In the tempestuous nineteenth century, especially in the pivotal 1850s, Charles Sumner was liked by few, but respected by many. And no man did more to influence the slavery debate on a national scale. Southerners detested and sometimes feared him. Northerners first resisted and eventually came to revere him. But when Charles Sumner spoke, everyone listened.
A tantalizing question lurks when we consider the nation at this point in its history: Without the caning, would the Civil War have broken out?
The answer is: eventually, perhaps, but certainly not as soon as it did, and with delay could have come the possibility of compromise, however remote it may seem in hindsight. Tensions had simmered and tempers had flared between North and South on the issue of slavery since the nation's founding, but until May 22, 1856, cooler heads and determined statesmen from both regions—Clay, Calhoun, Webster, and others—had prevailed.
But Brooks's assault on Sumner, in the halls of Congress, no less, crossed the line from debate to outright violence, and sent a signal to both sides that they had few options to resolve their differences through political discourse. Bruce Catton, who called the caning the first battle of the Civil War, wrote that Brooks undeniably had done what he set out to do when he assaulted Sumner, “but the final effect was wholly disastrous.” By beating Sumner, Brooks had caused “many folk in the North to overlook the provocation that the [“Crime Against Kansas”] speech had contained. The slave power (it would be said) could not be reasoned with; the man who tried it would be bludgeoned almost to the point of death.” William Gienapp said simply: “The caning of Charles Sumner was a major landmark on the road to civil war.” Robert Neil Mathis concurred, saying that, after Brooks's attack, “many previously uncommitted Northerners and Southerners were provoked, persuaded, or cajoled into becoming avowed abolitionists or slaveryites, therefore dangerously weakening the bonds of the Union.”
And Sumner's most noted biographer, David Donald, wrote of the caning more than fifty years ago, “When the two sections no longer spoke the same language, shared the same moral code, or obeyed the same law, when their representatives clashed in bloody conflict in the halls of Congress, thinking men North and South began to wonder how the Union could longer endure.”
Many beliefs and stereotypes that North and South held in 1856—indeed, many that prompted the caning and were exacerbated by it—continue to exist today. Sumner's contention that Brooks and his slaveholding colleagues were barbaric and unrefined are little different than the stereotype of the Southern redneck that many elite Northerners hold today. Brooks's feeling that Sumner was arrogant, rude, and ungentlemanly is close enough to the way many Southerners feel about people from Massachusetts and the rest of the Northeast.
The political parties have changed sides (the South is far more Republican and the Northeast heavily Democrat, though even those distinctions are in flux), but the depictions of the people have remained largely similar. Despite the ease of travel and mobility, residents of each region continue to believe the other does not understand their values. “The outgrowth of these kinds of divisions,” wrote journalist Peter Cannellos in 2006, “is, inevitably, the types of misunderstandings that lead to the depiction of Southern rednecks and prissy Northeast snobs.” By recognizing that these differences date back as far as nineteenth-century slavery discussions, we can better understand and deal with the depth and strength of their roots, a necessary step if we are ever to overcome them, or at the very least, simply learn to live with them.
The caning, Preston Brooks's one-minute act of aggression against Charles Sumner on the floor of the United States Senate chamber on May 22, 1856, dramatically altered the course of American history, and continues to shape it today.
BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAY
Preston Brooks's caning of Charles Sumner, including the events leading up to and following it, is filled with larger-than-life personalities, dramatic episodes, and far-reaching implications for America. This book is a work of narrative history that rests on a sturdy foundation of primary and secondary sources: layers of scholarship and research. This Bibliographic Essay lists my sources and how I use them, and the Acknowledgments contain additional details about my research.
I have tried to tell this rich story with as much accuracy as the historical record allows. Everything that appears between quote marks is contained in a diary, letter, government document, court transcript, piece of congressional testimony, newspaper, magazine article, journal, pamphlet, or book. I have taken no poetic license. My conclusions are based on an examination and interpretation of the sources and my knowledge of the characters and events; these also provide the underpinnings for any conjecture that I engage in (as all historians and nonfiction authors must do from time to time). In those few instances when I do speculate about people or events, I make these clear to the reader.
