By Stephen Smoot
In late May of 1856, as days in Washington DC start to feature the heat and humidity that at that point in history shut the National Capital down for months, United States Senator Charles Sumner delivered a fiery and intemperate speech on the topic of the expansion of slavery into the territories.
Conventional wisdom of the time stated that slavery would die if not allowed to expand and both sides cheerfully bandied that doubtful sentiment to provoke their followers into action. Senator Sumner’s oratory in May of 1856 included a prod in the direction of his fellow Senator from South Carolina, the elderly and enfeebled Andrew Butler.
Sumner stated that “the Senator of South Carolina has read many books of chivalry and believes himself a chivalrous knight with sentiments of honor and courage.” He had already compared Butler and Senator Stephen Douglas to Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.
“Of course he has chosen a mistress,” noted Sumner, “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.”
In these words and others, Sumner poured vitriol onto Butler, South Carolina, slavery, and the South, which he had every bit of right to do in his position. Since his native Commonwealth of Massachusetts was more fervent than even he on this issue, one could say Sumner had the obligation to speak thus to best represent those who selected him, that state’s legislature.
Butler was not there to hear himself so rhetorically battered, but his nephew also represented that state in the House of Representatives. When he heard how his beloved uncle had been treated in the speech, he resolved to fateful action.
The youthful Brooks grabbed his walking stick, a fashion accessory even used by the young in those days. He trod to the Senate Chamber and found Senator Sumner at his desk.
He shouted “I have read your speech, a libel on South Carolina
There, United States Congressman Preston Brooks used said metal-tipped walking stick to cave in the skull of the Senator from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, then left him to die in the seat his state had entrusted to him. A fellow Representative from the Palmetto State pulled a pistol to initially keep help from attending to the Senator, who remarkably survived and even regained his seat.
Worse than the attack itself for American civil society was the aftermath. The Richmond Daily Whig, usually one of the more grounded of antebellum Southern media outlets, proclaimed “a most glorious deed! Mr. Brooks, of South Carolina, administered to Mr. Sumner, a notorious abolitionist, an effectual and classic caning.”
Perhaps the “grounded” nature of the paper was expressed by “the only regret we feel is that Mr. Brooks did not employ a slave whip instead of a stick.” Hopefully they meant it less out of the irony and more because a whip would bring tremendous pain, but not likely death.
The Wilmington (NC) Daily Herald remarked that “as was expected, the affair has been a perfect Godsend to the Abolitionists and they evidently intend to make the most of it.” It offered a parsed analysis, saying “We think Sumner deserved what he got, but we do not approve of the conduct of Brooks” because he was not the one directly insulted by the Senator.
Also “Mr. Brooks should have sought a different time and place for his meeting with Sumner” because Brooks violated the rules of propriety regarding personal revenge and came upon Sumner while the latter had no means of self-defense.
Such reactions, nearly uniform through the South, first baffled, next horrified, then infuriated the North. Those in that section, for the most part, could not fathom why Southerners would defend the near beating of a man to death for his spoken opinion.
Remember, Brooks walked in the Senate Chamber not to merely chastise, but to kill Senator Sumner.
The Northern media returned the favor three years later by nearly anointing John Brown a saint after his violent attack on the United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry.
In this event, the aftermath was where the most damage took place.
Citizens appalled by the attempted murder of a sitting United States Senator levied judgment on those who celebrated the violence. The sections had endured constant political disagreement since the 1790s over issues such as immigration, trade and tariffs, foreign wars, and then, after 1820, slavery.
By 1850 the disagreement had grown to discord. By 1858 and 59, discord had given way to disgust over issues such as Brooks and Sumner, John Brown, and a host of other schisms separating the nation. That decade saw America splitting way before the onset of secession and war. The Methodist and Baptist churches split in the 1840s. Presbyterians held on until the late 1850s. The inability for even Christian congregations to withstand the presence of those they politically opposed signified the coming breakup of the nation itself.
