Thread by @juwanthewriter

Aight so boom. 1856, The Caning of Charles Sumner, 1856. AKA, the one about jumping that Northern city slick who came at my cousin over slavery...

https://twitter.com/juwanthewriter/status/1293050413583826944

So although the event I’m about to tell you about is far from a hidden part of history, there are so many parallels btwn the context behind it and where this country is now. A lack of quorum and courtesy is more common than you may believe. But really, this is an insane story.

I also want to demystify the notion that American politics (really, anything American at all) has ever been civil or nonviolent. Imo, it wouldn’t be American in nature if it wasn't.

Also, to call BS on AOC 'upending tradition" by...calling out a colleague? lol, anyway.

First, let me tell you about this homeboy. Preston Brooks, Democrat Representative of South Carolina. From the jump, a complete embodiment of the future Confederacy.

He was expelled from college before graduating for constantly “threatening police officers” & in 1840, at 21, Preston dueled his once schoolmate, war veteran/drunk/gambler/future Confederate Sen Louis Wigfall. Preston got hit in the hip, and had to walk with a cane thereafter.

Preston went about his life & career - became a lawyer, married his first wife who died, got elected to the SC House for a term, then served in the Mexican-American War. Preston came back a war hero, married again, and coasted his way to a seat in the U.S. House in 1852.

Of course, the topic of the day was oft slavery, and because of imperiali-I mean 'manifest destiny', there were constantly ‘new’ jurisdictions to argue over on the issue. Preston vocalized the 'need' for slavery, and did it well enough to rise in the party.

(Important background: When Brooks came into office, Franklin Pierce had been elected President. Democrats knew they needed party ‘unity’ to hold power in the legislature, which - unlike now - had more overt power over policy making than the executive branch.

(two months after the election, Pierce’s family was on board a train that derailed, and his son Benjamin was decapitated in the crash. Pierce’s wife, Jane, considered this a divine punishment for their politics at the time and avoided typical First Lady duties for a long time.

(This made Pierce a shell of himself going into office. Already not of influence in Washington, he notably avoided slavery in his inaugural address, but kept the party line on the issue to keep with the goal of ‘unifying’ the party and the nation...)

(Pierce focused his early Presidency on trying to please the party factions with appointments, but this didn’t go well bc the selections were ultimately made based on ‘merit’ lol. Additionally, VP William King, a Southerner who was forced upon Pierce to secure office, died...

(in the first month, having never made it to Washington. Vice Presidents were *most* important in overseeing the party agenda in the Senate, and having this position empty would become a key factor in the downfall of the Democratic Party’s influence moving forward.

(So, factions were left unsatisfied, and Pierce’s cabinet was a mix of ‘pro-compromise’ Northerners and slaveholding Southerners - including Jefferson Davis, future President of the Confederacy - didn't help, especially down the line.)

The first major issue for the Pierce admin/Dem majority was the Nebraska territory. Sen. Stephen Douglas had plans for the ‘unorganized’ (i.e. no white areas or governance) territory, like a railroad out west via Chicago, that would bring his state of Illinois a lot of money.

In order for that to work, he'd have to get people interested in ‘settling’ in the vast territory, and what did that mean? Lobbying to Chuck, Dave and Sally Mae from below the Mason-Dixon to bring the kids, the mistresses, the neighbors - oh, and the slaves too.

Douglas wrote the Compromise of 1850, which allowed further expansion of slavery, but also contained a provision that territories & states should handle their own business, i.e. slavery. So, it was up to the people ‘of’ Nebraska to vote in favor of allowing slavery. Simple right?

Nah. Not simple at all...there was so much turmoil about what to do in the territory, that it had to be split into two.

In effect, Douglas stopped his own bag by allowing people to vote for what they want. No wonder Lincoln had his foot on his neck all that time. 🤣

So the southern portion, Kansas, could allow slavery while the rest of Nebraska wouldn’t. Southerners were cool with it because a. they were adding more slave territory, and b. they thought the Compromise of 1850 was B.S. anyway. So, all Kansas had to do was vote for slavery.

It should be a clear path from there, right? Lol, WRONG.

Not only did Northerners disapprove of the entire idea, some of them disliked it so much that some of them broke off and joined former Whigs, anti-Democrats, etc to form...what would become the Republican Party.

