Congressional Violence (with Dr. Paul Quigley)

Added: 2026-05-08

[00:00:01]Welcome to the Emerging Civil War podcast. I'm Chris Makowski and joining me today from the great University of Virginia Tech is Dr. Paul Quigley. Paul, how are you today?

[00:00:12]>> I'm very well, thank you. Glad to be with you.

[00:00:14]>> Delighted to have you with us. Paul is the director of the Center for Civil War Studies down at Virginia Tech and he has a new book coming out called The Man Behind the Cane. I'm making sure I get the the uh subtitle right. Preston Brooks, Political Violence and the Road to Civil War. And uh I thought it was a particularly opportune time to talk to Paul because um just recently as part of the confirmation hearings for the new Secretary of Homeland Security, uh the idea of political violence came up and uh Senator Mark Wayne Mullen, who went on to become nominated, he said, "There's been canings before in the Senate. Maybe we should bring some of that back. keep people from thinking they're so tough. And then later on, Newsmax, he said, "We looked into the rules. You used to be able to cane." And so, at the end of the day, there is precedence for it if that's what someone wants to do. And this came as as originally part of a a hearing that he was involved with where he kind of got into some verbal sparring with a a testimony, a witness during testimony, and um they threatened to start fighting [laughter] and it then came back up during the Senate hearing. So the idea that there is precedence for such behavior, I thought I got to talk to somebody about this. And as it happens, Paul, you're an expert. So thank you for spending some time with us today. Uh so and we'll avoid the actual modern politics, but let's talk about that idea of political violence in the Senate. And uh certainly the most famous instance is sort of at the heart of your book um with with Preston Brooks caning Charles Sumner.

[00:01:51]Um, for folks who might not be familiar with the incident, maybe you could sketch that out for us real quick.

[00:01:57]>> Yeah, definitely. It's sort of an iconic story in American history. So, a lot of people may be broadly familiar with it, but um maybe not all the details. And the basic storyline is that uh Charles Sumner who was the senator or a senator from Massachusetts gave a speech in the Senate in May 1856 about the situation in Kansas and whether the United States should expand into can into Kansas as a slaveolding um new state or a free labor new state. And so Snar in his speech um was uh on the extreme end of the spectrum very anti-slavery. He was one of the leading abolitionists of the time and he spoke out very loudly and insistently against the idea that slavery ought to be able to expand into new states entering the union. In the course of doing that, he um he lobbed some insults uh toward the south in general um and toward one southern senator in particular, Andrew P. Butler who was not present in the Senate at the time but had been engaged in the debates over Kansas uh in the preceding couple of years. Um and Snar you know made fun of Andrew Butler on a personal level. He mocked uh a tendency Butler had to spit as he spoke uh which had uh developed after a stroke uh some time earlier. Uh he also had some uh uh often repeated lines in his speech about um implying that slaveholders um were interested in Kansas almost in a kind of sexualized way expanding uh the institution of slavery was in SA's opinion tantamount to rape and he talked about uh slaveholders uh having uh sex with their female slaves and this kind of thing and pointed all of that directly at Andrew through Py Butler. And so in the audience for part of this speech, not the whole thing, for part, but part of it was Preston Brooks, who is the man behind the cane as I call him in my book title. And he was a congressman from South Carolina, but he was in the Senate listening in on some of the speeches.

[00:04:12]And um he was outraged, as most southern congressmen were, and indeed many northern congressmen, you know, thought Snar had gone way too far with his speech and the insults. Um but uh Brooks also had a special reason to be irritated because Andrew P. Butler, the special target of Sumner's speech, was um was Preston Brooks's father's cousin.

[00:04:38]So he felt duty bound to retaliate to defend Butler's honor, to defend the honor of slaveholders and all the rest of it. And so to cut a long story short, a couple of days later, he went into the Senate chamber after the Senate had adjourned. Snow was still there working.

[00:04:56]And Butler uh Brooks proceeded to attack Charles Sner with his cane uh for about a minute uh by all accounts, hitting him as hard as he possibly could around about 30 times, leaving Snar with no chance to defend himself. And eventually Sner fell briefly unconscious. He had several serious cuts to his head, including two that actually made uh made contact with the bone of his skull. Um so a really serious assault and it was all in retaliation for the speech that Charles Sar had gave had given a couple of days before.

[00:05:36]>> [snorts] >> And people don't realize that, you know, there was no intervention because because Brooks had a little help in kind of pulling this off.

