Charles Sumner, Revisited (part 1)

Summary

Stuff You Missed in History Class

Charles Sumner, Revisited (Part 1)

November 24, 2025 — Hosted by Tracy V. Wilson and Holly Fry (iHeartPodcasts)

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Episode Overview

This episode marks the beginning of a deep, three-part exploration into the life and legacy of Charles Sumner — most often remembered for being the abolitionist senator who was violently caned on the Senate floor in 1856. Hosts Tracy and Holly revisit and vastly expand on a brief 2009 episode about Sumner, aiming to move beyond his infamous assault and illuminate his upbringing, personal life, friendships, career, and abolitionist work.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

Revisiting Old Episodes & Why Charles Sumner (02:47–05:41)

• Tracy explains that early "Stuff You Missed in History Class" episodes were very short and many have disappeared from podcast directories.
• The Sumner topic — originally covered in a 12-minute 2009 episode — "seemed particularly relevant for multiple reasons at various points over the last several years." (04:29, Tracy)
• The hosts discovered quickly that Sumner’s story warranted not just a longer revisit but a whole three-part series.

Charles Sumner’s Early Life and Family Background (05:41–10:57)

• Born January 6, 1811, in Boston, Massachusetts; twin sister Matilda.
• Parents (Charles Pinkney “Pinckney” Sumner and Relief Jacob Sumner) both faced early hardships and were progressive for their time.
• Grew up in Boston’s Beacon Hill North Slope—home to Boston’s largest Black community in the 19th century.
• Pinckney Sumner was an abolitionist who believed abolition was just a starting point for justice.

  "The best thing the abolitionists can do for the people of color is to make their freedom a blessing to them in the states where they are free." (Pinckney Sumner, 08:46, Tracy)

• Charles was bookish and studious ("kind of a nerd"—09:36, Tracy), self-taught Latin to surprise his father, and earned his way into the Boston Latin School.

Harvard, Law School, and Early Legal Career (10:57–17:37)

• Graduated Boston Latin School at 15; attended Harvard thanks to his father’s stable job as sheriff.
• At Harvard Law School (led by Joseph Story, a family friend and Supreme Court Justice), Sumner thrived with the then-new cold calling/Socratic method.
• After law school, Sumner found legal practice unfulfilling; he was more interested in the intellectual aspects of law than in practical or commercial practice.
• Notably, Sumner was socially awkward in court, seen as "an annoying and overly educated pedant." (16:34, Tracy)
• Briefly served as Charles Dickens’s tour guide in Massachusetts (1842).
• First trip to Washington, D.C. left a negative impression:

  "He absolutely hated Washington, D.C., and said that he thought he would never go back." (17:37, Holly)

Ideological Influences and Growing Abolitionism (18:01–19:50)

• Subscribed to William Lloyd Garrison’s The Liberator, though disagreed with Garrison’s stance that the Constitution was pro-slavery.
• Sumner fiercely defended the U.S. Constitution as an anti-slavery, forward-thinking framework, diverging from Garrison’s view.

  "[Sumner] saw [the Constitution] as an extraordinary and groundbreaking text, a document that had established one of the first nations in the world to be founded with a written work of law." (18:59, Tracy)

• Sumner traveled to Europe (1837–1840), observing what he thought was a less racially prejudiced society, which, hosts note, was not as egalitarian as he assumed. His father died while he was abroad.

Romantic Friendships: Sumner, Longfellow, and Howe (20:20–28:31)

• Reintegrated into Boston life with close-knit friend group "Five of Clubs," including poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and physician Samuel Gridley Howe.
  • Tracy and Holly discuss how 19th-century “romantic friendships” between men were normal at the time but would seem queer by later standards.
• Sumner’s affection for Howe was especially intense:

  “‘He is quite in love with Howe and spends so much time with him that I begin to feel the shooting pains of jealousy.’” (21:40, Holly, quoting George Hillard) “What then will become of me? And it is a dreary world to travel in alone.” (22:13, Tracy, quoting Sumner)

• Both Longfellow and Howe married in 1843, with Sumner often helping facilitate and even chaperone their courtships.
• Sumner grew deeply depressed as his close friends’ marriages changed these relationships:

  “I am alone. Alone, my friends fall away from me.” (24:07, Holly, reading Sumner’s letter) “What shall I do these long summer evenings? And what will become of those sabbaths sacred to friendship and repose?” (24:49, Tracy, reading Sumner’s letter to Longfellow)

• Sumner’s depression following his friends’ marriages was severe and longstanding; he struggled to form romantic connections with women.

