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 proclamation freeing the slaves. Masur’s piece on Charles Sumner is another fine example of how Congress was ahead of Lincoln on emancipation, something that too often does not get acknowledged in the rush to anoint Lincoln as the “Great Emancipator.” Certainly, Lincoln must be credited in history for making the right moral choice in issuing the Emancipation Proclamation and sticking with it despite the reverses experienced by the Union army in 1864. But it must be acknowledged that Abraham Lincoln had to be coaxed to embrace freedom for the slaves. Masur’s essay does a service by reminding us of Charles Sumner’s important role in getting the President to do the right thing, the act that more than any other sealed Lincoln’s status as a great U.S. President, arguably the greatest.