Well, be that as it may, I’m betting the Senator felt that war had been declared and enacted upon him.
And this particular outrage certainly had a significant effect on later events.
Today we might use the term “hate crime” to describe that caning.
But we would be reluctant to use the word “war” just as we don’t always use the phrase “war on terror.”
Our Democrat administration prefers to call it “kinetic overseas contingency operations.”
But more to the point, that good senator was far from the first to receive a slave - holder’s caning.
It was never considered an act of “war”, just the normal discipline of masters for their “property”.