Preston Brooks
Preston Smith Brooks (August 5, 1819 – January 27, 1857) was a Democratic Representative from South Carolina, serving from 1853 until his death in 1857. Brooks was a fervent advocate of slavery. He is primarily remembered for severely beating Senator Charles Sumner (Free Soil-Massachusetts), an abolitionist, with a cane on the floor of the United States Senate, on May 22, 1856. This was in retaliation for an anti-slavery speech by Sumner in which Sumner attacked Brooks' cousin, Senator Andrew Butler (Democrat-South Carolina). Brooks' action was applauded by many Southerners, and abhorred in the North. Although an attempt to oust him from the House of Representatives was made, and he immediately resigned his seat, he received only token punishment and was re-elected by the people of South Carolina (but died before his next term began). Sumner was seriously injured, and unable to serve in the Senate for three years, though eventually he recovered somewhat. Brooks' act and the polarizing national reaction to it are frequently cited as a major factor in the rising tensions leading up to the American Civil War.