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.