Preston Brooks

Preston Brooks
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from South Carolina's 4th district
In office August 1, 1856 – January 27, 1857
Preceded by	Himself
Succeeded by	Milledge L. Bonham
In office March 4, 1853 – July 15, 1856
Preceded by	John McQueen
Succeeded by	Himself
Member of the South Carolina House of Representatives
In office 1844
Personal details
Born	(1819-08-05)August 5, 1819 Edgefield County, South Carolina
Died	January 27, 1857(1857-01-27) (aged 37) Washington D.C.
Resting place	Edgefield, South Carolina
Political party	Democratic
Military service
Allegiance	United States of America
Branch/service	United States Army
Years of service	1846–1848
Rank	Colonel
Unit	Palmetto Regiment

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 known for being a level-headed, good-natured gentleman. Southerners primarily remember Brooks for defending the honor of his state and family. Northerners primarily remember Brooks for severely beating Senator Charles Sumner (Free Soil-Massachusetts), an abolitionist, with a cane on the floor of the United States Senate.

Brooks entered the Senate on May 22, 1856, after the daily session, and proceeded to beat Charles Sumner with a cane. Sumner's beating was in retaliation for an anti-slavery speech by Sumner in which Sumner attacked Brooks' sick and elderly uncle, Senator Andrew Butler (Democrat-South Carolina) by implying that Butler wanted to "rape virgins." In addition to these comments, Charles Sumner often was very vocal about his athletic ability and is believed to weigh over 30 pounds more than Brooks did. Even though Brooks was crippled from a previous duel (hence why he uses a cane), he stood up to "bully" Sumner. To this day, Brooks is considered a hero throughout the South.

Due to most of the House representatives believing that Sumner deserved his beating, the vote to remove Brooks from the House failed miserably. Still, Brooks was upset that anyone could see his actions as anything but noble, so he resigned his seat and decided to leave politics. On his way home, South Carolinians pleaded with Brooks to return at every stop he made. By the time Brooks made it back to his district, he was convinced to seek re-election. Brooks won in a landslide victory(but died before his 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.

Common Misconceptions

Today some view Brooks as a far-left Democrat. In reality, Brooks began his political career as a political Moderate.

Some people incorrectly link Brooks' beating of Sumner to slavery. Sumner had previous delivered many anti-slavery speeches and was a very local free-soil party member, and then a republican; however, Brooks' beating of Sumner was due to Sumner implying that Brooks' elderly and sickly "uncle" (technically his second cousin) wanted to "rape virgins," among the many other shots that Sumner took as his speeches became increasing sexual.

Today, the notion of a gentlemen are usually visualized with a man with a cane due to Preston Brooks. While it is true that Brooks was widely known for being a kind gentleman, this concept predates Brooks.

Early life

Born in Roseland, Edgefield County, South Carolina, he was the son of Whitfield and Mary Parsons-Carroll Brooks. Brooks attended South Carolina College (now known as the University of South Carolina) but was expelled just before graduation for threatening local police officers with firearms. In 1840 Brooks fought a duel with future Texas Senator Louis T. Wigfall and was shot in the hip, forcing him to use a walking cane for the rest of his life. He was admitted to the Bar in 1845. Brooks served in the Mexican-American War as a captain with the Palmetto Regiment.

Family

• First marriage: Caroline Harper Means(1820–1843). Brooks was widowed upon her death.
  • Children: Whitfield D. Brooks (1843–1843).

• Second marriage: Martha Caroline Means (April 8, 1826 – March 23, 1901).
  • Children: Caroline Harper Brooks (1849–1924), Rosa Brooks (1850–?), Preston Smith Brooks (1854–?).

Political career

He was a member of the South Carolina state House of Representatives in 1844. Brooks was elected to the 33rd United States Congress in 1853 as a Democrat. Like his fellow South Carolina Representatives and Senators, Brooks took an extreme pro-slavery position: asserting that the enslavement of black people by whites was right and proper, that any attack or restriction on slavery was an attack on the rights and the social structure of the South.

