This is pretty much the only thing I remember from AP US History.
It is a stunning example of the absurdity of American history, and might also stand in as a metaphor for that craptastic class.
So, Charles Sumner was the leader of the antislavery movement in Massachusetts in the middle of the 19th century, and was also a member of the Senate, where as a radical Republican he spoke out loudly and persistently against Southern slave-owners gaining control of the government. Sumner called for the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act, and seemed to have been instrumental in convincing Lincoln to bring about emancipation. I'm not sure whether Sumner's strong antislavery stance was morally or politically motivated, but whichever way he held and presented his views, they seem to have been difficult for some to stomach. His biographer says of Sumner, "[d]istrusted by friends and allies, and reciprocating their distrust, a man of 'ostentatious culture,' 'unvarnished egotism,' and 'a specimen of prolonged and morbid juvenility,' Sumner...[carved] out a reputation as the South's most hated foe and the Negro's bravest friend, he inflamed sectional differences, advanced his personal fortunes, and helped bring about national tragedy." So his biographer hates him. Anyway, it is clearly documented that Sumner made a habit of avoiding conflict, instead insulting his rivals in prepared speeches.
During one such speech, Sumner verbally attacked Stephen A Douglas and Andrew Butler, co-authors of a controversial Act which allowed for the expansion of slavery into the West, by calling the former a "noisome, squat, and nameless animal," and mocking the speech and mannerisms of the latter (both of which were the aftereffects of a stroke).
Two days later, on May 22nd, 1856, Preston Brooks, Senator from South Carolina and relative of Butler, confronted Sumner in the nearly-empty Senate chamber, informed him that he had reviewed the speech, and began violently laying into the Senator from Massachusetts with a gold-tipped cane. Brooks continued to beat Sumner under the a bolted-down writing table, at which point he ripped the desk from the floor and bludgeoned Sumner until the cane was in splinters and the man lay bleeding and unconscious on the floor.
Apparently several people tried to intervene, but were stopped by another man, Laurence Keitt, who had pulled out a pistol.
Somewhat miraculously, Sumner recovered from the attack, although he did not rejoin the Senate for three years. Regardless, he was re-elected, and his chair stood empty as a symbol of free speech. The North had its martyr.
And the South? The South bought and mailed Sumner a load of new canes. Thus began the Civil War - and the rest is history.
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