(Douglas really was a dweeb for screwing this up. Allowing for a democratic process and such. Now look what he did.)

Enter Charles Sumner of Massachusetts. Born in Boston, Sumner’s family was poor until Charles’ father became sheriff & started bringing in the big bucks. His father was anti-slavery but knew freeing them meant nothing if they weren’t to be treated equally. Like father, like son.

Charles went to Boston Latin School, then Harvard, then Harvard Law School. He became a lecturer at the Law School, then travelled Europe in the late 1830s. He ended up in France around 1837...

He saw the art, the society, the education - oh, and how well Black people & “mulattos” were treated amongst the whites) and even with all that education felt like he had been an ignorant, intellectual cheapskate up to that point.

So he learned. and learned. and learned.

He became revered across Europe, returned to Harvard and further expanded his reputation. He was very patriotic, but not political, although he opposed war with Mexico in order to annex Texas. Meanwhile, he called for reform of the educational and prison system.

He helped redefine the schooling in Massachusetts along w/ Horace Mann. He tried to integrate schools, as he recognized that segregated schools were inherently inferior - more than A CENTURY before Board v. Brown of Education. And, most of all, people loved to hear him speak.

In the mid-19th century, if you could find a great orator, you would go hear them speak. People did mock his hand gestures and his very serious demeanor, but Sumner didn’t mind. He was also huge for his day, being 6’4”. If there was ever someone like Lincoln before Lincoln…

Once the war with Mexico began, Sumner spoke so vehemently against it that he unintentionally became the face of the Whig Party, the 'liberal party' of the day. He actually *turned down* a seat in the House in 1848, And became disillusioned when they nominated...

the slave-owning Zachary Taylor for President. After, Sumner's once-Whig faction helped the Democrats gained control of Massachusetts’ legislature (they selected federal reps/senators at the time). Thus, Sumner was nominated and won a Senate seat in Washington with one vote.

Sumner took over the seat of Daniel Webster, the architect of several of ‘the compromises’. Sumner, unlike Webster, was openly anti-slavery or its expansion, and coined the term “Freedom National; Slavery Sectional.”

This alarmed even his ‘moderate’ constituents, who felt he was “too radical” (🌚) and would lose support for the Democratic Party. Once the Nebraska Territory issue came to a head, Sumner had already moved over to the Republican Party.

So at the same time of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, a runaway slave known as Anthony Burns fled Virginia to Boston. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 (part of that compromise) meant he was to be returned by law...

...but as most police agencies didn’t exist and interstate law enforcement was ultimately up to the President, aka Commander-in-Chief, Pierce sent troops to Boston to ensure Burns' return. Remember, Pierce had already alienated party 'factions' and couldn't lose further support.

That's notable bc abolitionists knew they could no longer ensure free passage to slaves by bringing them North, now that the President was making sure of it. So, alarmed, abolitionists flooded Kansas before they could formally vote in favor of slavery. That led to...

As *most* of us know as the ‘Crime Against Kansas'/'Bleeding Kansas’. Pro-slavery people used violence to ensure Kansas became a slave state, which it ultimately was. Despite ‘clear irregularities’ in the results, Pierce accepted them anyway.

Anti-slave people tried every avenue of challenging slavery as an institution, leading President Pierce to consider them rebels when they tried to draft a legitimate state constitution and refused to recognize them.

All this mess, in the first two years of his administration.

Obviously, this completely ruined the notion of ‘unity’ that Democrats had, and the party fell out of favor in the midterms. Meanwhile, Sumner and the Republicans, mostly Northerners of course, were trending upward. We all know where that led.

But all that's important because in all of that mess, President Pierce was dissuaded (in part by cabinet members, such as Secretary of War Jefferson Davis) from sending troops to maintain order in Kansas until it was already a shitshow. That proved most disastrous.

In May 1856, the “Free State Hotel” in Lawrence, Kansas was invaded and destroyed by people slaveholders and people in Missouri in order to prevent the further promotion of anti-slavery rhetoric. Sumner decided to voice his displeasure in the Senate over the flagrant events.

