1856 – A House of Representatives Speech, by one of the most Radical Republicans, excoriating the South for its defense of Preston Brooks after his crippling attack of Charles Sumner on the Senate floor
Washington DC: 1856. Unbound. The Assault upon Senator Sumner, A Crime Against the People. John A. Bingham. Washington, D. C., Beull & Blanchad, July 9, 1856. Complete with all eight pages. Unbound.
Bingham, a close political ally and friend of Sumner, took to the floor of the House to deliver this speech excoriating Southern politicians and the Southern press for their defense of Brooks.
. Very good. Item #010760Senator Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts, was attacked by Representative Preston Brooks, a pro-slavery Democrat from South Carolina. On May 22, 1856, Brooks walked into the United States Senate chamber and beat Sumner nearly to death with a gutta-percha walking cane in retaliation for an anti-slavery speech Sumner delivered two days earlier. This cowardly assault impassioned abolitionists, exacerbated sectional hate, and drew many Northerners to their cause.
Bingham later served as a prosecutor during the trials of the Lincoln assassins and during the impeachment of Andrew Johnson. He was also the principal author of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which initially expanded Constitutional rights to freed slaves. The amendment has been hotly contested since it was ratified, and been at the center of some of the most famous Supreme Court decisions ever since, including Brown v. Board of Education (1954; prohibiting racial segregation in public schools), Loving v. Virginia (1967; ending interracial marriage bans), Roe v. Wade (1973; recognizing federal right to abortion until overturned in 2022), Bush v. Gore (2000; settling the 2000 presidential election), Obergefell v. Hodges (2015; extending right to marry to same-sex couples), and Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (2023; prohibiting affirmative action in most college admissions)
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