One of the more amusing nuggets of American history, the incident between Preston Brooks and Charles Sumner in the Senate in 1851 is very interesting, including the fact that it happened exactly164 years ago tomorrow. Since the anniversary is coming up, I thought I'd give a brief summary for anyone who had forgotten what happened.
Charles Sumner, a Senator from Massachusetts, was a fierce abolitionist, and gave a speech regarding whether Kansas should be admitted into the Union as a free or slave state. He blatantly attacked several southern Democratic congressmen, including the absent Andrew Butler of South Carolina. After the speech, Preston Brooks, another South Carolina senator and distant relative of Butler, came up to Sumner and attacked him with his walking stick. After many blows, the stick shattered, but Brooks kept up his onslaught.
After the incident, Brooks retired from the federal government. Upon his return to South Carolina, people throughout the south sent him walking sticks to replace the one he had broken on Sumner's head. Ironically, Brooks would die within the year, while Sumner would make a slow but successful recovery and hold federal office for another 18 years.
http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/The_Caning_of_Senator_Charles_Sumner.htm
Great post Josh! Sparked by this outrageous incident, I started to think about other bizarre events that have happened in the Senate. The best one I found was Strom Thurmond's 24 hour filibuster. The Democratic Senator spoke against the Civil Rights Act in 1957. He even prepared for his marathon filibuster by taking steam baths before so his body could take in fluids without having got got the bathroom. Three hours in, Thurmond told Barry Goldwater that he would be done in a hour, so they stopped for a break. This was the only time Thurmond went to bathroom during his speech. However, the did set up a bucket in a closet so that he could still relieve himself and have one foot on the Senate floor. Rand Paul even mentioned Thurmond in his 13 hour filibuster in 2013 by saying that he would try to break his record, but there are limits to filibusters. Here's the article if you want to know more.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/03/07/173736882/how-did-strom-thurmond-last-through-his-24-hour-filibuster
I found this very interesting and wanted to read more about what had happened. The South Carolinian senator took the podium on August 28, 1957 at 8:54 pm. His main objection during the filibuster was that Civil Rights Act of 1957 was unconstitutional because allowing black voters to have ready access to the polls was tantamount to "cruel and unusual punishment." Thurmond pressed for a filibuster in order to obstruct the voting of the bill. However, the Southern Democrats he had counted on to support his campaign were not amused and felt betrayed by Thurmond because they had made a previous agreement not to filibuster. In the end, Thurmond's filibuster was very ineffectual, and everyone just got very annoyed at him.
Deletehttp://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/on-this-day/July-August-08/On-this-Day--Strom-Thurmond-Ends-Longest-Filibuster-in-Senate-History.html
He also had a bachelor's degree in horticulture, or gardening.
Ah yes I do recall Mr. Stewart discussing that with us during the pre-civil war era chapter, however events are quite intriguing such as this one remind me of an event told to me in my freshmen year; the Boston Molasses Disaster. The premise of this story is that a huge storage tank of molasses, experienced a great temperature change in a very short time frame. This instigated the metal containing it to expand and contract quickly and it cracked the container. Soon 2 million gallons of molasses went spilling out at 35 mph, which means that being slow as molasses, is not too bad. This caused several thousands dollars of damages to the city and over 21 people were killed. If you want to check out more I'll link to the story right here:http://www.historytoday.com/chuck-lyons/sticky-tragedy-boston-molasses-disaster
ReplyDeleteWow, you know it's a hot button issue when senators be gettin caned. I wonder if we will se an equivalently divided cause in our lifetime. I mean, we have plenty of causes, but it seems like no one has gotten this riled up. Maybe we are already seeing a similarly divided topic emerge. Hopefully it will not cause a civil war though... Anyway Josh, thank you for this very amusing historical diversion from all the talk about stress and school. I had completely forgotten about this :)
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