Then im going to introduce a new concept to you, and thats the idea of political culture. And i will compare that concept to something weve encountered before, Political Parties. And finally, the bulk of the lecture is going to be presenting new evidence, in fact on the antebellum political culture. I have three major areas of evidence to talk about today, one, Tobacco Culture, two, political friendships, and, three, affairs of honor. And well conclude there after getting through that evidence. All right. Like we obvious do in the class, im going to start today with an image on the screen and im going to ask you to tell me what you see. This is Lady Washingtons reception from 1861. Take it in. Who can point out something that you see right away that strikes you . There we go. Lady washington is on a platform. Yeah. How high do you think she is, maybe, off the ground . Like, i dont know, a foot. A good foot. Thats a good piece there. What else do you see . Another one down there. Thank you. Everyone is dressed up sup superfancy. Yeah, exactly its very fancy. The ladies are wearing gowns. How about a third thing . Go ahead, jimmy. It looks like theyre all fairly close together. They might be dancing or i dont know. Theyre all close together. Exactly. Very good. Thats good. Now i should say about Lady Washingtons reception, that lady washington herself is standing literally center stage in an elegant gown. What you might not have noticed, there was someone else who we think of as important in the background here and thats good, old george. Sort of overshadowed by lady washington. The title was Lady Washingtons reception. The word used at the time was that of a levy. It was a reception held by the first lady, marsha washington. She was standing on a platform and you noticed the on latpulan attire. The next image may be a little more familiar. This is county election from 1851. What do you see here and how does it differ from that last image . A hand down here. Pass it down, if you would. Thank you. Go ahead, zachariah. I see a drunk guy in the top left drunk people, very good. Theres more than one drunk guy. This guy here. We got someone who has had a little too much here. Good, yeah. Stump speaking. Yeah, we talked about this. Good, you remember. Stump speaking. The whole, vote for me for president. Excellent. Anything else you see . Theres a hand back there. Its primarily working class people. Not the wealthy. Good. Thats all good. Youre seeing a diversity of people. One thing youre also seeing is the white male electorate. This is going to stand in for democracy in this period, the jacksonian period, the one were going to look at today to start. But also, even though it is the white male electorate, its a diverse scene. Its the whole town. Note the africanamerican to the left of the picture, of course, children, as well. Although it would be the white male voter for many, many years who would be the voter in america, nevertheless, political culture encompasses all people, men and women, encompasses whites and africanamericans alike and its not so much a question of whether one can participate in the vote, but whether one can participate more broadly in politics. Now, when we think back to the First Party System, when we think back to the people who stood in as the politicians of the early day, two people come to mind. From the federalist party, alexander hamilton, mr. 10 bill, right . And from the democratic republicans, the Opposition Party to the federalists, we have Thomas Jefferson. These two men could not have been more stark opposites politically. Recall that the federalists stood for a strong constitution, a strong federal government, a Strong Financial and manufacturing base, and as we say, hamilton was their leader. Versus those democrat republicans or just republicans for short, who were wary of centralized government, who were wary of encroachments upon personal liberties and who promoted farming and commerce among small villages and towns instead of large cities and manufacturing. And jefferson, the enlightened figure of the democratic republicans was their leader. Thats the firstparty system. Its socalled because of what follows. Indeed, the First Party System was an earlier moment. During the firstparty system, one of the key issues was the embargo. And we see from this political cartoon that the embargo is spelled backwards as, oh, grab me. The artist is representing the embargo as a large turtle biting at the british smuggler who would try to break the embargo. The embargo was a Foreign Policy measure. It was designed to make it so britain would have a hard time trading with the United States. It was one of the policies that doomed the United States to a second war with great britain. Again, thats part of the firstparty systems history. Its about the ways in which the federalists and republicans clashed, the ways in which hamilton and jefferson came into office, came into power and eventually faded from the scene. Who they left the politics of the United States to were these guys, the men of the secondparty system, socalled because we have totally new names for the parties and although some of the issues change, once, these are the new leaders of american politics. On the left you have arounndrew jackson and on the right, henry clay, a kentucky whig. Between clay and jackson, we have two very different views of what america should look like. And i have two political cartoons so show how in the secondparty system new issues were emerging. For example, the question of the bank. This is the second bank of the United States. In this image we see Andrew Jackson on the left holding a cane, which he usually walked with from all of his bullets from his duals. Trying to battle back the hydra. On each of the heads is an individual who was representing the bank. The most predominant one in the center here