_The Richmond Enquirer_, of May 30, reports a response from the University of Virginia.
“ANOTHER CANE FOR MR. BROOKS.--We understand that a very large meeting of the students of the University of Virginia was held on Tuesday evening, to take into consideration the recent attack of the Hon. Preston S. Brooks on Charles Sumner, in the United States Senate Chamber. Several very eloquent speeches were delivered, all of which fully approved the course of Mr. Brooks, and the resolution was passed to purchase for Mr. Brooks a splendid cane. The cane is to have a heavy gold head, which will be suitably inscribed, and also bear upon it a device of the human head, badly cracked and broken. The chivalry of the South, it seems, has been thoroughly aroused.”
The _Richmond Examiner_, of May 30, testifies thus:--
“The chastisement of Sumner, in spite of the blustering nonsense of the regiments of Yankee Bob Acres, who have been talking about ‘avenging his wrongs,’ will be attended with good results. The precedent of Brooks _vs._ Sumner will become a respected authority at Washington. It will be a ‘leading case,’ as it clearly defines the distinction between the liberty of speech as guarantied to the respectable American Senator and that scandalous abuse of it by such men as Charles Sumner.
“Far from blaming Mr. Brooks, we are disposed to regard him as a conservative gentleman seeking to restore to the Senate that dignity and respectability of which the Abolition Senators are fast stripping it. His example should be followed by every Southern gentleman whose feelings are outraged by unprincipled Abolitionists.”
The _Richmond Enquirer_ thus spoke, June 9th:--
“It is idle to think of union or peace or truce with Sumner or Sumner’s friends. Catiline was purity itself, compared to the Massachusetts Senator, and his friends are no better than he. They are all (we mean the leading and conspicuous ones) avowed and active traitors.… Sumner and Sumner’s friends must be punished and silenced. Government which cannot suppress such crimes as theirs has failed of its purpose. Either such wretches must be hung or put in the penitentiary, or the South should prepare at once to quit the Union. We would not jeopard the religion and morality of the South to save a Union that had failed for every useful purpose. Let us tell the North at once, If you cannot suppress the treasonable action, and silence the foul, licentious, and infidel propagandism of such men as Stephen Pearl Andrews, Wendell Phillips, Beecher, Garrison, Sumner, and their negro and female associates, let us part in peace.