-NO RESERVE-A very clear large format albumen portrait of Charles Sumner taken from life. This was trimmed during the period for mounting in an oval frame. Sumner is identified in period pencil on the reverse.Sumner (1811-1874) was a senator from Massachusetts and an ardent abolitionist. A member of the Whig and Free Soil parties in the 1840s, he joined the Republican Party in the 1850s. In 1856 several southern members of the House barged into the senate chamber, one of them beating Sumner with a cane and severely injuring him. He was reelected to the senate several times. During the war he was chairman of the senate foreign relations committee and worked to block any British or French interference in the war. After the war he worked on behalf of civil and voting rights for freedmen. He fell out with Grant in the 1870s, blocking Grant's proposed annexation of Santo Domingo. He died in 1874. This is a very clear portrait of one of the period's most famous statemen.

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