was Nicholas Biddle who was the president of the bank and who became an enemy to jackson in this process. This is something of a satire because jackson would socall kill the bank issue by vetoing its renewal application prior to its usual termination and that political story is somewhat well known at this point. What we know from it is after the bank war, so to speak, the whig party coalesces. A lot of the cartoons take the whig perspective because it shows that the whigs were trying to attack jackson. As i was doing my research for this lecture, i had a hard time finding projackson cartoons and yet we know he was the man of the people. Yet we know he was a symbol of american democracy. What we have left are these antijackson cartoons coming out of the period of the when i wills. In this one, the issue under consideration is executive power. At the top of the image, we see the phrase born to command. Jackson is figured as a regal figure. You may not be able to see all of the details. He has a scroll which says the word veto. This is in reference to him using the veto more than any other president in history as a way to claiming executive power. Underneath him, youll see the constitution of the United States as if hes trampling on it. And youll also see various other improvements, internal improvements, things that the whig party stood for like roads, canals and eventually railroad. Jackson here is pictured as being against all of those improvements and as a whig attack, this was very effective. Because if theres one thing that american politics feared, it was that of a king. Remember the American Revolution had been fought over this very issue fighting a monarch to replace it with the democratic system. Although jackson is thought to be a leader of democratic reform, lets not forget that sometimes politics is personal. I want to ask a question and see if we can knock out a few of them. Lets name some of the characteristics of the Democratic Party versus the whig party. Lets think about a few things here. Yeah, josh. Democrats are for weak government and against Government Spending and against the tariff. What was the tariff again . Some sort of tax, right . Yeah. Tax on . Goods. Yeah. Goods coming into the United States. Weak government, got that one, and i put up theyre against action lets not forget indian removal. That counts as an action. More like the actions that jackson imposed. Spending, yeah, i think we heard that one. That was jacksons maysville road veto. That refers to the veto in the image youre seeing Jackson Holding it as a power and i think you mentioned antitariff. So you got them all. Remember that the tariff of abominations, that was a measure passed under the John Quincy Adams presidency. It was attacked by jackson. So what we see then are the democrats are in a lot of ways, theyre the legacy party of the democratic republicans. They even have the same name, right . So theres really a continuation between jefferson and his policies and jackson and his policies. All right. Flipping the coin, whigs. What do we know about the whigs . Whigs is the opposite of democrats that are for strong government, theyre for Government Action in general, theyre for Government Spending and theyre for the tariff, basically. Thats good, actually. Yeah, this is an easy one to remember. The whigs are everything the democrats are not. Strong government. They wanted certain economic goals. Jackson is antibank. The whigs are pro spending we might say, especially on transportation. Particularly the socalled internal improvements, like the canal and roads. And the tariff. From the when i will point of view, it was no tariff of abominations, it was a reasonable tariff. It was the kind of Economic Policy that the United States should enact. Much like jackson and the democrats are the legacy party of jefferson and the democratic republicans. It can be argued that the whigs very much secede the federalist agenda. Although theyre remade and remixed, the jackson democrats, the henry clay whigs, theyre the next generation of politics. And its this party system, this is the Second Party System that i want to focus on. In order to move us from parties to political culture, i want to introduce to you this concept. Its a concept that i think will be useful for us to think about. Parties. Ive broken parties into two sets of components. Its people. Its the leaders, its the issues. Its the organization. People. And its actions. Were talking about campaigns, platforms, elections. Parties are focused on these things. A group of organized people taking action for a certain result. Thats the role of the party. The partys role is to gain power through all of these things, elections, campaigns. Political culture is a little different. It including beliefs. These are more abstract things like norms or values or attitudes. And it includes elements of power. Things like symbols, meanings and rituals. So between Political Parties and political culture then, we have a broad view of politics. And we can think about how Different Actors or politicians are both partisans or members of Political Parties and part of a political culture which may transcend those parties or may be limited to those parties. So thats the idea and the concept i want to introduce and i want to suggest that the study of political culture which is a growing field in history allows us to get into some new concepts, allows us to go beyond the party mold and look at interesting stuff from the antebellum period. I have a few questions to consider during the remainder of the election. How and why did American Political Culture change from the days of the early republic to the antebellum . In other words, from the days of hamilton and jefferson to the days of jackson and clay . So we want to try to trace that change. Thats the first goal of the lecture today, and then the second