Charles Sumner & the Rights of Man

Charles Sumner had one radical idea and this was that all men were created equal. This notion, as David Donald points out, was taken from the Declaration of Independence and the French Revolution and applied legalistically. Sumner may have had his moments of pique and petulance, but this book shows how he kept faith with this notion and his attempts to promote equality. In the process he did attempted several great things, the great tragedy being his inability to realize his vision for a racially united America. Sumner managed also to alienate himself from both Andrew Johnson and Ulysses Grant. Lincoln, in contrast, managed to maintain reasonable relations with Sumner throughout the Civil War despite significant differences. Regardless of public perception, Sumner remained an outcast in the very party he helped establish, mainly due to his radical view on race relations and his vanity. These features the author displays remarkably Reconstruction is only part of the story since Sumner was the head of the Foreign Affairs comittee. Though an advocate of equal rights, he was not in a position to propose and maintain a stream of legislation on behalf of the newly freed slaves. He was quite the thorn in the flesh of the Grant administration and the secretary of state Hamilton Fish (one of the few respectable members of the Grant administration). This is a great biography and the author has done a wonderful job at bringing Sumner and his times to life. He has examined his papers, both the published accounts of speeches and Sumners edited collected works. In the end, the reader is left with the conclusion that the Reconstruction was a "tragic era," but not on the same terms as Claude Bowers, the southern apologist, would have it. The great tragedy is that Sumner was unable to realize his vision of racial equality and persuade America that this was the right and proper thing to do. This was the flaw of his life.