The Caning of Charles Sumner

The Caning of Charles Sumner PDF Author: Williamjames Hull Hoffer
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 0801899575
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 162

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Book Description
A signal, violent event in the history of the United States Congress, the caning of Charles Sumner on the Senate floor embodied the complex North-South cultural divide of the mid-nineteenth century. Williamjames Hull Hoffer's vivid account of the brutal act demonstrates just how far the sections had drifted apart and explains why the coming war was so difficult to avoid. Sumner, a noted abolitionist and gifted speaker, was seated at his Senate desk on May 22, 1856, when Democratic Congressman Preston S. Brooks approached, pulled out a gutta-percha walking stick, and struck him on the head. Brooks continued to beat the stunned Sumner, forcing him to the ground and repeatedly striking him even as the cane shattered. He then pursued the bloodied, staggering Republican senator up the Senate aisle until Sumner collapsed at the feet of Congressman Edwin B. Morgan. Colleagues of the two intervened only after Brooks appeared intent on beating the unconscious Sumner severely—and, perhaps, to death. Sumner's crime? Speaking passionately about the evils of slavery, which dishonored both the South and Brooks’s relative, Senator Andrew P. Butler. Celebrated in the South for the act, Brooks was fined only three hundred dollars, dying a year later of a throat infection. Sumner recovered and served out a distinguished Senate career until his death in 1873. Hoffer's narrative recounts the caning and its aftermath, explores the depths of the differences between free and slave states in 1856, and explains the workings of the Southern honor culture as opposed to Yankee idealism. Hoffer helps us understand why Brooks would take such great offense at a political speech and why he chose a cane—instead of dueling with pistols or swords—to meet his obligation under the South’s prevailing code of honor. He discusses why the courts meted out a comparatively light sentence. He addresses the importance of the event in the national crisis and shows why such actions are not quite as alien to today’s politics as they might at first seem.

The Caning

The Caning PDF Author: Stephen Puleo
Publisher: Westholme Pub Llc
ISBN: 9781594161872
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Book Description
A Turning Point in American History, the Beating of U.S. Senator Charles Sumner and the Beginning of the War Over Slavery Early in the afternoon of May 22, 1856, ardent pro-slavery Congressman Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina strode into the United States Senate Chamber in Washington, D.C., and began beating renowned anti-slavery Senator Charles Sumner with a gold-topped walking cane. Brooks struck again and again—more than thirty times across Sumner's head, face, and shoulders—until his cane splintered into pieces and the helpless Massachusetts senator, having nearly wrenched his desk from its fixed base, lay unconscious and covered in blood. It was a retaliatory attack. Forty-eight hours earlier, Sumner had concluded a speech on the Senate floor that had spanned two days, during which he vilified Southern slaveowners for violence occurring in Kansas, called Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois a “noise-some, squat, and nameless animal,” and famously charged Brooks's second cousin, South Carolina Senator Andrew Butler, as having “a mistress. . . who ugly to others, is always lovely to him. . . . I mean, the harlot, Slavery.” Brooks not only shattered his cane during the beating, but also destroyed any pretense of civility between North and South. One of the most shocking and provocative events in American history, the caning convinced each side that the gulf between them was unbridgeable and that they could no longer discuss their vast differences of opinion regarding slavery on any reasonable level.The Caning: The Assault That Drove America to Civil War tells the incredible story of this transformative event. While Sumner eventually recovered after a lengthy convalescence, compromise had suffered a mortal blow. Moderate voices were drowned out completely; extremist views accelerated, became intractable, and locked both sides on a tragic collision course. The caning had an enormous impact on the events that followed over the next four years: the meteoric rise of the Republican Party and Abraham Lincoln; the Dred Scott decision; the increasing militancy of abolitionists, notably John Brown's actions; and the secession of the Southern states and the founding of the Confederacy. As a result of the caning, the country was pushed, inexorably and unstoppably, to war. Many factors conspired to cause the Civil War, but it was the caning that made conflict and disunion unavoidable five years later.