Notable Quote — The Queer Lens

“My favorite definition of the word queer comes from the National Museum of Iceland. ‘The term queer refers to sex, gender and sexuality that don't coincide with the traditions and customs of a particular time period.’ Sumner's relationships...fit with this definition, especially Sumner and Howe.” (23:30, Tracy)

Shifting to Social Reform and Abolition (28:31–31:49)

• As Sumner emerged from his grief and depression, he left commercial law for social reform causes:
  • Joined the Peace Society
  • Advocated for prison reform
  • Intensified focus on abolition
• He continued to struggle with forming intimate partnerships; most of his romantic letters with Howe were later destroyed for privacy.

Sumner the Expansionist — and Limits Thereof (31:49–32:55)

• While generally an “expansionist” in the spirit of Manifest Destiny, Sumner opposed expansion by war and the expansion of slavery.
• He was strongly against the annexation of Texas and war with Mexico:

  “He called a possible war with Mexico mean and cowardly...” (32:24, Holly)

The Monumental "True Grandeur of Nations" Speech and Fallout (32:55–39:38)

• In 1845, gave a massive anti-war speech ("True Grandeur of Nations") for Boston’s Independence Day — over 100 pages long!

  • Argued that war is dishonorable and peace is a nation’s true greatness.
  • Offended many Bostonians, particularly veterans:

    “In our age, there can be no peace that is not honorable. There can be no war that is not dishonorable...” (33:39, Holly, reading Sumner) “War is utterly ineffectual to secure or advance the object at which it aims. The misery which it excites contributes to no end, helps to establish no right, and therefore in no respect determines justice between the contending nations.” (34:49, Tracy, reading Sumner)

  • After severe criticism, Sumner offered clarification:

    “Allow me to add that I wish to be understood as restraining my opinions precisely within the limits which I have assigned them in these pages...” (36:17, Holly, reading Sumner)

• The speech marked a turning point in Sumner’s social standing. Formerly fashionable and popular among elites, he became somewhat ostracized for his radical views.

• Shortly afterward, Sumner lost a key mentor, Joseph Story, who died but had praised the speech’s style, if not its substance.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On abolishing slavery and equal treatment:

  “The best thing the abolitionists can do for the people of color is to make their freedom a blessing to them in the states where they are free.”
  — Pinckney Sumner (08:46, Tracy)

• On romantic friendships and longing:

  “He is quite in love with Howe and spends so much time with him that I begin to feel the shooting pains of jealousy.”
  — George Hillard, on Sumner and Howe (21:40, Holly) “What then will become of me? And it is a dreary world to travel in alone.”
  — Charles Sumner (22:13, Tracy)

• On peace vs. war:

  “In our age, there can be no peace that is not honorable. There can be no war that is not dishonorable. The true honor of a nation is to be found only in deeds of justice and in the happiness of its people, all of which are inconsistent with war...”
  — Charles Sumner (33:39, Holly) “War is utterly ineffectual...in no respect determines justice between the contending nations.”
  — Charles Sumner (34:49, Tracy)

• On being out of step with his time (the queer perspective):

  “‘The term queer refers to sex, gender and sexuality that don't coincide with the traditions and customs of a particular time period.’ Sumner's relationships...fit with this definition, especially Sumner and Howe.”
  — 23:30, Tracy

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 02:47–05:41 — Why revisit Charles Sumner?
• 05:41–10:57 — Sumner’s childhood, family, and integration into the Black community on Beacon Hill
• 10:57–17:37 — Harvard, law school, early career, and dislike of practical law
• 18:01–19:50 — Shaping of Sumner’s abolitionism, influence of Garrison and the Constitution
• 20:20–28:31 — Romantic friendships: Howe, Longfellow, the Five of Clubs, and the impact of their marriages
• 28:31–31:49 — Moving from depression to social activism and reform
• 31:49–32:55 — Sumner’s stance on expansionism and war
• 32:55–39:38 — Independence Day speech: “True Grandeur of Nations,” public backlash, and aftermath

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Tone

Conversational, empathetic, sometimes playful (self-effacing “nerd” references), and often poignant when discussing Sumner’s personal relationships. The hosts approach Sumner’s connections with care and an eye toward historical context and present-day perspectives on gender and intimacy.

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Closing

The episode wraps as Tracy notes that Sumner’s next major legal work involved an important school segregation case, which will be covered in the next installment.

