Secession Era Editorials Project

Congress and the Sumner Assault.

Baltimore, Maryland, Sun [American]

(28 May 1856)

-- It will be seen by our reports that the subject of the late assault by Mr. Brooks, of S. C.., upon Senator Sumner, in the Senate Chamber, was the subject of remark in that body yesterday -- and that some warm words grew out of it between Messrs. Toombs, of Ga., and Wade, of Ohio.-- It is to be hoped that by the time the subject shall come up regularly before the Senate, gentlemen will have got sufficiently cool to deal with it in a discreet, dignified, yet none the less firm manner. The presiding officer, it seems to us, however, has the whole matter of the decorum of the body over which he presides pretty much in his own keeping. Let the root of the evil be aimed at, by a prompt and determined "call to order" immediately on the first digression from the proper parliamentary discourse, and we may then escape any more such scenes as disgrace the body and tend to provoke violence. Senator Butler, S. C.., re-appeared in his seat yesterday, and promises to take due and courteous notice of the resolves of the Massachusetts Legislature in reference to Mr. Sumner and the assault upon him, growing out of Mr. S.'s remarks upon Mr. B. and his State, when they shall be presented to the Senate.