The commissioners revealed an intractable belief that Northern men were cowards. As evidence, they cited the 1856 caning of Republican senator Charles Sumner, a fervent critic of slavery, in the Senate chamber and his refusal to challenge his attacker to a manly duel. Here their argument abandoned logical constraint: As they saw it the violence of the assault was Sumner’s fault, never mind that his assailant, Rep. Preston Brooks, struck first and from behind while Sumner was seated at his Senate desk, as Russell reminded them. The commissioners brushed this aside; Brooks, they said, struck “a
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