The Smithsonian Inventory (
visit link) provides the following info:
"Artist:
Ball, Thomas, 1819-1911, sculptor.
F. Barbedienne fonderie, founder.
Title:
Charles Sumner, (sculpture).
Dates:
Commissioned 1876. 1877. Dedicated Dec. 23, 1878...
Medium:
Figure: bronze; Base: granite.
Dimensions:
Figure: approx. 10 ft. 10 in. x 3 ft. 2 in. x 2 ft. 8 in.; Base: approx. 8 ft. 1 in. x 7 ft. 8 in. x 7 ft. 8 in.
Inscription:
(Proper right side of base:) THOMAS BALL 1877.sc.1877 / F. Barbedienne Founder Paris (Front of base:) SUMNER signed Founder's mark appears.
Description:
Full-length portrait of Charles Sumner, standing, holding papers in his proper left hand.
Subject:
Portrait male -- Sumner, Charles -- Full length
Occupation -- Political -- Senator
Occupation -- Education
Object Type:
Outdoor Sculpture -- Massachusetts -- Boston
Sculpture
Owner:
Administered by City of Boston, Boston Art Commission, Office of Cultural Affairs, Boston City Hall, Room 716, Boston, Massachusetts 02201
Located Boston Public Garden, Boylston Street Mall, Boston, Massachusetts
Remarks:
The statue commemorates Charles Sumner (1811-1874). Born in Boston, Sumner was an effective supporter of Horace Mann in his work to improve public education in Massachusetts. In 1851, Sumner was elected to the U.S. Senate. Ball received the commission for the statue during his visit to the Centennial Exposition in 1876. He worked on the model after his return to Florence and sent it to Paris for casting. Statue was unveiled on Dec. 23, 1878 without formal ceremonies, other than the reading of a historical sketch by Alexander H. Rice, then governor of Massachusetts. IAS files contain related excerpts from Walter Muir Whitehall's, "Boston Statues," Barre, MA: Barre Pub., 1970; and condition reports dated Nov. 2, 1979, Nov. 25, 1990, and Dec. 30, 1991.
Condition:
Surveyed 1993 November. Well maintained."
and Wikipedia (
visit link) informs us about the man:
"Charles Sumner (January 6, 1811 – March 11, 1874) was an American politician and senator from Massachusetts. As an academic lawyer and a powerful orator, Sumner was the leader of the antislavery forces in Massachusetts and a leader of the Radical Republicans in the United States Senate during the American Civil War working to destroy the Confederacy, free all the slaves and keep on good terms with Europe. During Reconstruction, he fought to minimize the power of the ex-Confederates and guarantee equal rights to the freedmen.
Sumner changed his political party several times, gaining fame as a Republican. He devoted his enormous energies to the destruction of what Republicans called the Slave Power, that is the efforts of slave owners to take control of the federal government and ensure the survival and expansion of slavery. In 1856, a South Carolina Congressman, Preston Brooks, nearly killed Sumner on the Senate floor two days after Sumner delivered an intensely anti-slavery speech called "The Crime Against Kansas". In the speech, Sumner characterized the attacker's cousin, South Carolina Senator Andrew Butler, as a pimp for slavery. The episode played a major role in the coming of the Civil War. During the war Sumner was a leader of the Radical Republican faction that criticized President Abraham Lincoln for being too moderate on the South. One of the most learned statesmen of the era, he specialized in foreign affairs, and worked closely with Abraham Lincoln to keep the British and the French from intervening on the side of the Confederacy during the Civil War. Sumner's expertise and energy made him a powerful chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
As the chief Radical leader in the Senate during Reconstruction, 1865–1871, Sumner fought hard to provide equal civil and voting rights for the freedmen on the grounds that "consent of the governed" was a basic principle of American republicanism, and to block ex-Confederates from power so they would not reverse the gains made from the Union's victory in the Civil War. Sumner, teaming with House leader Thaddeus Stevens, battled Andrew Johnson's reconstruction plans and sought to impose a Radical program on the South. Although Sumner forcefully advocated the annexation of Alaska in the Senate, he was against the annexation of the Dominican Republic, then known by the name of its capital, Santo Domingo. After leading Senators to defeat President Ulysses S. Grant's Santo Domingo Treaty in 1870, Sumner broke with Grant, and denounced him in such terms that reconciliation was impossible. In 1871, President Grant and his Secretary of State Hamilton Fish retaliated; through Grant's supporters in the Senate, Sumner was deposed as head of the Foreign Relations Committee. Sumner had become convinced that Grant was a corrupt despot and that the success of Reconstruction policies called for new national leadership. Sumner bitterly opposed Grant's reelection by supporting the Liberal Republican candidate Horace Greeley in 1872 and lost his power inside the Republican Party. Less than two years later, he died in office."