Sumner got on the floor, openly naming & shaming the “Slave Power” that had its strongholds on the governance. This was his first term, and he didn’t have a background that was political in nature to begin with, so he had no reason to hold back when it came to anybody.

He called what happened in Kansas “the rape of a virgin territory”, and then put the blame on the authors of the Kansas-Nebraska Act - one being Douglas, the other: Andrew Butler from South Carolina, nearing 60, in his third term, which back then gave him super senior status.

Butler was one of those statesmen that didn’t do much other than throw his influence either behind, or against, a law, and collect his check while his constituents followed. This meant he was revered in the Chamber…but that didn’t stop Sumner for reading him for filth.

Sumner said of Butler:

“The senator has read many books of chivalry, and believes himself a chivalrous knight with sentiments of honor and courage…of course he has chosen a mistress to whom he has made his vows, and who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him...;

"though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight -- I mean the harlot, slavery. For her his tongue is always profuse in words.”

Essentially, he called Butler one of the rapists of Kansas and said he was being slavery’s bitch.

Sumner was also comparing him to Don Quixote, a fictional character obsessed with chivalry, who goes crazy trying to become a knight of nobility.

ALSO, Sumner was alluding to Butler being like slaveholders who tend to rape their slaves. yeah, this man dragged him, with layers.

But Sumner wasn't done. He continued by comparing his morals to Butler’s speech impediment, due to a recent stroke – “[He] touches nothing which he does not disfigure with error, sometimes of principle, sometimes of fact. He cannot open his mouth, but out there flies a blunder.”

Of course, the Senate floor was *utterly* shocked by such attacks on their fellow colleague. This wasn’t out of left field though, because Butler and Douglas constantly mocked Sumner on the floor. For example, Butler previously claimed that Sumner wanted to marry a Black woman.

Also take note of the fact that mocking others became the central method of persuading ‘debate’ on the floor in the post-Jacksonian government.

But Sumner went hard, even for the 1850s. Even Douglas whispered to a colleague that "this damn fool is going to get himself killed."

This is how we get back to Preston Brooks. Remember I said he coasted his way to a seat in the House? That’s in part because…Sen. Butler was his cousin. So imagine hearing that word on the street is, someone insulted your elder cousin in public? On the record?

So Preston is fed up, and thinks of what he should do to get back at Sumner. First, he thinks of that familiar option of challenging him to a duel (which were supposed to be illegal at this time? but obvs, that wasn't much of an issue for them)

Then...

enter his homeboy-I mean constituent, Rep. Laurence Keitt. Keitt gets in his ear, telling him that Sumner wasn’t even worthy of challenging to a duel. Keitt then goes something like, “you know what’s a better option? Mollywopping dude with your cane here.”

Of course, two 30-something dudes from South Carolina decided that ‘mollywopping dude with a cane’ was a much better and saner option for payback. So two days later, Preston gets his crew (Keitt and Virginia Rep. Henry Edmundson), and they roll up to the Senate chambers.

So here we go. Sumner is at his desk, writing while most of everyone was leaving. Once all the women had left, the thugs-I mean Congressmen rolled up on the Senator. Preston basically tells Sumner, you dissed my mans and my hood.

(Okay, in exact words: “Mr. Sumner, I have read your speech twice over carefully. It is a libel on South Carolina, and Mr. Butler, who is a relative of mine.”)

Sumner starts to stand (remember, dude is 6’4”) and respond, but Preston just whacks him upside the head with the cane.

So maybe you think, okay this is all that happens right? I mean, they're congressmen. They got their one lick in and knocked him down, surely they'll stop right?
LOL. Not even close. Preston goes full DMX mode, and continues to beat the life out of him. Literally.

Sumner went blind after the first blow. He was stuck between his bolted-down desk & chair that was on a track and could only move so far back. This basically left him with no escape or cover, but eventually he managed to rip the desk from the floor & tried to overcome Brooks.

But ol’ boy Preston must’ve had experience with that cane, as he had to walk with it for over 15 years at this point. He not only knocked the bigger Sumner back down, but grabbed him by his hair with one hand and just started wailing on him with the cane in the other.

Eventually, members of both the House and Senate come into the chamber to try to stop it, but homeboy- I mean Rep. Keitt pulls out a gun and says "Let them be!"

