LORD SUMNER

Lord Sumner



Lord Sumner

Introduction

Lawyer, reformer, and senator, Charles Sumner was a Massachusetts man by birth and a Puritan by ancestry. Sumner was born in Boston on January 6, 1811, the son of Charles Pinckney and Relief Jacobs Sumner. He received his early education at the prestigious Boston Latin School. A brilliant student, Sumner graduated from Harvard College in 1830 and entered Harvard Law School in September 1831. He started practicing law in January 1834 and was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in September of that same year. From 1835 to 1837, he taught law at Harvard.

Sumner left Boston in 1837 to travel to Europe, where he intended to research the legal systems of England and France. His two and a half years abroad provided a foundation for his later contributions to foreign policy while serving in the U.S. Senate. Sumner, a lifelong bachelor, except for a brief marriage in old age, was an admitted Anglophile and particularly enjoyed his time in London. He conquered the London social scene and gained access to the highest circles within a short period of time. While he also traveled to France, Italy, Germany, and Austria, the period in England reinforced his belief in the necessity of a strong alliance between the United States and Great Britain.

Upon his return to the United States in 1840, Sumner resumed his legal practice, albeit somewhat reluctantly. He preferred to pursue his growing interest in reform movements. The young lawyer had become very active in promoting the peace movement, penal reform, and abolitionism. His reform fervor drove him to abandon the law. Conservative Bostonians were horrified by his radical positions, and as a result Sumner was not invited to rejoin the Harvard Law School faculty.

Sumner's public antislavery stance became well known in 1845 during the nationwide debate over the annexation of Texas. He spoke at a meeting in Boston's Faneuil Hall and stood with other prominent Massachusetts leaders in opposing the admission of another slave state to the Union. Over the next several years, Sumner became a voice of the "Conscience Whigs" in his home state and initiated a feud with his former Harvard classmate and current senator Robert C. Winthrop. Sumner denounced Winthrop's vote for the Mexican-American War bill in Congress, and in doing so he became even more involved in politics.

In 1848 Sumner supported the Free-Soil Party and ran on that party's ticket for Congress. Although he failed to win the seat, his tireless efforts to create a viable Free-Soil-Democratic coalition in the Massachusetts legislature did not go unappreciated. When Daniel Webster left his Senate seat to assume the position of secretary of state, that same coalition, after a fierce struggle with the Whigs, elected Sumner to the vacant post in April 1851.

Over the next two and a half decades, Sumner established himself as a recognizable force in the halls of Congress. Incorruptible, always outspoken, and often disagreeable, he prided himself on his lofty principles. Sumner was a tall and imposing person, with a handsome and ...