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New York Times
05-07-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
The Civil War That Never Ended
Rather than write a column for this Independence Day weekend edition of the newsletter, I decided to chat with Zaakir Tameez, a recent graduate of Yale Law School, about his new biography of Charles Sumner, the Massachusetts senator and great antislavery proponent who helped change the course of American history. I hope you enjoy the discussion, which has been edited for clarity. Zaakir, thank you so much for joining me to talk about your new book. Before we jump in, I just wanted to ask you to tell us a little bit about yourself. What brought you to Charles Sumner as a subject? Thank you for having me. I graduated from the University of Virginia before going to law school at Yale. I wrote the book at Yale, but my interest in history started at I was there in Charlottesville in August 2017 when neo-Nazis and neo-Confederates stormed and desecrated our grounds with antisemitic bile, with racist chants and with their tiki torches. And at one point, these neo-Nazis converged at the statue of Thomas Jefferson, the founder of And the neo-Confederates wanted to, in some way, celebrate Jefferson as an icon of white supremacy, to celebrate his legacy as a slaveholder. But a few of my classmates got to the Jefferson statue first. And they defended the Jefferson statue from these white supremacists. I think what they were doing was not saying that they value Jefferson, necessarily, but that we have to take ownership of our history, because if we don't tell the stories of history, then we leave it to others, like the neo-Confederates, to do so. And I think that moment seared in my mind this interest in studying our past, because it's only through the past that we can understand our present moment. So what brought you from this interest in history to wanting to take on the project of writing a biography of Sumner? Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
02-06-2025
- General
- New York Times
Charles Sumner Was More Than Just a Guy Who Got Caned on the Senate Floor
CHARLES SUMNER: Conscience of a Nation, by Zaakir Tameez A strange, special fate belongs to those famous Americans known not for what they did but for what was done to them. Think of Sonny Liston, photogenically flattened by Muhammad Ali's 'phantom punch,' or Rodney King, brutalized by the Los Angeles police. Such figures are remembered more as prostrate symbols than as living, breathing people. Then there is Charles Sumner, the antislavery Massachusetts senator 'caned' by the South Carolina congressman Preston Brooks. The verb, rarely used in other contexts, masks the viciousness of the deed. In 1856, Brooks, offended by a speech Sumner had given, slammed his gold-topped walking stick into his colleague's skull and body until he lost consciousness. Sumner was drenched in blood. His doctor was surprised he survived. The attack inflamed the North and helped grow the new Republican Party, while white Southerners rallied around Brooks, an early hint there was a constituency for violence on behalf of slavery. But who was Sumner? What do we miss by remembering this fierce and visionary leader solely for his maiming on the Senate floor? Until recently, curious readers were likely to consult a two-volume biography by the historian David Herbert Donald, published in 1960 and 1970. Yet Donald's celebrated work — the first volume won the Pulitzer Prize — was marred by a dismissive attitude toward abolitionists, whom he held no less responsible for the national cataclysm than the traitorous enslavers who actually started the thing. It is unsurprising that the present period of political tumult has produced fresh takes on Sumner's colorful and consequential life. Last year, Stephen Puleo, the author of a book about the assault — called 'The Caning' — published a book about the man — called 'The Great Abolitionist' — that valiantly attempted to restore the reputation of one of 'the most influential non-presidents in American history.' Now the recent Yale Law School graduate Zaakir Tameez offers 'Charles Sumner,' an even more thorough recounting of the great legislator's life and deeds, one that, while not without its flaws, is unlikely to be bettered anytime soon. Tameez's Sumner is a brilliant romantic, a committed racial egalitarian, a radical who pushed for justice from within the halls of power, and often did so alone. In 1849, he offered the first full-throated argument for 'equality before the law' in an unsuccessful school-desegregation case. After the Civil War, Sumner advanced a civil rights bill that would have gone even further than the law President Lyndon Johnson signed a century later. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
