November 26, 2025 • 39 mins
The second installment of our episode on Charles Sumner picks up in the wake of his controversial antiwar speech. He next argued a school integration case before the Massachusetts supreme judicial court.
Research:
- "Sumner, Charles (1811-1874)." Encyclopedia of World Biography, Gale, 1998. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A148425674/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=95485851. Accessed 31 Oct. 2025.
- “Roberts v. City of Boston, 5 Cush. 198, 59 Mass. 198 (1849).” Caselaw Access Project. Harvard Law School. https://case.law/caselaw/?reporter=mass&volume=59&case=0198-01
- “The Prayer of One Hundred Thousands.” https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/PrayerofOneHundredThousand.pdf
- Alexander, Edward. “The Caning of Charles Sumner.” Battlefields.org. 3/6/2024. https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/caning-charles-sumner
- Beecher, Henry Ward. “Charles Sumner.” Advocate of Peace (1847-1884) , MAY, 1874. Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27905613
- Berry, Stephen and James Hill Welborn III. “The Cane of His Existence Depression, Damage, and the Brooks–Sumner Affair.” Southern Cultures , Vol. 20, No. 4 (WINTER 2014). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26217562
- Boston African American National Historic Site. “Abiel Smith School.” https://www.nps.gov/boaf/learn/historyculture/abiel-smith-school.htm
- Boston African American National Historic Site. “The Sarah Roberts Case.” https://www.nps.gov/articles/the-sarah-roberts-case.htm
- Child, Lydia Maria. “Letters of Lydia Maria Child.” Houghton, Mifflin and Company. 1883. https://archive.org/details/lettersoflydiam00chil
- Commonwealth Museum. “Roberts v. The City of Boston, 1849.” https://www.sec.state.ma.us/divisions/commonwealth-museum/exhibits/online/freedoms-agenda/freedoms-agenda-8.htm
- Frasure, Carl M. “Charles Sumner and the Rights of the Negro.” The Journal of Negro History , Apr., 1928, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Apr., 1928). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2713959
- Gershon, Livia. “Political Divisions Led to Violence in the US Senate in 1856.” JSTOR Daily. 1/7/2021. https://daily.jstor.org/violence-in-the-senate-in-1856/
- History, Art and Archives. “South Carolina Representative Preston Brooks’s Attack on Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts.” U.S. House of Representatives. https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1851-1900/South-Carolina-Representative-Preston-Brooks-s-attack-on-Senator-Charles-Sumner-of-Massachusetts/
- Longfellow House Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site. “An Era of Romantic Friendships: Sumner, Longfellow, and Howe.” https://www.nps.gov/articles/an-era-of-romantic-friendships-sumner-longfellow-and-howe.htm
- Lyndsay Campbell; The “Abolition Riot” Redux: Voices, Processes. The New England Quarterly 2021; 94 (1): 7–46. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/tneq_a_00877
- Mahr, Michael. “Sumner vs. Cane.” National Museum of Civil War Medicine. 5/24/2023. https://www.civilwarmed.org/sumner-vs-cane/
- Meriwether, Robert L. “Preston S. Brooks on the Caning of Charles Sumner.” The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine , Jan., 1951, Vol. 52, No. 1 (Jan., 1951). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27571254
- Mount Auburn Cemetery. “Charles Sumner (1811-1874): U.S. Senator, Abolitionist, & Orator.” https://mountauburn.org/notable-residents/charles-sumner-1811-1874/
- National Park Service. “Charles Sumner and Romantic Friendships.” https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/charles-sumner-and-romantic-friendships.htm
- Potenza, Bob. “Charles Sumner.” West End Museum. https://thewestendmuseum.org/history/era/west-boston/charles-sumner/
- Ruchames, Louis. “Charles Sumner and American Historiography.” The Journal of Negro History , Apr., 1953, Vol. 38, No. 2 (Apr., 1953). https://www.jstor.org/stable/2715536
- Senate Historical Office. “Senate Stories | Charles Sumner: After the Caning.” United States Senate. 5/4/2020. https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/senate-stories/charles-sumner-after-the-caning.htm
- Sinha, Manisha. “The Caning of Charles Sumner: Slavery, Race, and Ideology in the Age of the Civil War.” Journal of the Early Republic , Summer, 2003, Vol. 23, No. 2 (Summer, 2003). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3125037
- Sumner, Charles. “Barbarism of Slavery.” 6/4/1860. https://dotcw.com/documents/barbarism_of_slavery.htm
- Sumner, Charles. “Freedom National; Slavery Sectional.” 8/26/1852. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Freedom_N
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson
and I'm Holly Frye. This is part two of three
on Charles Sumner. I think the earlier one important to
listen to before this one. Where we left off, Charles
Sumner had just made a very controversial anti war speech
at an Independence Day event in Boston. He also had
(00:35):
not gotten a position as a professor at Harvard Law,
which a lot of people had been expecting him to get.
He was moving a lot more into just doing things
that were related to abolition and racial justice. And the
next major milestone in his life and career was arguing
a school integration case before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.
(00:59):
We said in Part one one that Charles Sumner was
an abolitionist. He was also opposed to racial segregation, and
this was not just an abstract idea to him. It
was something that affected how he lived his life and
conducted himself. For example, in eighteen forty five, the same
year as that controversial Independence Day speech, he was invited
(01:20):
to speak at the new Bedford Lyceum. He turned down
that invitation. Because the lyceum was racially segregated, saying, quote,
in the sight of God and of all just institutions,
the white man can claim no precedence or exclusive privilege
from his color. In eighteen forty nine, attorney Robert Morris
Junior approached Sumner for help with a case. Morris was
(01:43):
the first black lawyer to be admitted to the Massachusetts
Bar and his clients were Benjamin Roberts and his daughter Sarah.
They were black, and Sarah had to walk past five
schools for white children before she got to one that
she was allowed to attend, So they wanted Sarah to
be able to attend one of the other public schools
(02:04):
that was closer to their home. Roberts versus City of
Boston was a case whose outcome would apply to other
black children in Boston as well.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
The first schools for black children in Boston had been
established after the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts, which followed
court decisions in the seventeen eighties. Those first schools had
been established at the request of black parents whose children
had been facing harassment and bigotry in Boston's public schools.
They had been privately established, but were later recognized by
(02:37):
the Boston School Committee.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
By the eighteen forties, there were only two public schools
for black children in Boston, and they were struggling. They
were facing a similar lack of resources that many other
segregated schools for black children did in other parts of
the United States. Benjamin Roberts and other black parents had
tried repeatedly and without success, to get their children enrolled
(03:02):
into one of the public schools for white children. This
included a petitioning effort in eighteen forty six, after which
the Boston School Committee suggested that the petitioners take up
the matter in court.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Morris framed the initial legal arguments for the case, but
he wanted a more experienced white lawyer to present their
argument before the Massachusetts Supreme Court. We said in Part
one that Sumner didn't perform well in front of jurys,
but at this point he had more speaking experience, and
the things that annoyed jurors were not necessarily an issue
(03:36):
when he was speaking to other attorneys or to justices.
Sumner's vocal abolitionism and support of equal rights made him
a logical choice to help with Morris's case. This is
the first legal case in United States history known to
be argued by an interracial legal team. The Massachusetts Supreme
Judicial Court heard the case on November one, eighteen four nine.
(04:01):
Morris and Sumner's legal argument rested on an eighteen forty
five Massachusetts law that specified that quote any child unlawfully
excluded from public school instruction in this Commonwealth shall recover damages.