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This episode is an insightful and humanizing look at Charles Sumner before his national notoriety, emphasizing the personal, intellectual, and emotional experiences that shaped his activism and public life.

Transcript

[Tracy V. Wilson]

This is an I Heart Podcast.

[Holly Fry]

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[Holly Fry]

Welcome to Stuff youf Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartradio.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson.

[Holly Fry]

And I'm Holly Fry.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

If you're one of the folks who. Who has listened to every episode of our show, going all the way back to the beginning. You have heard how today's episodes are a lot different from the earlier ones. If you have not done that, today's episodes, they're a lot different from the earlier ones. It is not just that the show went through a whole series of other hosts from when it started in 2008 until 2013 when Holly and I came on. Especially for the first couple of years, the episodes could be really short, and sometimes they were based almost entirely on an article from the House stuffworks website. That's where Holly and I used to work and where the podcast got started. If you go look at the How Stuff Works website today, there are disclaimers on it that the articles were written in conjunction with AI technology. That, of course, was not the case when we worked there. Generative AI did not exist in that way at that time. No, to be clear, our podcast is not being written in conjunction with AI technology. Holly and I are human beings and are doing it just, just be to.

[Holly Fry]

The best of your knowledge, I'm a human being.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

What if Holly has been replaced?

[Holly Fry]

What if I'm an alien? What if I was never a human?

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Oh, we've, we've opened up a whole can of worms. Anyway, when Holly and I first came onto the show, we kind of thought of those topics that the earlier hosts had covered as done already. Even if the earlier episode was maybe only five or ten minutes long. We've gotten to a point now that those five and ten minute early episodes are more than 15 years old. They're not even available in most podcast players anymore. And because they are really short, we don't usually put them out as Saturday classics. So at least for most listeners to the show, they're just, they're gone. They've basically disappeared. A while back, Holly and I started talking about the idea of revisiting some of those early, very short episodes and giving them a deeper look. And one that I kept mentally returning to to was the 1856 caning of abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner on the Senate floor that was covered in a 12 minute episode that came out in 2009. And that has seemed particularly relevant for multiple reasons at various points over the last several years. Almost immediately after starting the research on this, I decided it didn't just need to be a longer examination of that 12 minute episode, it needed to be a two parter, because Charles Sumner really should be remembered for more than just being the guy who was almost beaten to death in the US Senate. Chamber. Then, to my surprise, two parts turned into three parts, making this our second ever three parter on the show.

[Holly Fry]

So let's jump into it. Charles Sumner and his twin sister Matilda were born on January 6, 1811, in Boston, Massachusetts. They were the oldest children born to Charles Pinkney and Relief Jacob Sumner. The family were Unitarians, although Charles never considered himself to be a member of any church.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Charles and Matilda had at least seven younger siblings. Sadly, while those nine children all survived their earliest years, most of the siblings died by the time they reached middle age, and Charles survived almost all of them. This included his twin, Matilda, who died of tuberculosis when she was only 21.

[Holly Fry]

Charles's parents had both faced some hardships in their young lives. Charles Pinkney Sumner, known as Pinkney, was born out of wedlock. His father, Job, had made a name for himself serving in the Continental army during the Revolutionary War, reaching the rank of major, and he was given lucrative appointments after the war was over. But Job fell into debts and then he died when Pinkney was in his early teens. Job had paid for Pinckney to attend the elite Phillips Exeter Academy, and Pinckney used the money he inherited after Job's death to pay for his tuition at Harvard. He became a lawyer, but he faced a lot of derision and stigma over the fact that his parents had not been married, and as a consequence, his law practice was not very lucrative.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Relief Jacobs had been born into an affluent family, but then her parents and a younger sister had all died in a disease outbreak when she was only 14. She supported herself by becoming a seamstress, and when she met Pinkney Sumner, they were both living in the same boarding house in Boston.

[Holly Fry]

Some articles you'll find describe Charles Sumner growing up in Boston's affluent Beacon Hill neighborhood, which is only partly correct. Sumner did grow up in Beacon Hill, but it wasn't on the wealthier South Slope next to Boston Common. The Sumners lived on the North Slope, which was home to Boston's largest black community in the 19th century. Some of the other people we've talked about on the show who lived in this neighborhood were Rebecca Crumpler, the first black woman in the US Known to have earned an MD And Kitty Knox, a black cyclist who was part of the late 19th century bicycle boom.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

While the Sumners were white, they were a part of this black community. Their friends and their neighbors included a lot of Boston's most prominent black residents and black social and political leaders. Pinckney was an abolitionist. Slavery had already been abolished in Massachusetts after a series of court decisions. In the 1780s, and Pinckney thought it should be abolished in the rest of the country as well. He also thought abolition was just a starting point and that abolitionists should also be working toward just treatment of free black people in society. He was quoted as saying, quote, the best thing the abolitionists can do for the people of color is to make their freedom a blessing to them in the states where they are free.

