Preston Smith Brooks, a fervent advocate of slavery, assaulting Senator Charles Sumner, an abolitionist, with a cane on the floor of the United States Senate, on May 22, 1856, in retaliation for an anti-slavery speech by Sumner in which the former verbally attacked Brooks' second cousin, Senator Andrew Butler. Preston Smith Brooks, 1819 – 1857. Democratic Representative. Charles Sumner, 1811 – 1874. American politician and senator from Massachusetts. From The History of Our Country, published 1905.
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