Therefore in an action on the case to be brought
in the name of said child by his guardian or
(04:21):
next friend in any court of competent jurisdiction, to try
the same against the city or town by which such
public school instruction is supported. The argument Sumner presented before
the court was informed by Morris's legal framing and by
petitions already made by black families as they tried to
get their children access to the white schools, and a
(04:44):
big part of this was the idea of equality under
the law. In the words of Sumner's oral argument, quote,
according to the spirit of American institutions, and especially of
the Constitution of Massachusetts, all men, without distinction of color
or race, are equal before the law. This is one
of the first, if not the first, uses of the
(05:06):
idea of equality before the law, Regardless of race or
color in US court cases.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Some are went on to say, quote, the exclusion of
colored children from the public schools which are open to
white children is a source of practical inconvenience to them
and their parents to which white persons are not exposed,
and is therefore a violation of equality. The separation of
children in the public schools of Boston on account of
(05:33):
color or race is in the nature of caste and
is a violation of equality. The school Committee have no
power under the constitution and laws of Massachusetts to make
any discrimination on account of color or race among children
in the public schools. He also rebutted the idea that
equality could be maintained through the creation of separate schools
(05:55):
for white and black children.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Quote. To this, there are several answers. First, the separate
school for the colored children is not one of the
schools established by the law relating to public schools, and
having no legal existence, cannot be a legal equivalent. Second,
it is not, in fact an equivalent. It is the
occasion of inconveniences to the colored children to which they
(06:19):
would not be exposed if they had access to the
nearest public schools. It inflicts upon them the stigma of caste.
And although the matters taught in the two schools may
be precisely the same, a school exclusively devoted to one
class must differ essentially in its spirit and character from
that public school known to the law, where all classes
(06:41):
meet together in equality. Admitting that it is an equivalent, still,
the colored children cannot be compelled to take it. They
have an equal right with the white children to the
general public schools.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
He also noted that this system of segregated schools did
not harm only black children. Ldren quote. The separation of
the schools, so far from being for the benefit of
both races, is an injury to both. It tends to
create a feeling of degradation in the blacks and of
prejudice and uncharitableness in the whites.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
The Court, under Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw, found in favor
of the City of Boston. In the Court's opinion quote,
the committee, apparently, upon great deliberation, have come to the
conclusion that the good of both classes of schools will
be best promoted by maintaining the separate primary schools for
colored and for white children. And we can perceive no
(07:37):
ground to doubt that this is the honest result of
their experience and judgment. The court went on to address
the argument that the schools encouraged prejudice and uncharitableness among
the white community. Quote it has urged that this maintenance
of separate schools tends to deepen and perpetuate the odious
distinction of caste founded in a deep rooted prejudice in
(08:01):
public opinion. This prejudice, if it exists, is not created
by law, and probably cannot be changed by law. Whether
this distinction and prejudice existing in the opinion and feelings
of the community would not be as effectually fostered by
compelling colored and white children to associate together in the
same schools may well be doubted. At all events, it
(08:24):
is a fair and proper question for the committee to
consider and decide upon, having in view the best interests
of both classes of children placed under their superintendence, and
we cannot say that their decision upon it is not
founded on just grounds of reason and experience than in
the results of a discriminating and honest judgment. The increased
(08:46):
distance to which the plaintiff was obliged to go to
school from her father's house is not such in our
opinion as to render the regulation in question unreasonable, still
less illegal. The case and its outcome had ramifications far
beyond where Sarah Roberts was allowed to go to school.
(09:07):
It was cited as precedent in other court cases upholding
school segregation in at least eleven states, and then it
was cited in the US Supreme Court decision in Plus
versus Ferguson, which upheld the idea of separate but equal
segregation nationally.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
If you've studied the US Supreme Court case Brown versus
Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, or if you've heard
our episodes on that case, some of Morris's and Sumner's
arguments in Roberts versus City of Boston may have sounded familiar,
especially the arguments about segregation being inherently damaging to children,
particularly to black children. More than one hundred years after
(09:48):
the Massachusetts Court decision in Roberts versus City of Boston,
Thurgood Marshall would cite Charles Sumner more than forty times
and his legal brief in Brown versus Board.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Hurtz family and the rest of the community were, of
course devastated by this lass, but they did not give
up their efforts in trying to desegregate Boston's public schools.
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts outlawed school segregation in eighteen fifty five,
becoming the first state to do so.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
This court case overlapped with some shifts in Sumner's political
thoughts and career, which we will get to after a
sponsor break. In the mid nineteenth century, the two primary
(10:38):
political parties in the United States were the Democratic Party
and the Whigs. This two party split had started to
evolve in the eighteen thirties. President Andrew Jackson was a Democrat,
and the Whigs essentially grew out of opposition to Jackson.
The Whigs took their name from the Revolutionary War era,
when the pro independence patriots were also known as Whigs.
(11:02):
The idea was that Jackson had seized too much power
as president, making him too much like a king, and
the Whigs were opposed to that expansion of presidential power.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
After Texas was annexed into the United States and admitted
to the Union as a slave state in eighteen forty five,
abolitionist Whigs formed a new faction within the party. The
Conscience Whigs then split off into their own party, the
Free Soil party In eighteen forty eight, after the Whigs
selected enslaver Zachary Taylor as their candidate for president, Charles
(11:38):
Sumner joined the Free Soilers and he ran against incumbent
Representative Robert Winthrop in eighteen forty eight. Sumner lost that election,
and Martin Van Buren and Charles Francis Adams, free Soil
candidates for president and vice president, lost their elections as well.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
In eighteen fifty, Sumner campaigned for other Free Soil candidates
Throount Massachusetts. In one speech at Fanuel Hall, he said
voters needed to look for three qualities and the people
they voted for. Quote. The first is backbone, the second
is backbone, and the third is backbone. When I see
a person talking loudly against slavery in private, but hesitating
(12:19):
in public and failing in the time of trial, I
say he wants backbone. When I see a person who
cooperated with anti slavery men and then deserted them, I
say he wants backbone. Also in eighteen fifty, Massachusetts Senator
Daniel Webster was made Secretary of State. Representative Robert Winthrop
(12:40):
was appointed to fill his vacant Senate seat until a
successor could be elected. At this point, senators were not
directly elected by the voters.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
They were voted on by the Massachusetts Legislature. The Free
Soil Party wanted Sumner as their candidate, which involved a
lot of backroom negotiating to try to form a co
between the Free Soil Party and Democrats who were willing
to support him. Sumner did not really want to do this.
As we said in part one, he hated Washington d C.
(13:12):
That was not the only reason, but he hated Washington
d C. He wrote a letter to one of his
brothers in which he straightforwardly said, I do not desire
to be senator. For a while, it looked like he
might not have to. For the first twenty five votes
in the Senate, he did not get a majority, and
neither did anybody else. Some of this was because there
(13:35):
were Democrats who would need to vote with the Free
Soilers and were opposed to all the wheeling and dealing
that was going on.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Sumner finally got a majority of votes on the twenty
sixth attempt hearing he had been elected Senator. Sumner kind
of dodged everybody who wanted to talk to him or
congratulate him, and he went to spend the night at
the home of his dear friends Henry Wadsworth and Fanny Longfellow.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
When it was time for Sumner to leave for Washington,
d C. In the spring of eighteen fifty one, he
was bereft. He wrote a letter to another dear friend
whose complicated relationship with Sumner we talked about more in
Part one. That was Samuel Gridley Howe. Sumner described himself
as weeping three times when he said goodbye to Longfellow,
(14:22):
when he said goodbye to how and when he said
goodbye to his mother and sister. Quote, I now move
away from those who have been more than brothers to me.
My soul is wrung and my eyes are bleared with tears.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
He did not like Washington, d C. Any better than
the first time that he had visited years before. Although
the economy of the Northern States was deeply interconnected with
the institution of slavery, this was the first time he
had lived in a place where slavery was actively being practiced.
About a quarter of the population of Washington, d C.
