Charles Sumner: Conscience of a Nation

by Zaakir Tameez

In the October 1863 volume of The Atlantic Monthly, Sumner anonymously laid out his legal theory for reconstruction. Celebrating that the war had defeated “the dogma and delusion of State Rights,” he said that America was governed by We the People rather than We the States. Giving readers a history lesson on how different American actors conceived of sovereignty, Sumner pushed the theory that the Constitution vested sovereignty in the people, whose will was best expressed by their representatives in Congress. To secure liberty and equality for freedpeople, he called for temporary congressional rule over the rebel states, which he said had reverted to territorial status.