[BroJoeK]

Brooks attacks Sumner, May 22, 1856:

Brooks died eight months later from a sudden attack of "croup", aged 37.
Sumner tried to return to the Senate in 1857, but could not endure, so toured Europe until 1859, then returned feeling better.

"When fellow Republicans advised taking a less strident tone than he had years earlier, he answered:
'When crime and criminals are thrust before us, they are to be met by all the energies that God has given us by argument, scorn, sarcasm and denunciation.'
He delivered his first speech following his return on June 4, 1860, during the 1860 presidential election.
In "The Barbarism of Slavery", he attacked attempts to depict slavery as a benevolent institution, said it had stifled economic development in the South and that it left slaveholders reliant on 'the bludgeon, the revolver, and the bowie-knife'."

Sumner was a radical Republican who ended up opposing moderates like President Grant.
Sumner died of a heart attack in 1874, aged 63.

No wonder DiogenesLamp hates Sumner!

[DiogenesLamp]

Sumner was over the top nasty and offensive. My general attitude is that I enjoy seeing people who are particularly nasty and offensive for no good reason to get their @$$ beat for being nasty and offensive.

I think Brooks went too far with the beating, but I do think Sumner asked for it. Even his own friends tried to stop him, but he just kept letting his mouth write checks his @$$ couldn't cover.