(14:58):
Was black, and about four forty percent of DC's black
population was enslaved.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Abolitionists were elated to have someone who had been consistently
vocally against slavery in the Senate and expected Sumner to
start making waves. At the time, the Senate was dominated
by people who approved of slavery and wanted to maintain
or expand it, or who didn't really see abolition as
a priority, or who were opposed to slavery but didn't
(15:26):
want to make any waves. A small number of senators
from slave states also seemed to have an outsized amount
of power in the Senate. He called this slave power,
which was correct.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Being an abolitionist really set Sumner apart in this legislative body,
and so did being a bachelor. He was one of
only two bachelors in the Senate, and that was something
that people noticed and commented on. Being an unmarried man
at his age was seen as really suspicious. Like we
said in Part one, men were expected to get married
(16:00):
to women and to have families. Sumner's opponents used his
bachelorhood as fuel to disparage him.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Sumner made various speeches in his first year or so
in office, but none of them were really about slavery.
Abolitionists who had supported his candidacy and celebrated his election
started to become frustrated and angry that he wasn't doing
what they expected him to do. It didn't help that
he had to carry out some of his work more discreetly,
(16:28):
like he arranged a pardon for Daniel Drayton and Edward Sayers,
who had been imprisoned for trying to smuggle more than
seventy people who had liberated themselves from slavery out of
the country on a schooner. Sumner also delivered the news
of their pardon to the prison where they were being
held so they could be released and get to safety
before slavery supporters heard about their release and came to
(16:51):
try to harm them. So he wasn't doing nothing at first.
He was just kind of doing things that people didn't
know about.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
It was customary for freshman senators to be allowed to
make one longer speech on a subject of their choosing.
Sumner started planning to make a major anti slavery speech
that would rebuke the whole institution and also frame it
as incompatible with the United States Constitution. Maybe because he
(17:20):
knew that people were frustrated with his perceived in action,
so he wanted them to know what he was working on.
Maybe because he wasn't just very savvy in this moment.
He did not really keep quiet about what he was
planning to do, and so when he was ready to
speak in July of eighteen fifty two, pro slavery senators
(17:40):
blocked him from the floor, even though blocking a freshman
senator's speech was considered to be a breach of Senate etiquette.
So Sumner used the Senate rules to find a loophole
that would allow him to speak, which was adding an
amendment to an amendment regarding funding for the Fugitive Slave
Act of eighteen fifty. This act had been passed as
(18:02):
part of the Compromise of eighteen fifty, which was a
set of five laws related to slavery and the balance
of power between the slave and free states. This Fugitive
Slave Act strengthened the earlier Fugitive Slave Act of seventeen
eighty three and required people who liberated themselves to be
apprehended and returned to their enslavers, even if they reached
(18:24):
a free state or territory. Very little evidence was needed
to claim that someone had been enslaved. This is something
we have talked about many times on the show. Before
the Fugitive Slave Act of eighteen fifty put all black
people in free states and territories at risk, and Sumner
hated it. He called it a quote most cruel, unchristian,
(18:46):
devilish law. This attaching something to an amendment loophole, allowed
Sumner to speak on the subject with no time limit
and without other senators being able to block him from
the floor. The speech that he delivered in August of
eighteen fifty two was called Freedom National Slavery Sectional, and
in it he argued that the United States Constitution did
(19:10):
not create a framework for slavery at the national or
federal level. That meant that, in Sumner's view, the Fugitive
Slave Act was itself unlawful. He said, in part, quote,
a popular belief at this moment makes slavery a national institution,
and of course renders its support a national duty. The
(19:31):
extravagance of this error can hardly be surpassed. An institution
which our fathers most carefully omitted to name in the Constitution, which,
according to the debates in the Convention, they refused to
cover with any sanction, and which at the original organization
of the government was merely sectional, existing nowhere on the
(19:52):
national territory is now, above all other things blazoned as national.
Its supporters plume themselve national. The old political parties, while
upholding it claimed to be national. A national whig is
simply a slavery whig, and a national democrat is simply
a slavery democrat. In contradistinction to all who regard slavery
(20:15):
as a sectional institution, within the exclusive control of the states,
and with which the nation has nothing to do. But
according to Sumner, this was wrong. Quote slavery, I now repeat,
is not mentioned in the Constitution. The name slave does
not pollute this Charter of our liberties. No positive language
(20:38):
gives to Congress any power to make a slave or
to hunt a slave. To find even any seeming sanction
for either, we must travel with doubtful footsteps beyond its
express letters into the region of interpretation. But here are
rules which cannot be disobeyed with electric might for freedom.
(20:59):
They send up pervasive influence through every provision, clause, and
the word of the Constitution, Each and all make slavery
impossible as a national institution. They efface from the Constitution
every fountain out of which it can be derived. He
cited the Constitution's preamble quote, we the people of the
(21:20):
United States, in order to form a more perfect union,
establish justice, insured domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense,
promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty
to ourselves and our posterity. Do ordain and establish this
Constitution for the United States of America. And Sumner argued
(21:42):
that a nation formed to do all of that could
not at the same time encode slavery in its founding documents.
He also cited some of the founders, including quoting John
Adams as saying, quote, consenting to slavery is a sacrilegious
breach of trust, and Alexander Hamilton, who discot describe those
enslaved by the state as free by the laws of God.
(22:04):
This was simultaneously an argument against slavery and in favor
of a strong national government, and in Sumner's words, quote
there can be no state rights against human rights. Sumner
meant for this speech to present a serious constitutional argument,
written in language that would be accessible to people outside
(22:26):
of the halls of Congress. It was mostly dismissed and
decried by his fellow senators, but it was also printed
and distributed across the country, where it was well received
by opponents of slavery. Past podcast subject Lydia Maria Child
said of it in a letter, quote, Charles Sumner has
made a magnificent speech in Congress against the Fugitive Slave Law.
(22:49):
How thankful I was for it, God bless him. The
Republican Party don't know how to appreciate his honesty and
moral courage. They think he makes a misas in speaking
the truth, and does it because he don't know any better.
They do not perceive how immeasurably superior his straightforwardness is
to their crookedness. History will do him justice. In the
(23:14):
eighteen fifty two election, which took place a little more
than two months after Sumner made this speech, things went
badly for the Free Soil Party. They lost most of
the congressional seats they had gained in earlier elections. Some
people blamed Sumner and his anti slavery speech for this,
and they also blamed Sumner more personally, since, unlike what
(23:36):
he had done in eighteen fifty, he didn't really go
out and campaign for his fellow party members. He and
the two Free Soilers still in the Senate, who were
Sam and pe Chase and John P. Hale were also
kept off of committees in the next congressional session.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
If that letter from Lydia Maria Child made you ask
Republican Party, I thought he was in the Free Soil Party.
And we're going to get to all of that, but
first we're going to pause for a sponsor break.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Before the break, we talked about the Compromise of eighteen fifty,
which was part of a long series of attempts to
maintain a balance between free states and slave states in
the United States. The Compromise of eighteen fifty had followed
the Mexican American War, after which the United States had
gained a huge amount of territory from Mexico and California
(24:34):
had been admitted as a free state the same year
the war ended. An earlier compromise was the Missouri Compromise
of eighteen twenty, when states were being formed from land
that had been acquired in the Louisiana Purchase of eighteen
oh three. Under the Missouri Compromise, Missouri was admitted to
the Union as a slave state. The free state of
(24:57):
Maine was split off from Massachusetts when slavery was outlawed
above the thirty six degree thirty archman at latitude line.
That boundary line presented a problem when the Territory's Committee,
chaired by Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas, was trying to organize
Nebraska Territory, which had also been part of the Louisiana purchase,
(25:18):
into states. Nearly all of the Nebraska territory was north
of that latitude line, meaning that under the Missouri Compromise,
slavery should be illegal in any states created from it.
But that would have tipped the balance of power in
favor of the Free States. So in January of eighteen
fifty four, Douglas introduced a Kansas Nebraska Bill which would
(25:41):
repeal part of the Missouri Compromise. It would divide Nebraska
into two territories, with popular sovereignty or voting used to
determine whether to allow slavery in each of them. Charles
Sumner was very unsurprisingly fiercely opposed to this act and
its potential to allow slavery in a place where it
(26:03):
had previously been outlawed. He and Ohio Senator Sam and P.