During Brooks' service as Representative, there was a great controversy over slavery in Kansas Territory and whether Kansas would be admitted as a free or slave state. He supported actions by pro-slavery men from Missouri to make Kansas a slave territory. (See Bleeding Kansas.) In March 1856, Brooks wrote: "The fate of the South is to be decided with the Kansas issue. If Kansas becomes a hireling [i.e. free] State, slave property will decline to half its present value in Missouri ... [and] abolitionism will become the prevailing sentiment. So with Arkansas; so with upper Texas."

Sumner assault

Main article: Caning of Charles Sumner

On May 20, 1856, Senator Sumner made a speech denouncing "The Crime Against Kansas", and the Southern leaders who he regarded as complicit, including Senator Butler. Sumner compared Butler with Don Quixote for embracing a prostitute (slavery) as his mistress, saying Butler "believes himself a chivalrous knight".

Of course he has chosen a mistress to whom he has made his vows, and who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight. I mean the harlot Slavery.

Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois, who was also a subject of criticism during the speech, suggested to a colleague while Sumner was orating that "this damn fool [Sumner] is going to get himself shot by some other damn fool."

Hoffer (2010) says, "It is also important to note the sexual imagery that recurred throughout the oration, which was neither accidental nor without precedent. Abolitionists routinely accused slaveholders of maintaining slavery so that they could engage in forcible sexual relations with their slaves."

Laurence M. Keitt

Brooks thought of challenging Sumner to a duel. He consulted with Representative Laurence M. Keitt (also a South Carolina Democrat) on dueling etiquette. Keitt said that dueling was for gentlemen of equal social standing. In his view, Sumner was no gentleman; no better than a drunkard, due to his coarse insulting language toward Butler. Brooks then decided to "punish" Sumner with a public beating.

On May 22, two days after Sumner's speech, Brooks entered the Senate chamber in company with Keitt. Also with him was Representative Henry A. Edmundson (Democrat-Virginia), a personal friend with his own history of legislative violence. (Edmundson had been arrested by the House Sergeant at Arms after attempting to attack Representative Lewis D. Campbell of Ohio during a tense debate on the House floor in May 1854.

J.L. Magee's famous political cartoon of the attack on Sumner

Brooks confronted Sumner, who was seated at his desk, writing letters. He said, "Mr. Sumner, I have read your speech twice over carefully. It is a libel on South Carolina, and Mr. Butler, who is a relative of mine." As Sumner began to stand up, Brooks hit Sumner over the head several times with his cane, made of thick gutta-percha with a gold head. Sumner was trapped under the heavy desk (which was bolted to the floor), but Brooks continued to strike Sumner until the latter wrenched the desk from the floor in an attempt to escape. By this time, Sumner was blinded by his own blood. He staggered up the aisle and collapsed unconscious. Several other Senators attempted to help Sumner, but were blocked by Keitt, who was brandishing a pistol and shouting "Let them be!" Brooks continued beating Sumner until the cane broke, then quietly left the chamber with Keitt and Edmundson.

Sumner suffered head trauma that would cause him chronic pain and symptoms consistent with what would now be called traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder, and spent three years convalescing before returning to his Senate seat. He suffered chronic pain and debilitation for the rest of his life.

After the attack

The national reaction to Brooks' attack was sharply divided along regional lines. Senators began carrying concealed knives and revolvers into the Senate chamber to protect themselves.

Brooks was widely cheered across the South, particularly in his home state of South Carolina. There his attack on Sumner was seen as a legitimate and socially justifiable act, upholding the honor of his family (and the South as a whole) in the face of intolerable insults from a social inferior (and the North as a whole). South Carolinians sent Brooks dozens of brand new canes, with one bearing the phrase, "Good job". The Richmond Enquirer crowed: "We consider the act good in conception, better in execution, and best of all in consequences. These vulgar abolitionists in the Senate must be lashed into submission." The University of Virginia's Jefferson Literary and Debating Society sent a new gold-headed cane to replace Brooks' broken one. Southerners sent Brooks hundreds of new canes in endorsement of his assault. One was inscribed "Hit him again". Southern lawmakers made rings out of the cane's remains, which they wore on neck chains to show their solidarity with Brooks.

