The Accomplishments of Charles Sumner

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Charles Sumner, leader of the Radical Republican group and compelling chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, was one of the more educated politicians of his epoch who sought to abolish slavery. A Harvard Law School graduate, Sumner was the embodiment of formal rhetoric, evinced by his eloquent addresses and ardent opinions on pressing issues of his time (American Experience).
During a time of great brutality due to the controversial idea of Kansas being either a free or slave state, otherwise known as “Bleeding Kansas”, Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois composed the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which would repeal the Missouri Compromise and set the foundation for Kansas to solely decide its stance on slavery, an idea otherwise known as popular sovereignty (United States Senate). Charles Sumner spoke out against the Kansas-Nebraska Act in his “Crime Against Kansas” speech in which he maintained that the intention of the “Slave Power” was to “rape a virgin” and give birth to a slave state and spoke in favor of prompt affirmation of Kansas as a free state (Meade)...

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