one is what does this emerging political culture of the Antebellum Congress reveal about American Society . I want to return to the questions at the end of the lecture. But i want to present some evidence that will begin to answer that question and will help you to understand how political culture operated in this period. The three areas that i want to investigate today, Tobacco Culture, political friendships, and affairs of honor. Theyre interrelated. Its not to say that one couldnt affect the other. Some are more important than others, as well see. But broadly, these are three important aspects of the political culture of the day and when we think about it in those terms, we see that these are ways for us to understand why and how politicians came into conflict with each other in the era before the civil war. So the first piece, Tobacco Culture, this draws a lot on my own research ive done. Ive not published these findings. Im presenting them to you today in an eye towards seeing what you think. But theres some elements of the Tobacco Culture that i found really interesting and i have a few really kind of compelling images here on the screen. Its amazing what you can find out there. Some of the elements of the Tobacco Culture i found including chewing tobacco, snuff, and cigars. In the 19th century, i should say right now, they had not quite invented the cigarette by this period. If you were doing tobacco, you were doing it one of these three ways. It may sound a little funny, but indeed tobacco was one of the key ways that politicians across parties could even talk to each other and i found numerous instances where sharing a cigar, sharing a pinch of snuff, or sharing a wad of chewing tobacco could bridge a gap that otherwise existed between a democrat and a whig. Im going to share a story with you from that. To convince you that tobacco wasnt just an everyday thing that didnt matter for politics, let me read to you this quote from an english observer who came to the United States, who went to washington, and who checked out the scene. He said, the habit of chewing tobacco and also prevalent in the states. Nor is it almost entirely confined to the poorer classes. Members of the house of representatives and of the senate, doctors, judges and attorneys chew tobacco almost as generally as the laboring classes in the old country. Even if a court of justice, more especially in the western states, it is no unusual thing to see judge, jury and the gentlemen of the bar all chewing and spitting as liberally as the crew of a homeward bound west india man. So you have the house of representatives, you have the senate, you have judges, everyone is chewing and spitting. Its incredible to think about it. If you were sitting in the congress in 1840, you would be hearing the spitoon. This is really kind of incredible to think about because this is really kind of a nasty habit. Its called snuff. And this is from a book from 1840 that i found called a pinch of snuff. And heres what this author said. A mans character may often be judged by the manner in which he takes snuff. We detest the stealthy attitude in which some people need their noses. A liberal elegant may be known in this work at a distance too great for a fact that serves to be seen. And that rather unattractive person in the screen youre seeing, i assume a women, its hard to tell, is actually reaching into a little box, much like the one on the left. Shes taking a pinch of this very fine pulverized tobacco and putting it into her nose by way of a snort. When you took a pinch of snuff, the first thing that would happen is you would sneeze violently as the particles were in your nostrils and secondly, you would get the hit of tobacco. I found the most common user of tobacco of the entire u. S. Senate was henry clay. This is the guy who is the leader of the whig party, mr. Antijackson. And he was more noun fknown for tobacco than any politician in the senate. And we see king, and these two men, it turns out in 1841, had a Major Incident that almost led to a duel. It came when senator king asserted that the character of Andrew Jackson, his president , and that of his editor, Francis Blair would compare gloriously to that of mr. Clay. This is king making an attack on clay by comparing him and his character to a jacksonian supporter. He said that mr. Clay considered this remark as placing blair on an equality with himself and pronounced it false and cowardly. When you hear cowardly, a duel is about to challenge. King issued a challenge to clay and both men went so far as to arrange for seconds. In the process, clay realized that he was a little bit overboard. The two men come to reconciliation. On a personal level, they had not yet kind of apologized to each other. So this is how clay does it. There are no hard feelings after the formal apologize because the next day clay approached kings desk and in a friendly manner said, king, give us a pinch of your snuff. And the gallery who heard it burst into applause because they knew this was clays way of saying, im sorry. This incident demonstrates there are so many more like it political actors could rely on a common act, in this case, taking a pinch of snuff. So what do you think of this example . Had you heard of tobacco before . What do you think . I thought it was incredible. Omar . Is there any remnants is there any remnants that Tobacco Culture today . Thats a good question. We think maybe its just henry clay who was snuffing. Well, what i found out, i really cannot believe this, even when you walk into the congress today, in the senate gallery, there are boxes, just off to the side, that are filled with snuff. And any member could take it because, again, with todays antismoking laws, you cant smoke inside a public building, but you can take snuff. Jimmy . Its funny, i actually i was watching an old some Television