Southern Congressman Preston Brooks savagely beats Northern Senator Charles Sumner in the halls of Congress as tensions rise over the expansion of slavery.
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When the controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 was passed, popular sovereignty was applied within the two new territories and people were given the right to decide the slave issue by vote. Because the act nullified the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the debate over slavery intensified. Northerners were incensed that slavery could again resurface in an area where it had been banned for over 30 years. When violence broke out in Kansas Territory, the issue became central in Congress. On May 19, Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner, an ardent abolitionist, began a two-day speech on the Senate floor in which he decried the “crime against Kansas” and blasted three of his colleagues by name, one of whom—South Carolina Senator Andrew P. Butler—was elderly, sick, and absent from the proceedings.
Butler’s cousin, Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina, who had a history of violence, took it upon himself to defend the honor of his kin. 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. Sumner’s legs were pinned by the desk so he could not escape the savage beating. It was not until other congressmen subdued Brooks that Sumner finally escaped.
Brooks became an instant hero in the South, and supporters sent him many replacement canes. He was vilified in the North and became a symbol of the stereotypically inflexible, uncompromising representative of the slave power. The incident exemplified the growing hostility between the two camps in the prewar years.
Sumner did not return to the Senate for three years while he recovered.
Brooks whipped the fat coward with a light, hollow gutta percha walking stick. The asshole wouldn’t respond to demands for satisfaction for his insults to an elderly senator and he would never have engaged in a duel, so Brooks whipped him in front of his cowardly scumbag yankee associates, all of whom were too chickenshit to intervene.
The fat bastard wasn’t even injured, except for the injury to his vast pride. If Brooks had meant to hurt him, he certainly could have. Sumner, the cowardly asshole, hid out for several years pretending to recover from nonexistent injuries. I would like to cane the asshole who wrote this piece of shit “historical account”.
I don’t know how true this comment is but I like it.
It’s the version I learned as a kid in South Carolina. Preston Brooks was a deadly duelist and an honorable man, somewhat crippled by gunshot wounds. He set out to shame Sumner into a duel, but Sumner was a total coward. If he’d beaten the fat bastard with a cudgel or even a stout wooden walking stick, he would have been arrested, certainly.
Whipping Sumner earned him the nickname of Bully, but it didn’t mean he was a bully, in those days ‘bully’ was still the same expression here that Brits still use today for something or someone praiseworthy.
Sumner was a chancre on the ass of the entire Congress, but he was from Massachusetts, so he was one of the usual run of Massholes who have always been the sort of depraved character that armpit of New England has sent to Congress.
This is why you should always have your shillelagh. I would really enjoy seeing Lindsay Graham and John McCain get a good crack on the head. Also that little teacher’s pet from Nebraska – Ben Sassehole.
Boy, those were the days. Whenever I hear of the Stupid party joining forces with the Dangerous party for some ‘bipartisan’ scam I think of this blessed event. Wouldn’t it be cooler than hell to see Maxie Waters (Muddy’s illegitimate daughter) banging away at Paul Ryan with a cudgel? Maybe Pocahontas trying to bury the hatchet into Mc Shit’s back? Now that’s checks and balances you can believe in.
I used to live in hope that old Strom Thurmond would pull a Bully Brooks and beat the fuck out of Ted Kennedy. Later, I hoped that Jesse Ventura would get to be a Congressman so that they could start using folding chairs during floor debates.
Oh, well. Nothing good ever happens in Congress.
This South Carolina chick would like to have seen Strom Thurmond beat to a pulp! Just another lying, crooked politician.
America would benefit greatly from more direct assaults between members of Congress. Maybe if they would confine their violence to their own ranks, the rest of America might be spared their daily violence.
Just as a bit of a history lesson, “the controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854” was being used to deprive the Southern states of support. By not letting them own slaves, they were more likely to align with the North, thereby always having a majority of support in both houses of Congress for the Northern states and always overruling the South on everything.