Friday’s Disunion in the New York Times has a nice piece on
Charles Sumner by Louis P. Masur of Trinity College in
Connecticut. I would quibble though with his contention that “No
politician was more determined than Senator Charles Sumner of
Massachusetts to ensure that secession and war resulted in
emancipation.” Owen Lovejoy in the House of Representatives
arguably had a longer history as an abolitionist and had already
in July pushed through the House a resolution absolving the
Union army of hunting for fugitive slaves. But otherwise Masur’s
piece is terrific, and another fine example of the public
service the New York Times is doing in bringing some of the best
scholars and scholarship in Civil War studies to the attention
of its readers through the Disunion blog in the Opinionator.
Louis P. Masur relates Sumner’s single-minded crusade early in
the Civil War to add to the Union’s war aims liberating the
slaves and how he patiently and tirelessly lobbied Abraham
Lincoln to use his war powers to issue a pro