[00:05:44]>> Yeah. He had what you might think of as a wingman, uh, Lawrence Kit, who was another representative from South Carolina in the US Congress. And so in some of the famous pictures of the caning, which you know, again, most people have seen these at one point or another, um, but Kit is there holding his own cane up and trying to warn bystandards away from getting involved.

[00:06:10]Wow. So now this is a far cry from I think the way the story gets passed down to history where Summoner is speaking against slavery and some pro- Southern uh member of Congress comes in and just starts beating on him. And as you explain, there's a whole lot more. And I wouldn't say Sumar had it coming, uh, you know, cuz I would never advocate violence that way. But certainly, as you said, he's crossed a couple lines in some pretty serious ways that are breaches of particularly southern decorum here.

[00:06:42]>> Yeah, that's right. And um, even some northern Democratic uh, senators who were present for the speech spoke out against it. You know, they tended to sympathize uh, with southern slaveholders. they were united with them in the Democratic party at the time. Uh Snow was part of the brand new, you know, still emerging Republican party.

[00:07:05]So, he was a political opponent. So, they'd be expected to disagree with him.

[00:07:10]But, um even so, they came out in no uncertain terms saying, you know, you you've overstepped the line here.

[00:07:17]>> Yeah. So, why is it that the story gets as sanitized as it does?

[00:07:23]Um, I think it's one of those stories that has been uh just simplified. Uh, it's become a representative uh tale of political violence. It tends to come up anytime, you know, there's any hint of violence in Congress like this most recent incident. It's the example that everyone refers to and I think it's just become legendary and kind of become um uh simplified into that one image you know and again there are two famous images that uh many people will have seen of the caning um and typically that's all people know about the caning. So part of the rationale behind this book is can we find out a little bit more or a lot more hopefully about Preston Brooks, his motivations, where he was coming from, but also the political context of the speech, why SA said what he said, um why it said why it touched such a nerve uh with his political opponents as well. It does seem like, you know, that that sanitized story is, you know, turns these folks into archetypes representing North and South and um it maybe get a little maybe gets a little easy to moralize there because oh look, the poor abolitionist gets beat up by the angry southerner who's in favor of slavery. Um but and this is what I love about history is so messy, you know, and you're you're you're already explaining like this is a whole messy situation to begin with here. Um, let's let's start with Sumner U because he's the one people know most about if they've heard of anybody in this story and then we'll kind of dig into Preston Brooks a little bit because I like this idea of finding this mystery man a little bit. But in your research, what did you come to know about Charles Sumner?

[00:09:07]>> Um, I I came to understand, I think, Charles Sumner's motivations for his political positions. um he was uh an idealist. He wanted the world to be a better place and that's the background he was coming from on this issue and others as well. So he became um a reformer really in the 1840s on a number of different issues including peace. He he was an anti-war campaigner. Did not think that uh war was ever a good idea for governments to engage in. Um he also got involved in uh prison reform, this kind of thing, trying to look out for the uh well-being of imprisoned people.

[00:09:52]And then uh slavery of course was rising up at that time in the 1840s and 1850s as the defining issue of American politics. And it's no surprise that SA came into that debate uh thinking about the well-being of the people who were enslaved uh appalled by the injustice.

[00:10:13]You know, the basic injustice, how can one person possibly own another? Um so he came into this with uh really noble ideals of anti-slavery. We need to end this thing as quickly and as completely as possible. and he didn't, you know, coin the phrase by any means necessary.

[00:10:33]And I don't think he would have said by any means necessary, but he was certainly prepared because he thought this was such an urgent issue again for the welfare of enslaved people, he was prepared to cross those lines in his rhetoric and and uh speeches in the Senate. now because he's kind of coming from this sense of moral certainty from his perspective um and he's willing to cross those lines as a Massachusetts.

[00:11:02]Is he fully aware of sort of the southern culture of honor and you know uh and dignity and and sort of the the cavalier code? Does he get that?

[00:11:15]>> I think so. Um, I think so in part because by 1856 when all of this was happening, um, northerners in the in the emerging Republican party were well aware of what southern slaveholders wanted, how they behaved, what made them tick. Um, because they, you know, the southern slaveholders were the enemy of people like Charles Sumner. And so they spent time trying to understand the enemy. Certainly in Congress, you know, this was a place where you think of Congress as a a as a site of division and conflict, and it was, but it's also a place, a physical place where people from all over the country came together and got to know each other. Um, you know, sometimes on quite friendly terms, even if they were political opponents.

