t. A friendly magistrate sentenced Brooks
to a nominal fine and so forestalled further prosecution. His party
friends in Congress left all public rebuke of the deed to Republicans. A
motion to expel Brooks and Keitt from the House failed of the necessary
two-thirds vote. They resigned, and were promptly and triumphantly
re-elected. Noisy applause of the attack came from all parts of the
South, with a stack of canes marked "Hit him again." That better class
of Southerners by whom the assault was felt, as one of them expressed it
long afterward, "like a blow in the face," made no demonstration. So far
from losing caste, as a gentleman or a public man, Brooks not only kept
his place in society, but was honored a few months later with a public
banquet, at which such men as Butler and Toombs and Mason joined in the
laudations, and gave a background to the scene by free threats of
disunion if the Republicans elected their President.

This treatment of Brooks made an impression at the North far beyond the
first hot indignation at his brutal outrage. The condonation and
applause of that outrage was taken as sure evidence of a barbaric state
of opinion, the natural accompaniment of slavery. What made the matter
worse was that the assault had a technical justification under the code
of honor which it was Brooks's pride as a Southern gentleman to observe.
The code called on a man who had given offense by his words to meet the
offended man in a duel, and if he refused, he was fairly subject to
public disgrace or even physical chastisement. Such a theory and
practice, and the sentiments associated with it, stamped slavery with a
heavier condemnation than orator or novelist could frame.

This one week in May, 1856, was dark with omens of impending
catastrophe. On May 20 Lawrence was devastated; on the 22d, Sumner was
assaulted; and on the 24th took place the Pottawatomie massacre. A
shadow as of impending doom was reflected in Mrs. Stowe's second
anti-slavery novel, _Dred_, which appeared about this time. While
lacking the inspiration and power of _Uncle Tom's_ Cabin, it had in the
main a similar tone of humanity, sympathy and fairness. Again the better
element of the Southern whites was portrayed, in the benevolent
slave-holder Clayton; the brave Methodist preacher, Father Dickson; and
the book's heroine, Nina Gordon. There were realistic and graphic
pictures of the negro at his best, in Old Tiff and Milly. The
sophistries and time