It’s not often that I giggle from studying history. At this moment in time, considering the massive amount of time I’m expending on my honours thesis, the laughs are in short supply. But every now and then a tiny snippet of historical text causes me to crack a grin, usually when my brain is at its worst. One such moment was when I was reviewing the career of President Theodore Roosevelt and stumbled across tales of his white house boxing bouts with his members of staff, and his infamous hand-to-hand combat with wild cats in the American wilderness. Tonight I stumbled across another gem, regarding a speech by Senator Charles Sumner of South Carolina gave to the American congress in 1856.
‘The speech so enraged Butler’s cousin, Representative Preston Brooks, that on May 22 he entered the Senate intending to uphold the southern gentlemen’s code of honor by “whipping” the Massachusetts senator. But after lightly tapping Sumner, who was immobile because he was seated with his legs under a desk, Brooks lost all self-control and savagely beat the antislavery Senator with a wooden cane.
Brook’s beating left Sumner physically and psychologically unable to attend the Senate for two and half years’
Taken from McJimsey, George T, “The Dividing and Reuniting of America: 1848-1877″, Forum Press Inc, 1990, p. 15.
If only contemporary Australian politics was this exciting!
I am doing a History report buyt why did he hit him with the cane?
Katie
May 2nd, 2007
I believe Charles Sumner said something insulting about the cousin of Preston Brooks.
I’m pretty sure wikipedia has the answer.
daz
June 4th, 2007