I denounce it in the name of civilization, which it outraged.

I denounce it in the name of that fair-play which bullies and prize-fighters respect." For this, after some efforts had been made by friends to bring about an amicable understanding, Brooks sent him also a challenge.

Mr.Burlingame accepted the challenge, and his second designated the Clifton House in Canada as the rendezvous and rifles as weapons.

Burlingame at once started on the journey; but Brooks declined to go, on the excuse that his life would not be safe on such a trip through the North.
Broadened into national significance by all these attendant circumstances, the Sumner assault became a leading event in the great slavery contest between the South and North.

It might well rank as one of the episodes of the civil war then raging in Kansas, out of which it had in reality grown, and with which it was intertwined in motive, act, and comment.