Preston Brooks

About the Preston Brooks

Preston Smith Brookswas an American slaveholder, 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.

A member of the Democratic Party, Brooks was a strong advocate of slavery and states’ rights to enforce slavery nationally. 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 first cousin once removed,: 7 South Carolina Senator Andrew Butler.

Sumner was seriously injured by Brooks’ beating, and was unable to resume his seat in the Senate for three years, though eventually he recovered and resumed his Senate career.: 104 The Massachusetts Legislature reelected Sumner in 1856, “and let his seat sit vacant during his absence as a reminder of Southern brutality”.

An attempt to oust Brooks from the House of Representatives failed, and he received only token punishment in his criminal trial. He resigned his seat in July 1856 to allow his constituents to express their view on his conduct; they reelected him in the August special election 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.

As described by historian Stephen Puleo, “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.”