Jerks in History

[Rob Wick]

Gene,

I think what Schlesinger means is that everyone is simply a hostage to their own times, but there are larger circumstances which still must be acknowledged, especially things which run counter to our national credo.

Best
Rob

[Gene C]

Fido and I like your new icon.

[Rob Wick]

Thanks Gene. We got Droopy at Christmas two years ago, and the person who fostered her dressed her like that. She wasn't too thrilled, as I recall.

Best
Rob

[L Verge]

(11-27-2013 09:04 PM)Craig Hipkins Wrote:  I do agree with Joe and Laurie on a few of the points. Like Joe said it is a matter of perspective. It is also hard to sit here in the early 21st century and judge how people lived nearly two centuries in the past. Because we are all human we all have opinions and dogma that we have formed mainly through our experiences in life. We all try to be objective, but often times we are subjective. We cannot help it because it is in our nature. I believe that history can teach us a lot about ourselves.

I was raised in Senator Sumner's home state of Massachusetts. I can recall having it ingrained in my head by an influential history teacher in grade school that the caning was a brutal and savage attack on a man's dignity. At the same time I can remember that the John Brown raid was merely glossed over. There was no praise for what Brown did, but at the same time he wasn't castigated as a villain. I am sure that if I had gone to school in the south these sentiments would have been much different. I am curious to hear what others remember being taught about these two historic episodes.

Craig

I went to school in the northern part of the South, but in what had been a slave state and a state that still depended on an agricultural economy with tenant farmers and sharecroppers - most of them black Americans. I never heard of Preston Brooks and the caning of Charles Sumner until I went to college, and it was taught as an example of how the issue of slavery inflamed and tore asunder our country.

John Brown's massacres in Kansas and his failed raid on Harpers Ferry were mentioned briefly in high school, but in much the same way as the Sumner attack. It happened because the U.S. could not settle the issue of slavery without going to war.

To me, that was the purpose of learning about Brooks, Sumner, and Brown. Their actions were indicative of what was threatening to destroy the Union -- all were doing what they thought acceptable and necessary to get their ideas across in the day and age in which they lived. Very frankly, there are some current situations within our country that leave me with the same bitter and frustrated thoughts today.

[Thomas Thorne]

I condemn both Preston Brooks and John Brown. I think Charles Sumner was a fool.

The antebellum dueling code permitted Brooks to challenge Sumner to a duel not thrash him at his desk in the United States Senate. During the hotly contested and protracted Speakership contest of 1859,many members of both sides were armed and fears were expressed that civil war might begin on the floor of the House of Representatives.

The Governor of South Carolina actually offered to send troops to Washington to prevent an election of a Republican Speaker. The House could not transact any business until a Speaker was elected. It was resolved only when the House permitted an election by a plurality.

That Preston Brooks should receive so much adulation for his act in certain Southern precincts and John Brown received as much praise as he did tells us how frayed the Americans polity had become and how emotionally prepared the country was for conflict.

John Brown's admirers would have us forget his hacking to death of five unarmed people in Kansas, his proclamation of himself as "Provisional President of the United States" and his armed seizure of a Federal installation,the armory at Harpers Ferry. The latter makes him an extremely unwelcome kindred spirit of the people who seized Fort Sumter.

Charles Sumner was certainly morally correct to attack slavery but he did his cause no good by mocking the physical infirmities of Sen. Andrew Butler. Such conduct would not persuade anyone of the error of his ways.
Tom

[My Name Is Kate]

If it wasn't OK for the Sioux Indians in MN, who were being starved to death, to act like savages, then it wasn't OK for Preston Brooks or John Brown to act that way either.