[00:12:06]Now, I wouldn't say that was the case for Sumar and the Southern Slave Holders, but um there's there's a lot of opportunity just to understand what makes each other tick in a place like Washington DC.

[00:12:18]>> Is there any part of Summoner that might think I could get my butt kicked for this or someone might challenge me to a duel over this?

[00:12:28]>> Yeah, I think he was would have been well aware that this was a possibility.

[00:12:32]In fact, after the speech, some of his friends kind of warned him, are you a little worried about what might happen as a result of this? And but again, he's he's the idealist. He's the reformer.

[00:12:44]He's committed to his principles. So, he kind of brushes it off and says, you know, what will happen will happen, but I said what I wanted to say.

[00:12:53]>> Okay. Standing by his convictions.

[00:12:55]>> Yeah. And on the other side, Preston Brooks, a name that maybe is not as familiar as Charles Sumner is. People might even not recognize that he's from the House rather than the Senate. So, he is somewhat of a mystery man. Uh, what attracted you to delve into his story?

[00:13:12]>> Well, two things really. One is just, you know, being being a a 19th century US historian researching and teaching history over the years, I found myself talking a lot about the caning, but usually in the way that most other people do, which is, you know, this is a really brief, engaging, illustrative story uh of the of the buildup to the Civil War, and then we move on. You know, we we don't really need to know much about it. So I I was aware of that kind of uh use of the story of the caning and the the minimal attention that is typically played paid to Preston Brooks. Um so that was one thing and then another thing is I was doing some research for my first book at the University of South Carolina and I saw that the Preston Brooks papers were there. So I decided, you know, these these could be useful for the project I was working on then. So, I took a look and one of the items in that collection really jumped out at me. It was a scrapbook >> of newspaper clippings about Preston Brooks that was put together by a couple of different um members of his family after he died. And so, you know, lots of really rich information these newspaper articles contain, but also just the thought that here's this guy who's the archetypal villain, you know, and not that I want to, you know, cast him in positive terms in in in that kind of sense. But here's this guy who's vilified um throughout American history and you know yet he was a guy with relatives who cared about him and who took the time to put together this scrapbook uh containing evidence of you know what he had done in the Senate but also lots of other aspects of his life as well. So that sort of intrigued me and you know again it's not like I never got to the point where I'm trying to you know bring back the positive reputation of Preston Brooks or anything like that but I did realize that it would be really interesting and I think worthwhile just to try to understand him. Uh well, and of course there is just that basic notion that if he's serving in the House, he must have some influence and some reputation that people think like, oh, he he's a guy that's worth representing us and and you know, being our voice. So, so who is this guy that gets this opportunity to go to Congress?

[00:15:44]So, in many ways, his life is typical of congressmen coming from the South at this point in American history. you know, he's he's born into a fairly well-off slaveolding family in the up country of South Carolina. So, his father, Whitfield Brooks, was a planter um who made most of his money from enslaved labor producing cotton and other crops. So, that's the world Preston Brooks grows into. He gets this elite education um including at South Carolina College, which is now University of South Carolina. And um so in a lot of ways his personal background led him quite naturally to a political career. This is one of the things that the sons of wealthy slaveholders were sort of expected to do at this time. Um so he became he followed in his father's footsteps. Uh became a a slave planter, a lawyer for a short time and eventually a US congressman. And does he distinguish himself as a congressperson?

[00:16:53]Is he, you know, good at his job?

[00:16:56]>> I'd say my impression is he's good enough. He's he's pretty good at his job. You know, he doesn't make much of a mark really in Congress, except he does get a bit of a reputation and actually a bit of push back from his South Carolina constituents. um wait for it for being not too radical but for being too moderate in his politics.

[00:17:21]>> Wow.

[00:17:21]>> So you know this time South Carolina is is over on the other end of the spectrum from Charles Sumner in terms of being you know radically pro-slavery. South Carolina's politicians are usually the ones who are causing most of the trouble around the slavery issue in national politics. Um, so that's where Brooks comes out of. When he gets to Congress, he, you know, falls into that mold to a large degree, but in some of his best known speeches, he actually tries to temper the radicalism of his South Carolina colleagues, tries to make a little bit more of a moderate position for himself in the national issues of the day. So he gets criticized for that, which seems strange given that he later becomes the poster boy for South Carolina extremism.

