May 22, 1856
When Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner giving a scathing indictment of slavery and his southern colleagues who supported it, South Carolina Representative Preston Brooks took great offense to Sumner’s speech and attacked him at his desk on the Senate floor, beating him savagely with his walking cane, while other southern Congressmen held off any bystanders who wished to stop the assault. The attack drew praise from the South and outrage from the North and represented the “breakdown of reasoned discourse” that led to the Civil War.
