Brooks Canes Sumner
Preston Brooks attacks Charles Sumner with a cane in the Senate
This act of violence is a very important historical event in that it caused many to definitively choose a side in sectional disputes, and write and speak their attitudes.
On May 22nd 1856, Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina entered the Senate chamber carrying a gold tipped gutta percha cane. He approached the desk of Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts and after a few words proceeded to beat him about the head with his cane.
This act of violence was deemed by him to be fitting revenge for a speech in which Sumner had pushed the bounds of rhetorical decency and the rules of the Senate as they existed at that time.
These events inspired a national response from both abolitionist and pro-slavery viewpoints. The speech went down in history as the “Bleeding Kansas” speech, and Sumner as a martyr for the anti-slavery cause. The Northern response was outrage, and the Southern response was surprisingly strong support for, and even praise of, Brooks’ act.
To Brooks and his newfound supporters, Sumner's speech had insulted the State of South Carolina by saying that the Territory of Kansas had already made greater contributions to the Union than South Carolina (one of the original 13 States) ever had. More particularly, Sumner insulted Brooks' kinsman Senator Butler of South Carolina, then not present due to illness, by comparing him to Don Quixote blinded to reason by a love for his mistress, his Dulcinea, "the harlot slavery."
Senator Butler had recently suffered a stroke which had partially paralyzed his face. Brooks took portions of Sumner’s remarks (“loose expectorations”) to be aimed at the difficulty Butler now had in speaking. In the Southern code of honor then extant, dueling was the proper way to resent an insult from an equal, and caning was deemed the proper way to chastise an inferior.
Brooks decided on the later as his way to deal with Sumner since the Senator from Massachusetts had publicly denounced dueling saying that in that case he was “no Gentleman.” Brooks carried the caning further than the mere symbolic chastisement the code intended it to be. His repeated blows and the fact that the cane broke after the first several blows led to multiple lacerations on the scalp of Sumner, and blood flowed copiously in the Senate Chamber.
These events intensified and polarized sectional tensions which were already at an all time high. Political Parties realigned along geographic and attitudinal lines. Whether you were outraged by Brooks’ assault on Sumner, or approved of it, or saw it as just deserts for unbearable impudence became more important than if you were a Whig or a Democrat.
Both major parties experienced sectional rifts, and the Whigs ceased to exist as a national party. This realignment would give rise to the new Republican Party, and lead to Lincoln’s election, which of course, would be followed by secession. This event cannot be called the cause of the Civil War as it merely intensified existing tensions, but it has significant historical importance, and provides an excellent snapshot of the attitudes of the time.
Both in speeches made in Congress, and in newspapers throughout the land, men spoke or wrote their thoughts and feelings. The speeches are recorded in the Congressional Globe, and although some have made very good attempts to collect newspaper articles there are still many that remain to be found.
I would like to read any articles concerning these events from local papers however small. If you share my interest in these events, and find such articles, please e-mail me, or post them for discussion.
