Young Charles Sumner and the Legacy of the American Enlightenment, 1811-1851

By Anne-Marie Taylor

Book Overview

An outspoken abolitionist, a founder of the Free Soil and Republican parties, and a leading member of the U.S. Senate for more than twenty years, Charles Sumner (1811-1874) has always figured prominently in histories of the American Civil War. For the most part, however, he has been depicted as a psychologically troubled extremist, a fanatical opponent of slavery whose self-righteousness was matched only by his arrogance. In this book, Anne-Marie Taylor challenges that longstanding view, offering in its stead the portrait of a man animated more by principle than by impulse or ambition. According to Taylor, Sumner's reform-minded politics, including his fervent commitment to put an end to slavery, must be understood in the context of a young nation still struggling to live up to the Enlightenment ideals embraced by its founders and embodied in its Constitution. Focusing on the first forty years of Sumner's life, before he took public office, Taylor traces the evolution of his character and thought among Boston's cultural elite. His belief in the virtues of cosmopolitanism, in the dignity of the human intellect and conscience, and in the possibility of a cultivated and just society,

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 155849300X
• ISBN13: 9781558493001
• Release Date: December 2001
• Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
• Length: 456 Pages
• Weight: 2.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 6.5" x 9.6"