- Joined
- Jun 4, 2018
This is even more amusing if you know the context; Sumner's speech was, to put it mildly, loaded like a smokin' hot potato. From America: The Last Best Hope by William J. Bennett:
Following a Border Ruffian raid on Lawrence, Kansas, in May 1856, Massachusetts's Charles Sumner delivered a stinging speech on the Senate floor titled "The Crime Against Kansas." Sumner grieviously insulted Andrew Butler, an elderly South Carolina senator. His rude and personal attack suggested the old man was drooling. South Carolina, Sumner cried, had sent to the Senate, "a Don Quixote who had chosen a mistress who, though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight -- I mean the harlot, Slavery."
Needless to say, this didn't go over well, particularly with the sexual connotations; Southerners didn't like to be reminded about that sort of thing. Preston Brooks was also Butler's nephew, and the only reason he didn't challenge Sumner to a duel was because he was sure Sumner would refuse.