[00:18:10]>> But I guess that then speaks to that notion of that family connection and personal honor so much as maybe political motivation to do this, which you know, again, maybe something a lot of northerners don't quite understand by this point, but uh definitely baked into southern society at this point.

[00:18:27]>> Yeah. Yeah. And he um he also had some personal experiences that in the book I I talk about as a way of explaining how we can understand his mindset in 1856 and why, you know, part partly the question I think is exactly that. Why does this congressman who's made a name for himself as a moderate South Carolina politician, why does he become then um why does he then engage in the most radical extreme act of political violence to date? Um and I answer that question partly by digging into his personal life and background and various uh brushes with violence that he's had over the course of his life. I think help explain his mindset in 1856.

[00:19:14]>> How much influence does South Carolina's overall political climate and tradition have on him as he's sort of finding his own way and and you know thinking of course as South Carolina is the cradle of John C. Calhoun and you know the the huge impact that had on national dialogue for so long. What kind of [clears throat] influence is that tradition on Brooks?

[00:19:36]>> I think it's a huge influence. He went to um school and college with other members of the state's political elite.

[00:19:45]Um you know, South Carolina College I mentioned he he was there and um he was there alongside you know other leading politicians or previous uh years had seen uh some of the leading politicians attend. So this is the world he comes out of is the South Carolina political world of extremist uh resistance and opposition to federal government power when it came to the tariffs in the nullification crisis and then other other issues in the years after that. So he's very much of this world even though he's trying to not be the most radical example of of this type of politician. Uh and then as you say he becomes the poster boy for that time.

[00:20:30][laughter] Um so uh and I'll come I want to come back to Brooks and Summoner and sort of carry out their their story in a second.

[00:20:36]But you you made a great point where this is the most radical act of political violence to this point um in American history. Can you contextualize that for us a little bit? Um you know certainly it it becomes this flash point, but has there been other violence up to this point? Is there other precedents for this?

[00:20:55]Yeah, there absolutely is. Um, and there's a great book on this subject by Joanne Freeman called Field of Blood, and her topic is uh violence in and around Congress in the 30 or so years leading up to the Civil War. And so she um she counted more than 70 acts of violence of one kind or another, many of them involving the North South conflict over slavery, but not all. Um and the cananing of Charles Sumner was just the most dramatic, the most visible, the one that has come down to us in history today. Um but there were many other episodes before and after. Some of them involving the same kinds of people, you know, some like Andrew P. Butler um was involved in uh a near conflict a couple of years before the caning over the Kansas issue when that was first starting to heat up. So there's definitely a context here of frayed tempers and a willingness to at least contemplate violence by congressmen. Um that certainly affects what Preston Brooks feels he has to do in 1856.

[00:22:08]And you know, I think one of the great romances of American history, and I to some degree I buy into it, too. It's just this idea that, you know, the debate and the discussion and the disagreements has been sort of codified into a process where congressmen and senators debate and discuss. And so that's kind of how we all hash it out.

[00:22:27]And we're all civilized about it and we make it all happen. But, um, you know, as you suggest, that isn't always been the happy picture.

[00:22:36]>> Yeah, that's right. Um, politics was in different kinds of ways actually a a violent pursuit in the 19th century. Um, you know, not only all of the incidents that Joan Freeman covers in her book, including a a fatal jewel between two congressmen in the 1830s, by the way, um, but also just American politics in general was a a violent um, uh, landscape. uh elections for example, you know, we know especially the stories during the reconstruction era about how often elections turned violent. Uh physical coercion was used to try and make people vote or not vote or vote in a certain way. Um so, you know, the kinds of things that seem beyond the pale to us today or I mean at least did until a few years ago um were were actually fairly common in the 19th century. Uh and during his confirmation hearing, Senator Mullins actually referenced um Andrew Jackson and he had fought a duel once upon a time and a pretty famous story. So, you know, nothing obscure there, but just this idea that politics as a rough and tumble landscape and and not just this civil debate um is is kind of surprising to some people, I think.

[00:23:56]>> Yeah, definitely. Um and and what I found is as I've been working on this book uh which has been quite a few years now when I began um there you know when I when I mentioned what I was working on people would often find it humorous you know the very idea that somebody could a congressman could beat up a senator in the Senate. It just seemed like you know that was a different world. There's no way anything like that could happen these days. Um, but of course over the last few years, you know, as I as I've been writing the book, that picture has changed a bit and it's felt like it's gone from being a a humorous outlier to a lot of people to a more realistic danger that could happen again.