Performance of one of my favorite musicians and in 1970, it wasnt offensive for him to tell the story about a snuff commercial when he was a little kid. This was 45 years ago. It goes to show you, times have changed. Snuffing. Yeah. Okay. Were going to snuff that conversation and move to political friendships. All right. Maybe this will be a little more friendly of an audience now. All right, well, look, tobacco shows that we can all just get along a little bit and it also shows that if henry clay who is the most jackson hater that there is can reconcile with the jackson supporter over tobacco, maybe theres hope for america. And indeed, political friendships were a big part of the Antebellum Congress. Here im drawing on my research and a growing research of other historians including Rachel Sheldon who talks about a washington brotherhood. For sheldon and my own research, i find theres key elements that define this brotherhood. Boarding houses is a big part of it. The politicians live together. Fraternal organizations, the free masons. If youre a mason and a democrat and youre a mason and youre a whig, youre still masons together. Taverns. As we saw, politicians like to drink. So, you know, going to a telephotalk over issues was a way in which they bonded. Social clubs. More formal clubs where men could gather to smoke their cigars and have brandy. This was a thing of the antebellum period. And lavish parties. Washington was nothing if not a place to party. And it typically was the case that there would be balls and receptions and that the president would have balls and this also is the case where the first lady could help to arrange those parties. Smoking cigars comes up. Its one of the ways men bonded with each other and became friends and more. So what we have here is a washington, d. C. , by the time of the civil war period that is indeed quite advanced along these lines. That was not exactly the case when Thomas Jefferson became president. In 1800 washington, d. C. , was just getting started. This image shows the white house as it was just built in 1800. John adams was the first president to occupy it for a few short months. Jefferson was the first president to occupy the white house during his entire presidency. The washington of 1800 was a kind of undeveloped place. There were swamps and muddy roads. In the capital, there was very little to do. Not so by 1850. One of the big differences between 1800 and 1850 when it comes to the city of washington is that its actually a city now. This is a familiar outline to us. Theres a few things that the modern washington, d. C. , has that they didnt have yet in 1850. I want to zoom in on this part of the map that shows us the important government center. And this is zooming in on the map of washington in 1850. You note there are few elements here that maybe are familiar ar familiar to us. In the circle there youio see the president s house. Thats the white house and on the other one you see capitol hill and thats where the capital was that yes, indeed, the national mall, the Smithsonian Institute and at that time the unfinished washington monument. The rest of the swamp here has not yet been filled in and nor has the tidal basin been created and even by 1850 there was a lot going on in washington besides the president s house and besides the capital. Look at all of these buildings that are filled in. What i want to argue is political friendships took place in between spaces in the other buildings and particularly in the boardinghouses in places that you wouldnt expect on the map like right here. Notice where that arrow is pointing. Its a small buildingsi and nex to a larger one and this is by gallery place called the old Patton Office part of the national art museum. What i was able to find as part of my research that shows this photo this exact scene from the 1840s and here it is. Its what was then the Patton Office. It wasnt yet the Old Patent Office, in the background the colonies and then those buildings in front. In this photo which was titled the Old Patent Office the point of the purpose looking at it might si, you know, whats important here is that big column building and thats whats important. What im going to argue is actually its that building. And thats the washington boardinghouse, and thats the place where deals got done. Im going to mention one example of an important boardinghouse pattern and group that changed the course of American History and they lived on the same street, on f street and its for that reason that theyre called the f street mess and here they are, take them in. The boardinghouse was referred to as a mess because people eat their meals there like a mess hall, right . So f street mess socalled because their boardinghouse was on f street. Youve got james mason, andrew goode and Andrew Butler. What do these men have in common . What do you see . Omar . Theyre all democrats. Thats right. What else do they have in common . Sarah . Theyre all southerners. Yeah. Southerners because virginia, thats the south because missouri, its still the south and because South Carolina is still the south, right . Southern democrats and the party of Andrew Jackson and whats missing here from the party of Andrew Jackson are northerners. Where are the northerners . Why would a group of five southern democrats choose to go into the same boardinghouse together . Well, theres a lot of answers to that question. A lot of reasons. The one result is undeniable. It was this group, the f street mess that was more responsible than any of the group of politicians for the most important piece of legislation in the congress and that was nebraska. It was this group who on a cold, snowy night in january of 1854 marched over to then Franklin Pierces house, the white house, and demanded that pierce import their plan to organize the New Territory of nebraska, to permit slavery. And there it is. Southern democrats have one thing in common that northern democrats dont and thats an interesting to expand slavery. This is ominous because this shows that the politics of the party through this political culture were becoming increasingly sectional. Now, what year was the kansasnebraska act . Do you remember . 