Charles Sumner (January 6, 1811-March 11, 1874) was born in Boston, Massachusetts and graduated from Harvard College in 1830, then from Harvard Law School in 1834. By 1845, after travels throughout Europe and France in particular, Sumner found himself drawn to the Abolitionist cause back home in America. Known far and wide as a great orator, his attacks on slavery were well known and gained him numerous enemies. In 1851 he was elected to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts as a Free Soil Democrat. Within a few years he would become a Republican. In 1856, Sumner gave a speech in the Senate titled “The Crime against Kansas,” asking for its admission to the Union as a Free State. Two days later while at his senate desk, representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina beat Sumner nearly to death with a cane. Sumner’s legacy of anti-slavery lived on after his death in 1874 at age 63. He was laid out in state in the U.S. Capitol rotunda, the second senator so honored (Henry Clay in 1852 was the first). At his March 16 burial in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the pallbearers included Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and John Greenleaf Whittier.
A 19 mm white metal token in my collection features Sumner’s bust right with TAKE CARE OF MY CIVIL RIGHTS BILL around the portrait. The reverse reads IN MEMORY / OF / Chas. SUMNER / BORN 1811 / DIED 1874 on five lines. I saw it a while back on a favorite Internet bidding site and took a shine to the piece. Its cost was tiny, under $10, and the quality is grand in my eyes. As to rarity, I have no idea, but I do know I enjoy this little anti-slavery token every day at work when I glance over at the exonumia tray I keep on my desk.
