Charles Sumner statue in Public Garden

by Thomas Ball, 1878. Thomas Ball (1819-1911) was an American artist and musician. His work has had a marked influence on monumental art in the United States, especially in New England.

Charles Sumner (1811-1874) was an American politician and senator from Massachusetts. An academic lawyer and a powerful orator, Sumner was the leader of the antislavery forces in Massachusetts and a leader of the Radical Republicans in the United States Senate during the American Civil War and Reconstruction, working to punish the ex-Confederates and guarantee equal rights to the Freedmen.

Sumner changed his political party several times, gaining fame as a Republican. One of the most learned statesmen of the era, he specialized in foreign affairs, working closely with Abraham Lincoln to keep the British and the French from intervening on the side of the Confederacy during the Civil War. He devoted his enormous energies to the destruction of what he considered the Slave Power, that is the efforts of slave owners to take control of the federal government and ensure the survival and expansion of slavery.

Photo 42, July 2012

Charles Sumner statue in Public Garden

Photo 43, July 2012

Charles Sumner statue in Public Garden

Photo 23b, July 2012