"the Indignation of Freedom-Loving People": The Caning of Charles Sumner and Emotion in Antebellum Politics (Essay‪)‬

In a eulogy delivered before the New York State Assembly in 1874, Charles S. Spencer identified the late Charles Sumner as a Republican martyr. Sumner's May 1856 caning by South Carolina's Preston Brooks, Spencer remarked, "made more intense the indignation of freedom-loving people, and gave additional energy to the will and strength to the arm" of the emerging Republican Party. Spencer linked the assault to the Civil War and emancipation, proclaiming that each blow to Sumner's bloody brow "drove one more nail into the coffin of slavery." (1) By arousing the northern public, the caning accelerated the growth of a political coalition dedicated to checking southern political power and slavery. (2) Historians have concurred with Spencer, identifying the caning as an important milestone on the road to the Civil War. Some argue that the assault illustrated the threat of the southern slave power and facilitated the rise of the Republican Party. Others suggest variously that the caning symbolized the cultural divergence between North and South; revealed the depth of sectional hostility; and highlighted the importance of race, slavery, and gender in antebellum discourses on citizenship and politics. (3) The Brooks-Sumner affair has not suffered from historiographical neglect; given the work already done on the memorable episode, what is left to say?