ment
which the people had rejected.

In the course of his address Sumner compared Senators Butler and
Douglas to Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, 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. Let her be
impeached in character, or any proposition be 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 the Senator."

When Sumner concluded, the gathering storm broke forth. Cass of
Michigan, after saying that he had listened to the address with equal
surprise and regret, characterized it as "the most unAmerican and
unpatriotic that ever grated on the ears of the members of that high
body." Douglas and Mason were personal and abusive. Douglas, recalling
Sumner's answer to Senator Butler's question whether he would assist in
returning a slave, renewed the charge made two years earlier that Sumner
had violated his oath of office. This attack called forth from Sumner
another attempt to defend the one weak point in his speech of 1852, for
he was always irritated by reference to this subject, and at the same
time he enjoyed a fine facility in the use of language which irritated
others.

One utterance in Douglas's reply to Sumner is of special significance in
view of what occurred two days later: "Is it his object to provoke
some of us to kick him as we would a dog in the street, that he may get
sympathy upon the just chastisement?" Two days later Sumner was sitting
alone at his desk in the Senate chamber after adjournment when Preston
Brooks, a nephew of Senator Butler and a member of the lower House,
entered and accosted him with the statement that he had read Sumner's
speech twice and that it was a libel on South Carolina and upon a
kinsman of his. Thereupon Brooks followed his words by striking Sumner
on the head with a cane. Though the Senator was dazed and blinded by
the unexpected attack, his assailant rained blow after blow until he
had broken the cane and Sumner lay prostrate and bleeding at his feet.
Brooks's remarks in the House of Representatives almost a month after
the event leave no doubt of his determination to com