[00:24:40]>> Yeah. So, when the caning takes place, um, what is the reaction to the, you know, by the public when this happens?

[00:24:47]Is this like a a catch your breath moment or is this something else?

[00:24:53]Yeah, and that's um really the subject of um a good part of the second half of the book. The first half of the book is, you know, who was Preston Brooks? Where did he come from? Why why did he do what he did? And the second half of the book is what did the caning mean to Americans at the time? How did it affect uh politics in particular? And the easy way to answer the question about reactions to the caning is to say for the most part white southerners applauded what Brooks had done, saw him as a champion who had protected and defended their interests. Um northerners, whether white or African-American, um were of course much more likely to uh object strenuously to what he did. And for them he became sort of an emblem of the slave what they called back then the slave power. So this kind of general picture of slaveholders as um being a despotic force in American politics. Too much political power which was based on the violence they uh they enacted against enslaved people. Um so that's sort of the simple story is white southerners said go for it. you know, we're glad you did this. And and northerners tended to say, "No, this was terrible." But one of the things I try to do is dig deeper here as well and look at more of the sort of shades of gray that there were in the responses to the caning. Um, and this takes a number of farms. You know, for one thing, there are uh groups and locations within both regions that were more or less radical in terms of their region's politics. So in the south for example, if you look at some of the border south states, you know, Kentucky, Maryland, whatever, or the cities in the south, they tended to um be less radical when it came to the slavery issue, and so they were less likely to applaud Brooks for what he had done. Um, and same kind of thing in the north. You know, I already mentioned earlier some of those northern Democratic senators and representatives.

[00:27:02]um they uh were no friends of Charles Sumner and and the abolitionists and so they were more likely they they tended not to approve you know in any complete sense of what Brooks had done but they tended to take a more sort of middle ground approach where it was like okay we don't think anybody should get physically assaulted in Congress but nor do we think that anybody should give the kinds of speeches that Charles Sumner gave so blaming the the kind extremists on both sides was pretty common.

[00:27:35]>> Yeah. Is there a point at which Congress has a reckoning with itself to say like we need to make sure that this kind of stuff doesn't happen again? Um and if so, when does that happen?

[00:27:47]>> Yeah, I'm not sure there's any particular moment where that happened.

[00:27:50]It's a gradual shift. Um in the immediate aftermath of the caning, um the Senate decided we don't want to go there. We, you know, this is too controversial. we're just going to not do anything official in terms of an investigation or hearings. Uh even though it took place there. Um the House though, which was already controlled to a large degree by the New Republican party, they had enough power in the House to launch an investigation and official hearing into the caning. And so one of the best sources uh it's one of these um uh great 19th century historical sources that's now easily available online. Anyone can look at it.

[00:28:34]It's uh I think it's about 150 page document printed by the investigating committee in the house. It's called the alleged assault upon Senator Sumner and it contains all the interviews that this committee did with witnesses uh and so on to try and figure out what had happened.

[00:28:54]Now, because the Republicans were in a majority, same as would happen today, they got to determine what the final report looked like. And so they um gave a an auntie Brooks version of the story probably, you know, very similar to what most of us would think today. You know, this was appalling. You know, how how can we how could we possibly justify this kind of violence? But then there was also a minority report from the southern members of that committee. And as you might imagine, they gave a very different account. It's like, you know, we approve of what he did. Ser was wrong. Brooks had to retaliate and it's fine that he did that.

[00:29:36]>> Wow. Well, in the title, the alleged assault, despite, you know, it's come down in American history, there are lots of witnesses. Why do they just still tag that word alleged?

[00:29:47]>> Yeah, that's a great question. I hadn't really thought about that. Um cuz certainly, you know, for the people responsible for producing that document, there was no doubt that the assault had taken place. And you know, Preston Brooks never denied it. How could he deny it? There were 20 odd witnesses in the Senate that day. Uh, all of whom were interviewed by the committee and gave their testimony. So, yeah, that's a good question. I'm not sure why how that word crept into the title.

[00:30:15]>> Huh, that's interesting. And I guess famously people send Brooks canes as congratulatory gifts.