[Holly Fry]

While Pinckney's opinions on abolition and racial justice surely had an influence on Charles, they did not see eye to eye on a lot of things. One of those was Charles's education. While Pinckney had gone to prestigious schools, he didn't think that education had actually been very useful to him. And he had also seen the way that those schools could deepen and reinforce class divisions among the students. The family also needed money, and he wanted Charles to get an education that would allow him to help the family quickly, not something that would need years of apprenticeships or further study or lead him into academic pursuits that really didn't bring in much of an income.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

That was not what Charles wanted, though. He was a bookworm, and, to use today's terminology, kind of a nerd. He was the sort of kid who would compile lists of facts about things that interested him because that was the sort of thing he liked to do. I have an affinity for him in this regard. He wanted more than just to attend the local public school that his father sent him to. So he started studying Latin on his own, in secret. He kept that up until he felt ready to surprise his father by knowing Latin. So after that, Pinckney agreed to let Charles and one of his brothers sit for an exam to attend the prestigious Boston Latin School. That was an exam they both passed.

[Holly Fry]

Charles, who had started going by the name Sumner, graduated from Boston Latin School at the age of 15. That sounds early by today's standards, but it was pretty typical for the time. He had not really fit in with most of his peers there. Not really surprising, considering how much he liked to do serious, studious things for fun. This included sneaking into an address given by then senator Daniel Webster after the deaths of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. And he had to sneak into that address because he did not have the money for a ticket.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

By the time Sumner graduated from Boston Latin School, his father had been made high sheriff of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, which took a lot of the financial pressure off the family. It did not make them rich by any means, but this was a respectable job with a steady income. Pinkney's career as sheriff could be a whole separate episode, but at various points it intersected with his views as an abolitionist. This included protecting William Lloyd Garrison from a mob that attacked the Massachusetts Anti slavery society in 1835 and being blamed for the escape of two people who had liberated themselves from slavery in 1836. Legally, Sheriff Pinkney was required to help capture people who liberated themselves, but in this case, people just thought that he had allowed them to get away. Somebody claimed they had heard him say he was happy about it, and when he was questioned, Pinckney said, quote, I should be ashamed of myself if I did not wish that every person claimed as a slave might be proved to be a freeman, which is the purport of the words attributed to me.

[Holly Fry]

Pinckney's job as sheriff also meant that when Charles wanted to go to Harvard, the family could afford to pay for his tuition. He graduated from Harvard in 1830 and we will get into his life after graduating. After we pause for a sponsor break, Listen to your elders, honey. You might know them from their viral videos, but now the old Gays pull back the curtain on their podcast Silver Linings with the Old Gays brought to you in partnership with I Hearts, Ruby Studio and Vive Healthcare. For a very special bonus episode, hosts Robert, Mick, Bill and Jahsay talk about how pride has evolved over the years and their favorite memories, all in celebration of Palm Springs Pride. Because pride should be celebrated all year round. Listen to these fabulous friends swap stories exploring how queer life has evolved over the decades and the silver linings they've collected along the way. Each episode dives into hot topics from safe sex and online dating to untangling Gen Z lingo, as well as insights on how music, art and fashion show up in queer culture. So check out Silver Linings, a show about how pride ages like fine wine. Available on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

After graduating from Harvard College, Charles Sumner continued his education at Harvard Law School, graduating from there in 1833. The law school was only about 15 years old at this point, and the idea of becoming a lawyer by attending a law school was still pretty new. It was more common for people to apprentice with an established lawyer. We've talked about that transition from apprenticeships to law schools on the show before, when Sumner was studying law, Joseph Story was Harvard's lead law professor. He was a close friend of Charles Pinkney Summer and also a US Supreme Court justice.

