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. The attack was in retaliation for an invective-laden speech given by Sumner two days earlier in which he fiercely criticized slaveholders, including pro-slavery South Carolina Senator
Andrew Butler, a relative of Brooks. The beating nearly killed Sumner and contributed significantly to the country's polarization over the issue of
slavery. It has been considered symbolic of the "breakdown of reasoned discourse"
[1] and willingness to resort to violence that eventually led to the
Civil War.