Preston Brooks
Preston Smith Brooks was an American politician and Member 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.
Brooks, a Democrat, was a strong advocate of slavery and states' rights. He is most remembered for his May 22, 1856, attack upon abolitionist and Republican Senator Charles Sumner, whom he beat nearly to death; Brooks beat Sumner with a cane on the floor of the United States Senate in retaliation for an anti-slavery speech in which Sumner verbally attacked Brooks's second cousin, South Carolina Senator Andrew Butler. Brooks's action received "widespread adoration in South Carolina and other Southern states"—the city of Brooksville, Florida named itself for him immediately afterwards, as did Brooks County, Georgia—and abhorrence in the North. An attempt to oust him from the House of Representatives failed, and he received only token punishment in his criminal trial. He resigned his seat in July 1856; his constituents reelected him in a special election, held in August to fill the vacancy created by his resignation. He was re-elected to a full term in November 1856, but died in January 1857, five weeks before the new term began in March.
Sumner was seriously injured by Brooks's beating, and was unable to resume his seat in the Senate for three years, though eventually he recovered and resumed his Senate career. The Massachusetts Legislature reelected Sumner in 1856, "and let his seat sit vacant during his absence as a reminder of Southern brutality".
"The caning had an enormous impact on the events that followed over the next four years.... As a result of the caning, the country was pushed, inexorably and unstoppably, to civil war."
Early life
Born in Roseland, Edgefield County, South Carolina, he was the son of Whitfield and Mary Parsons-Carroll Brooks. Brooks attended South Carolina College, but was expelled just before graduation for threatening local police officers with firearms. After leaving college, he studied law, attained admission to the bar, and practiced in Edgefield. Brooks also owned a plantation located in Cambridge, between Edgefield and Ninety-Six. In 1840, Brooks fought a duel with future Texas Senator Louis T. Wigfall, and was shot in the hip, forcing him to use a walking cane for the rest of his life. He was admitted to the Bar in 1845. Brooks served in the Mexican–American War as Captain of Company D of the Palmetto Regiment. South Carolina in the Mexican War notes the service of both Brooks and 4th Corporal Carey Wentworth Styles in Co. D, the "Old 96 Boys" of the Edgefield District.Family
First marriage
Caroline Harper Means. Brooks was widowed upon her death.Second marriage
Martha Caroline Means.Political career
He was a member of the South Carolina state House of Representatives in 1844. Brooks was elected to the 33rd United States Congress in 1853 as a Democrat. Like his fellow South Carolina Representatives and Senators, Brooks took an extreme pro-slavery position, asserting that the enslavement of black people by whites was right and proper, that any attack or restriction on slavery was an attack on the rights and the social structure of the South.During Brooks's service as Representative, there was great controversy over slavery in Kansas Territory and whether Kansas would be admitted as a free or slave state. He supported actions by pro-slavery men from Missouri to make Kansas a slave territory. In March 1856, Brooks wrote: "The fate of the South is to be decided with the Kansas issue. If Kansas becomes a hireling State, slave property will decline to half its present value in Missouri ... abolitionism will become the prevailing sentiment. So with Arkansas; so with upper Texas."
Sumner assault
On May 20, 1856, Senator Charles Sumner made a speech denouncing "The Crime Against Kansas" and the Southern leaders whom he regarded as complicit, including Brooks's second cousin, Senator Andrew Butler. Sumner compared Butler with Don Quixote for embracing a prostitute as his mistress, saying Butler "believes himself a chivalrous knight".Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois, who was also a subject of criticism during the speech, suggested to a colleague while Sumner was orating that "this damn fool is going to get himself shot by some other damn fool."
Sumner's language was intentionally inflammatory; Southerners often claimed that abolition would lead to intermarriage and miscegenation, arguing that abolitionists opposed slavery because they wanted to have sex with and marry black women. Abolitionists reversed the argument by accusing Southerners of supporting slavery so they could make sexual use of slave women. As Hoffer says, "It is also important to note the sexual imagery that recurred throughout the oration, which was neither accidental nor without precedent. Abolitionists routinely accused slaveholders of maintaining slavery so that they could engage in forcible sexual relations with their slaves."