[Holly Fry]

Sumner really loved studying law, and he especially loved how he was being taught. He had always been studious and he loved to learn, but he hadn't always found his earlier education very engaging. But that was not the case with Story. Story would lecture on law and then call on students at random to give their response and analysis. This has roots in the Socratic method, and it's still part of a lot of law schools today. It's known as cold calling. Cold calling was very new in the world of higher education in the US in the early 19th century, and Sumner absolutely loved it.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

After finishing law school, Sumner was asked to stay at Harvard as the law school's first librarian, and he served in that role for about a year. Then he started working for a commercial lawyer named Benjamin Rand to get some more practical law experience and eventually build up to having his own practice. It turned out that while Sumner had really loved learning about the law, he did not actually like being a lawyer, especially with the commercial cases that Rand was focused on. Sumner really preferred to read and study and just immerse himself in the intellectual side of law rather than doing things like meeting with clients and arguing cases. It also turned out that he was not great in front of a jury. He kind of came off as an annoying and overly educated pedant. For years, Sumner was prone to just doing other stuff instead of focusing on his legal cases, including acting as Charles Dickens's personal tour guide when he was in Massachusetts in 1842.

[Holly Fry]

In 1834, Sumner made a trip to Washington, D.C. so that he could hear cases being argued before the Supreme Court. He absolutely hated Washington, D.C. and said that he thought he would never go back.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

That cracks me up a little bit. I'm like, I'm sorry, Sumner. I, I, I have some bad news for you.

[Holly Fry]

Right? It's like a portent. He was like, this place is bad for me.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Around this same time that he made the trip to Washington, D.C. sumner started subscribing to William Lloyd Garrison's abolitionist newspaper, the Liberator. While Sumner and Garrison were both abolitionists, they had some really different views about what needed to be done to achieve abolition and justice. And in the United States, Sumner's views were really influenced by his study of law, including study of the US Constitution, which is, at its core, a legal document establishing the framework for the United States as a nation. Garrison and a lot of other abolitionists thought that the Constitution was a pro slavery document. Garrison described it as, quote, an agreement with hell. And Garrison thought that the Union that had been founded under the Constitution needed to be dissolved. But Sumner vigorously defended the Constitution. He would do this for his whole life. He saw it as an extraordinary and groundbreaking text, a document that had established one of the first nations in the world to be founded with a written work of law.

[Holly Fry]

In 1837, Sumner left the US for a tour of Europe, learning French, Italian, and German while he was there. And he already knew Latin and Greek. One of the things he observed was that relationships among people of different races in Europe were often really different from what he'd experienced in the United States. Even in Massachusetts, where slavery had been abolished, he saw things like integrated schools and monasteries. Sumner interpreted this as meaning that there wasn't any racial prejudice in Europe and that everyone was equal, which, of course was not really true. But he also saw it as evidence of multiracial, integrated societies as a possible thing to achieve.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah, he was for sure not the only American to go to Europe and be like, wow, there is no bigotry here. Which, I mean, in comparison to what people were witnessing in the U.S. it was a different situation. But it did not mean that there was no racial prejudice anywhere in Europe. Sumner's father died on April 24, 1839, while Sumner was still in Europe. He does not seem to have spoken much about his father after that, and he returned to the United States in 1840.

[Holly Fry]

After getting back to Boston, Sumner reconnected with a close group of friends who called themselves the Five of Clubs. Two of the other members were men that Sumner had met separately back in 1837, poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and physician Samuel Gridley Howe. Howe had helped found the Perkins School for the Blind, which was the first school for blind people in the United States, and he had also become its first director. Sumner would be close to both of these men for the rest of their lives.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Today in the United States, white heterosexual men are really not encouraged to develop deep, emotionally intimate and physically demonstrative relationships with one another. That was not the case in the 19th century. It was a lot more common and even expected for men to develop very close and sometimes physically affectionate friendships, especially before they got married to a woman. These kinds of same sex friendships are sometimes described as romantic friendships, which is a term that was also used to describe similar friendships between women. The term romantic friendship was in use by the 18th century, including in descriptions of past podcast subjects Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, the Ladies of Llangollen.

[Holly Fry]

In the early 1840s, Sumner spent a lot of time with both Longfellow and Howe, and these relationships have been described as romantic friendships. Sumner would divide weekends between the two of them, spending Saturday with How and Sunday with Longfellow. He was especially close to how to the point that Sumner's law partner, George Hillard, who was also in the Five of Clubs, commented on it, saying, quote, he is quite in love with how and spends so much time with him that I begin to feel the shooting pains of jealousy.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In 1842, Sumner wrote a letter to his friend and colleague Francis Lieber, which said in part, quote, I am with how a great deal bachelors both. We ride and drive together and pass our evenings far into the watches of the night in free and warm communion. I think, however, he will be married very soon. What then will become of me? And it is a dreary world to.