Chase also understood that leaving this issue up to voters
might sound kind of okay in theory, but it was
likely to lead to threats, intimidation, and violence. They leaked
the draft bill to the press with an appeal calling
(26:25):
on people to protest against it. On February twenty first,
eighteen fifty four, Sumner delivered a speech before the Senate
called the Landmark of Freedom, and it recounted the history
of the Missouri Compromise and picked apart the various arguments
in favor of the Kansas Nebraska Act. Although this speech
(26:45):
didn't really move his fellow senators, Sumner was loudly applauded
by the gallery, and it got a lot of praise
when it was printed and distributed in Massachusetts. A couple
of days later, on the twenty fourth and twenty fifth
of February, South caml Carolina Senator Andrew Pickens Butler, who
had co authored the bill, made a rebuttal, and in
(27:06):
that rebuttal, he insulted Sumner personally. He also insulted the
state of Massachusetts and other northern states. He sort of
offered up out of context numbers to suggest that the
northern states had higher rates of pauperism and insanity and
also had fewer churches per person than the Southern states.
(27:27):
Sort of implying that that meant the Southern states were
more moral. Butler also spun out an imaginary what if
scenario about Sumner being offered the hand of a black princess,
implying that Sumner was sexually attracted to black women. That,
of course, was an effort to kind of discredit and
(27:48):
humiliate him, but there was a level of irony and
hypocrisy there, since rape and sexual assault perpetrated by white
men against the women they enslaved was incredibly widespread.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Debates over the bill continued after this, and on May twelfth,
eighteen fifty four, Louis Davis, a member of the Free
Soil Party from Ohio, filibustered it in the House, but
it ultimately passed both houses, and President Franklin Pierce signed
the Kansas Nebraska Act into law on May thirtieth, eighteen
fifty four.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
As Sumner had predicted, This led to a massive, violent,
and years long battle over slavery in Kansas, which was
the more southern of the two newly created territories. Pro
and anti slavery settlers rushed into the area, with both
sides arming themselves, and enslaved people from neighboring Missouri also
(28:43):
liberated themselves and fled to Kansas as well. Clashes among
all of these people were ongoing, and this series of
events and all the strife associated with it became known
as Bleeding Kansas. There was chaos in other places as
well during these years, including in Boston, where much of
it was connected to the Fugitive Slave Act of eighteen
(29:04):
fifty A multi racial vigilance committee had been formed to
try to protect black Bostonians from slave catchers, and Sumner
was part of it. In eighteen fifty four, a slave
catcher captured Anthony Burns, and a group of abolitionists rushed
to the courthouse where his case was being heard to
try to rescue him. When fighting broke out at the
(29:25):
courthouse door, an irishman was accidentally shot and killed. Some
people blamed Sumner and his rhetoric for having inflamed tensions
over the issue, supposedly leading to the man's death. Yeah,
a lot of people really like to blame Sumner for
making things worse rather than the people who were enslaving
(29:46):
human beings. Yeah, that seems like a weird finger pointing
problem to me. There's a lot of it. There's a
lot of it. New political parties also started to coalesce
in the wake of all of this. The Republican Party,
found it in eighteen five fifty four, included former members
of the Free Soil Party, Northern Whigs and Democrats who
did not agree with that party's increasing focus on the
(30:09):
expansion of slavery. Some other former Whigs started to join
the Know Nothings, which was an anti immigration party formed
ten years earlier whose membership was really surging in response
to the Irish immigrants who were fleeing to the United
States trying to escape the Great Famine. Sumner, of course
(30:29):
joined the Republicans. He also kept trying to convince people
to support abolition beyond the halls of Congress. This included
going on a speaking tour with seven year old Mary Williams,
her brother Oscar, and their family. Mary's father had escaped
from slavery and purchased the freedom of the rest of
the family with the help of Boston abolitionists. Mary had
(30:52):
very fair skin. To a lot of people, she looked white,
and Sumner used a dageatype of her to try to
illustrate to white families that there were enslave children who
looked just like their own. There's some complexity here. Sumner
was clearly trying to cultivate empathy toward enslaved children and
their families, and to inspire white people who might not
(31:15):
otherwise feel a personal connection to slavery to act, but
there was an obvious power imbalance between a white senator
and a black family who was seeking refuge. We don't
really know what the Williamses thought about all of this,
but it doesn't seem like they really had the opportunity
to say no to essentially being used as an illustrative
(31:38):
prop Sumner did compensate them for their appearances, though, and
he also helped raise money to purchase and emancipate other
family members.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
It also comes with that weird loaded thing of like, no,
but they look white, which is inherently problematic.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Then, on May nineteenth and twentieth of eighteen fifty six,
Sumner delivered a speech in the Senate called Crime against Kansas.
He had memorized it and had also prepared a printed
version to be distributed to the public. This speech was
one hundred and twelve pages long. It condemned the Kansas
Nebraska Act and its potential to expand the reach of
(32:16):
slavery in the United States.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Here's a quote. The wickedness which I now begin to
expose is immeasurably aggravated by the motive which prompted it.
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.
(32:39):
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. Yes, sir, when the
whole world, alike Christian and Turk, is rising up to
condemn this wrong and to make it a hissing to
(33:01):
the nations. Here in our republic, force, I, sir, force
has been openly employed in compelling Kansas to this pollution,
and all for the sake of political power. There is
the simple fact which you will vainly attempt to deny,
but which in itself presents an essential wickedness that makes
(33:21):
other public crimes seem like public virtues.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
In this speech, he also personally criticized senators who had
helped to draft the bill, When Stephen Douglas tried to
raise a point, Sumner answered, quote, no person with the
upright form of man can be allowed, without the violation
of all decency, to switch out from his tongue the
perpetual stench of offensive personality. Sir, this is not a
(33:47):
proper weapon of debate, at least on this floor. The noisome,
squat and nameless animal to which I now refer is
not a proper model for an American senator. Will the
senator from Illinois take note.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Sumner also criticized Andrew Pickens Butler, who was not present
in the Senate that day because he had recently suffered
a stroke. Sumner compared Butler to Don Quixote and made
fun of him for spitting while he talked, which was
an effect of the stroke he had just survived. Sumner
also compared Stephen Douglas to Lucifer, and he alluded to
(34:23):
the South as a place of hypocrisy because it presented
itself as a region of chivalry and gentility and refinement
while really subjecting enslaved women to rape and assault and
breaking up people's families. Uh, we're stating the obvious, but
this was not a diplomatic speech in places, it was
straightforwardly rude. Most of the Senate thought that its content
(34:47):
was a huge breach of decorum. Even Sumner's supporters questioned
whether it had been a good idea and thought that
he might face some kind of retaliation and perhaps even
violence because of the things he had said. They probably
expected that kind of violence to take place out in
the streets of Washington, DC, or maybe even in public
back home in Boston. But on May twenty second, eighteen
(35:09):
fifty six, Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina, who was
related to Senator Butler, came into the chamber after the
Senate had adjourned, and he attacked Charles Sumner at his desk,
repeatedly hitting him with a cane as hard as he could.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
And we're going to talk about all of that and
more on our next episode, because again, this is a
barely precedented three parter.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Yeah, and honestly it could have grown into four if
I had had time for such things. The whole podcast
is just about Charleston. Joe, do you have time for
a listener mail? In the meantime, I do. I'm continuing
to catch up on some older emails This one is
from October and is referencing an even older episode than that.
(35:57):
It is from Shawne, who wrote and said, dear Holly
in Tray, I've always wanted to write and express my
appreciation for the amazing work you do, but never really
found a suitable excuse until now. I've listened to the
episode on nutmeg and wanted to share this ludicrous pancake
recipe from John Locke's diary with an unearthly amount of nutmeg.
(36:19):
There is a link to the recipe. The recipe is
at rarecooking dot com and it's just called John Locks
Recipe for Pancakes. My brother in law sent this to me.
We are both studying history and UNI and we are
waiting till I stop breastfeeding to try it. Maybe silly,
but I'm worried about what that amount of nutmeg may do.
