Preston Brooks

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' uncle, Senator Andrew Butler (Democrat-South Carolina). Brooks' action was applauded by many Southerners, and he received only a token punishment. He was re-elected as Representative, but died before the next term began.

Sumner was seriously injured, and unable to serve in the Senate for three years, though eventually he largely recovered.

Brooks' act and the polarizing national reaction to it to are frequently cited as a major factor in the rising tensions leading up to the American Civil War.