It is, as I said previously in this thread, particularly irksome to hear, not just any Yankee, but a Massachusetts man, call a Southerner hypocrite. As if the Yankees of Massachusetts even cared about the Negro Slaves. Perhaps they should have closed down the clandestine and illegal slave trade they where STILL engaged at the time of this confrontation.
Since you seem predisposed to bring up old incidents of perceived past slight against Yankees from Southern quarters to me, as if I have tried to be anything but a voice of reason on this thread, I will thank you for make'n my point FOR me. As I said earlier in this thread, many in this county simply didn't like Southerners. Since they usually didn't like blacks either I can only assume it was a cultural thing. If one is will'n to go through the trouble of find'n an old political cartoon to attack notions of Southern Chivalry and lump em all together with one ornery South Carolinian in a day and age where supposedly old grudges have ceased, imagine what it must have been like over a hundred and fifty years ago; and then you'll know at least one reason why the war was fought.
Far from being just some old political cartoon, the incident in question was real and took place in the well of the United States Senate. The cowardly attack was premeditated and grossly unfair, as the victim Sen. Charles Sumner, was both unarmed and seated when accosted. All because of some perceived slight the aggressor felt as a result of Sen. Sumner exercising his first amendment rights in the execution of his duties as the representative of the State of Massachusetts.
Our notions of Southern Chivalry are exploded when faced with the reality that Preston Brooks was celebrated all over the South for nearly beating a US Senator from another state to death. That event and its aftermath provide a clear window into the true nature of the Southern psyche of that time, especially in the cradle of secession.
As far as I'm concerned it would have been much better for this country if, when South Carolina declared Secession, the President of the United States immediately sent a Naval armada to Charleston, reduced that traitor filled city to rubble, then hung every remaining Confederate from the nearest tree.
Maybe once that cup of blood had been spilled and the South had it's nose busted right good it would have come to it's senses..just like you did.
Are any southerners involved in drug smuggling today? Why don't they close it down? What slave trade existed by the 1850s was highly illegal and slavers risked being hanged. That said, it was also highly lucrative, so some amoral greedheads engaged in it. The US navy, along with the British navy, worked to suppress it. Ship owners in Baltimore were arrested by federal agents in 1839 after the Brits turned over evidence that they were slaving. But just about any ship could be rigged to carry slaves, and once a ship leaves port, what control did anyone in that time have on where it went?