DEATH OF PRESTON S. BROOKS In the terrible and sudden death of the assailant of Charles Sumner, the truly philosophical and reflective, as well as the profoundly religious will read a lesson of solemn import. The former cannot fail to observe in it the culmination, so far s this life is concerned, of the inevitable law of retribution, or, in other words, effect following its cause; while the latter will generally be led to the conclusion, that it is one of those special visitations with which Divine Providence oft times overwhelms the perpetrator of a glaring crime……….Several individuals who have observed the appearance of Brooks since his most outrageous assault on Sumner, unite in declaring that his spirits had lost much of their usual vivacity, clearly that he was sustaining a weight of mental suffering…………….. Verily ‘the way of the transgressor is hard.’ May a guilty nation profit by this terrible example!
Springfield, Feb. 1, 1857 E. W. Twing
(Liberator, Feb. 2, 1857, pg 3)
