Secession Era Editorials Project

A Constitutional Caning.

Cleveland, Ohio, Plain Dealer [Democratic]

(11 June 1856)

Brooks declares that, as the constitution provides that no member of either House of Congress shall be held responsible elsewhere for words spoken in debate, that it would have been unconstitutional to have caned Sumner anywhere else than the place designated by the Constitution. This may be said to be a South Carolina abstraction.