1850 okay. 1854. Gave you that one. What year does the civil war start . 65. Thats when it ends. Oh, excuse me. 18 i dont know when it started. 1861 . All right. Its the basic dates we have to remember. The kansasnebraska act starts in 1964 and thats only seven years a way and thats my point here is to say, look, this change really forbodes the coming of the civil war so what do you think . Is a boardinghouse as powerful then as capital or as the white house . What do you think of this example . Your thoughts . Yeah. Go ahead, josh. It is more powerful because there are no opposing views in the boardinghouse compared to congress. You have them all in one place with their views and they all have the same views and they want to expand it and thats how they got their job done. The power of the domestic sphere, you might say, in politics. Other thoughts on that . Well, remember these, guys because the f street mess made quite a mess and in fact, what comes out of the f street mess and what comes out of this period is really my third category, of honor and here again its not to say that affairs of honor did not take place in the earlier period because they did. Famously, the most important affair and honor of all from the firstparty system, the duel between aaron burr and alexander hamilton, a few images of what you see here. This material draws upon a book by Joanne Freeman called affairs of honor and its an excellent book and i look at some of the affairs of honor in the later period and ill end with that last example which youll see, but broadly speaking, affairs of honor across time had a few things in common. They were part of a culture of honor and again, this transcends both north and south but it becomes a Southern Institution in time and the culture of honor is more associated with the south and especially by the start of the civil war and honor is more with the southern politicians like the f street mess. Its associated with reputation and the reputation can further be categorized by different elements, but broadly speaking its what you were thought of and at this time your reputation was all you had and in some ways i think of it today like our identity which when we talk about identity theft, we talk about the problems that happen when our identity is stolen, right . Think of that. Think about that as an attack on reputation as when your reputation has been besmirched or sullied or attacked. Its about gossip. Its about spreading lies and rumors, potentially of a personal nature and potentially of a political nature. Its about posting which not too long ago this might not have been a word you didnt know because this book that im thinking of was written in 2001, but i think we all know what the post means and its actually the same thing. To post on any social media site is to post information out there. Of course, only back then all they had were newspapers, but when they posted and that is to say when they published pieces in newspapers they could precipitate an affair of honor if those postings were attacking reputation and indeed it went this way and it went gossip and posting and it finally went dueling. Dueling is the last stage in the cycle or in the process of the affair of honor. Dueling was the last measure and there were lots of threats of duels and we saw one earlier with henry clay and william king, but indeed dueling was a last measure. Its not to say that it didnt happen because it did as the burrhamilton duel suggests and as countless others, perhaps 200 to 300 in total, ive heard in this period between politicians, but dueling was the end of the process and not the beginning. So im going to present to you three examples of affairs of honor and one from this early period of federalists and republicans and the later two from the Second Party System of democrats and waves and i wanted to start with this one because we get to bring in our own connecticut senator Roger Griswald in this case from the house of representatives. Okay. So connecticut, weve got one of our own here. Roger griswald was born in connecticut and hes a connecticut politician and he was a federalist as many connecticut politicians were, right . And he goes to the congress to be a congressman and hes there from 1795 to 1805. So math you lyon im sorry, griswald was a longserving federalist congressman from connecticut. Matthew lyon, on the other hand, was from vermont, and he was a supporter of Thomas Jefferson and so he became a republican. Well, republicans haas weve se could get along and they can also get into big fights with each other and i have is the lyongr lyo lyongriswald brawl and with the fire tongs and how in the world did they get this way . It all came about an argument over politics. It was during an impeachment hearing of a particular democratic republic officer, William Blount of tennessee that griswald, mr. Club, was trying to attract the attention of mr. Lyon, in order to engage in the political process, but lyon was ignoring him on purpose since they belonged to opposing Political Parties and indeed, this is where the line starts to get crossed and griswald finally lost his temper and insulted lyon by calling him a scoundrel. Thats another word like coward, which when you say it, everyone gets quiet. Eyes pop out. What will you do . Its, lieshgs the dirtiest word in the affair of honor. You were saying, you, sir, are a liar. Well, it did not go too well. Lyon declared himself willing to fight for the interest of the common man to take on griswald. Griswald, knowing a little bit