Thank you so much for all the hard work you do.
(36:40):
This podcast got me through hours of lab work and
my undergraduate studies for pet tax I have Garfield, my
idiot of an orange cat, who to this day has
not enjoyed one second of the communal brain cell, mainly
because muzz meaning banana, has complete sovereignty overall brain activity
in the house. They are the best of friends and
are currently tear horized by our ten month old daughter.
(37:01):
All the best Shany. So we've got a cat in
the microwave. A little alarming to look at, but I'm
assuring everyone that this kitty cat would get out of
the microwave before it was put into use. In addition
to being in a microwave, the cat has a very
vacant expression. Picture number two, we have an orange tabby
(37:22):
cat curled up with a great great cat, kind of
tabby cat with white belly and legs. They're curled up together.
They are clearly friends. I love these pictures. I also
love this this recipe so again. The recipe is at
rearcooking dot com. The title of the blog post is
(37:45):
just John Locke's recipe for pancakes, and it's got photos
of the actual page of the library from the collection
at the Bodleian Library, and there are various crossing outs
where it looks like somebody has sort of vised the
recipe over time, and so like there. It starts out
(38:05):
with four eggs and you need to leave out two
of the whites, but that has been amended to seven eggs,
leave out four of the whites. Half a graded nutmeg,
if you remember our net, we're talking about a whole nutmeg,
grading up half of it to put it into the
pancake recipe. That does feel like a lot of nutmeg.
(38:29):
The recipe also has sort of you know that it's
got that spelled out in terms of what was written
in John Locke's diary. And then there's also a modernized
updated version of it with today's weights and measures, including
an entire half nutmeg graded into the batter that does
seem like a very nutmegie pancake recipe. It also has
(38:52):
a whole cup of butter in there.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
See I was gonna say before you said that if
there's enough butter, it will off set that nutmeg and
it'll be just fine. Yeah. I think these sound great.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
Yeah, maybe I will make these one day. We'd like
pancakes sometimes at our house. So thank you again Shannie
for sending us this email and the link and the
adorable cat pictures. If you would like to send us
a note about this or any other podcasts where you
are a history podcast at iHeartRadio dot com, and you
can subscribe to our show on the iHeartRadio app, and
(39:27):
anywhere else you'd like to get your podcasts. Stuff you
missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson
and I'm Holly Frye. This is part two of three
on Charles Sumner. I think the earlier one important to
listen to before this one. Where we left off, Charles
Sumner had just made a very controversial anti war speech
at an Independence Day event in Boston. He also had
(00:35):
not gotten a position as a professor at Harvard Law,
which a lot of people had been expecting him to get.
He was moving a lot more into just doing things
that were related to abolition and racial justice. And the
next major milestone in his life and career was arguing
a school integration case before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.
(00:59):
We said in Part one one that Charles Sumner was
an abolitionist. He was also opposed to racial segregation, and
this was not just an abstract idea to him. It
was something that affected how he lived his life and
conducted himself. For example, in eighteen forty five, the same
year as that controversial Independence Day speech, he was invited
(01:20):
to speak at the new Bedford Lyceum. He turned down
that invitation. Because the lyceum was racially segregated, saying, quote,
in the sight of God and of all just institutions,
the white man can claim no precedence or exclusive privilege
from his color. In eighteen forty nine, attorney Robert Morris
Junior approached Sumner for help with a case. Morris was
(01:43):
the first black lawyer to be admitted to the Massachusetts
Bar and his clients were Benjamin Roberts and his daughter Sarah.
They were black, and Sarah had to walk past five
schools for white children before she got to one that
she was allowed to attend, So they wanted Sarah to
be able to attend one of the other public schools
(02:04):
that was closer to their home. Roberts versus City of
Boston was a case whose outcome would apply to other
black children in Boston as well.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
The first schools for black children in Boston had been
established after the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts, which followed
court decisions in the seventeen eighties. Those first schools had
been established at the request of black parents whose children
had been facing harassment and bigotry in Boston's public schools.
They had been privately established, but were later recognized by
(02:37):
the Boston School Committee.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
By the eighteen forties, there were only two public schools
for black children in Boston, and they were struggling. They
were facing a similar lack of resources that many other
segregated schools for black children did in other parts of
the United States. Benjamin Roberts and other black parents had
tried repeatedly and without success, to get their children enrolled
(03:02):
into one of the public schools for white children. This
included a petitioning effort in eighteen forty six, after which
the Boston School Committee suggested that the petitioners take up
the matter in court.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Morris framed the initial legal arguments for the case, but
he wanted a more experienced white lawyer to present their
argument before the Massachusetts Supreme Court. We said in Part
one that Sumner didn't perform well in front of jurys,
but at this point he had more speaking experience, and
the things that annoyed jurors were not necessarily an issue
(03:36):
when he was speaking to other attorneys or to justices.
Sumner's vocal abolitionism and support of equal rights made him
a logical choice to help with Morris's case. This is
the first legal case in United States history known to
be argued by an interracial legal team. The Massachusetts Supreme
Judicial Court heard the case on November one, eighteen four nine.
(04:01):
Morris and Sumner's legal argument rested on an eighteen forty
five Massachusetts law that specified that quote any child unlawfully
excluded from public school instruction in this Commonwealth shall recover damages.
Therefore in an action on the case to be brought
in the name of said child by his guardian or
(04:21):
next friend in any court of competent jurisdiction, to try
the same against the city or town by which such
public school instruction is supported. The argument Sumner presented before
the court was informed by Morris's legal framing and by
petitions already made by black families as they tried to
get their children access to the white schools, and a
(04:44):
big part of this was the idea of equality under
the law. In the words of Sumner's oral argument, quote,
according to the spirit of American institutions, and especially of
the Constitution of Massachusetts, all men, without distinction of color
or race, are equal before the law. This is one
of the first, if not the first, uses of the
(05:06):
idea of equality before the law, Regardless of race or
color in US court cases.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Some are went on to say, quote, the exclusion of
colored children from the public schools which are open to
white children is a source of practical inconvenience to them
and their parents to which white persons are not exposed,
and is therefore a violation of equality. The separation of
children in the public schools of Boston on account of
(05:33):
color or race is in the nature of caste and
is a violation of equality. The school Committee have no
power under the constitution and laws of Massachusetts to make
any discrimination on account of color or race among children
in the public schools. He also rebutted the idea that
equality could be maintained through the creation of separate schools
(05:55):
for white and black children.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Quote. To this, there are several answers. First, the separate
school for the colored children is not one of the
schools established by the law relating to public schools, and
having no legal existence, cannot be a legal equivalent. Second,
it is not, in fact an equivalent. It is the
occasion of inconveniences to the colored children to which they
(06:19):
would not be exposed if they had access to the
nearest public schools. It inflicts upon them the stigma of caste.
And although the matters taught in the two schools may
be precisely the same, a school exclusively devoted to one
class must differ essentially in its spirit and character from
that public school known to the law, where all classes
(06:41):
meet together in equality. Admitting that it is an equivalent, still,
the colored children cannot be compelled to take it. They
have an equal right with the white children to the
general public schools.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
He also noted that this system of segregated schools did
not harm only black children. Ldren quote. The separation of
the schools, so far from being for the benefit of
both races, is an injury to both. It tends to
create a feeling of degradation in the blacks and of
prejudice and uncharitableness in the whites.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
The Court, under Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw, found in favor
of the City of Boston. In the Court's opinion quote,
the committee, apparently, upon great deliberation, have come to the
conclusion that the good of both classes of schools will
be best promoted by maintaining the separate primary schools for
colored and for white children. And we can perceive no
(07:37):
ground to doubt that this is the honest result of
their experience and judgment. The court went on to address
the argument that the schools encouraged prejudice and uncharitableness among
the white community. Quote it has urged that this maintenance
of separate schools tends to deepen and perpetuate the odious
distinction of caste founded in a deep rooted prejudice in
(08:01):
public opinion. This prejudice, if it exists, is not created
by law, and probably cannot be changed by law. Whether
this distinction and prejudice existing in the opinion and feelings
of the community would not be as effectually fostered by
compelling colored and white children to associate together in the
same schools may well be doubted. At all events, it
(08:24):
is a fair and proper question for the committee to
consider and decide upon, having in view the best interests
of both classes of children placed under their superintendence, and
we cannot say that their decision upon it is not
founded on just grounds of reason and experience than in
the results of a discriminating and honest judgment. The increased
(08:46):
distance to which the plaintiff was obliged to go to
school from her father's house is not such in our
opinion as to render the regulation in question unreasonable, still
less illegal. The case and its outcome had ramifications far
beyond where Sarah Roberts was allowed to go to school.
