On the second day after the Speech an event occurred which aroused
the country, and was characterized at the time by an eminent English
statesman, Sir George Cornewall Lewis, as “the beginning of civil war.”
Mr. Sumner was sitting at his desk in the Senate Chamber shortly after
the adjournment of the Senate, when he was attacked by the Hon. Preston
S. Brooks, a Representative of South Carolina, and by a succession of
blows on the head with a bludgeon rendered senseless. As confederates
with Mr. Brooks were Hon. Lawrence M. Keitt, a Representative of South
Carolina, and Hon. Henry A. Edmundson, a Representative of Virginia,
who stood at some distance, evidently to sustain the assault. Mr.
Sumner sunk upon the floor of the Senate Chamber. After some time he
was carried to an adjoining room, where his wounds were dressed, and he
was then taken to his lodgings.
The newspapers of the time attest the profound and wide-spread
excitement. The titles of the articles are suggestive. “The Attempt
to murder Mr. Sumner,”--“Ruffianism National,”--“Blood in the
Senate,”--“Outrageous Assault on Senator Sumner,”--“Brutal and Cowardly
Assault upon Charles Sumner,”--“Ruffianism in Washington,”--“A
Crisis at Hand,”--“The Outrage on Mr. Sumner,”--“Atrocious
Outrage,”--“Disgraceful Assault upon a Senator,”--“Another Outrage upon
Massachusetts,”--“A Border Ruffian in the Senate,”--“The Last Argument
of Slavery,”--“Barbarism at the Capitol,”--“Shame! Shame!” Such were
the general voices. The article in the _National Intelligencer_ at
Washington was entitled “Painful Occurrence.”
This incident is inseparable from the speech on the Crime against
Kansas, although some have supposed that the earlier speech, of June
28, 1854, in Reply to Assailants,[140] contributed essentially to the
feeling which broke forth on this occasion. The documents, resolutions,
speeches, and articles which it prompted would occupy volumes. An
attempt will be made to present an abstract under the following heads.