|
On May 22, 1856, in the United States Congress, Representative Preston Brooks attacked Senator Charles Sumner with a walking cane in retaliation for a speech given by Sumner two days earlier. The beating nearly killed Sumner and it drew a sharply polarized response from the American public on the subject of the expansion of slavery in the United States. It has been considered symbolic of the "breakdown of reasoned discourse"〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/The_Caning_of_Senator_Charles_Sumner.htm )〕 that eventually led to the American Civil War. ==Background== (詳細はBleeding Kansas" crisis, Sumner denounced the Kansas-Nebraska Act in his "Crime against Kansas" speech, delivered on May 19 and May 20. The long speech argued for the immediate admission of Kansas as a free state and went on to denounce the "Slave Power"—the political arm of the slave owners: :"Not in any common lust for power did this uncommon tragedy have its origin. It is the rape of a virgin Territory, compelling it to the hateful embrace of slavery; and it may be clearly traced to a depraved desire for a new Slave State, hideous offspring of such a crime, in the hope of adding to the power of slavery in the National Government."〔Michael William Pfau, "Time, Tropes, and Textuality: Reading Republicanism in Charles Sumner's 'Crime Against Kansas'", ''Rhetoric & Public Affairs'' vol 6 #3 (2003) 385-413, quote on p. 393 (online in Project MUSE )〕 Sumner then attacked the authors of the Act, Senators Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois and Andrew Butler of South Carolina, saying, :"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 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." In addition Sumner mocked Butler's speaking ability, which had been impeded by a recent stroke: :() "touches nothing which he does not disfigure with error, sometimes of principle, sometimes of fact. He cannot open his mouth, but out there flies a blunder." According to Manisha Sinha (2003), Sumner had been ridiculed and insulted by both Douglas and Butler for his opposition to the Fugitive Slave Law and the Kansas Nebraska Act earlier, with Butler crudely race baiting Sumner by making sexual allusions to black women, like many slaveholders who accused abolitionists of promoting interracial marriage.〔Manisha Sinha, ("The Caning of Charles Sumner: Slavery, race and Ideology in the Age of the Civil War," ) Journal of the Early Republic 23 (Summer 2003): 233-262.〕 According to Hoffer (2010), "It is also important to note the sexual imagery that recurred throughout the oration, which was neither accidental nor without precedent. Abolitionists routinely accused slaveholders of maintaining slavery so that they could engage in forcible sexual relations with their slaves."〔William James Hoffer, ''The Caning of Charles Sumner: Honor, Idealism, and the Origins of the Civil War'' (2010) p. 62〕 Douglas said during the speech that "this damn fool is going to get himself killed by some other damn fool." Representative Preston Brooks, Butler's cousin, was infuriated. He later said that he intended to challenge Sumner to a duel, and consulted with fellow South Carolina Representative Laurence M. Keitt on dueling etiquette. Keitt told him that dueling was for gentlemen of equal social standing, and that Sumner was no better than a drunkard, due to the supposedly coarse language he had used during his speech. Brooks said that he concluded that since Sumner was no gentleman, it would be more appropriate to beat Sumner with a cane. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Caning of Charles Sumner」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|