(Keitt had a cane too, idk if it was his own or one for backup but either way...there's too many canes involved)

Sen. John Crittenden, 69 at the time, was the first to try to persuade the men from stopping, trying to prevent Preston from killing Sumner. Keitt went to shut Crittenden up, but future Confederate Sec. of State Robert Toombs told him not to as Crittenden wasn't involved.

Finally, two New York congressmen pulled Preston away from the severely injured Sumner, and the Senate Sergeant-of-Arms arrived only after Preston had dipped, which should shock no one at this point.

Although, Preston got medical attention *in* the capitol before Sumner even got home, for hitting himself in the eye with one of his swings.

This would not be the first, or even last, violent event at the Capitol, but it was the most widely reported at the time.

Afterwards, the House found it "not necessary to discuss the question" of Preston's actions. The assault raised Preston's profile, insomuch that he had "more invitations to events in his honor than he could attend." Once again, he got into some dumb, avoidable shit & gained.

Officially, he resigned, only to prove that he was the shit, creating a special election midterm where the state legislature reelected him and sent him back to Washington.

He became another 'controversial' darling of the American political arena.

Meanwhile, Sumner gained the reputation of being 'cowardly' even though he was the one that was blindsided and ganged up on.

Sumner suffered lifelong injuries, and missed the rest of his term in the Senate recovering - which earned him even less sympathy, but more ridicule.

Preston's cane got destroyed in the assault, and Rep. Edmundson recovered the pieces. He handed over the majority of it to the House Sergeant of Arms, but kept the rest to give to colleagues who turned it into jewelry to wear in solidarity. Southerners sent 'dozens' of new canes

to Preston, and a huge chunk of press praised him for his defense of his states' rights. (Cause that was *totally* the issue at hand here)

So yeah. Not only is violence commonground in American politics, I would say it's not American if it isn't violent in nature.

For those of you interested in a "what happened afterwards?" update:

Preston was the brunt of insults and duel challenges for the rest of his life, one that he declined out of fear for his safety. He was convicted by a DC court of assault and fined, but avoided jail. The Dem-influenced House prevented his expulsion and he retained his seat. But...

G*d must've saw all of this and finally did something. Preston croaked 7 months after caning Sumner. He caught an infection of the throat, which made it so impossible to breath comfortably that he ripped his throat out. Yep. "He died a horrid death, and suffered intensely."

Ironically enough, Preston voiced support for the admission of Kansas as a state, even *without* slavery, weeks before dying. He went through all of that mess, just to flip flop on the issue, and still not pass on peacefully.

Still, Preston received several honors, including being the namesake of a county in Georgia and a town in Florida.

Preston's cousin Senator Butler also croaked that year after. He was not present for Sumner's speech or the subsequent caning, yet it became his lasting legacy.

President Pierce went on about his business, pretending to see or know nothing about what happened. He spent the rest of his admin passing laws that furthered imperialism, such as the Guano Island Act that allowed the U.S. to 'claim' 10 new islands.

He continued riding his delusional 'unity' platform, but unfortunately for him, his peers didn't keep that same energy. Despite sweeping in the electorate 4 years prior, Pierce never had majority support at the 1856 party convention that summer, and wasn't even the party nominee.

Pierce was bitter and dumped a mess onto his fellow Dem and successor, James Buchanan, who fared even worse as chief executive.

Historians regard them both as two of the worst and most ineffective Presidents, one calling Pierce "an accident" of a political leader.

Pierce decided on his way *out* to become publicly pro-slavery which did nothing to help his image in the long run. Buchanan, unlike most Presidents of his day, completely overhauled his predecessor's administration and scrapped the policy foundation they laid for him.

Stephen Douglas, meanwhile, eventually dropped out of the '56 presidential race because the party convinced him that they would nominate him in 1860 or 1864. He would go home in 1858 to face a staunch challenge for his Senate seat from Abraham Lincoln. He eventually won...

but would lose to Abe two years later for President, and Douglas ended up screwing the Democrats' influence. It would be a quarter-century before they'd elect another President, and they wouldn't be of national importance for 60 years after.

Despite laying the foundation for all the mess, Douglas was a strong supporter of the Republican Lincoln. He died of illness the day the Civil War reached Illinois in 1861.

