Quid Pro Quo.

Newspaper Title

Cincinnati Daily Enquirer

Publication Date

5-23-1856

Publication Place

Cincinnati, Ohio

Event Topic

Sumner Caning

Political Party

Democratic

Region

free state

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Quote

Superficial and malevolent writers are attemptingto magnify Sumner into a martyr forfreedom and a victim of slavery.

Document Type

Article (Journal or Newsletter)

Full Text Transcription

Superficial and malevolent writers are attemptingto magnify Sumner into a martyr forfreedom and a victim of slavery. But theAmerican people are too observant, too justand too chivalrous (if we may employ thatmuch abused term,) for such a transparentgame to be played successfully. Whateverreprobation may be visited on Mr. Brooks, andwhatever opinions may be entertained in regardto the subject of debate, gentlemeneverywhere will admit that Sumner's generaltone was neither parliamentary norgentlemanly; neither were his particularapplications.

Read the deliberately prepared attack onMr. Butler, of South Carolina -- a man venerablein years, amiable in temper, and possessedof every personal claim to respect. Was thatthe tone of a gentleman? Especially was itthe tone which any man of strong and athleticframe, such as Sumner, ought to haveemployed without holding himself accountable tothe younger members of Mr. Butler's familyfor the imtemperate abuse of their aged relative?Read, also, his tirade against the State ofSouth Carolina -- his indictment of hercharacter for honor and patriotism -- hismisrepresentations of her history and conduct.

It is said, however, that Mr. Sumnerintended to play a new part -- that he was toappear as the KNIGHT of Abolitionism -- and thatthe hottest of "Southern Hotspurs" should findhenceforth a fit match in the person of thisdoughty cavalier. It had been previously rumoredthat he was to carry the war into the"enemy's country." During the delivery of hisgrossest personalities, and afterward, there wereplenty of his factious brethren to hound him onwith most fulsome applause on every rancorousoutburst. When he was most insulting anddefiant, he was encouraged and bepraised most,and was flattered into the notion that he wasdestined to "put down" the South, and especiallyto prostrate Carolina -- her Senators andRepresentatives. Well, stung by his unmeasuredinsolence and personal prevocations,an impetuous relative of the aged and insultedSenator answers the foul-mouth with the stronghand, trampling, it is true, upon the forms ofparliamentary privilege with which the boastingcavalier had intrenched himself, and which,unquestionably, ought to have restrained himfrom offering the insult to an old man thatwas thus summarily avenged.

We are not to be put in a false position inregard to this matter. Regretting and condemning,as much as any one, the mode andmeasure of redress that was adopted, we yet,with great submission, would suggest that thosewho provoke attacks of this violent descriptionare not without great blame, and that thosewho provoke attacks of this violent descriptionare not without great blame, and that thosewho raise the cry of the wordy onset and applaudthe exulting assailant of age and stationare not without their responsibility for theoutrages that may follow. In short, those whoplay at bowls must expect rubbers!

Edited/Proofed by

Entered and proofed by Lloyd Benson

Identifier

ohcesu560523a

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Quid Pro Quo.

Superficial and malevolent writers are attemptingto magnify Sumner into a martyr forfreedom and a victim of slavery.