Jerks in History

[Rsmyth]

I agree Rob, 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.

[Eva Elisabeth]

The cane he used is actually on display in the state museum in Columbiae.

Daniel Mark Epstein writes: "Brooks continued to rain blows upon his victim's head and spine until the weapon broke into pieces."
So, this is wrong (as I assume the cane would be on display as one piece)?

---

As for the recovery: The incident happened in May 1856, and Sumner could not return to his seat in the Senate until 1859.

[J. Beckert]

Judging the Sumner caning with 21st. century mores does an injustice to those involved, in my opinion. Sumner's venom went beyond the rules of decorum and he knew this. Thinking that making slanderous, vile personal attacks against several members would be protected by the sanctity of the Senate chamber, Sumner made a bad gamble and lost. He called Stephen Douglas a "noise-some, squat, nameless animal" who was not a proper model for a U.S. Senator. He ridiculed Andrew Butler's speech impediment after he had suffered a stroke. His remarks went beyond espousing his views, which he was certainly entitled to do, but he elected to make this personal, which elevated this to another level in those times. He publically insulted another members relation, while the man sat and watched this transpire. He was vile and insulting and it was he that defiled the chamber, in my opinion. Brooks approached him two days later and explained what his intentions were and told him he was going to punish him for it. Fair warning and after a tirade like that, Sumner should have expected this. A good example of having an alligator mouth and a canary backside.

[Rob Wick]

The sexual nature of Sumner's speech didn't happen by chance. That Southern masters used their slaves as concubines, or that slavery even existed in America, was an even greater injustice than Sumner's tirade against Andrew Butler or Douglas. I'm sorry, but there's no justification for Brooks's actions.

Best
Rob

[J. Beckert]

That's a broad brush, Rob. Did the majority of Southerners use their slaves as concubines? Sumner crossed a line he shouldn't have by publically insulting other members of the Senate. Calling Stephen Douglas a "noise-some, squat, nameless animal" and mocking Butler's speech impediment after a stroke are on a whole different level that has nothing to do with slavery. He made this personal, which under the mores of the time, demanded a man on man confrontation. That's not something that would be condoned today, but in the 1850's, it was.

[L Verge]

I see no "sexual" intent in what Sumner said; it was more of a euphemism. Just another example of 21st-century people having to insert our values on something that happened over 150 years ago. And don't play the race card again like it all came about because of people south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Many men of Sumner's Massachusetts had made their fortunes in the slave trade for many decades before.

If Sumner were as pious and innocent a victim as what we are saying here, he would have chosen his words wisely on the institution of slavery itself -- not as a personal attack on one or two people. Judge not lest ye be judged. I gave up fighting the Civil War back in high school, but it continues to amaze me how learned people continue to throw verbal punches and act so pious about it even today. As long as we continue to do that, there will always be divisions.

P.S. I suspect that Sumner would not have shown up for a duel with weapons. Like so many, he fought with vicious words.

[Rob Wick]

Majority? In 1860, 10 percent of the slave population was considered mulatto. With a slave population of 4 million, that would translate to 400,000. They had to come from somewhere.

And I didn't play the race card. Southerners did when they went to war to protect slavery.

Best
Rob

[Rick Smith]

The weeping over the slave issue has become tiresome in the extreme.

Sumner was the coward. To make vile and disparaging personal remarks in regards to other men when he thought he was safe to do so just because he was on the senate floor was a cowardly mistake. He was warned before hand by Brooks to back off and he chose not to. This was a mistake. He was asking for it and he got what he asked for.

Some people have absolutely no understanding of the time in which Brooks and Sumner were living.

As Joe said, Sumner had a gator mouth and a canary backside.

[J. Beckert]

If your statistics are correct Rob, then 90% of the slave population was all black, which shoots a big hole in the statement that slaves were routinely kept as concubines. You're also turning the present topic of Sumner's caning into a diatribe against the Southerners going to war to "protect slavery" when the more important issue was states rights. I in no means mean this as an insult, but it seems your liberal views don't jive with things when viewed in a historical context.

[L Verge]

See what I mean about continuing our divisions by judging people who have been dead for over 150 years? Why can't we follow the words that Lincoln preached about restoring the Union? He wasn't talking about just readmitting states to the Union; he had much deeper ideals and hopes than that. And, this continuous referring back to the evils of the past does nothing to assist us in the present and future.

[Rob Wick]

State's rights over what?

Best
Rob

[Rsmyth]

Joe are you saying that back then if someone said something you did not agree with beating them and severely injuring them was an honorable thing to do? What if Sumner had died, do you think Brooks should have been tried and if so on what charge?

---

Sumner was an Abolistionist. I think i would have had a difficult time holding my tongue when talking to anyone that supported slavery. If you think what he said crossed the line...I don't think he went far enough.

[J. Beckert]

The country was in quite a conundrum over the slavery issue at the time. Lincoln himself had conflicting thoughts over how to handle it. Relocate and colonize? Emancipate? Leave it alone except where it exists? One of his first laments on taking office was the fact that he had to deal with this issue. None of that was clear in 1860 and the fact that states wanted to deal with it on their own was, in my opinion, the crux of the conflict. To paint the South as slave raping, slave beating heathens is wrong. Viewed in the context of the times, there was no clear cut answer until the Emancipation Proclamation was issued.

[L Verge]

What makes Preston Brooks's actions worse than those of John Brown (and others) in Bleeding Kansas?

[Linda Anderson]

Newspapers of the time called the assault "deadly" and "murderous."

"The Great Trials of History" (Lexington Herald, Feb 10., 1914), says that "so great were his injuries that he did not fully recover for four years: and, indeed, never after this assault was he the powerful robust athlete that he had been before. The physical condition of Sumner and the masses of his full head of hair, which he wore long at the time, probably saved his life."

Brooks resigned and was promptly reelected. Sumner filed a complaint and Brooks was indicted by a grand jury. Brooks "appeared in Washington in court attended by a coterie of Southern friends, admitted the assault and justified himself in a speech likening himself to husbands who defend their wounded honor. [Sounds like what Dan Sickles did a few years later.] The judge fined him three hundred dollars and discharged him without imprisonment...

"During Sumner's long years of suffering following the attack, it is said that he never spoke unkindly of Brooks. It is related that years after, when one day walking in thee Congressional Cemetery in Washington, George William Curtis called his attention to a cenotaph of Brooks which Sumner had not noticed before, his only remark was: "Poor fellow. Poor fellow!" To the question then asked by Curtis, "How do you feel about Brooks?" he replied, "Only as to a brick that should fall upon your head from a chimney. He was the unconscious agent of another power."