time would be followed by a revolution; and this I know."

Under the state of public sentiment then prevailing at the South, it
would have been strange if the extraordinary event and the succeeding
debate had not provoked other similar affairs. Mr. Sumner's colleague,
Senator Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts (afterwards Vice-President of
the United States), in his speech characterized the assault as
"brutal, murderous, and cowardly." For this language Brooks sent him a
challenge. Wilson wrote a reply declining the encounter, but in the
same letter announcing that "I religiously believe in the right of
self-defense, in its broadest sense."

One of the sharpest denunciations of the assault was made by Anson
Burlingame, a Massachusetts Representative (afterwards United States
Minister to China, and still later Chinese Minister to the United
States). "I denounce it," he said, "in the name of the Constitution it
violates. I denounce it in the name of the sovereignty of
Massachusetts, which was stricken down by the blow. I denounce it in
the name of humanity. I denounce it in the name of civilization, which
it outraged. I denounce it in the name of that fair-play which bullies
and prize-fighters respect." For this, after some efforts had been
made by friends to bring about an amicable understanding, Brooks sent
him also a challenge. Mr. Burlingame accepted the challenge, and his
second designated the Clifton House in Canada as the rendezvous and
rifles as weapons. Burlingame at once started on the journey; but
Brooks declined to go, on the excuse that his life would not be safe
on such a trip through the North.

Broadened into national significance by all these attendant
circumstances, the Sumner assault became a leading event in the great
slavery contest between the South and North. It might well rank as one
of the episodes of the civil war then raging in Kansas, out of which
it had in reality grown, and with which it was intertwined in motive,
act, and comment. In result the incident was extremely damaging to the
South, for it tended more than any single Border-Ruffian crime in
Kansas to unite hesitating and wavering opinion in the North against
the alarming flood of lawlessness and violence, which as a rule found
its origin and its defense in the ranks of the pro-slavery party.
Certainly no phase of the transaction was received by the North with
such popular favor as some of the bolder avowals by Northern
Representatives