[Holly Fry]

Travel in alone, as that quote suggests. While it was expected for men to have these kinds of relationships with one another, it was also expected for them to just put them aside. After getting married. Longfellow and Sumner encouraged a match between Samuel Gridley Howe and Julia Ward, and those two got married on April 26, 1843. Sumner also encouraged a relationship between Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Fanny Appleton. Longfellow's first wife had died before he and Sumner had met, and Longfellow married Fanny Appleton on July 13, 1843. Theirs was a long courtship, with Sumner often acting as chaperone on their dates. Fannie rejected Henry the first time he asked her to marry him, and Henry asked her again after Sumner's encouragement.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

My favorite definition of the word queer comes from the National Museum of Iceland. Quote the term queer refers to sex, gender and sexuality that don't coincide with the traditions and customs of a particular time period. Sumner's relationships with Howe and Longfellow fit with this definition, especially Sumner and Howe. People commented on how close they were before the other men got married, and afterwards Sumner really struggled to put these relationships aside in the way that he was expected to. It seems like how also had said similar struggles.

[Holly Fry]

Sumner became deeply depressed after how got married. In a letter to Francis Lieber on how's wedding day, Sumner wrote, quote, I am alone. Alone, my friends fall away from me. A few weeks later, Longfellow told Sumner that he was getting married as well. And later that same day, Sumner wrote to him and said, quote, I fear much, dear Henry, that I may have seemed dull and indifferent to your great happiness when you first broke it to me this morning, how has gone and now you have gone, and nobody is left with which I can have sweet sympathy. What shall I do these long summer evenings? And what will become of those sabbaths sacred to friendship and repose?

[Tracy V. Wilson]

After the Longfellows got married, they were both close to Sumner. Fanny invited him to be part of the wedding and to accompany them on their honeymoon. Sumner was not the only honeymoon guest. Some of Fannie's female friends accompanied them as well. Sumner was a frequent guest at the Longfellow home for the rest of his life, and he retained his connection with Longfellow while also developing a close friendship with his wife.

[Holly Fry]

But the same was not true of the Howes. Howe seems to have been really torn over his feelings for both Sumner and Julia. He wrote 40 letters on their honeymoon and 33 of them were to Sumner. Julia seems to have been understandably envious of her husband's relationship with Sumner, and she started to resent it. At one point she said, quote, sumner ought to have been a woman and you to have married her.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

On top of that, the house marriage just wasn't very happy. Julia was, of course, a poet and a writer, and Samuel did not encourage these pursuits or want her to have a public career in them. He seems to have really been pretty controlling. Sumner sided with Howe on this. When Julia Ward Howe published work during her lifetime, a lot of the time she published it anonymously because her husband didn't want her doing it. She also wrote a book called the Hermaphrodite, which was first published long after her death. This book tells the story of an intersex person who sometimes lives as a man and sometimes as a woman. This book is sometimes interpreted as a reflection of her husband's relationships with her and with Charles Sumner.

[Holly Fry]

More than a year after Howe and Longfellow each got married, Sumner was still grief stricken and depressed. At one point, Howe wrote him a letter that said, quote, if you will go on, neglect exercise, neglect sleep, study late and early, stoop over your table, work yourself to death, grieve all your friends and break my heart for where, dear Charlie, at my time of life shall I find a friend to love as I love you? A few months after that, Sumner wrote to Howe saying, quote, I am going to say what will offend you, but what I trust God will pardon for me. There is no future either of usefulness or happiness.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Throughout all of this, Longfellow and Howe were both encouraging Sumner to get married himself, and that is something he seems to have genuinely wanted to do. The Five of Clubs even shifted its focus to finding Sumner a wife. But Sumner had trouble connecting with the women that his friends introduced him to. Sometimes things would get off to a promising start with women who seemed like they were intellectually and socially compatible with him, but then he would just seem to lose interest or stop responding to them.

[Holly Fry]

It is obvious that all three of these men loved one another and that the loss of his intimacy with Howe and Longfellow was deeply painful for Sumner, even as Longfellow and his wife tried to welcome him into their lives together. There are also some gaps in what we know about all of their thoughts and feelings. Sumner heavily edited his letters, especially the ones he received from how blotting out or cutting out portions of them and burning some of them entirely. When Sumner was eventually elected to be a Senator, Howe wrote to him and told him that he was burning any letters that quote, might be disagreeable to you to have seen by unfriendly eyes. Ultimately, most of Sumner's letters to Howe were destroyed.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In the first year after Howe and Longfellow each got married, Sumner was sometimes so depressed that he could not get out of bed. As he recovered, he largely left the practice of commercial law to focus on social causes and reform, including joining the Peace Society and working on prison reforms and of course focusing on the abolition of slavery. We will get into some things more related to that after a sponsor break.

