1001 People Who Made America - Alan Axelrod [124]
Sumner, Charles (1811–1874) On May 22, 1856, Sumner, a fiery anti-slavery senator from Massachusetts, was savagely beaten with a cane by South Carolina representative Preston S. Brooks on the Senate floor in retaliation for his having maligned the state of South Carolina and one of its senators, Andrew P. Butler, Brooks’ uncle. To the North, the caning represented southern brutality at its worst and served to galvanize abolitionist sentiment and to bring civil war closer. As for Sumner, his injuries were so severe that it took him three years to recover.
Sumner, William Graham (1840–1910) Sumner was a disciple of the British philosopher Herbert Spencer, who believed that in society as in the natural world, the strong survive and prosper at the expense of the weak. Far from being a situation government and society should endeavor to correct, Sumner believed that ruthless economic competition was beneficial to the evolution of society, and both opposed any steps that contributed to the creation of a welfare state.
Sunday, Billy (1862/1863–1935) Born William Ashley, Sunday grew up an orphan and became a Presbyterian minister in 1903. A fundamentalist, he conducted revivals nationwide, reaching as many as 100 million people. Sunday was the precursor of Billy Graham and the later televangelists, whose object was to reach as many people as possible.
Surratt, Mary (1820–1865) Born Mary Jenkins, Surratt ran the Washington, D.C., boardinghouse at which John Wilkes Booth and the other conspirators in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln met to plan the crime. She was tried and convicted of complicity in the conspiracy and, on July 7, 1865, became the first woman to be hanged in the United States.
Sutter, John (1803–1880) Born Johann Augustus Suter in Germany, Sutter spent much of his life in Switzerland, then fled bankruptcy by settling in California in 1839. He became a prominent rancher, and on January 24, 1848, his employee, James Marshall, discovered gold in the race (stream) of a mill on the ranch. The discovery triggered the California Gold Rush the following year, instantly populating the territory and making California statehood an urgent issue.
Swift, Gustavus (1839–1903) Swift was a butcher who founded the meat-packing firm of Swift & Company. He transformed meat packing into a giant industry by commissioning the design of a refrigerated railway car for the mass transportation of meat from his plants in Chicago to the East.
Taft, Robert A. (1889–1953) Son of President William Howard Taft, Robert A. Taft was a Republican leader in the U.S. Senate from 1939 to 1953. He represented the most conservative wing of the Republican Party and was a strong advocate of isolationism and a foe of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal (which he denounced as Socialist). The 1947 Taft-Hartley Act (which he cosponsored) restricted the rights of organized labor.
Taft, William Howard (1857–1930) Taft was handpicked by Theodore Roosevelt as his Republican successor to the presidency. He served from 1909 to 1913, but his conservatism was a disappointment to Roosevelt, who ran against him on the Progressive (Bull Moose) ticket in 1912, and the incumbent Taft came in a humiliating third behind Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt. Wilson’s successor, Warren G. Harding, appointed Taft chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. He served from 1921 to 1930.
Taney, Roger B. (1777–1864) Taney was the fifth chief justice of the Supreme Court, serving from 1836 until his death in 1864. On March 6, 1857, he handed down the Supreme Court’s decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford, holding that Scott, a slave suing for his freedom on the grounds