Pierce, on the other hand, made it evidently clear that he was anti-Lincoln and moped around the North.

He moaned and bitched to the point that when rumors started spreading that Pierce was planning a coup, mid-war, the Lincoln admin took it seriously enough to inquire about Pierce's business.

While they found the claims baseless, they didn't bother to help Pierce clear his name.

While Pierce continued to moan and bitch about Lincoln, and the country he failed, his wife Jane lived the rest of her life severely depressed and she died in 1863. Pierce was a heavy drinker himself, and this took him over the edge. He knew he was nearing death in the late 60s.

He remained a Southern sympathizer to the point that a mob shamed him after he didn't publicly mourn for Lincoln after his assassination. He then lobbied for his former cabinet member Jefferson Davis' release, which was eventually successful.

Pierce died alone in 1869.

Caning co-conspirator Laurence Keitt spent the rest of his congressional career spewing pro-slavery and states' right rhetoric. He attempted to choke out another congressman in 1858, defected to the Confederacy in 1861, and was killed in action as a colonel in 1864.

Last, but not least, was Charles Sumner, who you could say had the last laugh. Literally, he ironically survived the longest after his beating. Despite being initially mocked, he became a cornerstone of the Senate and would serve for 3 terms of his own.

Days after his caning, a Kansas militia of abolitionists invaded a pro-slavery settlement of a small political faction known as the "Law and Order" Party. Five were murdered in what became known as the Pottawatomie massacre, (allegedly) led by abolitionist John Brown.

That sparked more violence than seen previously in Kansas and stoked what would lead to the Civil War. Meanwhile, Sumner was still recovering, but blamed by some for sowing the impending division. He was reelected to his seat in 1856 although he was in no shape to serve.

He eventually attempted a return to the Senate in 1857 & 1858, but would only become more stressed with the "psychic wounds" he suffered from, so he embarked on voyages to Europe in efforts to recover. He attempted several treatments, some of which may have been ineffective...

Such as burning the skin along his spine.

Eventually, he did return to the Senate in 1859, and when colleagues told him to tone down the rhetoric that "got him beat up" before, but he refused and even became a more 'radical' Republican.

In fact, his first speech on the Senate floor was before the 1860 election was an even more denouncement of slavery. Sumner became an important ally of Lincoln's administration in the Senate, and continued on his radical ways.

He reprimanded Brigadier Gen. Charles Stone in 1861 in part for not granting asylum to fleeing slaves. He openly spoke on how slavery was the sole, necessary reason for the Civil War. He paved the way for the U.S. to recognize Haiti, finally, in 1862.

Later, he even challenged Britain for interfering with U.S. Affairs and sympathizing with the Confederates, requesting that they pay fines for their actions. This messed up his reputation in Britain and angered President Grant because it superseded his agenda, but he didn't care.

Sumner was vehemently anti-Andrew Johnson after Lincoln's assassination, and he would actively interfere in the agenda of Grant's moderate, oft-corrupt admin. He tried to prevent further U.S. imperialism in several places in the Caribbean, such as Cuba and Dominican Republic.

Sumner submitted civil rights bills to challenge the inefficiencies of the 13th Amendment, lobbying for some of them on his deathbed. Only one bill he penned was made into law, but was nullified by the Supreme Court. Another Civil Rights law wasn't passed for 82 years.

Sumner's most important agenda was in preventing the dedication of statues and memorabilia on Civil War subjects, recognizing as early as 1862 that allowing such symbols would immortalize, and legitimize, a war he viewed as 'barbaric.'

I wonder why he would worry about that.

The day before he died, Sumner witnessed his state legislature reverse a censure of his for his anti-memorabilia stance, as Sumner clarified that his principle wasn't extended to flags and similar symbols carried in battle, but federal property and memorabilia created post-war.

He passed of a heart attack in 1874, a beloved and revered statesman despite his radicalism. Much of the agenda he proposed has still not been acted upon by the government.

A elementary school named after Sumner would be the first to be integrated in Topeka after Board v. BOE.

Wow that was long, but there you are. Unrolling now @threadreaderapp

https://twitter.com/threadreaderapp/status/1293862242862141440?s=21