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- [00:00]
A
Hi there, it's Claire. If you're hearing me, that means you're listening to the free preview of one of our Patreon episodes. We switch off every week between free and Patreon exclusive episodes. So if you'd like to hear the rest of this conversation, head over to patreon.com thisguysucked and join our honorary haters club. A list of sensitive themes and topics included in this episode can be found in the episode description. Welcome to this Guy Sucked, the show where we prove that it's never too late to have haters and you can't libel the dead. I'm your host, Dr. Claire Aubin, and I'm a historian, writer, and most importantly, certified hater. On this show, we talk about people from throughout history with legacies that need a little updating. Whether it's because of their politics, their behavior, or their impact on society. Canadian culture. These guys actually kind of sucked. And we bring in a new scholar every week to tell us why. With me today is Paul Quigley, who is a professor of Civil War studies and the director of the Virginia center for Civil War Studies at Virginia Tech. You might know him from his first book, Shifting Nationalism and the American South, 1848-1865. I don't know why I paused on that. It's written in front of me. Or his brand new book out with Oxford University Press, that I have in front of me the man behind the Preston Brooks Political Violence and the Road to the South Civil War. Welcome to the show, Paul.
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B
Thank you so much for having me on.
- [01:40]
A
So I said before we started that I always do a little softball question, and today I've decided the question for you is if you could study any time and place other than America during the Civil War, what would you pick and why?
- [01:56]
B
Ooh, this is a great question. And this has actually been on my mind recently. So I do have a ready answer.
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A
Okay.
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B
The period that I would pick is Britain after World War II.
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A
Okay.
- [02:08]
B
That is because I was born in England, even though I've lived now most of my adult life in the US so I was born in England in the 1970s, and I feel like the world I grew up in was the world created in the wake of World War II with the creation of a really robust welfare state and of course, the National Health Service and all that good stuff. And there was sort of a commitment from the government to the people who had just suffered through this horrific war experience. There was a commitment, I think, to come together as a people and try and make Life a little bit better for everyone, and I think that is kind of falling apart more recently.
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A
Yeah.
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B
So I want to know how that happened to begin with. Like, British people come out World War II devastated economically. So much loss of life. The world has changed, and they start to be nice to each other. So how do we get there again, is my question. And studying history may be the way to figure it out.
- [03:11]
A
Make Britain nice again. Yes. I mean, the thing that's interesting, having lived in the UK and studied the Second World War while living there as an American, it's hard to overstate the relationship that the UK has with the Second World War compared to the one that the US has. Like, yes, the US has some relation to it, but, like, the obsession with the Second World War that is present in British society is wild. I would have to make up new things that I was studying when I would be at the pub or something and say. When they would say, oh, what are you doing here? So I'm doing my PhD. And they would say, on what? I would have to invent something because if I said I was doing, like, Nazis or. And then I would say, like, the, you know, the original kind of Nazis, it would be like opening Pandora's box in terms of the conversations that would emerge out of me making that confession, basically. Yeah. I feel like all of British culture now is, like, downstream of this, which is really. I mean, kind of like the US in the Civil War, I think. But it is weird. I don't know if that was your experience.
- [04:31]
B
Yeah, I was just gonna say your experiences in the pub remind me of my experiences as a Civil War historian living in Virginia. You know, not everyone is super fascinated by the Civil War, but a lot of people are. And so, same kind of experience. As soon as I say, this is what my job is, I'm a Civil War historian. People have thoughts and want to chat about. That's great. But, yeah, it can be a little bit much sometimes, as you intimated.
- [05:00]
A
Yeah. I mean, I wonder if part of it is also being a historian of that time period or that moment and not being from the place that you are living or working, where there's sort of. There's an extra layer of fascination where part of what I found. And I don't know if this is your experience of post World War II UK, but I genuinely feel like everyone in the UK believes that they lived through the Blitz. Like, no matter what year they were born in, if they were born in 1975, they still feel like they lived through the Blitz, which is crazy. Like, they act like they were present even when they weren't. And there's like a. It's so weird.
- [05:50]
B
Yeah. I mean, I think that just goes to how transformative and experienced World War II was and like you said at the beginning, how much of an impact it still has on Britain's life and identity.
- [06:02]
A
Yeah. So I think the Civil War is actually a pretty good thing to compare that to. Because if you say that you work on the Civil War in the us, I can imagine, especially in the south or in Virginia, they're like, ah, well, have you been to the monument that's there? Or actually, I went to this guy's house, you know.
