1869, but neither came to a vote. On July 2, 1870, Sumner moved to amend a pending bill in a way that would strike the word "white" wherever in all Congressional acts pertaining to naturalization of immigrants. On July 4, 1870, he said: "Senators undertake to disturb us ...by reminding us of the possibility of large numbers swarming from China; but the answer to all this is very obvious and very simple. If the Chinese come here, they will come for citizenship or merely for labor. If they come for citizenship, then in this desire do they give a pledge of loyalty to our institutions; and where is the peril in such vows? They are peaceful and industrious; how can their citizenship be the occasion of solicitude?" He accused legislators promoting anti-Chinese legislation of betraying the principles of the Declaration of Independence: "Worse than any heathen or pagan abroad are those in our midst who are false to our institutions." Sumner's bill failed, and from 1870 to 1943, and in some cases as late as 1952, Chinese and other Asians were ineligible for U.S. citizenship.^[57]

Sumner remained a champion of civil rights for blacks. He was a co-author of the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which was introduced in 1870, and enacted a year after his death. It was the last civil rights legislation for 82 years. The Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional in 1883 when it decided a group of cases known as the Civil Rights Cases.^[58]

Alaska territory annexation treaty[link]

Throughout March 1867, Sec. William H. Seward and Russian representative Edouard de Stoeckl met in Washington D.C. and negotiated a treaty for the annexation and sale of the Russian American territory of Alaska to the United States for $7,200,000.^[59] President Johnson submitted the treaty to Congress for ratification with Sumner’s approval and on April 9, his foreign relations committee approved and sent the treaty to the Senate. In a 3-hour speech Sumner spoke in favor of the treaty on the Senate floor describing in detail Alaska’s imperial history, natural resources, population, and climate. Sumner wanted to block British expansion (from Canada), arguing that Alaska was geographically and financially strategic, especially for the Pacific Coast States. He said Alaska would increase America’s borders; spread republican institutions; and represent an act of friendship with Russia. The treaty won its needed two-thirds majority by one vote.^[59]

The 1867 treaty neither formally recognized; categorized; nor compensated any native Alaskan Eskimos or Indians; only referring to them as “uncivilized tribes” under the control of Congress.^[60] By federal law, Native Alaskan tribes, including the Inuit, the Aleut, and the Athabascan were only entitled to land that they inhabited.^[60] According to treaty, native Alaskan tribes were excluded from United States citizenship. However, citizenship was available to Russian residents. Creoles, persons of Russian and Indian descent, were considered Russian.^[61] Sumner stated the new territory be called by its Aleutian name Alaska meaning "great land".^[62] Sumner advocated citizens of Alaska free public education and equal protection laws.^[62]

Alabama claims[link]

Sumner puts head in British lion's mouth — Harper's Weekly, 1872

Sumner was well regarded in Great Britain, but after the war he sacrificed his reputation in Britain by his stand on U.S. claims for British breaches of neutrality. The U.S. had claims against Britain for the damage inflicted by Confederate raiding ships fitted out in British ports. Sumner held that since Britain had accorded the rights of belligerents to the Confederacy, it was responsible for extending the duration of the war and consequent losses. In 1869, he asserted that Britain should pay damages not merely for the raiders, but also for "that other damage, immense and infinite, caused by the prolongation of the war." He demanded $2,000,000 for these "national claims" in addition to $125,000,000 for damages from the raiders. Sumner did not expect that Britain ever would or could pay this immense sum, but he suggested that Britain turn over Canada as payment.^[63] This proposition offended many Britons, and was not taken seriously by anyone. At the Geneva arbitration conference which settled U.S. claims against Britain, these "national claims" were abandoned.

