Jerks in History

[Eva Elisabeth]

(11-21-2013 07:22 PM)Rsmyth Wrote:  ... a duel would have been honorable but beating someone with a cane is cowardly and not something the people of that state should be proud of.

I agree on this. Although I can understand what led Brooks to this attack, but I can't justify violence as a way of telling or teaching someone he said something wrong or bad, especially as the victim couldn't use the same weapon to defend himself (whereas Brooks et al could have used words at every time). Sitting alone in his office, Sumner had no chance to defend himself or getting help, differently to the situation of his verbal attack on Butler.
But I agree on that Sumner should have expected such aftermath since the whole atmosphere concerning the sequence of events in Kansas was a violent one.

Thanks Linda for posting Sumner's later account on his feelings towards Brooks. I didn't expect Sumner to think like that and be so forgiving.

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(11-21-2013 11:40 PM)Linda Anderson Wrote:  There is a similarity to Seward who was also able to view his attack philosophically. Seward, already injured from his carriage accident, sustained painful wounds from the assassination attempt but he stayed in office for the next four years and then somehow managed to travel around the world although he was in poor health.

Some people just have a strong life force.

Well said, Linda. I think he did even stronger than Lincoln believe in probably facing such a violent deed and fate, and I take my hat off for his willingness to die for his believes and aims.

New York Times Editor Henry J. Raymond wrote: "Free from the faintest impulse of revenge himself, he could not appreciate its desperate intensity in the hearts of others. Mr. Seward, with his larger experience and more practical knowledge of human nature, had repeatedly told him that so great a contest could never close without passing through an era of assassination - that if it did not come as a means of aiding the rebel cause, it would follow, and seek to avenge its downfall, and that it was the duty of all who were responsibly and conspicuously connected with the Government, to be prepared for this supreme test of their courage and patriotic devotion. Mr. Seward himself, had acted upon this conviction, and had stood at his post always prepared for sudden death."