Charles Sumner was an abolitionist senator who helped to write the post-Civil War Constitution and give birth to modern civil rights law. Zaakir Tameez, author of the new biography Charles Sumner: Conscience of a Nation, joins Jeffrey Rosen to discuss Sumner as a moral thinker, political activist, and constitutional visionary.
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Today’s episode was produced by Samson Mostashari and Bill Pollock. It was engineered by Bill Pollock. Research was provided by Samson Mostashari.
Participants
Zaakir Tameez is an emerging scholar of antitrust and constitutional law. A graduate of Yale Law School and the University of Virginia, he has published award-winning scholarship and coauthored amicus briefs before the Texas and United States Supreme Courts. He is a Fulbright Scholar and Humanity in Action Senior Fellow from Houston, Texas. His book Charles Sumner: Conscience of a Nation was released on June 3, 2025.
Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization devoted to educating the public about the U.S. Constitution. Rosen is also professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic.
Additional Resources
- Zaakir Tameez, Charles Sumner: Conscience of a Nation (2025)
- Zaakir Tameez, “What we can learn from the senator who nearly died for democracy,” The Washington Post (June 1, 2025)
- Richard Kreitner, “Charles Sumner Was More Than Just a Guy Who Got Caned on the Senate Floor,” The New York Times (June 2, 2025)
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