Brooks thought of challenging Sumner to a duel. He consulted with Representative Laurence M. Keitt on dueling etiquette. Keitt said that dueling was for gentlemen of equal social standing. In his view, Sumner was no gentleman; no better than a drunkard, due to his supposedly coarse and insulting language toward Butler. Brooks then decided to "punish" Sumner with a public beating.
On May 22, two days after Sumner's speech, Brooks entered the Senate chamber in company with Keitt. Also with him was Representative Henry A. Edmundson, a personal friend with his own history of legislative violence. In May 1854, Edmundson had been arrested by the House Sergeant at Arms after attempting to attack Representative Lewis D. Campbell of Ohio during a tense debate on the House floor.
Brooks confronted Sumner, who was seated at his desk, writing letters. He said, "Mr. Sumner, I have read your speech twice over carefully. It is a libel on South Carolina, and Mr. Butler, who is a relative of mine." As Sumner began to stand up, Brooks hit Sumner over the head several times with his cane, made of thick gutta-percha with a gold head. Sumner was trapped under the heavy desk, but Brooks continued to strike Sumner until Sumner wrenched the desk from the floor in an attempt to escape. By this time, Sumner was blinded by his own blood. He staggered up the aisle and collapsed unconscious. Senator John J. Crittenden, Representative Ambrose Murray, and others attempted to restrain Brooks before he killed Sumner, but were blocked by Keitt, who brandished a pistol and shouted at the onlookers to leave Brooks and Sumner alone. Brooks continued beating Sumner until the cane broke, then quietly left the chamber with Keitt and Edmundson. Brooks required medical attention before leaving the Capitol, because he had hit himself above his right eye with one of his backswings.
Sumner suffered head trauma that would cause him chronic pain and symptoms consistent with what would now be called traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder, and spent three years convalescing before returning to his Senate seat. He suffered chronic pain and debilitation for the rest of his life.
After the attack
The national reaction to Brooks's attack was sharply divided along regional lines. In Congress, members in both houses armed themselves when they ventured onto the floor.Brooks was widely cheered across the South, where his attack on Sumner was seen as a legitimate and socially justifiable act, upholding the honor of his family in the face of intolerable insults from a social inferior. South Carolinians sent Brooks dozens of new canes, with one bearing the phrase, "Good job". The Richmond Enquirer wrote: "We consider the act good in conception, better in execution, and best of all in consequences. These vulgar abolitionists in the Senate must be lashed into submission." The University of Virginia's Jefferson Literary and Debating Society sent a new gold-headed cane to replace Brooks's broken one. Another cane was inscribed "Hit him again". Southern lawmakers made rings out of the original cane's remains, which they wore on neck chains to show their solidarity with Brooks.
Congressman Anson Burlingame publicly humiliated Brooks in retaliation by goading Brooks into challenging him to a duel, accepting, then watching Brooks back out. Brooks challenged Burlingame to duel, stating he would gladly face him "in any Yankee mudsill of his choosing". Burlingame, a well-known marksman, eagerly accepted, choosing rifles as the weapons and the Navy Yards in the border town of Niagara Falls, Canada, as the location. Brooks, reportedly dismayed by both Burlingame's unexpectedly enthusiastic acceptance and his reputation as a crack shot, refused to show up, instead citing unspecified risks to his safety if he was to cross "hostile country" in order to reach Canada.
In the House, a motion to expel Brooks failed, but Brooks resigned his seat anyway on July 15. Brooks claimed that he "meant no disrespect to the Senate of the United States" by attacking Sumner, and also that he had not intended to kill Sumner, or he would have used a different weapon.
Brooks was tried in a District of Columbia court for the attack. He was convicted of assault and was fined $300, though he was not incarcerated.
He was quickly returned to office in a special election on August 1, and elected to a new term of office in November 1856.
In contrast, Northerners, even moderates previously opposed to Sumner's extreme abolitionist invective, were universally shocked by Brooks's violence. Anti-slavery men cited it as evidence that the South had lost interest in national debate, and now relied on "the bludgeon, the revolver, and the bowie-knife" to display their feelings, and silence their opponents. J. L. Magee's political cartoon famously expressed the general Northern sentiment that the South's vaunted chivalry had degenerated into "Argument versus Clubs".