[00:30:24]>> Yeah, that's right. So what happened in the 19th century often was that in response to big events or political issues like this, local communities would get together and um they would discuss what had happened and then often write collaboratively resolutions basically giving this is our community's take on what happened. So there are a lot of these meetings across the south and the north and several of the well more than several quite a number dozens of these southern meetings in addition to giving approving resolutions uh of what Brooks had done. They also said, "And we want to send him a cane." Uh, or there were other gifts as well, like, you know, a silver picture or, you know, this kind of thing um that they uh got together and and sent to Brooks. But really the most disturbing were the one were the examples where they sent canes.

[00:31:20]And there are even examples where the cane would hold the inscription, "Hit him again."

[00:31:26]um which really signals um the fairly common white southern reaction to the caning of you know not only do we support what Brooks did but we feel this may be necessary to keep doing in order to combat the abolitionist menace.

[00:31:42]>> Wow. your your um discussion of the reaction to the event reminds me a lot of you know reaction to um John Brown a couple years later and depending on where you fell on the political side of things you either thought it was fantastic or you thought it was absolutely terrible um and and I'm just sort of musing here I guess but kind of thinking about events in Kansas and this and what happens like the idea that violence to address political issues seems to be a you know obviously a growing problem because it leads to civil war. Is there any point in in your research? Is there any point where someone's just like, "Hey, we need to cool this off. We need to put the brakes on this. Things are really kind of getting out of hand."

[00:32:26]>> Yeah, there were definitely people at the time in 1856 who had that reaction.

[00:32:32]Um, and they were often the moderates in either region. So um you know southerners who lived in the upper south who didn't especially want to you know keep fighting against abolitionism didn't think it was worth this level of physical violence. They were the ones who were likely to say this is heading in a really worrying direction and we need to stop this. This is a dangerous phenomenon in American politics that is just going to continue getting worse unless we stop it. So there were some voices, but they just weren't powerful enough to actually stop that spiral. I think it's really hard to do actually once it starts.

[00:33:11]>> Yeah. Yeah. And can you situate this event in the arc as it continues forward? And you know, obviously the war itself, you know, we could characterize that as political violence, but that aside, how does this event kind of situate in American history as as history continues onward?

[00:33:30]>> Yeah. One of the things I was sort of surprised by actually in um doing the research for this book is that not that many people talk about Preston Brooks and the caning in to any great degree after you know 1857 which by the way is when Preston Brooks died. Um, and it popped up every now and again, particularly when anytime uh, congressmen fought against each other or violence once again entered the Congress in one way or another. Um, people would talk about Brooks and the caning. Um, but aside from that, it really has been pretty much limited to the basic story that's in the, you know, American history books and lectures where it's just like here's 30 seconds to illustrate this larger trend. Um so but the times when it did come up in Congress tended to be you know just periodically when congressmen would fight against each other uh that's when people would start talking about Preston Brooks again.

[00:34:36]>> Now would you characterize this event as a precedent for it being okay?

[00:34:40][laughter] Um you know uh because it seems like gosh Congress didn't do anything about it or the Senate didn't do anything about it.

[00:34:48]>> Yeah. Um yeah, actually let me backtrack a little bit there. Um cuz congress, so I mentioned the the congressional investigation in the House and the report that they issued. Um I didn't quite finish that part of the story, which is that um the the House had a vote on whether to expel Preston Brooks, okay, >> for what he had done. So there was an effort to hold him to account and more than half of the representatives said yes. However, it's one of those votes that would require twothirds to actually implement it. Um, however, uh, Preston Brooks took that opportunity after the vote to stand up in the House and say, "Well, even though you're not expelling me officially, I'm resigning um because, you know, you you signaled a lack of confidence in me from a a majority of the congressman." But then he knew full well what was going to happen next which is that there was a special election and his constituents reelected him unanimously. So he went back into the congress even after resigning. So all of that is just to say there was um you know in the house there was an effort to hold him accountable. There was this vote um and at least that signaled that more than half of the representatives thought that what he had done um was unacceptable.

[00:36:12]Now you mentioned he dies in 1859 so he must have a rather short career. Um can you fill out the the remaining days for us?

[00:36:21]>> Yeah. Um so it was actually 1857. So even sooner after the caning. It was January 1857 and by that time, you know, he had returned to life as no longer a sort of anonymous congressman cuz everyone knew who he was, but just trying to do his job and and and go about his business.

[00:36:43]He had a lot more celebrity status in the south, a lot more notoriety in Washington DC and of course in the north as well. Um but he has not really done any you know he hasn't committed further acts of violence or anything like that.