The very last national organization of any authority, the Democratic Party itself, split into Northern and Southern segments in 1860.
In 2025, the fault lines lay less in geography and more between economic and social classes. Horrifying reactions come not from those across the nation, but sometimes from across the street. Political tensions dating back to the 1990s have continued to build like energy accumulations on fault lines that preface earthquakes.
No president since Ronald Reagan has enjoyed a comfortable and relatively easy re-election, showing how long the nation has faced significant political division in its most recent form.
This has led to an even greater potential danger as conservatives may lose even more trust in institutions whose employees echoed 1850s Southerners and shared their joy at the ruthless murder of Charlie Kirk. As a result, one should expect that conservatives will examine closely people such as teachers, health care providers, and others, especially those who have contact with their children.
Fair or not, the trust among many on the conservative side, whatever was left, has mostly evaporated. Conservatives don’t burn down buildings and carry signs when enraged. They simply reset their thinking and adapt accordingly. They likely will not compromise to keep the social or political peace anymore and put up their own style of resistance when they feel it’s warranted.
The situation is highly unstable and a clear and present danger to the future of the Republic as it stands now.
Only one sure fire action will definitely defuse the divide and the potential threat to the nation’s future and that is to disarm the Presidency.
Arthur Schlesinger, often called the court historian of Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, wrote a warning about “The Imperial Presidency” during the administration of George W. Bush. That model of the presidency emerged under the two Roosevelts and Wilson as they expanded federal authority considerably at the expense of state sovereignty.
In 2025, it is federal power that the people fear most, which is why so many put so much effort into ensuring their side has possession of the power. The battles over “the precious” have caused both sides to employ increasingly aggressive efforts to keep it from their opponents, making both ugly and deformed in the process.
Nothing has hurt the United States more than the accumulation of power at the federal level. It makes decision-makers out of ignoramuses who know nothing of local conditions. It puts people and their endeavors at the whim of bureaucrats, causing them real fear of arbitrary action against them. Yet nothing that the federal government does in any field can be described as quality results.
Leftists stridently defend the United States Department of Education, for example, and battled to keep it alive against efforts to end it. Since 1980 the nation has seen continual decline in public school education metrics, but at least after the Dept. of Education took over student loans for college, millions sacrificed their financial security for endless indebtedness because that agency put no effective pressure on public universities to restrain their pointless tuition hikes that were far in excess of inflation.
The Department of Education has no track record of any success that matters in the long term. Why does it have authority? Why does it even exist? The states would do far better with the same resources.
As Oliver Cromwell asked the Rump Parliament, “Ye have grown intolerably odious to the whole nation. You were deputed here by the people to get grievances redressed, are yourselves the greatest grievance . . . In the name of God, go!”
And this is just a single example of the federal government’s intervention making matters worse.
Solving the national division means giving up the national backstop. States, communities, and individuals need to assume more responsibility and restrict the national government to defense, international trade, federal law enforcement, foreign affairs, and a few other necessary roles. States need to assume the lead in issues related to the needs of the people because they can respond most effectively to the voters’ needs and desires.
As far as the presidency is concerned, it started off using the elected office of Roman consul as a model. Consuls led in diplomacy, war, and administration. Another office in the late Roman Republic, tribune, tended to the opinions and needs of the people. Augustus, considered the first Roman Emperor, merely combined these functions in himself, but ruled for life.
Charlie Kirk was assassinated for his ideals. Those beliefs were tied to both optimism for the potential of free markets and free people tinged with fear of the controls that the Left wishes to impose on the economy and on human initiative. Remove the power, remove the fear, restore national tranquility.
The presidency is now as much tribune as consul and looks more like an elected Roman Emperor than a Republic consul. That has skewed the dynamic that made the United States so successful for so long.
It’s time to halt the march to whatever fate awaits our unhappy nation. Put the presidency and the executive branch back in its proper proportion and remove the fear that drives social anger and malaise.
