Brooks Beats Sumner On The Senate Floor

And in kansas news of the savage beating on the senate floor arrived by telegraph and inflamed passions even more.

Brooks beats sumner on the senate floor. Brooks beat the defenseless sumner to a pulp as keitt stood by with a drawn gun. On this date representative preston brooks of south carolina accompanied by representative laurence keitt of south carolina severely beat senator charles sumner of massachusetts with a cane in the senate chamber. On may 22 1856 the world s greatest deliberative body became a combat zone. The new york times sent a champion bare knuckles boxer to.

Brooks a democrat was a strong advocate of slavery and states rights he is most remembered for his may 22 1856 attack upon abolitionist. Instead brooks confronted sumner on a nearly empty senate floor as sumner was stamping copies of his crime against kansas speech. Brooks s violent act was in response to a speech in which sumner attacked the institution of slavery and pro slavery senators such as andrew butler of south carolina brooks s. The claim that in 1856 a congressman brooks viciously attacked a senator sumner with a cane on the floor of the u s.

House of representatives from south carolina serving from 1853 until his resignation in july 1856 and again from august 1856 until his death. The pro slavery southerner walked over to senator charles sumner whacked him. The caning of charles sumner or the brooks sumner affair occurred on may 22 1856 in the united states senate when representative preston brooks a pro slavery democrat from south carolina used a walking cane to attack senator charles sumner an abolitionist republican from massachusetts in retaliation for a speech given by sumner two days earlier in which he fiercely criticized. Supporters sent brooks new canes and brooks claimed that people wanted pieces of the cane he used to beat sumner as holy relics the speech sumner had given of course had been about kansas.

On this day in 1856 sen. Charles sumner r mass a fierce foe of slavery suffered major injuries when he was assaulted on the senate floor by rep. Senate was accurate and is a matter of historical record. In one of the most dramatic and deeply ominous moments in the senate s entire history a member of the house of representatives entered the senate chamber and savagely beat a senator into unconsciousness.

Wielding the cane he used for injuries he incurred in a duel over a political debate in 1840 brooks entered the senate chamber and attacked sumner at his desk which was bolted to the floor.