[Holly Fry]

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

Broadly speaking, Charles Sumner was an expansionist. This was the era of Manifest Destiny, when a lot of white people in the United States believed it was inevitable for the nation to spread across the entire continent. But there were limits to Sumner's expansionism. He thought embarking on a war to conquer and claim new territory was a violation of international law. And he thought any expansion of the United States should not involve the expansion of the institution of slavery.

[Holly Fry]

That means when President James K. Polk started talking about annexing Texas, which had declared itself an independent republic, and possibly annexing additional land from Mexico, Sumner was solidly against it. Annexing Texas would add another slave state to the United States, and annexing part of Mexico would almost certainly lead to war. He called a possible war with Mexico mean and cowardly, and he would eventually join the state anti Texas Committee.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In 1845, when Sumner was 34, the United States was in the process of annexing Texas and was also facing the possibility of a war with Mexico. At that point, Sumner was invited to be the keynote speaker for Boston's Independence Day celebration. For his address, Sumner delivered an anti war speech called True Grandeur of Nations. This speech was more than a hundred pages long.

[Holly Fry]

That's so long.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Everything he. He was not long with every speech that he ever gave, but there were a lot of long speeches verbose.

[Holly Fry]

Like how many people really paid attention to a hundred pages worth of speech.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

We're gonna get to longer speeches later.

[Holly Fry]

At which point they're checking out. Nobody's hearing your message, my love. Okay. Sumner said in part, quote, in our age, there can be no peace that is not honorable. There can be no war that is not dishonorable. The true honor of a nation is to be found only in deeds of justice and in the happiness of its people, all of which are inconsistent with war. In the clear eye of Christian judgment, vain are its victories, infamous are its spoils. He is the true benefactor and alone worthy of honor, who brings comfort where before was wretchedness, who dries the tear of sorrow, who pours oil into the wounds of the unfortunate, who feeds the hungry and clothes the naked, who unlooses the fetters of the slave, who does justice, who enlightens the ignorant, who enlivens and exalts by his virtuous genius in art, in literature, in science, the hours of life, who by words or actions inspires a love for God and for man. This is the Christian hero. This is the man of honor. In a Christian land.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Later on in this speech, Sumner said, quote, war is utterly ineffectual to secure or advance the object at which it aims. The misery which it excites contributes to no end, helps to establish no right, and therefore in no respect determines justice between the contending nations.

[Holly Fry]

In other words, peace was the grandeur of nations, not war. This being an Independence Day event, there were a lot of military veterans in the audience, and they found this speech to be deeply insulting. Some people approved of it, including Samuel Gridley Howe, but overall, the people of Boston were furious. After the speech, a private dinner was held at Faneuil hall, where a whole series of speakers publicly criticized Sumner and denounced what he had said.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

When Sumner stood up to make his own speech that night, he toasted the dinner's earlier speakers and he wished them happiness. He did not try to argue back against their criticisms. And then afterward, he went on kind of an apology tour. He visited a lot of prominent people who had been offended by his remarks, including some of those veterans. He didn't really take back what he had said, but he explained that he was talking about principles, not the actions of the individual men who had served in the military.

[Holly Fry]

When he provided a copy of the speech for publication, he also clarified his intent a little bit, quote, believing that in the present state of Christian society, all war and all preparation for war are irrational, unnecessary, and inconsistent with that true greatness at which our Republic should aim, I deemed it my duty on that occasion to uphold that truth. I was also anxious that our country should seek the true glory and what is higher than glory, the great good of taking the lead in the disarming of the nations. Allow me to add that I wish to be understood as restraining my opinions precisely within the limits which I have assigned them in these pages, and particularly to disclaim the suggestion which has been volunteered with regard to them, that force may not be employed under the sanction of justice in the conservation of the laws and of domestic quiet. All good men must unite in condemning as barbarous and unchristian the resort to external force. In other words, to the arbitrament of war, to international lynch law, or the great trial by battle to determine justice between nations.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