[00:36:59]Um but in January 1857 he contracted some kind of cold uh with maybe a virus in his throat. Uh it was some called by some observer's group or some form of laryngitis and uh basically died after a few days. He died in his hotel room in Washington DC. So yeah, it's interesting to speculate about what might have happened had he lived. You know, you can imagine him uh volunteering quickly for the Confederacy and trying to make a name for him on the battle himself on the battlefield.

[00:37:37]>> Sumner uh gets knocked out of action because of this [clears throat] for a while, but he comes back um and has a a long and storied career, but sometimes problematic. um can you flesh out his story for us?

[00:37:48]>> Yeah, so he he did take a few years to get back into this the Senate and his regular duties. Um as I mentioned before, he had these serious head wounds. Um you can only speculate, I think, about the kind of mental uh impact this incident would have on a person just, you know, thinking about the trauma. Um there's been speculation about uh PTSD affecting Sumner as well.

[00:38:18]Um there also has been over the years a lot of accusations that he played it up.

[00:38:24]You know, he made it out to be worse than it really was. He he wanted to be a kind of martyr to make his opponents look worse than they already did. Um so I I think um most historians today would say probably not. you know, his his injuries were serious enough to warrant um you know, he took quite a bit of time off from his senatorial duties. Having said that, of course, as we discussed before, he is a radical reformer. He's committed to his principles. So, it's also easy to imagine him allowing, you know, the severity of his injuries to play to full effect to national audiences in that way. Um but yeah, once the once we get close to the outbreak of the Civil War, Snar is is back in the Senate, he's back playing a similar kind of role as he did earlier in the 1850s, but now in a different context. you know, now the Republican party has be, you know, moved over not entirely to his radical end of the spectrum, but certainly has become more um comfortable with his views and and and the extremity of his views about slavery in particular, especially of course after the Emancipation Proclamation, you get into the reconstruction period when the Republican party is trying to um reconstruct the southern states and to implement at least le at least a measure of black equality and liberty in the south. So Sumner actually, I guess the way to explain it is the Republican party kind of moves over towards Charles Sumner in the ensuing years and by the time he dies uh during the towards the end of the reconstruction period, he's become kind of a a poster boy, I guess, a term I used before about Preston Brooks in a different sense, a kind of poster boy of that radical effort to to introduce black freedom to the South.

[00:40:26]So, I'm a little tempted uh and this would be terribly artificial to do, but I sort of look at the cananing as one book end and Lincoln's assassination is the other. And there's a whole lot of other stuff that happens and you know that ignores the awful political violence of reconstruction, but you know, kind of thinking about the war in those two moments and and how um [snorts] starkly punctuating they are for what they are. Um, I don't know if you have any reaction or thought to that. I'm just sort of, you know, this is just kind of coming to mind to me, but to me it just seems like, you know, there are these just awful moments that ultimately don't really achieve much either and yet they don't wake people up quite the way they should. I don't know.

[00:41:11]I don't know if you have any thoughts on that or not, but >> yeah, I really like your idea that these are sort of book ends to a to a to a specific political era. Um, and in both cases, you know, the the the the men who die are hailed as martyrs by their group. Um, but vilified by their opponents even more after their death than before, I think in both cases. Um, so yeah, there are definitely some interesting comparisons to be made there. And even just, you know, I' I've thought about the more general place of violence in American politics and what people thought about violence as a way to achieve political ends. And I, you know, I often think about Lincoln and his second inaugural address when I'm um when I'm addressing those issues. And this of course is where he kind of picks up on Jan Brown who who you mentioned earlier with this vision of the Civil War as a necessary divine punishment where inflicting uh violence and bloodshed is the only way America can atone for the sin of slavery. And so I think in that sense Lincoln's uh second term shot as it was which ended in assassination sort of um brings to a culminating point some of the conversation Brooks started in 1856 about you know what role does bloodshed and violence have in American politics especially around slavery.

[00:42:45]>> Yeah. And I think that's a certainly a question and an idea for us to be contemplating today. And again maybe without you know not avoiding not waiting into modern politics specifically but like it it is something I think that we should be thinking about um because they are you know rather urgent issues. Um what's what's a way that someone might look at your book and and be able to kind of use it as a lens for looking at today's political situation?

[00:43:17]I think there are a few ways uh it it might be useful in that kind of sense.