The Caning of Senator Sumner

The Caning of Senator Sumner PDF Author: T. Lloyd Benson
Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing Company
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
In May of 1856, when Southern Congressman Preston S. Brooks caned Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner on the Senate floor, he shocked the nation and shattered the fragile truce that had existed between North and South. Part of the American Stories series, Benson's book introduces students to this key turning point in the coming of the War and as one of the most pivotal moments in American history. Because its story incorporates so many of the era's key issues like slavery and abolition, personal liberty laws and state rights, "Bleeding Kansas" and territorial expansion, ideals of gender and manhood, competing visions of labor and the economic order, and the revolutionary shift between the Whig-based "second party system" and its Republican-dominated third party successor, it provides an excellent window into the mind of a nation on the brink of conflict. These broad implications and the incident's inherent drama make this a natural topic for the American Stories series. The passionate language and sharp controversy of the collection's editorials and speech excerpts should appeal to a wide range of undergraduates. The narrative is complemented by a number of graphics, including images of the incident and maps showing the politics and intellectual geography of the era and how they were affected by the incident.

The Caning of Charles Sumner

The Caning of Charles Sumner PDF Author: Williamjames Hoffer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description
Charles Sumner was seated at his Senate desk on May 22, 1856, when Democratic Congressman Preston S. Brooks approached, pulled out a walking stick, and struck him on the head. Brooks continued to beat the stunned Sumner, forcing him to the ground and repeatedly striking him even as the cane shattered. He then pursued the bloodied, staggering Republican senator up the Senate aisle until Sumner collapsed. Colleagues of the two intervened only after Brooks appeared intent on beating the unconscious Sumner, perhaps, to death. The caning on the Senate floor embodied just how wide the complex North-South cultural divide of the mid-nineteenth had become, and explains why the coming war was so difficult to avoid.

The Complete Guide to Chair Caning

The Complete Guide to Chair Caning PDF Author: Jim Widess
Publisher: Lark Books
ISBN: 9781579906139
Category : Crafts & Hobbies
Languages : en
Pages : 136

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Book Description
Rounds out this essential resource for crafters and collectors alike. Book jacket.

The Canning Season

The Canning Season PDF Author: Polly Horvath
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1429965096
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
Love under trying circumstances One night out of the blue, Ratchet Clark's ill-natured mother tells her that Ratchet will be leaving their Pensacola apartment momentarily to take the train up north. There she will spend the summer with her aged relatives Penpen and Tilly, inseparable twins who couldn't look more different from each other. Staying at their secluded house, Ratchet is treated to a passel of strange family history and local lore, along with heaps of generosity and care that she has never experienced before. Also, Penpen has recently espoused a new philosophy – whatever shows up on your doorstep you have to let in. Through thick wilderness, down forgotten, bear-ridden roads, come a variety of characters, drawn to Penpen and Tilly's open door. It is with vast reservations that the cautious Tilly allows these unwelcome guests in. But it turns out that unwelcome guests may bring the greatest gifts. By turns dark and humorous, Polly Horvath offers adolescent readers enough quirky characters and outrageous situations to leave them reeling! The Canning Season is the winner of the 2003 National Book Award for Young People's Literature.

The Field of Blood

The Field of Blood PDF Author: Joanne B. Freeman
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374717613
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 480

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Book Description
The previously untold story of the violence in Congress that helped spark the Civil War In The Field of Blood, Joanne B. Freeman recovers the long-lost story of physical violence on the floor of the U.S. Congress. Drawing on an extraordinary range of sources, she shows that the Capitol was rife with conflict in the decades before the Civil War. Legislative sessions were often punctuated by mortal threats, canings, flipped desks, and all-out slugfests. When debate broke down, congressmen drew pistols and waved Bowie knives. One representative even killed another in a duel. Many were beaten and bullied in an attempt to intimidate them into compliance, particularly on the issue of slavery. These fights didn’t happen in a vacuum. Freeman’s dramatic accounts of brawls and thrashings tell a larger story of how fisticuffs and journalism, and the powerful emotions they elicited, raised tensions between North and South and led toward war. In the process, she brings the antebellum Congress to life, revealing its rough realities—the feel, sense, and sound of it—as well as its nation-shaping import. Funny, tragic, and rivetingly told, The Field of Blood offers a front-row view of congressional mayhem and sheds new light on the careers of John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, and other luminaries, as well as introducing a host of lesser-known but no less fascinating men. The result is a fresh understanding of the workings of American democracy and the bonds of Union on the eve of their greatest peril.