The source material for The Caning is so rich that I feel as though I've spent a great deal of time over the last few years in the 1850s, and while on my journey to the past, got to know Charles Sumner and Preston Brooks especially well.
Sumner, of course, was a prolific speaker and writer. His Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer, David Donald, estimates that Sumner's fifteen-volume Works, which the senator compiled in the last few years of his life, represents less than half of his public utterances. He wrote often, on broad topics, to a vast array of people. Just as rich were the thousands of letters people wrote to him during his career; those also offer a wonderful glimpse into the tenor and tone of the times. I've examined as many of Sumner's letters as possible during the time period and topics covered by this book, scores of letters he received, many of his speeches, and several volumes of his Works—and I've only read a fraction of his writings.
Brooks's career did not last long enough for him to be as prolific as Sumner, nor was he as naturally inclined to write as the Massachusetts senator, but his papers contain enough of his observations about the caning, slavery, his family, and his region to get a real feel for what drove him as a man, a congressman, and a Southerner. Those letters written to and about Brooks, also contained in his papers, amplified a number of these topics—the correspondence about his untimely death was particularly powerful and interesting.
Below I provide a list of primary sources and for certain ones included a brief explanation of how I used them and why they were important. I have grouped secondary sources according to topical categories when appropriate.
I have referred to the primary or secondary source (mostly newspapers in the latter case) chronologically closest to the event for greatest accuracy and veracity. For example, Sumner's Works, written late in his life, may, in some cases, represent what the “1870s Sumner” wished or hoped he had said in earlier years; thus, to describe, say, Sumner's convalescence in July 1856, I tried to draw on letters or other documents from that month. While this was not possible in all cases, I was able to adhere to this approach most of the time, since Sumner wrote—and was written to—so frequently, since the Preston Brooks papers contained many colorful, in-the-moment letters and documents, and because so much of the caning investigation was part of an extensive public record.
I drew on hundreds of articles from several nineteenth-century newspapers as secondary sources throughout the book. Northerners and Southerners relied on papers for their news and for interpretations of events. I mention many of these papers within the text, and I used other newspaper articles for background. The newspaper references were derived from three main sources: the New England Historic Genealogical Society's (NEHGS) wonderful collection of nineteenth-century newspapers (www.newenglandancestors.com); the Furman University Department of History Secession Era Editorials Project (http://history.furman.edu/editorials/see.py), a remarkably ambitious compilation; and newspaper clippings included in a scrapbook collected by Preston Brooks's great-granddaughter, which is part of the Preston S. Brooks Papers at the South Caroliniana Library at the University of South Carolina (USC).
Rather than list th
e newspapers separately in the topical areas that follow, I've included them here since I used them throughout the book to capture the feel of the time period. This list does not represent all the publications I referred to, but provides readers with a good sampling:
Albany Evening Journal
Atchison (KS) Union
Boston Courier
Boston Daily Advertiser
Boston Daily Atlas
Boston Daily Evening Transcript
Boston Investigator
Boston Post
Charleston (SC) Mercury
Charleston (SC) Standard
Chicago Press and Tribune
Columbian (SC) South Carolinian
Daily Lawrence (KS) Republican
Edgefield (SC) Advertiser
Illinois State Register
Jefferson City (MO) Inquirer
Kansas Crusader of Freedom
Leavenworth (KS) Times
Lecompton (KS) Union
The Liberator
Macon (GA) Messenger
Milledgeville (GA) Federal Union
Montgomery (AL) Journal
New Orleans Times-Picayune
New York Times
New York Tribune
Pittsburgh Gazette
Raleigh (NC) Register
Richmond (VA) Enquirer
Richmond Whig
Spartanburg (SC) Spartan
Springfield (IL) State Journal
Wilmington (NC) Daily Herald
A final note: When an author writes about a subject that touches the Civil War in any way—the run-up, the war itself, the aftermath—he can't help but rub elbows with some of America's greatest historians. There is no way to read or refer to all of the great books written about this momentous time period. The books I list below are but a fraction of the thousands written about the Civil War Era, but in my view, they are among the best and most important, and they provided me with invaluable material for this work.
