Charles Sumner

Known mainly as the abolitionist senator brutally caned within an inch of his life by slaveholder Preston Brooks on the Senate floor in 1856, Charles Sumner also played a pivotal role in advancing democracy and shaping the Constitution during Reconstruction, America's 'Second Founding.' During the Civil War, Sumner convinced Lincoln to emancipate the South's slaves; stopped England from joining the conflict; and created the Freedmen's Bureau. After the war, Sumner transformed America by authoring the Fourteenth Amendment and thereby embedding his slogan - 'equality before the law' - into the Constitution. Sumner was a martyr-like senator who put principles above politics at every turn. In 'Charles Sumner', Zaakir Tameez shows how this overlooked luminary is one of the most significant figures in the history of civil rights, as well as a visionary progenitor of modern progressive politics.