h
Carolina and Mr. Butler, who is a relative of mine," and he forthwith
assaulted Mr. Sumner by blows on the head with a gutta-percha cane
one inch in diameter at the larger end. The blows were repeated,
the cane broken, and Brooks still continued to strike with the
broken parts of it. Sumner, thus taken by surprise, and being
severely injured, could not defend himself, and soon, after vain
efforts to protect himself, fell prostrate to the floor, covered
with his own blood. He was severely injured, and though he lived
for many years, he never wholly recovered from the injuries. He
died March 11, 1874.

This outrage did much to precipitate events and to intensify
hostility to slavery. Southern Senators and Representatives assumed
to justify the assault.(85)

The House did not expel Brooks, as the requisite two thirds vote
was not obtained. He resigned, and was re-elected by his district,
six votes only being cast against him, but he died in January,
1857. Butler, of South Carolina, the alleged immediate cause of
Brooks' assault on Sumner, died in the same year.

The whole North looked upon the personal assault upon Sumner as
not only brutal, but as intended to be notice to other Senators
and members of Congress of a common design and plan to intimidate
the friends of freedom. The assault was largely justified throughout
the South, also by leading Southern statesmen in both branches of
Congress.(86)

Remarks on the manner of Brooks' assault in the House made by
Burlingame of Massachusetts led to a challenge from Brooks, which
was accepted, the duel to be fought near the Clifton House, Canada;
but Brooks declined to fight at the place named, alleging a fear
to go there through the enraged North.

Brooks also, for remarks in the Senate characterizing the assault,
challenged Henry Wilson of Massachusetts, but the latter declined
the challenge because he "regarded duelling as the lingering relic
of a barbarous civilization, which the law of the country has
branded as a crime."(86)

So threatening, then, was the attitude of the Southern members of
both Senate and House that Senators Wade of Ohio, Chandler of
Michigan, and Cameron of Pennsylvania made a compact to resent any
insult from a Southerner by a challenge to fight.(87)

A last attempt was made in Buchanan's administration, pending the
Kansas agitation, to buy and annex Cuba in the interest of the
slave power. It was then a province of Spain. Buchan