I suspect that it is bad form to review a book before finishing it, so don’t consider this a review of The Caning by Stephen Puleo. I am far enough along to recommend it. Go buy it. It is particularly timely. The Caning will reassure you that our current Congress is not the most dysfunctional that the country has ever experienced. The gold medal for dysfunctional Congress decade belongs to the fifties. That would be the eighteen-fifties. The Caning tells the story of the incident most emblematic of the dysfunction.
The Speech
The year was 1856 and the issue before Congress was whether Kansas should be admitted as a free state or a slave state. Charles Sumner, a Senator from Massachusetts, launched into a long speech called The Crime Against Kansas. It was laced with invective. I imagine this portrayal of Thaddeus Stevens in the recent movie Lincoln captures some of the flavor of the way those guys could insult one another.
Here is a bit from Sumner’s speech
I mean the Senator from South Carolina and the Senator from Illinois , who, though unlike as Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, yet, like this couple, sally forth together in the same adventure. I regret much to miss the elder Senator from his seat; but the cause against which he has run a tilt, with such ebullition of animosity, demands that the opportunity of exposing him should not be lost; and it is for the cause that I speak. The Senator from South Carolina has read many books of chivalry, and believes himself a chivalrous knight, with sentiments of honor and courage. Of course he has chosen a mistress to whom he has made his vows, and who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him, — though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight: I mean the harlot Slavery. For her his tongue is always profuse in words. Let her be impeached in character, or any proposition be made to shut her out from the extension of her wantonness, and no extravagance of manner or hardihood of assertion is then too great for this Senator. The frenzy of Don Quixote in behalf of his wench Dulcinea del Toboso is all surpassed.
A Congressman’s Reaction
The other player in the drama was Congressman Preston Brooks. The interesting thing about the story is that Sumner was kind of a jerk in general. For example, when his brother Horace was drowned off Fire Island in the wreck of The Elizabeth in 1850, he expressed little grief. Preston Brooks, on the other hand, was a stand up guy who more than anything was loyal to his family. That was a big part of the problem. The Senator Butler, who was absent from his seat, due to illness, was second cousin to Preston Brooks. Congressman Brooks felt honor bound to take action. A low life like Sumner was not somebody you challenged to a duel. That was for other gentlemen who had insulted you. Instead Brooks walked onto the floor of the Senate and beat Sumner, taken unaware, with his cane. He didn’t kill Sumner but it was a close thing. The cane, on the other hand, was broken into bits.
Everybody Else’s Reaction
Reaction to the caning divided along regional/factional lines. From throughout the South, Brooks received replacement canes inscribed with the words “Hit Him Again”. In the North, moderates who had little use for intemperate abolitionists, like Sumner, were pushed to sympathize with him on free speech grounds. Puleo argues that the caning was the defining incident that made the events of the next decade inevitable. I was recently at the sesquicentennial commemoration of the deadliest day in American history, September 17, 1862. At the cemetery members of the public took turns going up and reading the names of the men who died or were mortally wounded that day. It took three hours. Every once in a while, I think about what my immigrant great-grandfather was doing exactly 150 years ago. As I write this he was helping guard a railroad depot, as best I can determine.
Stephen Puleo On The Current Situation
I asked Mr. Puleo how he thought the story of the caning related to the situation with Congress that we find ourselves in now. Here is what he had to say:
At its core, The Caning was about the debate over slavery — or more specifically, the extremists on each side of the slavery issue. Whereas most of America — North and South — was more moderate on the issue, Charles Sumner of Massachusetts represented the abolitionist point of view, which called for the immediate and uncompensated end to slavery, which the South feared greatly. Preston Brooks was a Southern fire-eater who hailed from the most ardent pro-slavery district in the most ardent pro-slavery state South Carolina; by 1856, Brooks had espoused secessionist views. I view “the caning” as the “no-turning-back-point” on the road to the Civil War. It was not the cause of the Civil War, but it did make war inevitable and unavoidable in a number of ways
If anything, the magnitude of the slavery debate makes the issues before us today seem much more manageable. Whereas today we debate over who should pay what in taxes, or what role the government plays in spending (important, yes, but…), in the 1850s — by far, America’s most partisan decade — the debate centered on such enormous questions such as: Should one man be allowed to own another? Should one man be allowed to sell another? Should one man be allowed to sell another man to one owner; his wife to a second owner; and his children to a third owner? Were blacks genetically inferior to whites? Were slaves people at all or just property?
These were at the center of the slavery debate. It would seem that today’s issues should be solvable when we think about the immensity of the slavery question.
Well, that’s encouraging.
You can follow me on twitter @peterreillycpa.
Afternote
I have to thank Mr. Puleo for the interesting tidbits that Sumner’s brother was on board The Elizabeth. Also drowned in that incident were Margaret Fuller and her husband and infant son. In the hold of The Elizabeth was a statue of John Calhoun. It is all fraught with symbolism, which someday I will work out.
Originally published on Forbes.com Dec 30th, 2012