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Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and letters of Charles Sumner: volume 3, Chapter 40: outrages in Kansas.—speech on Kansas.—the Brooks assault.—1855-1856. (search)
ay remarkable in Sumner's life. This was the incipient stage of civil war, to be succeeded by scenes of bloodshed in the Territory, and five years later by the great Rebellion. What was then passing in Washington also foreshadowed the future. Wilson says, in his History Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, vol. II. p. 496.:— As Charles Sumner was closing his masterly portrayal of the crime against Kansas on the floor of the United States Senate, during the afternoon of the 20th of May, 1856, the armed hosts of slavery were concentrating before devoted Lawrence; and as the hundreds of thousands were reading the next morning his graphic description, those hosts stood on Mount Oread with cannon pointed upon the hated town, ready to plunder, burn, and kill. At the time Sumner was to speak, a profound feeling pervaded the free States. Fresh violence in Kansas had carried to an intense heat the indignation aroused by the Nebraska bill. The Administration was defiant, threa