(09:07):
It was cited as precedent in other court cases upholding
school segregation in at least eleven states, and then it
was cited in the US Supreme Court decision in Plus
versus Ferguson, which upheld the idea of separate but equal
segregation nationally.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
If you've studied the US Supreme Court case Brown versus
Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, or if you've heard
our episodes on that case, some of Morris's and Sumner's
arguments in Roberts versus City of Boston may have sounded familiar,
especially the arguments about segregation being inherently damaging to children,
particularly to black children. More than one hundred years after
(09:48):
the Massachusetts Court decision in Roberts versus City of Boston,
Thurgood Marshall would cite Charles Sumner more than forty times
and his legal brief in Brown versus Board.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Hurtz family and the rest of the community were, of
course devastated by this lass, but they did not give
up their efforts in trying to desegregate Boston's public schools.
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts outlawed school segregation in eighteen fifty five,
becoming the first state to do so.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
This court case overlapped with some shifts in Sumner's political
thoughts and career, which we will get to after a
sponsor break. In the mid nineteenth century, the two primary
(10:38):
political parties in the United States were the Democratic Party
and the Whigs. This two party split had started to
evolve in the eighteen thirties. President Andrew Jackson was a Democrat,
and the Whigs essentially grew out of opposition to Jackson.
The Whigs took their name from the Revolutionary War era,
when the pro independence patriots were also known as Whigs.
(11:02):
The idea was that Jackson had seized too much power
as president, making him too much like a king, and
the Whigs were opposed to that expansion of presidential power.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
After Texas was annexed into the United States and admitted
to the Union as a slave state in eighteen forty five,
abolitionist Whigs formed a new faction within the party. The
Conscience Whigs then split off into their own party, the
Free Soil party In eighteen forty eight, after the Whigs
selected enslaver Zachary Taylor as their candidate for president, Charles
(11:38):
Sumner joined the Free Soilers and he ran against incumbent
Representative Robert Winthrop in eighteen forty eight. Sumner lost that election,
and Martin Van Buren and Charles Francis Adams, free Soil
candidates for president and vice president, lost their elections as well.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
In eighteen fifty, Sumner campaigned for other Free Soil candidates
Throount Massachusetts. In one speech at Fanuel Hall, he said
voters needed to look for three qualities and the people
they voted for. Quote. The first is backbone, the second
is backbone, and the third is backbone. When I see
a person talking loudly against slavery in private, but hesitating
(12:19):
in public and failing in the time of trial, I
say he wants backbone. When I see a person who
cooperated with anti slavery men and then deserted them, I
say he wants backbone. Also in eighteen fifty, Massachusetts Senator
Daniel Webster was made Secretary of State. Representative Robert Winthrop
(12:40):
was appointed to fill his vacant Senate seat until a
successor could be elected. At this point, senators were not
directly elected by the voters.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
They were voted on by the Massachusetts Legislature. The Free
Soil Party wanted Sumner as their candidate, which involved a
lot of backroom negotiating to try to form a co
between the Free Soil Party and Democrats who were willing
to support him. Sumner did not really want to do this.
As we said in part one, he hated Washington d C.
(13:12):
That was not the only reason, but he hated Washington
d C. He wrote a letter to one of his
brothers in which he straightforwardly said, I do not desire
to be senator. For a while, it looked like he
might not have to. For the first twenty five votes
in the Senate, he did not get a majority, and
neither did anybody else. Some of this was because there
(13:35):
were Democrats who would need to vote with the Free
Soilers and were opposed to all the wheeling and dealing
that was going on.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Sumner finally got a majority of votes on the twenty
sixth attempt hearing he had been elected Senator. Sumner kind
of dodged everybody who wanted to talk to him or
congratulate him, and he went to spend the night at
the home of his dear friends Henry Wadsworth and Fanny Longfellow.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
When it was time for Sumner to leave for Washington,
d C. In the spring of eighteen fifty one, he
was bereft. He wrote a letter to another dear friend
whose complicated relationship with Sumner we talked about more in
Part one. That was Samuel Gridley Howe. Sumner described himself
as weeping three times when he said goodbye to Longfellow,
(14:22):
when he said goodbye to how and when he said
goodbye to his mother and sister. Quote, I now move
away from those who have been more than brothers to me.
My soul is wrung and my eyes are bleared with tears.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
He did not like Washington, d C. Any better than
the first time that he had visited years before. Although
the economy of the Northern States was deeply interconnected with
the institution of slavery, this was the first time he
had lived in a place where slavery was actively being practiced.
About a quarter of the population of Washington, d C.
(14:58):
Was black, and about four forty percent of DC's black
population was enslaved.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Abolitionists were elated to have someone who had been consistently
vocally against slavery in the Senate and expected Sumner to
start making waves. At the time, the Senate was dominated
by people who approved of slavery and wanted to maintain
or expand it, or who didn't really see abolition as
a priority, or who were opposed to slavery but didn't
(15:26):
want to make any waves. A small number of senators
from slave states also seemed to have an outsized amount
of power in the Senate. He called this slave power,
which was correct.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Being an abolitionist really set Sumner apart in this legislative body,
and so did being a bachelor. He was one of
only two bachelors in the Senate, and that was something
that people noticed and commented on. Being an unmarried man
at his age was seen as really suspicious. Like we
said in Part one, men were expected to get married
(16:00):
to women and to have families. Sumner's opponents used his
bachelorhood as fuel to disparage him.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Sumner made various speeches in his first year or so
in office, but none of them were really about slavery.
Abolitionists who had supported his candidacy and celebrated his election
started to become frustrated and angry that he wasn't doing
what they expected him to do. It didn't help that
he had to carry out some of his work more discreetly,
(16:28):
like he arranged a pardon for Daniel Drayton and Edward Sayers,
who had been imprisoned for trying to smuggle more than
seventy people who had liberated themselves from slavery out of
the country on a schooner. Sumner also delivered the news
of their pardon to the prison where they were being
held so they could be released and get to safety
before slavery supporters heard about their release and came to
(16:51):
try to harm them. So he wasn't doing nothing at first.
He was just kind of doing things that people didn't
know about.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
It was customary for freshman senators to be allowed to
make one longer speech on a subject of their choosing.
Sumner started planning to make a major anti slavery speech
that would rebuke the whole institution and also frame it
as incompatible with the United States Constitution. Maybe because he
(17:20):
knew that people were frustrated with his perceived in action,
so he wanted them to know what he was working on.
Maybe because he wasn't just very savvy in this moment.
He did not really keep quiet about what he was
planning to do, and so when he was ready to
speak in July of eighteen fifty two, pro slavery senators
(17:40):
blocked him from the floor, even though blocking a freshman
senator's speech was considered to be a breach of Senate etiquette.