Sumner had some influence over J. Lothrop Motley, the U.S. ambassador to Britain, causing him to disregard the instructions of Secretary of State Hamilton Fish on the matter. This offended President Grant and was given as the official reason for Motley's removal.^[63]

Dominican Republic annexation treaty[link]

In 1869, President Grant, in an expansionist plan, looked into the annexation of the Caribbean island country, the Dominican Republic, then known as Santo Domingo.^[64] In July and November 1869, under authority of the President Grant and permission by the State Department on the second trip, Orville Babcock, private secretary to President Grant, secretly negotiated a treaty with President Buenaventura Báez, President of the Dominican Republic. The initial treaty by Babcock had not been authorized by the State Department. The island nation, however, was on the verge of a civil war between President Báez and ex-President Marcos A. Cabral.^[65] President Grant sent in the U.S. Navy to keep the Dominican Republic free from invasion and civil war while the treaty negotiations took place. This military action was controversial since the naval protection was unauthorized by the U.S. Congress.^[66] The official treaty, drafted by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish in October 1869, annexed the Dominican Republic into the United States, gave eventual statehood, the lease of Samaná Bay for $150,000 yearly, and a $1,500,000 payment of the Dominican national debt.^[67] In January 1870, in order to gain support for the treaty, President Grant visited Sen. Sumner's Washington home and mistakenly believed that Sumner had given consent for the treaty. Sen. Sumner stated that he would give the treaty consideration. This meeting would later lead to bitter contention between Sumner and Grant.^[68] The treaty was formally submitted to the United States Senate on January 10, 1870.^[69]

President Ulysses S. Grant
The Dominican Republic annexation treaty cause bitter contention between President Grant and Sen. Sumner. Brady 1869

Sen. Sumner, opposed to American imperialism in the Caribbean, was adamant to keep the island nation independent. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Sumner initially withheld his opinion on the treaty on January 18, 1870.^[70] Sen. Sumner had been leaked information from Assistant Secretary of State, Bancroft Davis, that U.S. Naval ships were being used to protect President Báez. Sen. Sumner' s committee voted against annexation and at Sen. Sumner’s suggestion, the Senate did not allow open debate of the treaty. President Grant persisted and sent messages to Congress in favor of annexation on March 14, 1870 and May 31, 1870.^[71] Grant believed that the mineral resources on the island would be valuable to the United States, and that African Americans repressed in the South, would have a safe haven to migrate. A labor shortage in the South would force Southerners to be tolerant towards African Americans.^[72] In closed session, Sen. Sumner spoke out against the treaty; having believed there would be difficulty with the foreign nationals, the chronic rebellion that took place on the island, and the African independence of Haiti, recognized by the United States in 1862, would be taken away. Sumner stated that Grant's use of the U.S. Navy as a protectorate was a violation of International law and unconstitutional.^[73] Finally, on June 30, 1870 the treaty was voted on by the Senate and defeated having failed to gain the required 2/3 majority for treaty passage.^[74]

The following day, President Grant, feeling betrayed by Sen. Sumner, immediately retaliated by recalling Sumner’s close friend, J. Lothrop Motley, Ambassador to Britain.^[75] President Grant then initiated a campaign to dispose of Sen. Sumner from the chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Although Sumner stated he was an "Administration man", in addition to having stopped Grant's Dominican Republic treaty attempt, Sumner had defeated Grant's full repeal of the Tenure of Office Act, blocked Grant's nomination of Alexander Stewart to U.S. Secretary of Treasury, stalled diplomatic appointments, and conducted his own foreign policy from the Senate.^[76] As the rift between Grant and Sumner increased, Sumner’s health began to decline. When the 42nd U.S. Congress convened on March 4, 1871 Senators affiliated with President Grant, known as ‘’New Radicals’’ voted to oust Sen. Sumner from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairmanship.^[77][78]

Liberal Republican revolt[link]

Sumner now turned against Grant. Like many other reformers, he decried the corruption in Grant's administration. Sumner believed that the civil rights program he championed could not be carried through by a corrupt government. In 1872, he joined the Liberal Republican Party which had been started by reformist Republicans such as Horace Greeley. The Liberal Republicans supported black suffrage and civil rights, but they also called for amnesty for ex-Confederates and an end to military occupation of the South because they thought the main goals of Reconstruction had been completed and that further military interference in politics was un-American. Sumner joined them because he believed now was the time for reconciliation and an end to wartime hatreds.^[79]

