Cane Beating On Senate Floor

Supporters sent brooks new canes and brooks claimed that people wanted pieces of the cane he used to beat sumner as holy relics the speech sumner had given of course had been about kansas.

Cane beating on senate floor. The senate had just adjourned on may 22 1856 when representative preston brooks entered its chamber carrying a cane. Brooks a democrat was a strong advocate of slavery and states rights he is most remembered for his may 22 1856 attack upon abolitionist. Wielding the cane he used for injuries he incurred in a duel over a political debate in 1840 brooks entered the senate chamber and attacked sumner at his desk which was bolted to the floor. Beating him severely with a cane his attacker left the senator blinded bloodied and unconscious on the senate floor.

House of representatives from south carolina serving from 1853 until his resignation in july 1856 and again from august 1856 until his death. Senate was accurate and is a matter of historical record. The claim that in 1856 a congressman brooks viciously attacked a senator sumner with a cane on the floor of the u s. And in kansas news of the savage beating on the senate floor arrived by telegraph and inflamed passions even more.

Most famously in 1856 representative preston brooks of south carolina caned senator charles sumner of massachusetts on the senate floor so brutally that sumner had to be virtually carried from. The caning of charles sumner or the brooks sumner affair occurred on may 22 1856 in the united states senate when representative preston brooks a pro slavery democrat from south carolina used a walking cane to attack senator charles sumner an abolitionist republican from massachusetts in retaliation for a speech given by sumner two days earlier in which he fiercely criticized.