PRESTON BROOKS, CHARLES SUMNER, AND THE CANING AND ITS AFTERMATH
Primary Sources
CHARLES SUMNER
To understand and analyze this complex man—before, during, and after the caning episode—I drew extensively on the enormous collection of letters to and from Sumner contained in The Papers of Charles Sumner, 1811–1874, on 85 reels of microtext at the Boston Public Library. These comprise letters contained in the Charles Sumner Papers at Harvard's Houghton Library plus letters located in nearly two hundred other repositories in the United States, Great Britain, France, and Canada. This vast collection helped me paint the portrait of Sumner the man, as well as Sumner the antislavery crusader, and also provided an illuminating look at how American citizens viewed Sumner and the critical issues of the day.
I owe a debt of gratitude to editor Beverly Wilson Palmer for producing the masterful The Selected Letters of Charles Sumner, Volumes 1 (1830–1859) and II (1859–1874) (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1990), which was my constant companion during the research and writing of The Caning. It is no surprise that Palmer, a Sumner scholar, chose letters that revealed Sumner's character as well as his beliefs; I found this collection particularly helpful when sketching Sumner's European sojourns.
Sumner's speeches, including “The Crime Against Kansas” and “The Barbarism of Slavery,” and many other writings, are also contained in his exhaustive The Works of Charles Sumner (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1875); I mainly made use of Volumes 1–7 of the fifteen-volume collection. Both major speeches were also reprinted in newspapers across the North and are available from numerous Internet sources.
I consulted both the Charles Sumner Papers and the Theodore Parker Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society for original transcripts of some of Sumner's speeches, and a heartfelt correspondence between Sumner and Parker while Sumner was convalescing.
PRESTON BROOKS
The most complete collection of correspondence to, from, and about Preston Brooks and his family is contained in the Preston S. Brooks Papers at the South Caroliniana Library at the University of South Carolina. These include letters from Southerners to Brooks about the caning; a collection of letters about Brooks's Mexican War experience; a Brooks diary recopied by his wife Martha (which contains, among other things, Brooks's heartbreaking recollections of the death of his three-year-old daughter Yettie in 1851, and his overall feelings about family); a lengthy diary kept by Brooks's father; and a scrapbook collected by his great-granddaughter that contains newspaper clippings and other documents relating to his death (including colorful details of the long journey made by the Edgefield contingent transporting Brooks's frozen body from Washington back to his South Carolina home).
In addition, this collection contains the remarkable eight-page handwritten “Statement of Mr. Brooks on the Sumner Assault,” dated May 28, 1856 (six days after the caning), in which he candidly outlines his motives and actions. It also contains poignant letters—to Mrs. Brooks and others—from those in attendance when Brooks died suddenly in January 1857.
Lawmakers' comments on Brooks's life and death are also contained in extensive testimony recorded in the Congressional Globe (precursor to the Congressional Record), 34th Congress.
I also found helpful “Speeches of the Honorable Preston S. Brooks, and Proceedings of Congress on the Occasion of His Death,” in the Southern Quarterly Review (February 1857), which contains excerpts from his speeches and articles about his death. Brooks's speech on the Kansas-Nebraska Act (March 15, 1854) is contained in the Congressional Globe, 33rd Congress, 1st Session, Appendix.