- [06:21]
B
Yeah. Yeah. It's a great experience because most people feel some kind of connection to the subject I study, which isn't always the case because, you know, if you study something that's more remote in time or place or whatever, and you tell people you study that, sometimes you get kind of a blank stare in return. And I definitely much rather have the level of enthusiasm and interest that I get with the Civil War.
- [06:45]
A
Yeah. To be fair, I don't want to come off like I'm complaining about the fact that people are interested in what I work on. I'm glad it's just something sometimes you're like, let me have my pint and leave me alone. Or like, I think we'll move away from this subject in just a second. But I think also being A young woman, PhD student working on Nazis was like, old British men in particular were like, let me quiz you, what date did this thing happen? And I would say, I'm going to be honest with you, man. Dates are not actually my primary interest as a historian. You know, like, maybe I can give you a general timeline, but if you want to know the date, unless it's germane to my actual thing, it's. I don't really care that it's not. It's not in my head at the pub. Sorry. Right. Like I said, we should actually move to the point of the show, AKA get into what we are all actually here for. Obviously, the title of your book betrays a little bit who we're talking about, but who did you come here to talk to me about today?
- [07:53]
B
So I am here to talk about Preston Brooks. And what I always say to people is, you probably have not heard of his name unless you're really, really into 1850s politics, but you have probably heard, at least in some version, the story of what he did. The one thing he did that made him famous and that was in 1856 in the U.S. senate chamber. He assaulted Senator Charles Sumner with a cane and beat him unconscious in about a minute. And the assault was part of the fight over slavery that was taking up so much of American politics in the 1850s. Charles Sumner was an abolitionist. Preston Brooks was a slaveholder from South Carolina. So the really short version is that Charles Sumner spoke out against slavery in a Senate speech. He also insulted Preston Brooks, his father's cousin, in the course of doing so. And so Preston Brooks wanted to retaliate and his retaliation was this brutal assault.
- [09:01]
A
Yeah, I mean, to be fair, when this was pitched to me, I thought, oh, yeah, that is the only thing I know about this man, basically. And I also didn't know his name, but as soon as I read that that's what he was sort of known for, I said, ah, yeah, okay, everybody knows specifically about the caning of Charles Sumner, but his name is not even mentioned often as like. Or not, I mean, maybe mentioned when you tell the story, but like, he's sort of a footnote to the event that he creates and is actually really the main character.
- [09:33]
B
Yeah, I mean, I'm not the first person to say this, but I'm gonna get my prop out now. And even though you won't be able to see this if you're just listening to the podcast, on the COVID of the book is one of the images of the caning, and the face of Preston Brooks is actually obscured by his arm. And I'm not the first to point this out, but that kind of reveals Preston Brooks's place in history. He doesn't really matter that much in the story of the caning. He's just this angry Southern slaveholder who did what so many slaveholders wanted to do to abolitionists. So that's of the way he's come down in history is just this faithless guy with the cane who did one thing.
- [10:15]
A
And that's particularly fascinating because I don't know if this is how most. Well, actually, I'm certain this is not how most historians would teach this. But when I learned about the start of the Civil War, this moment is like. And then the Civil War happens because they can't reconcile their differences. And this is this culmination of all of these. And then there's the Civil War. And so it's almost the way that it was taught to me. It's almost like that this is kind of one of the last straws. And then this huge world upending thing for the US happens. And the guy who is Actually at the center of it is somehow not present in the way that we teach and learn about it, because instead he's sort of this emblem of a general feeling rather than a specific guy acting in a specific way for a specific, specific reason, you know?
- [11:14]
B
Yeah, absolutely. And the connection to the huge event, the outbreak of the Civil War, I think has kind of swallowed him up. And, you know, in a way that's good because that means that people instantly have this big storyline to connect him to. So when I introduce him as a character, even if people haven't heard his name, they very quickly grasp why he might be significant, why somebody might want to know more about him. So that's been a good thing, I think, in terms of researching and publishing the book.
