Mr.Sumner's colleague, Senator Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts (afterwards Vice-President of the United States), in his speech characterized the assault as "brutal, murderous, and cowardly." For this language Brooks sent him a challenge.

Wilson wrote a reply declining the encounter, but in the same letter announcing that "I religiously believe in the right of self-defense, in its broadest sense." One of the sharpest denunciations of the assault was made by Anson Burlingame, a Massachusetts Representative (afterwards United States Minister to China, and still later Chinese Minister to the United States).

"I denounce it," he said, "in the name of the Constitution it violates.

I denounce it in the name of the sovereignty of Massachusetts, which was stricken down by the blow.

I denounce it in the name of humanity.