Voyage of Mercy

Voyage of Mercy PDF Author: Stephen Puleo
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1250200482
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
“Puleo has found a new way to tell the story with this well-researched and splendidly written chronicle of the Jamestown, its captain, and an Irish priest who ministered to the starving in Cork city...Puleo’s tale, despite the hardship to come, surely is a tribute to the better angels of America’s nature, and in that sense, it couldn’t be more timely.” —The Wall Street Journal The remarkable story of the mission that inspired a nation to donate massive relief to Ireland during the potato famine and began America's tradition of providing humanitarian aid around the world More than 5,000 ships left Ireland during the great potato famine in the late 1840s, transporting the starving and the destitute away from their stricken homeland. The first vessel to sail in the other direction, to help the millions unable to escape, was the USS Jamestown, a converted warship, which left Boston in March 1847 loaded with precious food for Ireland. In an unprecedented move by Congress, the warship had been placed in civilian hands, stripped of its guns, and committed to the peaceful delivery of food, clothing, and supplies in a mission that would launch America’s first full-blown humanitarian relief effort. Captain Robert Bennet Forbes and the crew of the USS Jamestown embarked on a voyage that began a massive eighteen-month demonstration of soaring goodwill against the backdrop of unfathomable despair—one nation’s struggle to survive, and another’s effort to provide a lifeline. The Jamestown mission captured hearts and minds on both sides of the Atlantic, of the wealthy and the hardscrabble poor, of poets and politicians. Forbes’ undertaking inspired a nationwide outpouring of relief that was unprecedented in size and scope, the first instance of an entire nation extending a hand to a foreign neighbor for purely humanitarian reasons. It showed the world that national generosity and brotherhood were not signs of weakness, but displays of quiet strength and moral certitude. In Voyage of Mercy, Stephen Puleo tells the incredible story of the famine, the Jamestown voyage, and the commitment of thousands of ordinary Americans to offer relief to Ireland, a groundswell that provided the collaborative blueprint for future relief efforts, and established the United States as the leader in international aid. The USS Jamestown’s heroic voyage showed how the ramifications of a single decision can be measured not in days, but in decades.

Canning, Freezing & Drying

Canning, Freezing & Drying PDF Author: Sunset magazine
Publisher: Sunset Books/Sunset Publishing Corporation
ISBN: 9780376022134
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 134

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Book Description
Preserving your own food -- for nutrition, satisfaction, and economy. Step-by-step illustrated directions with easy-to-use charts for canning, freezing, and drying.

The Caning of Michael Fay

The Caning of Michael Fay PDF Author: Gopal Baratham
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Americans
Languages : en
Pages : 166

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Book Description


The Caning of Charles Sumner

The Caning of Charles Sumner PDF Author: Williamjames Hull Hoffer
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 0801899575
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 162

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Book Description
A signal, violent event in the history of the United States Congress, the caning of Charles Sumner on the Senate floor embodied the complex North-South cultural divide of the mid-nineteenth century. Williamjames Hull Hoffer's vivid account of the brutal act demonstrates just how far the sections had drifted apart and explains why the coming war was so difficult to avoid. Sumner, a noted abolitionist and gifted speaker, was seated at his Senate desk on May 22, 1856, when Democratic Congressman Preston S. Brooks approached, pulled out a gutta-percha walking stick, and struck him on the head. Brooks continued to beat the stunned Sumner, forcing him to the ground and repeatedly striking him even as the cane shattered. He then pursued the bloodied, staggering Republican senator up the Senate aisle until Sumner collapsed at the feet of Congressman Edwin B. Morgan. Colleagues of the two intervened only after Brooks appeared intent on beating the unconscious Sumner severely—and, perhaps, to death. Sumner's crime? Speaking passionately about the evils of slavery, which dishonored both the South and Brooks’s relative, Senator Andrew P. Butler. Celebrated in the South for the act, Brooks was fined only three hundred dollars, dying a year later of a throat infection. Sumner recovered and served out a distinguished Senate career until his death in 1873. Hoffer's narrative recounts the caning and its aftermath, explores the depths of the differences between free and slave states in 1856, and explains the workings of the Southern honor culture as opposed to Yankee idealism. Hoffer helps us understand why Brooks would take such great offense at a political speech and why he chose a cane—instead of dueling with pistols or swords—to meet his obligation under the South’s prevailing code of honor. He discusses why the courts meted out a comparatively light sentence. He addresses the importance of the event in the national crisis and shows why such actions are not quite as alien to today’s politics as they might at first seem.