- [11:46]
A
Yeah, a lot of people don't have a buy in necessarily when you say, here's this person I've spent years of my life thinking about, they're sort of like, okay, I haven't, so whatever. Yeah, but with this guy, they're like, oh, I actually do know he did something pretty consequential in the world. I also want to briefly say as a quick note for listeners, that people listening to this episode might be like, hey, Claire, what's up with the Recent string of 19th century American guys who sucked? And firstly, listeners will get a break from them soon. But secondly, this is coming out in July, and I think that there is no better way to celebrate America's 250th birthday than by explaining all of the horrible things that we did, which we often also pretend we did not do. And the 19th century was, in my estimation, like, particularly rife with horrible things and horrible guys, guys doing them, many of whom are or were horrible in a way that we still haven't fully gotten past. So I. We're kind of celebrating America250 by saying, like, let's talk about the Civil War. Let's really, really actually talk about it. Because if other people aren't willing to do it and want to do this version of history that sort of, like, things were hard, but now they're better, I am resistant to that and would say, I think we haven't actually really dealt fully with how they were hard to begin with. So if anyone's tired of 19th century political violence, I don't care. We're doing more now anyways. And to be fair, I mean, I've seen in other interviews that you've done, you've talked about things like political violence as still being a serious major concern in American politics today. And not Something we've gotten over or passed. So I think this is actually a very useful guy to talk about in order to help us think through why America loves to have people who hurt people in places of power.
- [13:53]
B
Yeah. And one of the things that happened during the time I was working on this book is the context of political violence in American politics today changed quite drastically, I think. And I spent a really long time. I spent about 12 or 13 years working on this book. So at the beginning, when I would say, working on a book on this guy, sometimes people would sort of chuckle and joke around and say, oh, maybe we need someone like that in Washington, D.C. today to knock some sense into those congressmen. But it was always a joke because it was so outlandish and that could never happen. Right. We're way beyond that.
- [14:32]
A
Oh, no.
- [14:33]
B
But then, you know, I took so long to write the book, it slowly became more and more relevant. And now, over the last few years, nobody has made that joke because it's not funny anymore. Really.
- [14:45]
A
Yeah. And unfortunately, those friends 10 years ago had the gift of prophecy and didn't realize that what they were doing was predicting something that was going to become a real problem again. Or. I think part of the way that I think about political violence, particularly in the 21st century, is like something that has been simmering because it continued throughout the 20th century. Right. Like all these instances of, like, assassinations of civil rights leaders, for example. Like, those are examples of political violence. It happens in the 20th century. It calms down a little bit in the 21st century, but it's still there. And I think now we're at a moment where it just has, like, re. Emerged basically, rather than something that was totally quashed and sort of put to bed, but that it was still like a desire that some people were sort of stoking. And now we've. It's. The spark has been fanned thoroughly enough that it's really broken out again in a way that's pretty concerning, I think, to put it lightly.
- [15:48]
B
Yeah, I agree. It's difficult. You know, some people ask, how do you get past these moments when political violence flares up? Because I think you're totally right that it's always there to some degree, but then at certain moments it really erupts. And it looks like we're in one of those moments to one degree or another right now. So people are asking, how do you get to the other side? And I'm not really sure, unfortunately. I don't think there's an easy answer to that question. 1. You know, to get back to your original question of what period of time you would look at if you weren't looking at the Civil War period, I also have been wondering about 1968 recently, the year of the assassinations and the, you know, the political convention in Chicago and riots and everything else. And I would be really interested to know how that subsided and, you know, how Americans got past that moment. Until I do that research, I don't know.
- [16:45]
A
Yeah. I mean, I think one of the funny things about this is, like, if someone asks you, well, how do we get past political violence with your expertise, and you're like, the answer is the Civil War.
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B
Right. Exactly.
- [16:55]
A
Like, I don't have. That's actually not a super good answer for you.
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B
Yeah.
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A
People sometimes will say, well, then, you know, you work on Nazis. How do we overcome this? And. And how did Germany deal? And I'll say, you get that the people I worked on escaped and moved to the U.S. right? Like, they didn't face a political reckoning that didn't happen. The people I work on straight up, took their families, moved to America and started over in Cleveland, and that's it. That's basically the end of the story. So that's not an uplifting. I can't give you a good answer to this. You know, like, you have Civil War or my guys, and both of those are not comforting.
- [17:38]
B
Yeah. And in the case of the Civil War, it's not even just the Civil War that ends it. Reconstruction as well. So you've got this long period of time with different kinds of violence taking place, and that's how Americans worked through these conflicts.
- [17:54]
A
Yeah. And then the. The thing also with Reconstruction is then people are clawing back all these rights that are gained, and then even now, they're like, should we have done that? So it's a. It's a sort of. Not to take the sort of lacrimose view of history where we say it's everything is sad forever. But I don't think that we can always look to the past and say, well, this is how this problem was solved. Like, if nothing else, I think history should give us the tool set to be able to say, well, this is how we don't want to fix a problem. Let's try something new this time, basically. Thanks for listening to this preview of a Patreon exclusive episode to subscribe and listen to it in full. Head over to patreon.com this guysucked.