what happened to congressman preston brooks after he attacked senator charles sumner?

Written past: Stephen Puleo, Independent Historian

Past the end of this section, you lot will:

• Explain how regional differences related to slavery caused tension in the years leading up to the Civil War
• Explain the political causes of the Civil State of war

Suggested Sequencing

Use this Narrative to further illustrate the tension between northern and southern states, culminating in the start of the Civil War.

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Gold-headed cane in hand, South Carolina representative Preston Brooks approached an unsuspecting Senator Charles Sumner on Thursday, May 22, 1856, thankful the wait was finally over. The two days since Charles Sumner's inflammatory speech communication on the Senate flooring had seemed similar a lifetime. Even moments before, Brooks had delayed his actions when he noticed a woman in the Senate Sleeping room; he could inappreciably carry out his mission to avenge his kin and his region in the presence of a woman. It would violate the lawmaking of honor by which he lived as a southern admirer.

When the woman finished her conversation and left, Brooks waited some other moment, his eyes ho-hum into the abolitionist Sumner, whom Brooks viewed as one of the about dangerous threats to the future of the South. Sumner, from Massachusetts, seemed oblivious to his presence and to annihilation else except the spoken language copies he was signing, or "franking," for constituents, the aforementioned spoken language he had delivered over five hours betwixt May 19 and twenty and that had infuriated Brooks in the commencement identify.

In the oration, which he titled "The Criminal offence Against Kansas," Sumner had vilified southern slaveholders for violence occurring in Kansas, insulted Brooks's dwelling house state, and hurled personal slurs against Brooks'southward second cousin, S Carolina Senator Andrew Butler.

Brooks felt a "high and holy obligation" to avenge the insults Sumner had directed toward his family unit and his state. Anything less and he would exist humiliated as a man, a slaveholder, a proud South Carolinian, an advocate for the southern way of life. Brooks saw no alternative; his years of adhering to the southern code of honor demanded he retaliate against Sumner. However, by beating Sumner rather than challenging him to a duel, Brooks was implying that his opponent was not a gentleman worthy of respect.

Due south Carolina Representative Preston Brooks brutally attacked Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner after Sumner's 1856 speech communication denouncing slavery.

Brooks reached Sumner's desk, where the Senator was writing, head down, unaware of his presence. Sumner's chair was drawn up shut, his long legs pinned under the desk.

"Mr. Sumner," Brooks began. "I have read your speech twice over carefully. Information technology is a libel on South Carolina and Mr. Butler, who is a relative of mine." So he raised his cane.

Two essential components of Charles Sumner'due south character had guided his preparation for and delivery of the controversial speech – one hands defined and virtuous, the other circuitous and dark. Without question, Sumner's antislavery convictions were beauteous and resolute. He never wavered in denouncing slavery'southward evils, demanding that it be wiped out of beingness. Past 1856, the abolitionism of slavery, pure and simple, was the driving force of his political life. In this quest, he stood taller and firmer than anyone in America, including Abraham Lincoln and William Lloyd Garrison. Withal Sumner'south dark side was every flake as influential in shaping his persona. Egotism and narcissism also consumed him; his arrogance was well known to friend and foe alike. He cared lilliputian for the opinions or feelings of others, and his vox dripped with condescension when he delivered advice. He was intolerant of criticism, near incapable of conciliation, and virtually humorless; he had few close friends and only lukewarm political alliances. In short, the inspirational music of Sumner's antislavery message was often drowned out past the tone-deafened insolence of the messenger.

In his bold, confrontational, even incendiary speech, Sumner did not cease with a recitation of problems and possible resolutions. Instead, he viciously insulted the elderly Andrew Butler, who was non present in the Chamber (he was at home recovering from a stroke) and the state from which Butler hailed. He charged that Butler had "called a mistress [who] . . . though ugly to others is ever lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight – I mean the harlot, Slavery." He taunted Butler for his country'southward reliance on "the shameful imbecility of slavery." When he had finished, northerners and southerners objected strongly to Sumner'south personal invective, especially because Butler was not present to defend himself.

Preston Brooks simmered. In the 36 hours following the speech, whether he visited a "parlor, or drawing room, or dinner party," the talk was all nearly Sumner's insults to Brooks's "State and his countrymen" and what could be done in response. "I felt it to be my duty to salve Butler and avenge the insult to my Land," he said.

When Sumner looked up and saw Brooks heighten his arm, he moved as if to ascent, just Brooks struck him on the top of the head with the smaller terminate of the pikestaff, causing an outpouring of blood that blinded Sumner.

Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner's 1856 speech condemned the Kansas-Nebraska Act and argued that Kansas should exist immediately admitted equally a complimentary state.

Brooks then struck Sumner again and again on his caput and face with the heavy end of the pikestaff. Sumner struggled to rise, but his legs were even so pinned under his desk. After a dozen blows to the head, his eyes blinded with claret, he roared and made a desperate effort to rise. His trapped legs wrenched the desk (which was bolted to the floor by an fe plate and heavy screws) from its moorings. Sumner staggered forward down the aisle, now an even easier target for Brooks, who connected to beat him across the head. Brooks rained downward blows upon Sumner. "Every lick went where I intended," Brooks recalled later.

Every bit he pounded Sumner, Brooks's cane snapped, simply he connected to strike the senator with the splintered slice. "Oh, Lord," Sumner gasped, "Oh! Oh!" Brooks grabbed the helpless and reeling Sumner past the lapel and held him upwardly with 1 hand while standing to strike him with the other. He thrashed Sumner, delivering "well-nigh 30 beginning-rate stripes." Nigh the finish of the beating, Sumner was "entirely insensible," though earlier he succumbed, he "bellowed like a calf," according to Brooks.

Two New York representatives, bystanders in the Senate Chamber, finally intervened as the fracas wound down. 1 cradled the fallen Sumner, who, caput and confront covered in blood, groaned piteously at first and so went silent, "as senseless as a corpse for several minutes, his head bleeding copiously. . . and blood saturating his clothes." Friends led Brooks to a side room. Other southerners picked upwardly pieces of the splintered cane; later, these scraps were fashioned into rings that many southern lawmakers wore on neck bondage as a sign of solidarity with Brooks.

This famous 1856 political cartoon of the caning of Charles Sumner criticizes Preston Brooks for using a club confronting Sumner's penned argument.

Meanwhile, colleagues helped a wobbly Sumner into a carriage and accompanied him to his nearby lodgings, where he was examined past a doctor. Shocked and in pain, the Senator remarked before falling asleep, "I could not believe such a thing like this was possible."

News of the caning swept the land like a brushfire. Nearly of the nation's three,000 newspapers carried the story on their front end pages; in the Southward, Brooks was celebrated with glorious editorials about southern honour and pride. In the Due north, he was vilified equally a animate being and a barbarian who possibly represented the bulk of slaveholders. Hundreds of southerners sent him replica canes as gifts, many inscribed with the words "Hitting him once more!" Northerners – even moderates who commonly would have thought Sumner too radical on the slavery effect – found themselves supporting the Massachusetts senator unequivocally.

Brooks not only shattered his cane during the chirapsia, he likewise destroyed any pretense of civility between North and Southward. One of the nigh shocking and provocative events in American. history, the caning convinced both sides that the gulf between them was unbridgeable. Its violence fueled the sectionalism of the decade. Moderate voices now were drowned out; extremist views became intractable and locked both sides in a standoff course. Sumner survived the beating – although he was absent for more than three years while recovering – just political compromise suffered a mortal blow. Slavery was now seen as role of a titanic moral struggle between sections with very unlike characters.

The caning was function of the dramatic rush of events toward war, which included the increasing militancy of abolitionists, the "Haemorrhage Kansas" outcome, the rise of the antislavery Republican Party, the Dred Scott decision of 1857, John Brown's raid on Harper'southward Ferry, the election of Abraham Lincoln, and the secession of southern states. It shocked and divided the country and helped push America to armed disharmonize between regions. Several factors, predominately slavery, conspired to cause the Civil War, and the caning was inextricably linked to them.

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Review Questions

1. The "law-breaking against Kansas" that Senator Charles Sumner referred to in his congressional speech was the

1. South's ultimate responsibility for the violence resulting from the Kansas-Nebraska Act
2. pro-spousal relationship riots that occurred in support of organized labor
3. decision to create up to v slave states from the Kansas-Nebraska Territory
4. refusal of Congress to let popular sovereignty to proceed in Kansas

ii. In the antebellum South, the southern code of honor demanded

1. gender equality
2. arbitration to resolve disputes
3. the avenging of insults
4. political compromise on the issue of slavery

3. On the question of slavery, Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner'due south view was well-nigh similar to that of

1. President James Buchanan
2. William Lloyd Garrison
3. Senator Stephen Douglas
4. Senator Henry Clay

4. In the aftermath of the Sumner-Brooks incident, it became apparent that

1. Henry Clay'southward efforts to seek a political solution to slavery would work
2. Congressional representatives from west of the Mississippi River would earn the 1860 presidential nominations
3. opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act was diminishing
4. political compromise between the Due north and the South was unlikely

5. Which argument is nigh accurate regarding the Sumner-Brooks incident?

1. Both men were considered heroes in their respective regions, further increasing sectional tensions.
2. Charles Sumner retired from office and later became a supporter of lenient treatment of the Southward during Reconstruction.
3. The Supreme Courtroom censured Preston Brooks and removed him from Congress.
4. Preston Brooks was jailed for assault, simply his apology served to lessen sectional discord.