about lyons past asked if he would be using his wooden sword which we think is a reference to the fact that lyon had been dismissed from the Continental Army back during the revolution and thus, did not have an actual sword anymore. This is when lyon spat on griswalds face. Now we have spit in the face. Thats where it stopped there. They had a formal apology claiming it was not known in session because it was an impeachment hearing and it was an excuse and he meant no deok up or disrespect to the house as a whole. Two weeks later, not satisfied with the apology, griswald retaliated by bringing in the club by attacking lyon with the club and beating him about the head and shoulders and this scene shows how the congressmen are watching on. Lyon, who wasnt seriously injured went to the pit and grabbed the tongs and that is seen here in the picture. They were broken up once again and it led to a house investigation and Nothing Happened because the ly lyongriswald brawl was okay, basically. Even though it took place in the house of representatives this is all part of a code of honor and part of acceptable conduct of gentlemen. Of course, apologies have to be made and it happened and it did. The fact that it didnt go on to become a duel is the thing thats perhaps most surprising about this is that it stopped at the level of the brawl. We move ahead to 1850. We get to another one of these affairs of honor. This one, thee, is getting a little bit more of a loaded gun. This one is the dispute where we have the mississippi senator henry foot here, and hes holding a gun, and on the right here we have the missouri senator Thomas Hart Benton who has his back saying i have nothing to hide and thats the scene here. This one, too, comes from words being exchanged that nearly lead to blows. Foot calls benton a colludeinator. That caused him to approach foote down the hall in a menacing manner and foote who was prepared for such a response pulled out the pistol and again, the word itself may not seem that bad and its one of these words saying you, sir, are a liar and these are fighting words in antebellum america. When the guns were taken out by foote he was immediately called back and eventually the two men were wrestled away. This is a false alarm and both men were democrats so this doesnt quite fit into the sectional pattern that we might expect of this period when we have two democrats although from different wings of the party fighting it out and there are details there to think about. Its the final example and the one thats most famous, and perhaps the most famous affair of honor of all that reveals what i think the breakdown of american politics and thats the brooks sumner affair. In this cartoon from 1856 titled southern chivalry, argument versus clubs we see an unknown assailant showing a cane with his face blocked and thats purposeful. The artist didnt know who the heck it was attacking a man who seems to be holding a pen and perhaps a bill in his hand, bill says kansas and that man was Charles Sumner. It turns out the assailant was Preston Brooks. Brooks was a democrat from South Carolina. Sumner at this point considered himself a republican from massachusetts and prior to that hed been awake. It all began when Charles Sumner made a speech in the u. S. Senate in which he attacked the results of the kansasnebraska act of 1854 and in which he went one step further and there was violence in kansas and sumner knew this and he wanted to point out that there should be blame based for the passage of the act on a few men in particular. He called out Stephen Douglas of illinois who was a northerner and he also called out Andrew Butler of South Carolina. Butler, remember, was a member of the f street mess. He was one of those powerful southern democrats who had forced Franklin Pierce at that time to support the kansasnebraska act. Two years later, sumner makes a speech in which he says, and i quote, that Stephen Douglas was, quote, a noisem squat and nameless animal, not a proper model for an american senator and then in hks next breath he insulted senator butler. He said of butler that he was as having taken, quote, a mistress who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him. Though pollute the in the sight of the world is chased in his sight. The harlet, slavery. Charles sumner issued two major insults against two u. S. Senators and two men of the opposite party and this scene that actually took place shows us is that the violence in the u. S. Senate was starting to escalate and the footebenton dispute was broken up, but it was two days later on the afternoon that preston brook, a congressman from South Carolina who was not a senator and who was not actually mentioned in the speech, but was a cousin. In fact, a second cousin of Andrew Butler from the same town, edgefield, South Carolina, and he, along with two lawrence kent, also from South Carolina and also a democrat and Henry Edmondson of virginia, a democrat. The three of them. They conspired. They made a plan and brookes had a prepared speech and he may have memorized it. Heres what he said he said. You tell me if he said this. The senate was out of session and sumner was busily writing and he was said to have said, and i quote, mr. Sumner i had read your speech twice over carefully and it was allowable in South Carolina and mr. Butler who was a relative of mine. As the story goes sumner starts to get up, brooks loses control and begins whacking him with his cane. The cane and so it began to crack upon impact of sumners skull and you see in the image some blood on his forehead. Sumner who was trapped, he was a large man and he was trapped under his senate desk and as he tried to get out of it, he ripped the boats from the floor. By the way, this senate desk is preserved by the Massachusetts Historical Society today. Its incredible and brooks continued to bash