Preston Brooks

Preston Smith Brooks (August 5, 1819 – January 27, 1857) was an American slaveholder, politician, and member of the U.S. House of Representatives from South Carolina, serving as a member of the Democratic Party from 1853 until his resignation in July 1856 and again from August 1856 until his death.

He is most remembered for his May 22, 1856, attack upon abolitionist and Republican Senator Charles Sumner, whom he beat nearly to death with a cane on the floor of the United States Senate in retaliation for an anti-slavery speech in which Sumner verbally insulted Brooks's first cousin once removed, South Carolina Senator Andrew Butler.

Brooks' beating seriously injured Sumner, who was unable to return to the Senate for three years. The Massachusetts Legislature reelected Sumner in 1856 "and let his seat sit vacant during his absence as a reminder of Southern brutality".

An attempt to oust Brooks from the House of Representatives failed, and he received only token punishment in his criminal trial. He resigned his seat in July 1856 to allow his constituents to express their view on his conduct; they reelected him in the August special election to fill the vacancy created by his resignation. He was reelected to a full term in November 1856, but died in January 1857, five weeks before the new term began in March.

As described by historian Stephen Puleo, "The caning had an enormous impact on the events that followed over the next four years. ... As a result of the caning, the country was pushed, inexorably and unstoppably, to civil war."

Brooks was born in Edgefield County, South Carolina, on August 5, 1819, the son of Whitfield Brooks and Mary Parsons Carroll Brooks. Of English descent, his great-great-grandfather John Brooks was the first in the Brooks family present in the Americas, settling in the Province of North Carolina from England around the early 18th century.

He 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. After leaving college, he studied law, attained admission to the bar, and practiced in Edgefield.

In addition to practicing law, Brooks owned a plantation located in Cambridge, between Edgefield and Ninety-Six. 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 Captain of Company D of the Palmetto Regiment. South Carolina in the Mexican War notes the service of both Brooks and 4th Corporal Carey Wentworth Styles (who later founded The Atlanta Constitution) in Co. D, the "Old 96 Boys" of the Edgefield District.