History

 

I’ve Got You Under My Skin

For the sake of havin' you near
In spite of a warnin' voice that comes in the night
And repeats, repeats in my ear,
Don't you know, you fool, you never can win?
Use your mentality, wake up to reality.

Is history a warning voice that repeats?

The caning of Charles Sumner, or the Brooks–Sumner Affair, occurred on May 22, 1856, in the United States Senate chamber, when Representative Preston Brooks, a pro-slavery Democrat from South Carolina, used a walking cane to attack Senator Charles Sumner, an abolitionist Republican from Massachusetts. The attack was in retaliation for a speech given by Sumner two days earlier in which he fiercely criticized slaveholders, including South Carolina Senator Andrew Butler, a relative of Brooks. The beating nearly killed Sumner and contributed significantly to the country's polarization over the issue of slavery. It has been considered symbolic of the "breakdown of reasoned discourse" and the use of violence that eventually led to the Civil War.

Although Sumner was unable to return to the Senate until December of 1859, the Massachusetts legislature refused to replace him, leaving his empty desk in the Senate as a public reminder of the attack.            
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caning_of_Charles_Sumner

The Senate is the “World Greatest Deliberative Body” is it not?  By the way, I just checked.  The Sumner tunnel under Boston Harbor to Logan Airport is not named after Charles Sumner

Following the declaration of secession by South Carolina on December 20, 1860, its authorities demanded that the U.S. Army abandon its facilities in Charleston Harbor. On December 26, Major Robert Anderson of the U.S. Army surreptitiously moved his small command from the vulnerable Fort Moultrie on Sullivan's Island to Fort Sumter, a substantial fortress built on an island controlling the entrance of Charleston Harbor. An attempt by U.S. President James Buchanan to reinforce and resupply Anderson using the unarmed merchant ship Star of the West failed when it was fired upon by shore batteries on January 9, 1861. The ship was hit three times, which caused no major damage but nonetheless kept the supplies from reaching Anderson. South Carolina authorities then seized all Federal property in the Charleston area except for Fort Sumter.

During the early months of 1861, the situation around Fort Sumter increasingly began to resemble a siege. In March, Brigadier General P. G. T. Beauregard, the first general officer of the newly formed Confederate States Army, was placed in command of Confederate forces in Charleston. Beauregard energetically directed the strengthening of batteries around Charleston harbor aimed at Fort Sumter. Conditions in the fort deteriorated due to shortages of men, food, and supplies as the Union soldiers rushed to complete the installation of additional guns.    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fort_Sumter

Let’s stop the nonsense that the Civil War was fought over state rights or was a War of Northern Aggression.  The debate was over the expansion of slavery into federal territories, not  the ending of slavery. This why Bloody Kansas, which at that time was a federal territory not yet a state, earned its name.  The Southern States started the aggression, not the North. That the South ultimately lost the aggression does not change that fact. Note in the article that the President was James Buchanan not Abraham Lincoln.  It was the election of Abraham Lincoln as President that prompted the formation of the Confederacy. 

Violence in the Capitol?  Election deniers?  Polarization? What state does Lindsey Graham represent? Mark Twain was right.  History may not repeat, but it sure does rhyme.