Sumner in later years

Conciliation to South[link]

Sumner promoted conciliatory positions. In 1872, he introduced a Senate resolution providing that Civil War battle names should not appear as "battle honors" on the regimental flags of the U.S. Army. This offended Union army veterans. The Massachusetts legislature denounced this battle-flag resolution as "an insult to the loyal soldiery of the nation" and as "meeting the unqualified condemnation of the people of the Commonwealth." Poet John Greenleaf Whittier led an effort to rescind that censure and succeeded early in 1874.^[80]

Death[link]

Charles Sumner died of a heart attack at his home in Washington, D.C., on March 11, 1874. He lay in state in the U.S. Capitol rotunda, the first Senator to do so. At his March 16 burial in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the pallbearers included Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and John Greenleaf Whittier.^[81]

Historical interpretations[link]

Contemporaries and historians have explored Sumner's personality at length. Sumner's friend Senator Carl Schurz praised Sumner's integrity, his "moral courage," the "sincerity of his convictions," and the "disinterestedness of his motives." However, Sumner's Pulitzer-prize-winning biographer, David Donald, presents Sumner as an insufferably arrogant moralist; an egoist bloated with pride; pontifical and Olympian, and unable to distinguish between large issues and small ones. What's more, concludes Donald, Sumner was a coward who avoided confrontations with his many enemies, whom he routinely insulted in prepared speeches.^[82]

Biographers have varied in their appraisal of Sumner. The Pulitzer Prize went to biographer David Donald whose two-volume biography points up Sumner's troubles in dealing with his colleagues:^[83]

Distrusted by friends and allies, and reciprocating their distrust, a man of "ostentatious culture," "unvarnished egotism," and "'a specimen of prolonged and morbid juvenility,'" Sumner combined a passionate conviction in his own moral purity with a command of 19th-century "rhetorical flourishes" and a "remarkable talent for rationalization." Stumbling "into politics largely by accident," elevated to the United States Senate largely by chance, willing to indulge in "Jacksonian demagoguery" for the sake of political expediency, Sumner became a bitter and potent agitator of sectional conflict. Carving out a reputation as the South's most hated foe and the Negro's bravest friend, he inflamed sectional differences, advanced his personal fortunes, and helped bring about national tragedy."

Death of Sumner

Moorfield Storey, Sumner's private secretary for two years and subsequent biographer, seeing some of the same qualities, interprets them more kindly:

Charles Sumner was a great man in his absolute fidelity to principle, his clear perception of what his country needed, his unflinching courage, his perfect sincerity, his persistent devotion to duty, his indifference to selfish considerations, his high scorn of anything petty or mean. He was essentially simple to the end, brave, kind, and pure.... Originally modest and not self-confident, the result of his long contest was to make him egotistical and dogmatic. There are few successful men who escape these penalties of success, the common accompaniment of increasing years....Sumner's naively simple nature, his confidence in his fellows, and his lack of humor combined to prevent his concealing what many feel but are better able to hide. From the time he entered public life till he died he was a strong force constantly working for righteousness....To Sumner more than to any single man, except possibly Lincoln, the colored race owes its emancipation and such measure of equal rights as it now enjoys.^[84]

Sumner's reputation among historians in the first half of the 20th century was largely negative—he was blamed especially for the excesses or Radical Reconstruction.^[85] Both the Dunning School and the anti-Dunning revisionists were especially negative regarding his performance during Reconstruction.^[86] However in recent years scholars have emphasized his role as a foremost champions of black rights before, during and after the Civil War; one historian says he was "perhaps the least racist man in America in his day."^[87]

Charles Sumner House, Boston

Ralph Waldo Emerson, a man not prone to false flattery, wrote of Sumner:

