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The caning of Charles Sumner, or the Brooks–Sumner Affair, occurred on May 22, 1856, in the United States Senate chamber, when Representative Preston Brooks, a pro-slavery Democrat from South Carolina, used a walking cane to attack Senator Charles Sumner, an abolitionist Republican from Massachusetts.
Charles Sumner (January 6, 1811 – March 11, 1874) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate from 1851 until his death in 1874. Before and during the American Civil War , he was a leading American advocate for the abolition of slavery .
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 ...
The attack occurred three days after Sumner, a strident abolitionist, attacked pro-slavery politicians, including Brooks' relative Senator Andrew Butler, in a speech. Brooks attacked Sumner as a matter of honor, beating him with a cane and injuring him so badly that he was absent from the Senate for nearly three years as he recovered.
The Sumner family as it is known today emigrated to the United States throughout the mid to late 1600s, while a branch of the family maintained itself in England and obtained high ranking positions in the Church of England such as John Bird Sumner who went on to become the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1848 to 1862.
The 1851 United States Senate election in Massachusetts was held during January 1851.Free Soil Party candidate Charles Sumner was elected by a coalition of Free-Soil and Democratic legislators over Whig incumbent Robert C. Winthrop, who had been appointed to finish the term of retiring Senator Daniel Webster.
The Charles Sumner House is a historic house on Beacon Hill in Boston, Massachusetts.The brick townhouse, built c. 1806, is notable as the home for many years of Charles Sumner (1811–1874), an outspoken and aggressive political opponent of slavery, whose beating on the floor of the United States Senate in 1856 was a defining moment of the pre-American Civil War period.
The 1869 United States Senate election in Massachusetts was held on January 19, 1869. Incumbent Charles Sumner was re-elected to a fourth term in office. At the time, Massachusetts elected United States senators by a majority vote of each separate house of the Massachusetts General Court: the House and the Senate.
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