[mac_truck]

Many claim that the South was the aggressor,

Gee, I wonder where they got that idea?

[lentulusgracchus]

Actually, the caning of Senator Sumner occurred shortly after Sumner had used one of Preston Brooks's relations, a South Carolina senator, in particularly vile language that would be taken down in five minutes today. I've read Sumner's philippic, and he resorted to images of prostitution and low-rent bordellos fairly often to describe the social stature of South Carolina and her senators. It was a dire provocation, cheesily praised by abolitionist square-heads and their press enthusiasts.

Nothing like a good civil war to sell a few newspapers, or fisticuffs and violence in the Capitol.

Good cartoon, though. Notice how the cartoonist amplifies the reader's sense of outrage by piling on his own, through the device of conspicuously refusing to show Brooks's face. Notice also the wild, barbarian hair and the posture of extreme aggression, contrasted to Sumner's gracefully fainting thespian. Notice also the deliberate juxtaposition of pen and cane, which is depicted as heavy and bloody. Depending on who you talk to, Brooks's cane was anything from a hollow, lightweight gutta-percha number to something approaching a shillelagh or knobkerry.

[stand watie]

Brooks should have used a cal. 36 Colt. less dramatic, but infinitely a better tool to deal with a scum like summers!

after the famous/infamous caning, Brooks received numerous new canes from fellow congresscritters & NOT only from southrons!

free dixie,sw