[00:43:23]And you know the first is just to understand a guy like Preston Brooks who did something that would be unthinkable to most of us. Um that was maybe less unthinkable in the 1850s but still you know not not something that most people would have said they approved of before it happened. Um and simply to think about why he did that I think is a useful exercise because that helps you understand you know people today who might inflict uh some kind of act of political violence what their complex motivations might be and the mix of you know usually I think it's a mix of personality and background experiences as well as the political issue that actually instigates ates the act of violence. So that was true for Preston Brooks just as it is today. And then a couple of other ways I think you know it's useful to learn about the previous episodes of political violence like this is to look at the responses to it and the kinds of choices people made about what to say in the immediate aftermath of of an event like this. And of course, you know, what everybody who who knows about this subject would recommend is that the leaders um on both sides should after an event like this immediately denounce it. And the very idea of political violence, you know, should be um should be clearly anathema to our political leaders. Um and that wasn't the case in 1856 and and and that led to further problems. But then even more broadly, I think um the the most dangerous responses to Brooks's caning were the ones that called for further violence in response to it. And those calls actually came from both sides. I mentioned before, you know, you asked me about the gifts of canes and the hit him again inscriptions. Um and and this signaled that a lot of white southerners were kind of uh roused by the caning to think, yeah, this is the way we need to respond to abolitionists. You know, this kind of thing is probably going to have to happen again if we're going to win this conflict. On the other side, you also see among northern Republicans in particular um a new inclination to think if this is how it's going to be, maybe we need to fight back against these uh against these violent slaveholders. This was true of white Republican politicians and followers, but it was also true of many African-Americans as well. And this was sort of a gradual process in the 1850s, you know, beginning with the fugitive slave law that was part of the compromise of 1850. Um that um basically brought the power of the federal government more uh strongly to bear on the recapture of people who escaped from slavery. Um, and so that's the kind of thing that nudged anti-slavery Americans in the direction of thinking, you know, if if this is the new situation, perhaps violence is going to be needed to to really win the fight against slavery.

[00:46:44]So, so throughout the 1850s that's going on and then the caning really reinforces that take in 1856.

[00:46:52]U one thing I guess that comes to mind too as we're talking about this is um you know there are those immediate reactions in the aftermath but eventually history passes judgment and you know sort of looking at how we think about this incident today uh and you know basically you know as we start our conversation how it gets simplified and that's in essence a reflection of history's judgment and maybe that's also something folks who contemplate political violence might think about like you know there might be shortterm term rewards, but there's going to be long-term ramifications and and you know, history does does judge things apparently.

[00:47:32]So, um any final thoughts about your book that as folks come to your to what might be a story that they know? Um anything you want them to pay particular attention to?

[00:47:46]Um probably uh the the value and importance in my mind of really trying to understand the people who lived in the past. Um we often treat people as kind of caricaturures or just you know representatives of a larger group and don't take the time to really dig into their personalities and and stories. Um, and that's really what I've tried to do with the book is try and understand who Preston Brooks was, um, where he came from, uh, the experiences growing up that led him to do what he did in 1856, and then also to try to understand a bit better the the varied responses to the caning and try and look not just at the extreme examples which are easy to find and easy to report. again the hit him again canes would be an example of that but but also to dig deeper into the um people on other points of the spectrum who were coming up with more uncertain ambiguous kind of nuanced responses to the news of the day and I think um that can be difficult to do we're we're living through a time of political polarization ourselves um it's too easy I think to react to onedimension caricatures of the other side um without trying to understand where different people are coming from and and how they get to the positions they do. And I think this book uh really carries that lesson on every page is that it it behooves us to try to understand people in a deep way. And uh I hope we can try and do a bit more of that today.

[00:49:32]>> So what I love about this to me this is just like history at its absolute best, Paul. I mean, because, you know, you're reminding us it's messy. It's nuanced, and what you've done here is illuminating as well. And I think that that is just a fantastic way to to approach something we we might think we know, but look at all the stuff we can really learn. And I hopefully people will take something away they can learn about themselves as a result of it. So, >> that's fantastic. Yeah. Thank you so much. History at its best. I don't think that's ever been said about me before, but >> Well, quote me on it, my friend.

[00:50:03][laughter] kind of game.

[00:50:06]>> Oh, absolutely. The book is called The Man Behind the Cane: Preston Brooks, Political Violence and the Road to Civil War by Paul Quigley. Paul, it's been a real pleasure to chat with you today.

[00:50:16]Thank you so much.

[00:50:17]>> I've enjoyed it. Thank you so much. So, >> I'm Chris Makowski for the Emerging Civil War podcast. We'll see you online and on the battlefield.