Mr. Sumner's long legs were stretched beneath his desk, so that he was pinioned when he tried to rise, and the blood from his wound on his head blinded him. In his struggle he wrenched the desk from the floor, to which it had been screwed, but before he could gain his feet his assailant had gratified his desire to punish him. Several persons had witnessed this murderous assault without interfering, and when Mr. Sumner, stunned and bleeding, was led to a sofa in the anteroom, Mr. Brooks was congratulated on what he had done.
For two years Mr. Sumner was a great sufferer, but the people of Massachusetts, recognizing him as their champion, kept his empty chair in the Senate ready for him to occupy again when he became convalescent. A chivalrous sympathy for him as he endured the cruel treatment prescribed by modern science contributed to his fame, and he became the leading champion of liberty in the impending conflict for freedom. Mr. Seward regarded the situation with a complacent optimism, Mr. Hale good-naturedly joked with the Southern Senators, and Mr. Chase drifted along with the current, all of them adorning but not in any way shaping the tide of events. With Mr. Sumner it was different, for he possessed that root of statesmanship --the power of forethought. Although incapacitated for Senatorial duties, his earnest words, like the blast of a trumpet, echoed through the North, and he was recognized as the martyr-leader of the Republican party. The injury to his nervous system was great, but the effect of Brooks' blows upon the slave-holding system was still more injurious. Before Mr. Sumner had resumed his seat both Senator Butler and Representative Brooks had passed away.
The debate in the House of Representatives on a resolution censuring Mr. Brooks for his murderous attack (followed by his resignation and unanimous re-election) was marked by acrimonious altercations, with threats of personal violence by the excited Southerners, who found themselves on the defensive. Henry Wilson and other Northern Congressmen went about armed with revolvers, and gave notice that while they would not fight duels, they would defend themselves if attacked. Mr. Anson Burlingame, who had come from Michigan to complete his studies at Harvard College, married the daughter of a wealthy Boston merchant, and had been elected to Congress by the Know-Nothings and Abolitionists, accepted a challenge from Mr. Brooks. He selected the Clifton House, on the Canadian shore of Niagara Falls, as the place of meeting, which the friends of Mr. Brooks declared was done that the duel could not take place, as Mr. Brooks could not pass through the Northern States, where he was so universally hated. Mr. Lewis D. Campbell, who was Mr. Burlingame's second, repelled this insinuation, and was confident that his principal "meant business."