The Great Abolitionist
Charles Sumner and the Fight for a More Perfect Union
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
The groundbreaking biography of a forgotten civil rights hero.
In the tempestuous mid-19th century, as slavery consumed Congressional debate and America careened toward civil war and split apart–when the very future of the nation hung in the balance–Charles Sumner’s voice rang strongest, bravest, and most unwavering. Where others preached compromise and moderation, he denounced slavery’s evils to all who would listen and demanded that it be wiped out of existence. More than any other person of his era, he blazed the trail on the country’s long, uneven, and ongoing journey toward realizing its full promise to become a more perfect union.
Before and during the Civil War, at great personal sacrifice, Sumner was the conscience of the North and the most influential politician fighting for abolition. Throughout Reconstruction, no one championed the rights of emancipated people more than he did. Through the force of his words and his will, he moved America toward the twin goals of abolitionism and equal rights, which he fought for literally until the day he died. He laid the cornerstone arguments that civil rights advocates would build upon over the next century as the country strove to achieve equality among the races.
The Great Abolitionist is the first major biography of Charles Sumner to be published in over 50 years. Acclaimed historian Stephen Puleo relates the story of one of the most influential political figures in American history with evocative and accessible prose, transporting readers back to an era when our leaders exhibited true courage and authenticity in the face of unprecedented challenges.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner's lifelong devotion to equal rights was akin to "digging a deep well with nothing more than a spoon... yet he never stopped digging," according to this rousing biography from historian Puleo (Voyage of Mercy). As a young lawyer in 1849, Sumner coined the phrase "equality before the law," a concept that rapidly propelled universal suffrage to the forefront of abolitionism. Elected senator in 1852, for the next 23 years Sumner was "the nation's most passionate and inexhaustible" antislavery and equality advocate—someone who not only embraced controversy but would "grab it around the waist, and dance it across speaker platforms." Sumner's antagonism of pro-slavery colleagues—he often got "personal"—came to a head in 1856, when enraged South Carolina representative Preston Brooks famously attacked the abolitionist with a cane. A painful and lonely three-year recovery followed, during which Sumner's vacant Senate chair, an ever-present reminder of the assault, catalyzed the nation's political polarization. As a trusted wartime adviser to Abraham Lincoln, it was Sumner, according to Puleo, who ultimately guided the president toward emancipation. Postwar, Sumner championed universal suffrage as a pillar of Reconstruction. Puleo's easygoing narrative style ("The people couldn't get enough of Sumner") is peppered with insight, including into how the "personality difficulties" that made empathizing with others impossible for Sumner contributed to his relentless, fact-based argumentativeness. Readers won't be able to get enough of Puleo's indomitable Sumner.
