Charles Sumner

Examples of Charles Sumner in the following topics:

• Bleeding Kansas

  • On the afternoon of May 22, 1856, Preston Smith Brooks physically attacked Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts in the Senate chambers , hitting him on the head with his cane.
  • Brooks' assault on Sumner was in retaliation to Sumner's speech on the Kansas violence--likening the pro-slavery invasion of the territory to the "rape of a virgin. "
  • The incident between Sumner and Brooks shocked the nation and further polarized anti- and pro-slavery camps.
  • To Northerners, Sumner was an anti-slavery martyr brutally assaulted for asserting his views on the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
  • Preston Brooks attacking Charles Sumner in the U.S.

• The Radical Record

  • Radical Republicans in Congress, led by Stevens and Sumner, opened the way to suffrage and legal equality for freedmen.
  • Radical Republicans, led by Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens, opened the way to suffrage for male freedmen.
  • As the chief Radical leader in the Senate during Reconstruction, 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 gains made from the Union's victory in the Civil War.
  • Sumner, teaming with House leader Thaddeus Stevens, battled Andrew Johnson's Reconstruction plans and sought to impose a Radical program on the South.
  • Charles Sumner (January 6, 1811–March 11, 1874) was an American politician and senator from Massachusetts.

• The Kansas-Nebraska Act

  • On May 22, 1856, as Senator Charles Sumner (MA) gave a speech on the violent situation in Kansas, likening the proslavery invasion of the territory to the “rape of a virgin,” Senator Preston Smith Brooks (SC) physically attacked Sumner with his cane.
  • To many Northerners, Sumner was considered an antislavery martyr for standing up for his convictions.

• Abolitionists and the American Ideal

  • Notable African-American activists included former slaves such as Frederick Douglass and David Walker and free African Americans such as brothers Charles Henry Langston and John Mercer Langston, who helped found the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society.
  • The notorious confrontation between Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina and Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner illustrates the contempt between extremists on both sides.
  • The “Caning of Sumner” in May 1856 followed a speech given by Sumner two days earlier, in which he condemned slavery in no uncertain terms, declaring: “[Admitting Kansas as a slave state] is the rape of a virgin territory, compelling it to the hateful embrace of slavery; and it may be clearly traced to a depraved longing for a new slave state, the hideous offspring of such a crime, in the hope of adding to the power of slavery in the national government.”
  • Sumner criticized proslavery legislators, particularly attacking a fellow senator and relative of Preston Brooks.
  • Brooks responded by beating Sumner with a cane, a thrashing that southerners celebrated as a defense of gentlemanly honor and their way of life.

• The Grant Years

  • Charles Sumner, embittered by the corruption of the Grant administration, joined the new party, which nominated editor Horace Greeley.

• The End of the War

  • Senators Charles Sumner of Massachusetts and Thaddeus Stevens, leaders of the Radical Republicans, were initially hesitant to enfranchise the largely illiterate former slave population.
  • Sumner preferred at first impartial requirements that would have imposed literacy restrictions on blacks and whites.

• Social Darwinism in America

  • Social Darwinism—as well as the notions of evolution and Charles Darwin—are frequently linked with racialism, nationalism, imperialism, and eugenics.
  • Youmans, William Graham Sumner, John Fiske, and John W.
  • According to Sumner, those who feel an obligation to provide assistance to those unequipped or under-equipped to compete for survival will create a country in which the weak and inferior are encouraged to breed more of the like, which will eventually drag the country down.
  • Sumner also believed that the best equipped to win the struggle for survival was the American businessman, and concluded that taxes and regulations serve as dangers to his survival.
  • William Graham Sumner's 1883 pamphlet, What Social Classes Owe to Each Other was highly influential.

• The Social Problem

  • Science also played an important part in social thought as the work of Charles Darwin became popular.
  • This new concept justified the stratification of the wealthy and poor and coined the term "survival of the fittest. " Joining Spencer was Yale University professor William Graham Sumner, whose book What Social Classes Owe to Each Other (which was first published in 1884) argued that assistance to the poor actually weakens their ability to survive in society.
  • Sumner argued for a laissez-faire and free-market economy.

• Conclusion: Trends of the Gilded Age

  • Science also played an important part in social thought as the work of Charles Darwin became popular.
  • Joining Spencer was Yale University professor William Graham Sumner whose book What Social Classes Owe to Each Other (1884) argued that assistance to the poor actually weakens their ability to survive in society.
  • Sumner argued for a laissez-faire and free-market economy.

• The Brown Decision

  • Notable among the Topeka NAACP leaders were the chairman McKinley Burnett, Charles Scott, one of three serving as legal counsel for the chapter, and Lucinda Todd.
  • Brown's daughter Linda, a third grader, had to walk six blocks to her school bus stop to ride to Monroe Elementary, her segregated black school one mile (1.6 km) away, while Sumner Elementary, a white school, was seven blocks from her house.