6. What event immediately preceded the Sumner-Brooks incident?

1. The Supreme Court issued the Dred Scott conclusion.
2. "Bleeding Kansas"
3. Compromise of 1850
4. Presidential election of Abraham Lincoln

Free Response Questions

1. Explain Preston Brooks'southward response to Charles Sumner's "Crime Against Kansas" voice communication in the Senate.
2. Explain how the Sumner-Brooks incident affected the slavery argue.

AP Practice Questions

Arguments of the Chivalry, 1856. About a week afterward the violent event depicted in the image, Henry Ward Beecher gave a speech in New York in which he proclaimed, "The symbol of the Northward is the pen; the symbol of the South is the bludgeon."

Refer to the paradigm provided.

i. Which of the following contradicts the statement, "The symbol of the North is the pen; the symbol of the S is the bludgeon," in the cartoon?

1. Publication of the abolitionist novel Uncle Tom'due south Cabin
2. Passage of laws in northern states refusing to enforce the Fugitive Slave Deed
3. John Chocolate-brown's raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry
4. Issuance of the Emancipation Declaration

ii. The image almost directly resulted from

1. the question of whether to declare war on Mexico
2. the access of California as a free state
3. the secession of South Carolina
4. the sectional tension regarding slavery in the United States

3. The provided illustration reflects a growing belief that

1. the legislation Henry Clay promoted in 1820 and 1850 accomplished political stability
2. political compromise was unlikely to succeed
3. tertiary parties could not win balloter votes
4. northern writers produced piece of work of little literary value

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Primary Sources

Select Committee appointed to inquire upon the circumstances attending the assault committed upon the person of Hon. Charles Sumner, a member of the Senate, H.R. Rep. 182-34, (1856).

https://world wide web.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resource/pdf/SumnerInvestigation1856.pdf

Brooks, Preston South. The Preston S. Brooks Papers. Due south Caroliniana Library, University of S Carolina, Columbia, SC.

Lucas, Gloria Ramsey, Slave Records of Edgefield, South Carolina. Edgefield, SC: Edgefield Historical Social club, 2010.

The Resolutions of the Legislature of Massachusetts Relative to the Contempo Assault upon the Hon. Mr. Sumner. June eleven, 1856.

Palmer, Beverly Wilson, ed. The Selected Letters of Charles Sumner, 2 vols. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1990.

Sumner, Charles. The Papers of Charles Sumner, 1811-1874. Boston Public Library..

Sumner, Charles. The Works of Charles Sumner. Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1875.

Suggested Resources

Dietrich, Ken. "E'er Able, Manly, Just and Heroic: Preston Smith Brooks and the Myth of Southern Manhood." Proceedings of the South Carolina Historical Association(2011):27-38.

Donald, David Herbert. Charles Sumer and the Coming of the Civil War. Chicago: University of Chicago Printing, 1960.

Freeman, Joanne B. The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018.

Gienapp, William E. "The Crime Against Sumner: The Caning of Charles Sumner and the Ascent of the Republican Party." Civil War History. September (1979):218-245.

Hoffer, Williamjames Hull. The Caning of Charles Sumner: Laurels, Idealism, and the Origins of the Civil War. Baltimore, Dr.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010.

Mathis, Robert Neil. "Preston Smith Brooks: The Human and His Paradigm." South Carolina Historical Magazine. October (1978):296-310.

Nevins, Allan. Ordeal of the Wedlock, Volume ane:Fruits of Manifest Destiny, 1847-1852; Ordeal of the Union, Volume 2:A House Dividing, 1852-1857. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1947.

Puleo, Stephen. The Caning: The Assault that Drove America to Civil State of war. New York: Westholme, 2011.

Slusser, Daniel Lawrence. "In Defense of Southern Honour: Preston Brooks and the Set on on Charles Sumner."CalPoly Journal of History, two (2010):98-110.

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Source: https://billofrightsinstitute.org/essays/charles-sumner-and-preston-brooks

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