This is like the most conciliatory Charles Sumner would be regarding one of his speeches, in at least in terms of. Like all the ones that I read in part of this research. The person who was chosen to give this Independence Day speech in Boston was usually somebody who was seen as up, up and coming and promising. Somebody sort of imagined as representing the future of Boston. Unlike in his earlier school years, when Sumner had really had trouble connecting with his peers as an adult, he'd made a lot of friends that included a lot of really prominent people in the United States and Europe. After getting back from that trip abroad, he had been the recipient of a lot of very fashionable invitations. He was very tall, striking to look at, and usually well dressed. Sometimes he's described as a little foppish. But this speech was a turning point. People started to distance themselves from him a little bit and his purportedly radical views. Even after this kind of conciliatory aftermath, he started to fall out with some of those high profile friends and acquaintances.

[Holly Fry]

He also lost one of his mentors, Joseph Story, who died a couple of months after the Independence Day speech. Storey's last letter to Sumner had been about the speech, praising its, quote, elegance of diction and classical beauty, while saying that Story dissented from its core message. Sumner was devastated at the loss of his mentor and colleague.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Beyond that loss and grief, a lot of people, including Sumner, really thought that he would be succeeding Story as the Dane professor of Law at Harvard. Sumner had been lecturing there in law since graduating from the law school. He'd been filling in when Story or other professors were absent, but Harvard instead hired William Kent, who was the son of Chancellor James Kent. In addition to losing this position, Sumner was hurt that another one of his mentors at Harvard, Simon Greenleaf, had not really advocated for him in all of this.

[Holly Fry]

The next big moment in Charles Sumner's legal career involved a school segregation case. And we're going to get into that next time, but for now, Tracy, do you have listener mail?

[Tracy V. Wilson]

I do. I have listener mail. I'm catching up on some really old listener mail that I meant to read a while ago that didn't get read for various reasons. And I don't think I read it and forgot to check it off. This one is from Armas, who wrote. Hi, Tracy and Holly. I just listened to part one of your unearthed episodes for July. You tell how long ago this was and was delighted to hear you mention the hand painted, slightly sacrilegious condom recently acquired by the Rijksmuseum. Because I actually saw the condom in person on a recent trip to Amsterdam. Looking back at when the episode came out, I realized I actually saw the condom just a few days before your episode came out, which is just a little funny coincidence. Honestly. The condom in the exhibit around it of sexual art was one of my favorite parts of the museum. I have a master's degree in art history and focused a lot of my studies on depictions and histories of sexuality in art. But aside from that, I think the condom would have been one of the most memorable parts of the museum anyway. The collection of the Rijksmuseum is so massive that it's a little bit overwhelming, and a condom definitely manages to stand out for its novelty if nothing else. While in Amsterdam, I also went on a red Light district tour, which was fascinating in a lot of ways, but it's interesting to note that the tour started in front of a shop called the Condomery, the first condom shop in the world, and the front window display was full of hand painted novelty condoms. Interesting to see just how that particular art form has continued on all those years later and gives a little insight into the way that humans have found the same types of things funny across the generations. I adore your podcast and all the things that you do, especially in these difficult historical times when so much of education and access to good historical information is under threat. I've been listening for many years now and hope to continue for many years to come. I've attached a photo I took of the condom in question as well as some less salacious pictures of my rabbit's dog and a horse for the pet tax. The little white and gray bunny is Theo. He likes to sleep on my bed with me every night. The gray bunny is Selkie. She's the bundle of energy that does not get along with Theo. The pup is Tosca. She loves everybody and has just enough herding instincts to always try her absolute hardest to keep her sheepies, my family in the same room together. And the horse is Ben. He's a bit useless, but we love him anyway. Thanks for all you do. Armas. Thank you so much for this email and for the picture. I love all of it. I love all of it. I love all these bunny rabbits. I love this dog who looks a little bit forlorn. And I also love the useless horse that many years ago I knew some folks who had adopted or rescued a herding dog. I don't remember the exact breed of dog, but they had two horses and they lived out in the country obviously. And the dog basically herded the two horses around like all the time, just making sure both the horses were where they needed to be because working dogs were bred to do that. Which means if you get one and you are expecting to just have a pet, it might not work out as planned.

[Holly Fry]

You gotta give them busy work.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

They gotta have stuff to do that is what they are inclined for. So thank you so much again for this email and the pictures. I love it. If you'd like to send us a note about this or any other podcast, we are at historypodcastheartradio.com and you can subscribe to our show on the iHeartRadio app and anywhere else you like to to get your podcasts. Stuff youf Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

This is an iHeart podcast.