sumner until he was on the floor bleeding and unconscious. Sumner was out for the count. Brooks composed himself and walked out and took a deep breath and went off into history. It should be noted that one of brooks compatriots was to keep another senator away and you see him wielding the cane and you see the ink that had spilled and you would see people who tried to come to sumners aid as much as you see people laughing and Charles Sumners attack to senator butler went too far. Concerned, as well as humored. When you have someone beaten senseless on the floor of the senate, something was fatally wrong. My question to you is youve heard the story now. To what extent was the brookssumner affair about politics and to what extent was it about personal issues, do you think . Do you think this is a personal thing . I would say any time it gets this heated its more personal than political. Its a, binati combination of b i would say its more personal. Down here. I thought it was a little political because ones democrat and ones a republican so theyre on two opposite sides and it looks like he takes the political cycle a little strong. He takes it a little strongly. Excellent. Yeah. Other thoughts . Either way, it certainly hurt. This is one of the major episodes in the buildup to the civil war and the brookssumner was giving the republican strength in the election of 1856. In fact, the republicans run on two platforms, bleeding kansas which is to say the violence in kansas they think was caused by terrible decisions by the democrats, opening it to slavery, that is, and bleeding sumner that this personal attack galvanized the political party, and so i want to offer a few conclusions for you that try to sum up all of this and suggest that Tobacco Culture boardinghouses and affairs of honor make sense as part of the story of political culture and why theyre important, and i also want to return to those questions to tell you again or try to help you understand what has changed since the days of hamilton and jefferson. One conclusion is this, that there had been a break down of congressional friendships and that breakdown was in division of politics, and it used to be okay, so to speak, along party lines, to be friends and have those parties and have those social clubs to have all of those different cultural elements in common and Smoke Tobacco together. Those friendships broke in the heated climate over sectional divisions and of course, the most and greatest division was over the issue of slavery, and not to be ignored in this moment, and i find, this is part of my research that the boardinghouses became more sectional and partisan in nature that the f street mess although the most powerful and the most prominent example of a sectional boardinghouse was not alone that politicians became to make sense that they needed to band together, and that for their own safety indeed in washington, they knew it was best to stick with their own. This breaks down trust. This breaks down the personal bonds that the men had once shared and that the political establishment that had promoted it, and this gets to the last piece and the bird hamilton duel was so infamous because it was time when american politicians fut one another in a duel. The lyongriswald brawl was also unusual because although it was seen as comical, it suggested that thing his gotten too far. When henry foote draws a picture no ones surprised and in fact, was there a quote that there was the only way to defend yourself against a pistol is to bring two pistols. When Preston Brooks beat Charles Sumner in 1856 people laughed and people said he got when he deserved. In the south you get one story. In the north you get another and finally, to conclude, the political culture of the Antebellum Congress had come apart at the seams. Thank you. Okay. Im going to stop here and take questions and see what you think. I want to hear from you guys. Go ahead, josh. I never heard of boardinghouses and it sounds like boarding schools. Do they still exist in washington, d. C. . Thats a good question. Boardinghouses. Who had not heard of it before . Raise your hands. Im not surprised, really. Its not a term we use very much today. Its not real le in oly in our and in fact there are boardinghouses today and i had a bonus slide on this and see if i can find it. I thought someone might ask that. Here. It was this one. I found this article in the new yorker from 2010 about the socalled frat house for jesus that was incredible to me and it changed my whole view of what the heck was happening in washington, today. There was actually a group of congressmen in 2010 who were living together in basically a boardinghouse, and as you can see in the image what they all shared in common was a christian belief. These some of these men are still in the congress. Some have, because of scandal, had to step down, but the article was talking about the socalled fellowship on c street and it got me thinking a lot about the f street mess and these guys are from different parties it turns out, democrats and republicans and the thing that unites them is the religious view and its not as comparable as the boardinghouses of the 1850s, but this stuff is still happening and maybe with rising rents well see this as time goes on. Good question. Other questions . What happened to brooks and sumner after, like, the caning . He didnt just go home happily ever after, ill tell you that. So which one . Brooks and sumner. Yeah. Good question. Brooks, lets see. Well, he died. He kind of had a villains ending. He died pretty early. The caning was may. He died in january the next year of cough, the croup, so he did not live very long. Sumner actually lived a long life. Charles sumner recovered and he went through some serious 1850s medical treatments where he had burns put all on his back as a kind of electroshock treatment