How tall was charles sumner

When the woman finished her conversation and left, Brooks waited another moment, his eyes boring into the abolitionist Sumner, whom Brooks viewed as one of the most dangerous threats to the future of the South. Anything less and he would be humiliated as a man, a slaveholder, a proud South Carolinian, an advocate for the southern way of life. Brooks saw no alternative; his years of adhering to the southern code of honor demanded he retaliate against Sumner.

However, by beating Sumner rather than challenging him to a duel, Brooks was implying that his opponent was not a gentleman worthy of respect. It is a libel on South Carolina and Mr. Butler, who is a relative of mine.

By , the abolition of slavery, pure and simple, was the driving force of his political life. In this quest, he stood taller and firmer than anyone in America, including Abraham Lincoln and William Lloyd Garrison. Egotism and narcissism also consumed him; his arrogance was well known to friend and foe alike. He cared little for the opinions or feelings of others, and his voice dripped with condescension when he delivered advice.

He was intolerant of criticism, nearly incapable of conciliation, and virtually humorless; he had few close friends and only lukewarm political alliances. In his bold, confrontational, even incendiary speech, Sumner did not stop with a recitation of issues and possible resolutions. Instead, he viciously insulted the elderly Andrew Butler, who was not present in the Chamber he was at home recovering from a stroke and the state from which Butler hailed. Preston Brooks simmered.

When Sumner looked up and saw Brooks raise his arm, he moved as if to rise, but Brooks struck him on the top of the head with the smaller end of the cane, causing an outpouring of blood that blinded Sumner. Brooks then struck Sumner again and again on his head and face with the heavy end of the cane.

Sumner struggled to rise, but his legs were still pinned under his desk. After a dozen blows to the head, his eyes blinded with blood, he roared and made a desperate effort to rise. His trapped legs wrenched the desk which was bolted to the floor by an iron plate and heavy screws from its moorings. Sumner staggered forward down the aisle, now an even easier target for Brooks, who continued to beat him across the head.

Brooks rained down blows upon Sumner. Two New York representatives, bystanders in the Senate Chamber, finally intervened as the fracas wound down. Other southerners picked up pieces of the splintered cane; later, these scraps were fashioned into rings that many southern lawmakers wore on neck chains as a sign of solidarity with Brooks. The Free Soil Movement catapulted Sumner to political prominence, and in a coalition of Massachusetts Freesoilers and Democrats elected him to the Senate.

Washington would never be the same. In Congress, Sumner attempted to repeal the Fugitive Slave Act, and although his inaugural four-hour speech did not win over the majority, it established him as the voice of antislavery in the Senate.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act of opened an ongoing and vituperative debate over slavery in the territories, and moved Sumner and his antislavery colleagues to create the Republican Party. According to Sumner, Butler had "chosen a mistress"--the "harlot of slavery," while Douglas was "the squire of Slavery The nation was jolted by the attack: most Southerners applauded Brooks for taking revenge for an attack on his family's honor; most Northerners saw in the caning a true indication of the mentality of all slave owners.

Sumner never fully recovered from his injuries, but the Massachusetts legislature almost unanimously re-elected him to his office, even though he remained an invalid for three years. Sumner returned to the Senate late in and continued his crusade with the address, "The Barbarism of Slavery.

The outbreak of the Civil War gave Sumner the opportunity to launch his final attack on slavery. He became a close ally of President Lincoln, and pressed Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation and to allow African-Americans to enlist in the fight for their own freedom. After Lincoln's death, Sumner turned his efforts to securing full civil and economic rights for former slaves.

His efforts brought him into conflict with President Johnson, whom he attempted to impeach. If anything, Sumner's relations with Johnson's successor, President Grant, were even more tumultuous. Sumner used his position as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to block a treaty for the annexation of Santo Domingo and attacked the pervasive public corruption of the age wherever he found it.

In revenge, he was stripped of his chairmanship of the Foreign Relations Committee. A well-educated lawyer and proud of his intellect, he delighted in speech-making, and with little wonder. He was an exceptional orator. Flowery phrases and ferocious rhetoric, dripping with classical allusions and witty word play, spewed from his lips, apparently effortlessly.

His voice was booming, its tone smooth and mellifluous. He was not a man who believed in temperate language, and he paid a steep price for his lack of moderation. During a two-day period, May 19 and 20, , Sumner stood in well of the United States Senate and excoriated a fellow senator, Andrew P. Butler of South Carolina. Like so many southern legislators, Butler defended slavery as a necessary feature of American life.

Angry that southerners constantly threatened to rend the Union if their demands to protect slavery were not honored, the Massachusetts man ripped into Butler for supporting the odious Fugitive Slave Act, which required free state citizens to return escaped slaves to their southern masters.

Demonstrating his superior education and verbal prowess, Sumner peppered his speech with sexual innuendo, portraying slavery as a harlot and Butler as her customer. Not in any common lust for power did this uncommon tragedy have its origin. It is the rape of a virgin Territory, compelling it to the hateful embrace of Slavery; and it may be clearly traced to a depraved longing for a new slave State, the hideous offspring of such a crime, in the hope of adding to the power of slavery in the National Government.

It was a devastating critique, but Sumner went further, personally attacking Senator Butler. For her, his tongue is always profuse in words. Let her be impeached in character, or any proposition made to shut her out from the extension of her wantonness, and no extravagance of manner or hardihood of assertion is then too great for this Senator.

This attack was especially vitriolic to a southern man who often spoke of honor and chivalry. Yet the attack grew worse. Butler was known to have a speech impediment, and Sumner, who talked with enviable clarity and precision, mocked his fellow senator. Senator Butler was not present in the chamber when Sumner delivered his speech.

Nonetheless, Sumner must have known that Butler or his allies would respond. They simply could not allow such a vicious verbal assault to go unanswered.

In fact, anyone who heard the speech would have concluded that Sumner was inviting an angry response. Finding Sumner seated at his desk, Brooks angrily confronted the man. It is a libel on South Carolina, and Mr. Butler, who is a relative of mine. He resumed his law practice but was more interested in social issues, including the reform of prisons and the public education system of Massachusetts. In his role as social reformer, he was frequently called upon to speak to supporters and became well known for his rhetorical style and sonorous voice.

As was typical of the age, his lectures were replete with classical and biblical references as well as with much description and hyperbole. In his speech he argued,. A war of conquest is bad; but the present war has darker shadows. It is a war for the extension of slavery over a territory which has already been purged by Mexican authority from this stain and curse. In he was elected to the Senate and became the leading opponent to the expansion of slavery but also advocated for its abolition where it already existed.

As a leader of the Radical Republicans, he argued against any compromise on the slavery issue. He singled out Senator Stephen A. Brooks attacked Sumner who was trapped in his Senate desk, using a wooden cane with a gold head. Managing to stumble free, Sumner collapsed, lapsing into unconsciousness.

Brooks continued to beat the unconscious man until his cane broke and then calmly left the chamber. Others were prevented from helping Sumner by Laurence M. Keitt of South Carolina, who held them off with a pistol. The attack had political ramifications as well as personal ones. Charles Sumner never fully recovered emotionally from the attack, and modern analysis of his symptoms suggests that he suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome.