Charles Sumner

Charles Sumner (1811-1874) was a US Senator from Massachusetts for more than 20 years. In 1856 he was severely beaten on the floor of the Senate for his scathing criticism of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which allowed the spread of slavery into the western territories. He, too, advocated for allowing Black men to serve in the army, and also pushed for the establishment of the Freedmen’s Bureau, an agency dedicated to aiding the formerly enslaved.