because he was probably suffering from what we would call posttraumatic stress disorder and at the time they didnt know what to do with that. Sumner was a big man. He lived with these wounds his whole life and he lived until 1874. He was a senator during the siefl war, during reconstruction and he was from massachusetts and he ended up writing some of the best civil rights legislation of reconstruction, so Charles Sumner was down, but not for the count. He got back up and from 1859 through 1874 until his death, he served in the senate. Yeah. Other questions . Zach. Yeah. Well, i was a little confused. You said they still allow smoking in congress . They allow snuffing which sounds kind of disgusting. Im not really sure if anyone snuffs today, but thats not yeah. What else was i going to say about that . The other thing is im not going to ask if there are smoke eshs o please dont answer that question. Henry clay, you got me thinking of something, henry clay really doesnt go away in Tobacco Culture. I have a slide here yeah. This guy, henry clay is all over Product Placement throughout American History. There is a cuban cigar called the henry clay, and we see, too, that this box here is probably im not sure if its a chewing tobacco box or a snuff box. Probably chewing tobacco that has a henry clay face on it and the other thing i found was Franklin Pierce gets shafted here and he gets made into a pipehead. During the campaign of 1852 everyone thought it was a good idea to put Franklin Pierces head on a pipe and smoke it. What can i say . Kind of a misunderstood figure, Franklin Pierce. Other questions . I assume that you all figure at this point that we dont duel anymore. Yeah . Or do we . I just have one other thing because i had a few slides. Heres one. Its this. Youre on your cell phone doing the paces on the duel. So hold on. Ive lost track of my place. Sorry. Its kind of funny, although dueling has ended, guy, the rhetoric of dueling has not and i was shocked. I remember actually watching this back in 2004 thanks to youtube, the joys of youtube ive been able to find this clip and at the time i didnt believe that it was actually said. So theres this senator from georgia and Chris Matthews is an msnbc commentator, listen to this clip here which i have cued up here. Matthews is going to confront miller and it will get heated very quickly. Answer the question. Its a tough question. It takes a few words. Get out of my face if youre going to ask me a question, step back and let me answer it. You know, i was with [ cheering ] i wish we i wish we lived in the day where you could challenge a person to a duel. That would be pretty good. He always couldnt keep a straight face because in the days which you could challenge a person to the duel, america was a pretty violent, nasty place. Well, if there are no other questions we will end there. Next week we have our turn to abligszists and to reform. So make sure to check out that reading and bring the documents with you for our discussion. Im trying to think. Yeah, just any other questions about the chapter quizzes and let me know over email, otherwise, thank you for your attention and see you on tuesday. Weeknights this month on American History tv were featuring the contenders, our series that looks at 14 president ial candidates who lost the election, but had a lasting effect on u. S. Politics. Tonight, we feature former speaker of the house james g. Blane of maine who served as secretary of state for three american president s and was the republican nominee for president in 1884. Often tonight beginning at 8 00 eastern and enjoy American History tv this week and every weekend on cspan3. Every saturday on American History go inside a College Classroom and hear about the American Revolution, civil rights and u. S. President s to 9 11. Thanks for your patience and for logging in to class. With most College Campuses closed due to the impact of the coronavirus watch professors transfer teaching to a virtual setting to engage with their students. Gorbachev did most of the work to change the soviet union, but reagan met him half way. Reagan encouraged him. Reagan supported him. Freedom of the press which ill get to later, madison called it freedom of the use of the press and it is freedom to print things and publish things. It is not a freedom for now what we refer to as institutionally as the press. Lectures in history on American History tv on cspan3, every saturday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. Lectures in history is also available as a podcast. Find it where you listen to podcasts. The competition is on. Be a part of this years cspan student cam video competition. Be the start of a National Conversation by making a five to sixminute documentary, exploring the issue you want the president and congress to address in 2021, be bold with your documentary, show supporting and opposing points of view and include cspan video. Be a winner. Theres 100,000 in grand prizes and including a prize of 10,000. The deadline to submit is 2021. Be informed. Youll find competition rule, tips and more information on how to get started on our website, student cam. Org. And now the contenders. Our series on key political figures who ran for president and lost, but who nevertheless, changed political history. Tonight we feature former House Speaker henry clay of kentucky known as the great compromiser. The program was recorded in lexington, kentucky. This is an encore presentation of cspans 14week series which first aired in 2011. This is a portrait of kentuckys henry clay known to us in the history books as the great compromiser. Clay served as secretary of state, speaker of the house and u. S. Senator, and he was a contender making five president ial bids including the election of 1824, 1832 against Andrew Jackson and 1844 when he ran again james k. Polk. Tonight we are on