A motion to expel Brooks from the House of Representatives failed, but Brooks resigned his seat anyway on July 15. Brooks claimed that he "meant no disrespect to the Senate of the United States" by attacking Sumner, and also that he had not intended to kill Sumner, or he would have used a different weapon.

Brooks was tried in a District of Columbia court for the attack. He was convicted of assault but received no prison sentence, only a fine of $300.

He was quickly returned to office in a special election on August 1, and elected to a new term of office later in 1856. Brooks' accomplice, Representative Keitt, in 1858 attacked and attempted to choke Representative Galusha Grow of Pennsylvania (Republican) for calling him a "negro driver".

In contrast, Northerners, even moderates previously opposed to Sumner's extreme abolitionist invective, were universally shocked and disgusted by Brooks' violence. Anti-slavery men cited it as evidence that the South had lost interest in national debate and now relied on "the bludgeon, the revolver, and the bowie-knife" to display their feelings and silence their opponents. J. L. Magee's political cartoon famously expressed the general Northern sentiment that the South's vaunted chivalry had degenerated into "Argument versus Clubs".

One of the most bitter critics of the attack was Sumner's fellow New Englander, Representative Anson Burlingame (Republican-Massachusetts). When Burlingame denounced Brooks as a coward on the floor of the House, Brooks challenged him to a duel, and Burlingame accepted the challenge. Burlingame, as the challenged party, specified rifles as the weapons, and to get around American anti-dueling laws he named the Navy Yard on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls as the site. Brooks, reportedly dismayed by both Burlingame's unexpectedly enthusiastic acceptance and his reputation as a crack shot, neglected to show up, instead citing unspecified risks to his safety if he was to cross "hostile country" (the Northern states) to reach Canada. He was subsequently mocked as a coward by Northerners for the rest of his life.

Death

Brooks died unexpectedly from croup in January 1857, before the new Congressional term began. He was buried in Edgefield, South Carolina. The official telegram announcing his death stated "He died a horrid death, and suffered intensely." Despite terrible weather, thousands went to the Capitol to attend his funeral. Only one speaker, Representative John Houston Savage of Tennessee, openly referred to the attack on Sumner. Savage favorably equated the caning to the assassination of Julius Caesar by Brutus. Republicans left the House in protest. Senator Butler had Savage's comments removed from the published proceedings.

Legacy

The city of Brooksville, Florida (previously known as Melendez), and Brooks County, Georgia, are named in Brooks' honor.

In the South, the name Preston Brooks remains synonymous with courage, honor, and chivalry.

Long after Brooks' death Charles Sumner said that "It was slavery, not he, that struck the blow." In 1872, Sumner visited the Congressional Cemetery; when a friend pointed out a cenotaph of Brooks and asked Sumner how he felt about Brooks. Sumner said "Only as to a brick that should fall upon my head from a chimney. He was the unconscious agent of a malign power."

References

• Hoffer, Williamjames Hull (2010). The Caning of Charles Sumner: Honor, Idealism, and the Origins of the Civil War. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-9468-8. (160 pages).
• Puleo, Stephen (2012). The Caning: The Assault That Drove America to Civil War. Yardley, PA: Westholme Publishing LLC. ISBN 978-1-59416-516-0. (374 pages).

External links

• United States Congress. "Preston Brooks (id: B000885)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• Full text of Sumner's speech
• Brooks' response, after the beating
• An account of the incident, the participants and the aftermath
• "Preston Smith Brooks" at Find A Grave
• Jefferson Society Notes