The information in the book about the disposition of Preston Brooks's estate and the value of his slaves is contained in the “Inventory of the Personal Estate of Preston S. Brooks” housed at the Edgefield, South Carolina Archives, and also in an exhaustive bound collection of slave records entitled, Slave Records of Edgefield County, South Carolina by Gloria Ramsey Lucas (Edgefield, S.C.: Edgefield County Historical Society, 2010).
Finally, information about Brooks and the Southern planter lifestyle is captured in Secret and Sacred: The Diaries of James Henry Hammond, a Southern Slaveholder, edited by Carol Bleser (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988).
THE CANING AND ITS AFTERMATH
Primary source material about this extraordinary event and its fallout is extensive and varied. The entire episode, including testimony of the House of Representatives investigation, follow-up speeches from lawmakers, testimony from Brooks, Sumner, and other witnesses, as well as the Brooks expulsion hearing, is contained in the Congressional Globe. A wealth of information is included in the Alleged Assault upon Senator Sumner (House Report, No. 182, 34th Congress, 1st Session, 1856), but extensive additional information appears in the appendix and other places within the Congressional Globe. I also consulted the Globe for debates and discussion on the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the tumultuous situation in Kansas that led up to Sumner's “Crime Against Kansas” speech.
In addition, the Journal of the House of Representatives (July 15, 1856) contains the resolution calling for Brooks's ouster and outlines the arguments of his actions.
I also examined the United States Senate report from the “Select Committee appointed to inquire into the circumstances attending the assault committed upon the person of Hon. Charles Sumner, a member of the Senate” in The Reports of the Committees of the Senate of the United States (First Session of the 34th Congress, 1855–1856).
The Resolutions of the Legislature of Massachusetts Relative to the Recent Assault upon the Hon. Mr. Sumner (June 11, 1856) is an interesting document sent to the U.S. Congress, expressing the Massachusetts legislature's outrage over the “brutal and cowardly” assault on Sumner.
Numerous pamphlets were published at indignation meetings in the North, summarizing the speeches and sentiments at the rallies protesting Brooks's attack on Sumner. Among others, I examined A Full Report of the Speeches at the Meeting of Citizens in Cambridge, June 2, 1856, in reference to the Assault on Sena
tor Sumner in the Senate Chamber at Washington; and Proceedings of a Public Meeting of the Citizens of Providence on the Evening of June 7, 1856. Also, a pamphlet ridiculing Brooks for his August 29 speech in Columbia, South Carolina, was printed in Boston entitled: “Disunion Document, No. 1: Speech of Honorable Preston S. Brooks delivered at Columbia, South Carolina.” The pamphlet asked the provocative question: “Which party is the sectional and disunion party?” And then it urged Massachusetts citizens: “Read the following account of the reception of the Assassin Brooks at Columbia, S.C. with his speech, and then answer the question.”
For an excellent compilation of primary sources, as well as short analyses that bridge the primary documents, see Lloyd Benson's The Caning of Charles Sumner (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 2003), which contains Sumner's “Crime Against Kansas” speech; letters to and from Sumner and Brooks; period newspaper editorials; and Congressional documents associated with the investigation. I found Professor Benson's work a valuable clearinghouse for some of the critical primary sources associated with the caning.
Extensive primary-source material on the caning is available as part of the excellent Cornell University Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection, which I accessed frequently at http://dlxs.library.cornell.edu/m/mayantislavery.
Finally, the story about Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar expressing his opinion that the caning was an “awful blunder” for the South appears in Mary Chesnut's A Diary from Dixie: The Civil War's Most Celebrated Journal, Written 1860–1865 During the Conflict by the Wife of Confederate General James Chesnut, Jr. (New York: Gramercy Books, 1997, a facsimile of the 1905 edition). Lamar's tribute speech to Charles Sumner after Sumner's death is reprinted in several places. I made use of the version at www.bartleby.com/268/10/6.html (accessed February 28, 2012), and also of extensive excerpts about Lamar in President John F. Kennedy's Profiles in Courage (reprint, New York: Pocket Books, 1961).
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