So Sumner used the Senate rules to find a loophole
that would allow him to speak, which was adding an
amendment to an amendment regarding funding for the Fugitive Slave
Act of eighteen fifty. This act had been passed as
(18:02):
part of the Compromise of eighteen fifty, which was a
set of five laws related to slavery and the balance
of power between the slave and free states. This Fugitive
Slave Act strengthened the earlier Fugitive Slave Act of seventeen
eighty three and required people who liberated themselves to be
apprehended and returned to their enslavers, even if they reached
(18:24):
a free state or territory. Very little evidence was needed
to claim that someone had been enslaved. This is something
we have talked about many times on the show. Before
the Fugitive Slave Act of eighteen fifty put all black
people in free states and territories at risk, and Sumner
hated it. He called it a quote most cruel, unchristian,
(18:46):
devilish law. This attaching something to an amendment loophole, allowed
Sumner to speak on the subject with no time limit
and without other senators being able to block him from
the floor. The speech that he delivered in August of
eighteen fifty two was called Freedom National Slavery Sectional, and
in it he argued that the United States Constitution did
(19:10):
not create a framework for slavery at the national or
federal level. That meant that, in Sumner's view, the Fugitive
Slave Act was itself unlawful. He said, in part, quote,
a popular belief at this moment makes slavery a national institution,
and of course renders its support a national duty. The
(19:31):
extravagance of this error can hardly be surpassed. An institution
which our fathers most carefully omitted to name in the Constitution, which,
according to the debates in the Convention, they refused to
cover with any sanction, and which at the original organization
of the government was merely sectional, existing nowhere on the
(19:52):
national territory is now, above all other things blazoned as national.
Its supporters plume themselve national. The old political parties, while
upholding it claimed to be national. A national whig is
simply a slavery whig, and a national democrat is simply
a slavery democrat. In contradistinction to all who regard slavery
(20:15):
as a sectional institution, within the exclusive control of the states,
and with which the nation has nothing to do. But
according to Sumner, this was wrong. Quote slavery, I now repeat,
is not mentioned in the Constitution. The name slave does
not pollute this Charter of our liberties. No positive language
(20:38):
gives to Congress any power to make a slave or
to hunt a slave. To find even any seeming sanction
for either, we must travel with doubtful footsteps beyond its
express letters into the region of interpretation. But here are
rules which cannot be disobeyed with electric might for freedom.
(20:59):
They send up pervasive influence through every provision, clause, and
the word of the Constitution, Each and all make slavery
impossible as a national institution. They efface from the Constitution
every fountain out of which it can be derived. He
cited the Constitution's preamble quote, we the people of the
(21:20):
United States, in order to form a more perfect union,
establish justice, insured domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense,
promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty
to ourselves and our posterity. Do ordain and establish this
Constitution for the United States of America. And Sumner argued
(21:42):
that a nation formed to do all of that could
not at the same time encode slavery in its founding documents.
He also cited some of the founders, including quoting John
Adams as saying, quote, consenting to slavery is a sacrilegious
breach of trust, and Alexander Hamilton, who discot describe those
enslaved by the state as free by the laws of God.
(22:04):
This was simultaneously an argument against slavery and in favor
of a strong national government, and in Sumner's words, quote
there can be no state rights against human rights. Sumner
meant for this speech to present a serious constitutional argument,
written in language that would be accessible to people outside
(22:26):
of the halls of Congress. It was mostly dismissed and
decried by his fellow senators, but it was also printed
and distributed across the country, where it was well received
by opponents of slavery. Past podcast subject Lydia Maria Child
said of it in a letter, quote, Charles Sumner has
made a magnificent speech in Congress against the Fugitive Slave Law.
(22:49):
How thankful I was for it, God bless him. The
Republican Party don't know how to appreciate his honesty and
moral courage. They think he makes a misas in speaking
the truth, and does it because he don't know any better.
They do not perceive how immeasurably superior his straightforwardness is
to their crookedness. History will do him justice. In the
(23:14):
eighteen fifty two election, which took place a little more
than two months after Sumner made this speech, things went
badly for the Free Soil Party. They lost most of
the congressional seats they had gained in earlier elections. Some
people blamed Sumner and his anti slavery speech for this,
and they also blamed Sumner more personally, since, unlike what
(23:36):
he had done in eighteen fifty, he didn't really go
out and campaign for his fellow party members. He and
the two Free Soilers still in the Senate, who were
Sam and pe Chase and John P. Hale were also
kept off of committees in the next congressional session.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
If that letter from Lydia Maria Child made you ask
Republican Party, I thought he was in the Free Soil Party.
And we're going to get to all of that, but
first we're going to pause for a sponsor break.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Before the break, we talked about the Compromise of eighteen fifty,
which was part of a long series of attempts to
maintain a balance between free states and slave states in
the United States. The Compromise of eighteen fifty had followed
the Mexican American War, after which the United States had
gained a huge amount of territory from Mexico and California
(24:34):
had been admitted as a free state the same year
the war ended. An earlier compromise was the Missouri Compromise
of eighteen twenty, when states were being formed from land
that had been acquired in the Louisiana Purchase of eighteen
oh three. Under the Missouri Compromise, Missouri was admitted to
the Union as a slave state. The free state of
(24:57):
Maine was split off from Massachusetts when slavery was outlawed
above the thirty six degree thirty archman at latitude line.
That boundary line presented a problem when the Territory's Committee,
chaired by Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas, was trying to organize
Nebraska Territory, which had also been part of the Louisiana purchase,
(25:18):
into states. Nearly all of the Nebraska territory was north
of that latitude line, meaning that under the Missouri Compromise,
slavery should be illegal in any states created from it.
But that would have tipped the balance of power in
favor of the Free States. So in January of eighteen
fifty four, Douglas introduced a Kansas Nebraska Bill which would
(25:41):
repeal part of the Missouri Compromise. It would divide Nebraska
into two territories, with popular sovereignty or voting used to
determine whether to allow slavery in each of them. Charles
Sumner was very unsurprisingly fiercely opposed to this act and
its potential to allow slavery in a place where it
(26:03):
had previously been outlawed. He and Ohio Senator Sam and P.
Chase also understood that leaving this issue up to voters
might sound kind of okay in theory, but it was
likely to lead to threats, intimidation, and violence. They leaked
the draft bill to the press with an appeal calling
(26:25):
on people to protest against it. On February twenty first,
eighteen fifty four, Sumner delivered a speech before the Senate
called the Landmark of Freedom, and it recounted the history
of the Missouri Compromise and picked apart the various arguments
in favor of the Kansas Nebraska Act. Although this speech
(26:45):
didn't really move his fellow senators, Sumner was loudly applauded
by the gallery, and it got a lot of praise
when it was printed and distributed in Massachusetts. A couple
of days later, on the twenty fourth and twenty fifth
of February, South caml Carolina Senator Andrew Pickens Butler, who
had co authored the bill, made a rebuttal, and in
(27:06):
that rebuttal, he insulted Sumner personally. He also insulted the
state of Massachusetts and other northern states. He sort of
offered up out of context numbers to suggest that the
northern states had higher rates of pauperism and insanity and
also had fewer churches per person than the Southern states.
