May 22, 1856

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Martin Antonenko

A Fixture
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Jul 11, 2008
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Bloody Confrontation Over Slavery in US Senate


The question of the possible introduction of slavery has been disputed in the US Territory of Kansas since 1855.

After a short time, political arguments are no longer exchanged, but powder and lead!

Opponents and advocates of slavery engage in a regular civil war, in which several massacres of supporters of the other side are carried out and even entire cities are burned down, as here Lawrence in 1856 ...:




While the city was on fire, a massacre was perpetrated on residents of this anti-slave stronghold ...:



The city became a target for advocates of slavery as there were only three newspapers in the entire Kansas Territory and two of them - both of which were anti-slavery! - were made in Lawrence.

The leader of the Murder Burners was, of all people, a law enforcement officer, namely the slavery advocate Sheriff Samuel Jones ...:



In revenge for the attack on Lawrence, the well-known anti-slavery opponent John Brown...



... who defended Lawrence against Sheriff Jones' attack, perpetrated the so-called "Pottawatomie Massacre" in May 1856, in which he and his sons murdered five completely uninvolved men ...:



The clashes in Kansas were a merciless guerrilla war and the names of the irregular militias on both sides have gone down in US history: The "Jayhawkers" fought against the introduction of slavery, the "Bushwhackers" for them!

"Jayhawk" ("moteley bird ") was used both as a positively ironic self-designation by the guerrillas and as a derogatory foreign designation by the war opponent.


The leader of the "Jayhawkers" was US Senator James H. Lane ...:



The "Jayhawkers" joined the Northern States almost entirely during the Civil War! The 7th Kansas Regiment consisted entirely of them and was commonly called "Jennisons Jayhawkers" ...:



The designation of the pro-slavery fighters as "Bushwhackers" is much more direct and means something like "bush thieves" ...:



Their informal leader was John Singleton Mosby, who continued his vigilance during the Civil War as a Colonel on the Confederate side ...:



Many former Bushwhackers followed suit - a large number of them served in General Pickett's division ...:



There were many dead and later many historians described the shootings as "the first skirmishes of the civil war" which - officially - did not begin until April 12, 1861 with the bombardment of Fort Sumter ...

The Kansas conflict also reached the US Senate in Washington in 1856:

On May 22, 1856, Charles Sumner, the Senator from Massachusetts (Forbidden Slavery) ...



... gives a committed speech against the introduction of slavery in Kansas and denounces the prevailing conditions there.

South Carolina Senator (Slavery Allowed) Preston Brooks pounces on him ...



... and brutally beats him up in front of everyone in front of the speaker's gallery ...:



One part of the senators is grinning, the other part is paralyzed with horror - but nobody intervenes!

Even when Sumner stops moving, Brooks hits his victim with his walking stick at least 30 times on the head - until the stick breaks in two!

When the thug finally lets go of him, Senator Sumner is badly injured and - literally - half dead!

While his victim is slowly recovering in the hospital after an emergency operation, Brooks receives hundreds of letters from slavery advocates - most of them always contain the same sentence:

"Hit him again!"
 
Hi Martin,
there are some misleading informations in the text above - in the context of labelling people as thugs murderes etc. the twisted and bent facts give IMHO this story a value of articles of the Murdoch press or our German "Bild-Zeitung":

The incident "Sack of Lawrence" on May 21rst 1856 you are referring to was far from "burning down entire cities" in advance of the American Civil War although tensions in Kansas were high:

On April 23, 1856, Sheriff Samuel Jones entered into Lawrence and attempted to arrest members of the extralegal Free-State legislature. Jones's presence in the city caused emotions to flare, and soon, violence erupted; according to author Duane Schutlz, "One man grabbed Jones by the collar; another punched him in the face." Jones retreated, but returned later with a small group of soldiers serving as back-up. Their presence did little to quell the citizens of the town, who quickly grabbed their guns and began to fire at the sheriff. A bullet eventually struck Jones, which rendered him for a time partially paralyzed, and although he survived the assassination attempt, rumors quickly spread that he had been killed. After the shoot-out, Federal Marshal J. B. Donaldson proclaimed on May 11 that the act had interfered with the execution of warrants. This led to a grand jury declaring that Lawrence's Free State Hotel was actually built to use as a fort. Consequently, Sheriff Jones—who, in addition to his desire to uphold the pro-slavery laws, had an axe to grind with the free-staters—assembled an army of about 800 southern settlers to enter Lawrence, disarm the citizens, destroy the anti-slavery presses, and dismantle the Free State Hotel. This occurred on May 21rst, when Sheriff Jones and a gang of Southern sympathizers sacked Lawrence. Dr. Robinson’s house on Mount Oread was taken by the federal marshal as headquarters (before being razed), the newspaper printing presses were destroyed, the Free State Hotel was burned down, and the town was looted - no massacre occured - one member of the proslavery gang was killed by accident when he was struck in the head by a collapsing bit of the Free State Hotel. -The picture now added to your edited post shows the debris of the Free State Hotel - (Sheriff Jackson is possibly a "looter" but no "murder-burner" which seems to be a germanized translation of arsonist and murderer)

While the city was on fire, a massacre was perpetrated on residents of this anti-slave stronghold ...:

The picture to illustrate your story shows the attack on Lawrence by Quantrill`s Raiders on August 21 1863 as the caption below the picture correctly says - during the American Civil War when about 150 inhabitants of Lawrence - mostly boys and men were killed. "Quantrill`s Raid" was a brutal retaliatory action due to previous cruelties committed by supporters of the Union and Jayhawkers that had attacked the city of Osceola (where just three out of 800 buildings had survived the arson committed by the "Redlegs / Jayhawkers" the rest being put to the torch and burned down).

By coincidence I was just reading about the events that lead to the American Civil War and the "Brooks-Sumner-Affair".
It should be noted that Senator Sumner - an ardent abolitionist - held a speech in front of the senate on August 19th that lasted for several hours in which he had placed a long list of severe insults against the States that supported slavery and especially against South Carolina and the non-present Senator Andrew Butler who had suffered from a stroke and therefore had problems to speak.
Two quotes from his speech:
“The senator from South Carolina has read many books of chivalry, and believes himself a chivalrous knight with sentiments of honor and courage. Of course he has chosen a mistress to whom he has made his vows, and who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight—I mean the harlot, slavery. 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.” (Comparing Butler to Don Quichote and his love to Dulcinea - the whore slavery)
“[He] touches nothing which he does not disfigure with error, sometimes of principle, sometimes of fact. He cannot open his mouth, but out there flies a blunder.” (Making fun of Butler`s defected ability to speak due to the stroke)

TWO DAYS LATER on May 22nd - Preston Brooks - a cousin of the Senator Butler - assaulted Senator Sumner in the hall of the senate while Mr. Sumner was occupied with paperwork on his table after he had told him: “Mr. Sumner, I have read your speech twice over carefully. It is a libel on South Carolina, and Mr. Butler, who is a relative of mine.”According to Brooks he initially wanted to challenge Sumner to a duell but then was convinced that Sumner did not deserve such a treatment because his "hate-speech" (what it might be called today) had shown that he was no gentleman.
Sumner - after being hit three times to the head - in fact was saved from further severe injuries by congressmen Ambrose S. Murray and Edwin B. Morgan coming to his aid.
Sumner as a consequence became a martyr of the North and Brooks a hero of the South - his cane broke while he was beating Sumner up and he injured himself accidentally because he was so enraged. In the aftermath he received a number of canes by his supporters as a replacement - one with the inscription: "Hit him again". (If Preston Brooks is a "thug" depends on the view of the reader - he answered to an insult that at this time was not to be left unanswered to preserve your personal honor and Senator Sumner knew what he was doing when he held his speech)

The "Sack of Lawrence" and the "Brooks-Sumner-Affair" motivated John Brown to kidnap five uninvolved supporters of the slavery and cruelly hack them to death with swords. John Brown had no part in a "defence of Lawrence". For this murder of the kidnapped farmers beside others he deservedly was hanged. (Therefore John Brown lawfully can be called a murderer)

History is usually not a "black and white" tale...

Cheers, Martin
 
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