Mr. Sumner's position is exceptional in its honor.... In Congress, he did not rush into party position. He sat long silent and studious. His friends, I remember, were told that they would find Sumner a man of the world like the rest; ‘'it is quite impossible to be at Washington and not bend; he will bend as the rest have done.’ Well, he did not bend. He took his position and kept it.... I think I may borrow the language which Bishop Burnet applied to Sir Isaac Newton, and say that Charles Sumner “has the whitest soul I ever knew.”... Let him hear that every man of worth in New England loves his virtues.^[88]

Marriage[link]

A bachelor for most of his life, Sumner began courting Alice Mason Hooper, the daughter of Massachusetts Representative Samuel Hooper, in 1866 and the two were married that October. Their marriage was unhappy. Sumner could not respond to his wife's humor, and Hooper had a ferocious temper. That winter, Hooper began going out to public events with Friedrich von Holstein, a Prussian diplomat. The relationship caused gossip in Washington, and Hooper refused to stop seeing him. When Holstein was recalled to Prussia in the spring of 1867, Hooper accused Sumner of engineering the action, which Sumner always denied. They separated the following September.^[89] Sumner's enemies used the affair to attack Sumner's manhood, calling Sumner "The Great Impotency". The situation depressed and embarrassed Sumner.^[90] Sumner obtained an uncontested divorce on the grounds of desertion on May 10, 1873.^[91]

Memorials[link]

Statue by Anne Whitney in Harvard Square

The following are named after Charles Sumner:

• Charles Sumner Elementary School in Roslindale, Massachusetts.
• Charles Sumner School and museum in Washington, DC
• Sumner Elementary School in Syracuse, New York, now Peace-Sumner Headstart Preschool.
• Sumner Elementary School in Topeka, Kansas, now closed. The school played a key role in the landmark 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education and is on the National Register of Historic Places.^[92][93]
• Sumner Academy of Arts & Science in Kansas City, Kansas
• Charles Sumner House, Sumner's home in Boston
• Sumner County, Kansas.^[94]
• Sumner, Iowa
• Sumner, Nebraska
• Sumner, Washington
• Sumner, Oregon
• SS Charles Sumner, a World War II Liberty cargo ship.

See also[link]

	Biography portal
	American Civil War portal

Wikisource has original text related to this article: The Barbarism of Slavery

• United States Congress members killed or wounded in office

Notes[link]

Further reading[link]

