Charles Sumer, an American statesman, born in Boston, Mass., Jan. 6, 1811, died in Washington, D. 0., March 11, 1874. His father, who died in 1839, was a graduate of Harvard college, a lawyer, and for 14 years high sheriff of the county of Suffolk. The son received his early education at the Boston Latin school, and graduated at Harvard college in 1830. He was appointed reporter of the circuit court of the United States, in which capacity he published three volumes known as "Sumner's Reports," containing decisions of Judge Story. He also at the same time edited the "American Jurist," a quarterly law journal of high reputation. During the first three winters after his admission to the bar, while Judge Story was absent in Washington, Mr. Sumner was appointed lecturer to the law students, and part of the time he had sole charge of the school. His favorite topics were those relating to constitutional law and the law of nations. He visited Europe in 1837, travelled in Italy, Germany, and France, and resided for nearly a year in England. He carried to England a letter of introduction from Judge Story, in which ho was described as "a young lawyer giving promise of the most eminent distinction in his profession, with truly extraordinary attainments, literary and judicial; and a gentleman of the highest purity and propriety of character." He was received with unusual distinction in the highest circles, was introduced by eminent statesmen on the floor of the houses of parliament, and invited by the chief judges to sit with them in Westminster hall.

He returned to Boston in 1840, and in 1844-6 published an elaborate edition with annotations of "Vesey's Reports" in 20 vols. Though voting with the whig party, he took no active part in politics till 1845, when on the 4th of July ho pronounced beforo the municipal authorities of Boston an oration on "The True Grandeur of Nations," in which, prompted by the menacing aspect of affairs between the United States and Mexico, he denounced the Avar system as the ordeal by battle still unwisely continued by international law as the arbiter of justice between nations, and insisted that this system ought to give way to peaceful arbitration for the adjudication of international questions. His oration attracted unusual attention, led to much controversy, and was widely circulated both in America and Europe. It was followed by a rapid succession of public addresses on kindred themes, which were also widely circulated. Mr. Sumner earnestly engaged in the opposition to the annexation of Texas on the ground of slavery.

In 1846 he made an address to the whig state convention of Massachusetts on " The Anti-Slavery Duties of the Whig Party," and shortly afterward published a letter of rebuke to Mr. Robert 0. Winthrop, who then represented Boston in congress,'for his vote in favor of the war with Mexico. These steps led eventually to Mr. Sumner's separation from the whig party and association with the free-soilers, to whose candidates, Van Buren and Adams, he lent efficient support in the presidential contest of 1848. After the withdrawal of Mr. Webster from the senate of the United States by his entrance into the cabinet of Mr. Fillmore in 1850, Mr. Sumner was nominated for the vacancy by a coalition of freesoilers and democrats in the Massachusetts legislature, and was elected on April 24, 1851, after a most earnest and protracted contest. He took his seat on Dec. 1, 1851, and retained it by successive reelections till his death. His first important speech was upon the fugitive slave act, against which he argued that congress had no power under the constitution to legislate for the rendition of fugitive slaves; and that if it had, the act in many essential particulars conflicted with the constitution, and was also cruel and tyrannical.

In this speech Mr. Sumner laid down as a guide for political action the formula to which he ever afterward adhered, that " freedom is national and slavery sectional." In the debate on the repeal of the Missouri compromise and on the contest in Kansas, Mr. Sumner-took a very prominent part. His last speech upon this topic, which was printed under the title of "The Crime against Kansas," occupied two days in its delivery, May 19 and 20, 1856. Some passages in it greatly incensed the members of congress from South Carolina, one of whom, Preston S. Brooks, on May 22 assaulted Mr. Sumner while he was writing at his desk in the senate chamber, and with a gutta percha cane struck him on the head till he fell to the floor insensible. (See Brooks, Preston S.) The injury thus received proved very serious, and was followed by a severe and long disability, from which his recovery was not complete till three or four years later. His term of office as senator expired March 4, 1857, and in the preceding January the legislature of Massachusetts reelected him by a unanimous vote in the senate, while in the house of representatives, consisting of several hundred members, he received all but seven votes.

Under the advice of physicians he went to Europe for the benefit of his health in March, 1857, and returned in the autumn to resume his seat in the senate. His health being still impaired, he went abroad again in May, 1858, remaining till the autumn of 1859, and submitted to a course of extraordinarily severe medical treatment in Paris. His next serious effort was an elaborate speech in the senate, denouncing the influence of slavery on character, socioty, and civilization, which was printed under the title of " The Barbarism of Slavery." In the presidential contest of 1860 he made several speeches in behalf of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin. In the senate and in popular addresses during the civil war he earnestly opposed all concession to or compromise with slavery, and early proposed emancipation as the speediest mode of bringing the war to a close. He based his arguments not only on moral and historical, but on constitutional grounds, and always claimed that his positions were in strict accordance with the constitution of the United States. In March, 1861, when the republican party obtained the control of the senate, Mr. Sumner was made chairman of the committee on foreign relations.

On Jan. 9, 1862, he delivered an elaborate speech arguing that the seizure of Messrs. Mason and Slidell on board the steamer Trent was unjustifiable on the principles of international law which had always been maintained by the United States. This speech had great influence in reconciling the public to the surrender of the confederate envoys. Later in the war he made powerful speeches on " Our Foreign Relations " (1863), and on "The Case of the Florida" (1864), and in 1865 he pronounced a eulogy on President Lincoln. A speech upon our claims on England, April 13, 1869, caused great excitement and indignation in Great Britain, where it was erroneously supposed to threaten war and regarded as an attempt to excite popular feeling against that country by exaggerating the "consequential damages" she had incurred in recognizing the belligerency of the seceding states and in allowing the confederate cruisers to sail from her ports. In the same year his opposition to the Santo Domingo treaty, against which he delivered a speech in the senate, brought him into collision with the administration of President Grant, and led to his removal in March, 1870, from the chairmanship of the committee on foreign relations, and ultimately to his separation from the republican party and his support of Horace Greeley, the liberal republican and democratic candidate for president in 1872. In the spring of that year he had delivered in the senate an animated speech against the renomination of President Grant, which did not have the weight he expected with the republican convention that met shortly afterward.

On Sept. 11 a convention of democrats and liberal republicans, held at Worcester, Mass., nominated him for governor of the state; but he had already gone to Europe for medical advice, and when the news of his nomination reached him in England he declined it. He returned from Europe late in 1872, and on taking his seat in the senate reintroduced two measures which he had unsuccessfully proposed before. One was the civil rights bill, the other a resolution providing that the names of the battles won over fellow citizens in the civil war should be removed from the regimental colors of the army and from the army register. This last resolution was strongly denounced, and led to a vote of censure on him by the legislature of Massachusetts in 1873, which was rescinded in 1874, shortly before his death. He died of angina pectoris, after an illness of a few hours. Mr. Sumner's addresses were first collected under the title of "Orations and Speeches" (2 vols. 12mo, Boston, 1850), to which was added " Recent Speeches and Addresses" (12mo, Boston, 1856). During the last years of his life he prepared a final and complete collection entitled "The Works of Charles Sumner" (12 vols., Boston, 1871 - '5). Two or three more volumes are to appear, under the charge of his executors, of whom the chief is Prof. Longfellow. - See "A Memorial of Charles Sumner," published by order of the legislature of Massachusetts (Boston, 1874), and "Life and Public Services of Charles Sumner," by C. Edwards Lester (New York, 1874).