Charles Sumner (1811–1874) was an [[abolitionist]] U.S. Senator from Massachusetts who drove to eradicate slavery and who became a [[Radical Republican]] after the [[Civil War]]. A founder of the [[Republican Party]], Sumner served Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate for 23 years.
+
His strident stand against slavery and insulting language drove Congressman Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina to fly into a rage and violently beat Sumner with the head of his cane, as Sumner sat at his desk on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Sumner never fully recovered.
+
+
Sumner once declared: <ref>http://www.amerisearch.net/index.php?date=2004-03-11&view=View</ref>
+
+
:Familiarity with that great story of redemption, when God raised up the slave-born Moses to deliver His chosen people from bondage, and with that sublimer story where our Saviour died a cruel death that all men, without distinction of race, might be saved, makes slavery impossible. ...
+
+
:There is no reason for renouncing Christianity, or for surrendering to the false religions; nor do I doubt that Christianity will yet prevail over the earth as the waters cover the sea.