(27:27):
Sort of implying that that meant the Southern states were
more moral. Butler also spun out an imaginary what if
scenario about Sumner being offered the hand of a black princess,
implying that Sumner was sexually attracted to black women. That,
of course, was an effort to kind of discredit and
(27:48):
humiliate him, but there was a level of irony and
hypocrisy there, since rape and sexual assault perpetrated by white
men against the women they enslaved was incredibly widespread.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Debates over the bill continued after this, and on May twelfth,
eighteen fifty four, Louis Davis, a member of the Free
Soil Party from Ohio, filibustered it in the House, but
it ultimately passed both houses, and President Franklin Pierce signed
the Kansas Nebraska Act into law on May thirtieth, eighteen
fifty four.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
As Sumner had predicted, This led to a massive, violent,
and years long battle over slavery in Kansas, which was
the more southern of the two newly created territories. Pro
and anti slavery settlers rushed into the area, with both
sides arming themselves, and enslaved people from neighboring Missouri also
(28:43):
liberated themselves and fled to Kansas as well. Clashes among
all of these people were ongoing, and this series of
events and all the strife associated with it became known
as Bleeding Kansas. There was chaos in other places as
well during these years, including in Boston, where much of
it was connected to the Fugitive Slave Act of eighteen
(29:04):
fifty A multi racial vigilance committee had been formed to
try to protect black Bostonians from slave catchers, and Sumner
was part of it. In eighteen fifty four, a slave
catcher captured Anthony Burns, and a group of abolitionists rushed
to the courthouse where his case was being heard to
try to rescue him. When fighting broke out at the
(29:25):
courthouse door, an irishman was accidentally shot and killed. Some
people blamed Sumner and his rhetoric for having inflamed tensions
over the issue, supposedly leading to the man's death. Yeah,
a lot of people really like to blame Sumner for
making things worse rather than the people who were enslaving
(29:46):
human beings. Yeah, that seems like a weird finger pointing
problem to me. There's a lot of it. There's a
lot of it. New political parties also started to coalesce
in the wake of all of this. The Republican Party,
found it in eighteen five fifty four, included former members
of the Free Soil Party, Northern Whigs and Democrats who
did not agree with that party's increasing focus on the
(30:09):
expansion of slavery. Some other former Whigs started to join
the Know Nothings, which was an anti immigration party formed
ten years earlier whose membership was really surging in response
to the Irish immigrants who were fleeing to the United
States trying to escape the Great Famine. Sumner, of course
(30:29):
joined the Republicans. He also kept trying to convince people
to support abolition beyond the halls of Congress. This included
going on a speaking tour with seven year old Mary Williams,
her brother Oscar, and their family. Mary's father had escaped
from slavery and purchased the freedom of the rest of
the family with the help of Boston abolitionists. Mary had
(30:52):
very fair skin. To a lot of people, she looked white,
and Sumner used a dageatype of her to try to
illustrate to white families that there were enslave children who
looked just like their own. There's some complexity here. Sumner
was clearly trying to cultivate empathy toward enslaved children and
their families, and to inspire white people who might not
(31:15):
otherwise feel a personal connection to slavery to act, but
there was an obvious power imbalance between a white senator
and a black family who was seeking refuge. We don't
really know what the Williamses thought about all of this,
but it doesn't seem like they really had the opportunity
to say no to essentially being used as an illustrative
(31:38):
prop Sumner did compensate them for their appearances, though, and
he also helped raise money to purchase and emancipate other
family members.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
It also comes with that weird loaded thing of like, no,
but they look white, which is inherently problematic.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Then, on May nineteenth and twentieth of eighteen fifty six,
Sumner delivered a speech in the Senate called Crime against Kansas.
He had memorized it and had also prepared a printed
version to be distributed to the public. This speech was
one hundred and twelve pages long. It condemned the Kansas
Nebraska Act and its potential to expand the reach of
(32:16):
slavery in the United States.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Here's a quote. The wickedness which I now begin to
expose is immeasurably aggravated by the motive which prompted it.
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.
(32:39):
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. Yes, sir, when the
whole world, alike Christian and Turk, is rising up to
condemn this wrong and to make it a hissing to
(33:01):
the nations. Here in our republic, force, I, sir, force
has been openly employed in compelling Kansas to this pollution,
and all for the sake of political power. There is
the simple fact which you will vainly attempt to deny,
but which in itself presents an essential wickedness that makes
(33:21):
other public crimes seem like public virtues.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
In this speech, he also personally criticized senators who had
helped to draft the bill, When Stephen Douglas tried to
raise a point, Sumner answered, quote, no person with the
upright form of man can be allowed, without the violation
of all decency, to switch out from his tongue the
perpetual stench of offensive personality. Sir, this is not a
(33:47):
proper weapon of debate, at least on this floor. The noisome,
squat and nameless animal to which I now refer is
not a proper model for an American senator. Will the
senator from Illinois take note.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Sumner also criticized Andrew Pickens Butler, who was not present
in the Senate that day because he had recently suffered
a stroke. Sumner compared Butler to Don Quixote and made
fun of him for spitting while he talked, which was
an effect of the stroke he had just survived. Sumner
also compared Stephen Douglas to Lucifer, and he alluded to
(34:23):
the South as a place of hypocrisy because it presented
itself as a region of chivalry and gentility and refinement
while really subjecting enslaved women to rape and assault and
breaking up people's families. Uh, we're stating the obvious, but
this was not a diplomatic speech in places, it was
straightforwardly rude. Most of the Senate thought that its content
(34:47):
was a huge breach of decorum. Even Sumner's supporters questioned
whether it had been a good idea and thought that
he might face some kind of retaliation and perhaps even
violence because of the things he had said. They probably
expected that kind of violence to take place out in
the streets of Washington, DC, or maybe even in public
back home in Boston. But on May twenty second, eighteen
(35:09):
fifty six, Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina, who was
related to Senator Butler, came into the chamber after the
Senate had adjourned, and he attacked Charles Sumner at his desk,
repeatedly hitting him with a cane as hard as he could.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
And we're going to talk about all of that and
more on our next episode, because again, this is a
barely precedented three parter.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Yeah, and honestly it could have grown into four if
I had had time for such things. The whole podcast
is just about Charleston. Joe, do you have time for
a listener mail? In the meantime, I do. I'm continuing
to catch up on some older emails This one is
from October and is referencing an even older episode than that.
(35:57):
It is from Shawne, who wrote and said, dear Holly
in Tray, I've always wanted to write and express my
appreciation for the amazing work you do, but never really
found a suitable excuse until now. I've listened to the
episode on nutmeg and wanted to share this ludicrous pancake
recipe from John Locke's diary with an unearthly amount of nutmeg.
(36:19):
There is a link to the recipe. The recipe is
at rarecooking dot com and it's just called John Locks
Recipe for Pancakes. My brother in law sent this to me.
We are both studying history and UNI and we are
waiting till I stop breastfeeding to try it. Maybe silly,
but I'm worried about what that amount of nutmeg may do.
Thank you so much for all the hard work you do.
(36:40):
This podcast got me through hours of lab work and
my undergraduate studies for pet tax I have Garfield, my
idiot of an orange cat, who to this day has
not enjoyed one second of the communal brain cell, mainly
because muzz meaning banana, has complete sovereignty overall brain activity
in the house. They are the best of friends and
are currently tear horized by our ten month old daughter.
(37:01):
All the best Shany. So we've got a cat in
the microwave. A little alarming to look at, but I'm
assuring everyone that this kitty cat would get out of
the microwave before it was put into use. In addition
to being in a microwave, the cat has a very
vacant expression. Picture number two, we have an orange tabby
(37:22):
cat curled up with a great great cat, kind of
tabby cat with white belly and legs. They're curled up together.
They are clearly friends. I love these pictures. I also
love this this recipe so again. The recipe is at
rearcooking dot com. The title of the blog post is
(37:45):
just John Locke's recipe for pancakes, and it's got photos
of the actual page of the library from the collection
at the Bodleian Library, and there are various crossing outs
where it looks like somebody has sort of vised the
recipe over time, and so like there. It starts out
(38:05):
with four eggs and you need to leave out two
of the whites, but that has been amended to seven eggs,
leave out four of the whites. Half a graded nutmeg,
if you remember our net, we're talking about a whole nutmeg,
grading up half of it to put it into the
pancake recipe. That does feel like a lot of nutmeg.
(38:29):
The recipe also has sort of you know that it's
got that spelled out in terms of what was written
in John Locke's diary. And then there's also a modernized
updated version of it with today's weights and measures, including
an entire half nutmeg graded into the batter that does
seem like a very nutmegie pancake recipe. It also has
(38:52):
a whole cup of butter in there.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
See I was gonna say before you said that if
there's enough butter, it will off set that nutmeg and
it'll be just fine. Yeah. I think these sound great.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
Yeah, maybe I will make these one day. We'd like
pancakes sometimes at our house. So thank you again Shannie
for sending us this email and the link and the
adorable cat pictures. If you would like to send us
a note about this or any other podcasts where you
are a history podcast at iHeartRadio dot com, and you
can subscribe to our show on the iHeartRadio app, and
(39:27):
anywhere else you'd like to get your podcasts. Stuff you
missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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