American senator Charles Sumner (1811-1874), an uncompromising opponent of slavery, worked to arouse the nation against it. He was a staunch supporter of African American rights legislation and stringent Reconstruction in the South.

Charles Sumner was born on Jan. 6, 1811, in Boston, Mass. His father was a lawyer and, briefly, a sheriff. Sumner attended the Boston Latin School and graduated from Harvard University in 1830. He obtained a law degree in 1833 from the Harvard Law School, where he was greatly influenced by the legal scholar Joseph Story. Although a brilliant student of the law and a frequent contributor to legal journals, Sumner disliked the routine of actual practice, preferring the life of Boston's intellectual community.

Through his Boston friends, particularly Samuel Gridley Howe and William Ellery Channing, Sumner became involved in the humanitarian reform movements currently blossoming in New England, especially movements to improve education and prisons and for universal...