July 15
‘The country in the years during
the run-up to the Civil War seemed to have completely lost all capacity to
listen. Perhaps the most striking example occurred in 1856 when Senator Charles
Sumner delivered a rousing anti-slavery speech in the US Senate that played
well among his abolitionist supporters in his home state of Massachusetts.
Unfortunately that speech infuriated the South – and induced a relative of the
Southerner whose honor Sumner had besmirched to enter an almost empty senate
chamber and attack Sumner as he sat at his desk, beating him with his walking
stick with sufficient vehemence that Sumner took years of recuperating before
he could return to his senatorial duties. And while Sumner was recuperating,
his assailant received any number of replacement walking sticks from
well-wishing fellow Southerners – to be used again in case any other Yankee
hypocrite stepped out of line!’
- Arnold Kunst
‘It’s a rare person indeed who
wants to hear what he doesn’t want to hear.’
- Anonymous
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