The Atlas of Friday had the following remarks, by its editor, upon the Brooks assault upon Senator Sumner:--
Hon. Charles Sumner, one of the Senators of
Massachusetts, was yesterday brutally assaulted by a
ruffian named Brooks, who represents South Carolina
in the lower House. Those who know Mr. Sumner
will readily believe that nothing in his conduct or
conversation could have provoked the outrage, and
that it must be attributed to the bold and vigorous
demonstration of the Kansas inequity, which he has
just uttered in the Senate. The reign of terror, then,
is to be transferred to Washington, and the mouths
of the representatives of the North are to be closed
by the use of bowie-knives, bludgeons, and revolvers.
Very well; the sooner we understand this the better.
If violence must come, we shall know how to defend
ourselves. We hope, for the credit of the State, that
every man in it will feel this outrage upon Mr. Sumner
as a personal indignity, no less than an insult to
the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and that there
will be such a general and spontaneous expression of
opinion, as will fully manifest our deep disinclination
to submit to any repetition of the contumely.
We had something to say on the same matter, and expressed an opinion with regard to the attack, in the following terms:--
We offer no palliation for the brutal assault which was made
upon Mr Sumner by a Representative from South Carolina. It is
a well understood axiom and rule of the United States
Congress, that no member shall be allowed to be held
responsible for words spoken in debate. The member from
South Carolina transgressed every rule of honor which should
animate or restrain one gentleman in his connections with
another, in his ruffian assault upon Mr Sumner. There is no
chivalry in a brute. There is no manliness in a scoundrel. If Mr
Brooks is a nephew to Senator Butler, as it is said that he is,
the Senator has only cause to regret that his blood runs through
such ignoble veins.
These are the comments of the Atlas and the
Courier upon the Washington outrage, which
appeared simultaneously in each paper on the morning
after the occurrence. The Courier spoke also
of the personal and indecorous line of remark
which Mr. Sumner had allowed himself to indulge
in in his speech, which, however, had no influence
upon its opinion with regard to the gravity and
atrocity of the offence which was committed by
the South Carolina Representative, and we will
leave readers to judge if its language is not as
plain and straightforward as that of the Atlas,
so far as an expression of opinion upon the subject
is concerned. Our neighbor is gifted with a
most brilliant and erratic imagination, in common
with the great majority of the party to which he
has attached himself, and daggers, pistols and
bowie-knives dance before his distempered and
bewildered vision with all the romance of a melodrama,
and all the unrealized horrors with disturb
the brain of a lunatic. Abolitionism carries
with itself a monomania which turns the heads of
all who unreservedly connect themselves with it,
and this is the only answer which it is necessary
to make to the Atlas diatribe of Saturday.
Mr. Wendell Phillips, a politician of the ultra Garrison school, has also come forward with the stamp of his wrath upon the Courier, and with this, the full and hearty endorsement of himself and those who act with him, of the speech of Senator Sumner. He sees nothing harsh, unfeeling or insulting in the language of Mr. Sumner, as applied to Senator Butler, which is a matter of course because it is conveyed in precisely the same sort of words which he and his peculiar friends have been using all their lifetime. He made one of his brilliant, one-sided and Pharisaical harangues at the Temple on Friday night, and with the blind malice which belongs to his particular sect, attacked the Courier at random, evidently without having ever read the article upon which he made his comments, and displaying at once both ignorance and malignity. Mr. Phillips supposed, as we understand by the reports of his remarks, that the Courier had found fault with the revolting and disagreeable comparison which Mr. Sumner made between Mr. Douglas and a loathsome quadruped, but he can find that the Courier made not the least attempt at justifying Mr. Brooks. It is not proper for us to expect fair play of the Abolitionists at all, but Wendell Phillips should know better than to make foolish blunders or to utter direct falsehoods before a public meeting in the city of Boston.
The Telegraph of Saturday evening also pays its respect to the Courier, but that journal is animated by the same motives which actuate the Atlas, and it is not necessary that we should heed its abuse when in pouring it out it says of Judge Butler that "he is notorious for having intemperate habits, and that it is a common saying that he has not been perfectly sober for thirty years." We shall be able to survive anything which is placed upon us by the Telegraph when it accompanies the animadversions with such a phrase as is here quoted.
We may say further to these champions
of the three phases of Abolitionism, -- to Mr.
Phillips in particular -- who talks of the loss
of a subscriber to the Courier of fifteen years'
standing, that it is not our habit, when
exciting questions like the one now in agitation
are before the public, to inquire which side
of the ledger is to be affected by an expression of
opinion, or trim our sails so as to escape the
vengeance of the "The Boston Courier,
while it condemns in proper terms the brutality of
Brooks, improves the occasion to make some
strictures which we are sure all right minded men will
agree are just and specially pertinent."
This is
the language of our friends generally, and with it
we drop a rather disagreeable subject.
This document was produced as part of a document analysis project by Lloyd Benson, Department of History, Furman University. (Proofing info: Entered and reverse-order proofed by Lloyd Benson.) This electronic version may not be copied, or linked to, or otherwise used for commercial purposes, (including textbook or publication-related websites) without prior written permission. The views expressed in this document are for educational, historical, and scholarly use only, and are not intended to represent the views of the project contributors or Furman University.