"Anti-Slavery Jeremiads"

Seeking a Southern perspective on the Brooks-Sumner caning affair (May 22, 1856), I found an interesting editorial in the Richmond Enquirer in the May 27, edition under the headline "Anti-Slavery Jeremiads."

"The attempts of the Northern Abolitionists, in their numerous meetings, to make a martyr of Charles Sumner on account of his richly deserved thrashing for his foul-mouthed insolence and filthy slanders upon the South and her best and purest sons, cannot fail to produce an intense disgust in the communities where such ridiculous demonstrations have taken place. Is a man, because he happens to wear and to disgrace Senatorial robes, privileged to play the slanderer with impunity, and to go unwhipped of justice. however atrocious his conduct may have been? We do not so read the Constitution nor the spirit of our political and social institutions. It is undoubted that Mr. Brooks, impelled by the highest motives, sought to punish the offender elsewhere than in the Senate Chamber, but circumstances prevented him. Where was the mighty wrong in inflicting the punishment in the Senate chamber, which was then like any other place, as the body was not in session? The proposition adopted by the Massachusetts abolitionists, that the House should expel Mr. Brooks, is the most ridiculous that can be imagined. The good sense of the nation will soon regard the whole matter in its true light, and the people will view with disgust an attempt to create an awful excitement throughout the confederacy, because Senators, who outrage decency and propriety, are punished as they deserve. The attempt to make a martyr of Sumner will prove a monstrous abortion."

It is easy to see that the Enquirer felt Brooks was justified in his actions due to the slanders Sumner heaped upon Brooks's kinsman, South Carolina Senator Andrew Pickens Butler. The paper felt that no one, no matter their class or status was above being checked for egregious verbal outrages, especially when directed at one who was not present to make a defense. It mattered little to them that the incident occurred on the floor of the Senate, especially since it was not in order at the time of the incident. The editor felt that Brooks should not face censure from the body of the House of Representatives, and that in their line of thinking, reason would prove them correct when passions died down and the situation was carefully considered.

However correct the Enquirer was in the eyes of Southerners, they were totally wrong from Northerners' perspective. Sumner did become a martyr. From Kansas to Boston, antislavery proponents used the caning incident as motivation to strengthen their fight against the "peculiar institution."

Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.