• Cohen, Victor H. "Charles Sumner and the Trent Affair," The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 22, No. 2 (May 1956), pp. 205–219 in JSTOR
• Donald, David Herbert, Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War (1960)
  • Paul Goodman, "David Donald's Charles Sumner Reconsidered" in The New England Quarterly, Vol. 37, No. 3. (September 1964), pp. 373–387. online at JSTOR
  • Gilbert Osofsky. "Cardboard Yankee: How Not to Study the Mind of Charles Sumner," Reviews in American History, Vol. 1, No. 4 (December 1973), pp. 595–606 in JSTOR
• Foner, Eric, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War (1970)
• Foner, Eric (October/November 1983). "The New View Of Reconstruction". American Heritage Magazine 34 (6). 
• Frasure, Carl M. "Charles Sumner and the Rights of the Negro", The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 13, No. 2 (April 1928), pp. 126–149 in JSTOR
• Gienapp, William E. "The Crime against Sumner: The Caning of Charles Sumner and the Rise of the Republican Party." Civil War History 25 (September 1979): 218-45.
• Haynes, George Henry. Charles Sumner (1909) online edition
• Hidalgo, Dennis, "Charles Sumner and the Annexation of the Dominican Republic," Itinerario Volume XXI, 2/1997: 51-66
• Hoffer, Williamjames Hull. The Caning of Charles Sumner: Honor, Idealism, and the Origins of the Civil War (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010)
• Jager, Ronald B. "Charles Sumner, the Constitution, and the Civil Rights Act of 1875," The New England Quarterly, Vol. 42, No. 3 (September 1969), pp. 350–372 in JSTOR
• Oates, Steven B. (December 1980). "The Slaves Freed". American Heritage Magazine 32 (1). http://www.americanheritage.com/content/slaves-freed. Retrieved 09-25-2011. 
• Pfau, Michael William. "Time, Tropes, And Textuality: Reading Republicanism In Charles Sumner's 'Crime Against Kansas.'" Rhetoric & Public Affairs 2003 6(3): 385-413.
• Pierson, Michael D. "'All Southern Society Is Assailed by the Foulest Charges': Charles Sumner's 'The Crime against Kansas' and the Escalation of Republican Anti-Slavery Rhetoric," The New England Quarterly, Vol. 68, No. 4 (December 1995), pp. 531–557 in JSTOR
• Ruchames, Louis. "Charles Sumner and American Historiography," Journal of Negro History, Vol. 38, No. 2 (April 1953), pp. 139–160 online at JSTOR
• Sinha, Manisha. "The Caning of Charles Sumner: Slavery, Race, and Ideology in the Age of the Civil War" Journal of the Early Republic 2003 23(2): 233-262. in JSTOR
• Storey, Moorfield, Charles Sumner (1900) biography online edition
• Taylor, Anne-Marie. Young Charles Sumner and the Legacy of the American Enlightenment, 1811-1851 (U. of Massachusetts Press, 2001. 422 pp.) Disagrees with Donald and contends that Sumner internalized republican principles of duty, education, and liberty balanced by order. He was also shaped by Moral Philosophy, the dominant strain of American Enlightenment thinking, which included cosmopolitan ideals and a stress on the dignity of intellect and conscience. He was also keen on the idea of Natural Law. These influences came from readings and his close ties to John Quincy Adams, William Ellery Channing, and Joseph Story. Taylor says Sumner sought an American culture combining American liberty with European culture. He became a reformer regarding education, the arts, prison discipline, world peace, and anti-slavery. He saw reform work as a duty to work for the public good.
• Williams, T. Harry (December 1954). "Investigation: 1862". American Heritage Magazine 6 (1). http://www.americanheritage.com/content/investigation-1862. Retrieved 09-27-2011. 

Primary sources[link]

• Palmer, Beverly Wilson, ed. The Selected Letters of Charles Sumner 2 vols. (1990)
• Pierce, Edward L. Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner 4 vols., 1877-93. online edition
• Sumner, Charles. The Works of Charles Sumner online edition

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

• Sumner, Charles (April 9, 1867). Speech of Hon. Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts, on the cession of Russian America to the United States. (Speech). Making of America. http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moa/AAZ9604.0001.001/1?rgn=full+text;view=image. Retrieved 12-13-2011. 

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Charles Sumner

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Charles Sumner

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Charles Sumner

• Charles Sumner at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Mr. Lincoln and Freedom: Charles Sumner
• Sumner's "Crime Against Kansas" speech
• Works by Charles Sumner at Project Gutenberg
• The Liberator Files, Items concerning Charles Sumner from Horace Seldon's collection and summary of research of William Lloyd Garrison's The Liberator original copies at the Boston Public Library, Boston, Massachusetts.

Works related to Charles Sumner at Wikisource Media related to Charles Sumner at Wikimedia Commons

v t e United States Senators from Massachusetts Class 1 Dalton Cabot Goodhue Mason Adams Lloyd Gore Ashmun Mellen Mills Webster Choate Webster Winthrop Rantoul Sumner Washburn Dawes Lodge, Sr. Butler Walsh Lodge, Jr. J. Kennedy Smith E. Kennedy Kirk Brown Class 2 Strong Sedgwick Dexter Foster Pickering Varnum Otis Lloyd Silsbee Davis Bates Davis Everett Rockwell Wilson Boutwell Hoar Crane J. Weeks Walsh Gillett Coolidge Lodge, Jr. S. Weeks Saltonstall Brooke Tsongas Kerry