Preston Brooks#Legacy

Brooks was born in Edgefield County, South Carolina, on August 5, 1819, the son of Whitfield Brooks and Mary Parsons Carroll Brooks.{{cite book |last=Deitreich |first=Kenneth A. |date=2019 |title=The Short Life and Violent Times of Preston Smith Brooks |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZmWdDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA13 |location=Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom |publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing |pages=13, 19 |isbn=978-1-5275-3143-7 |via=Google Books |ref={{sfnRef|Deitreich}}}} 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.{{cite book |last=Kellam |first=Ida Brooks |date=1950 |title=Brooks and Kindred Families |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89062872569&view=1up&seq=14&skin=2021&q1=John%20Brooks%20England |page=14}}

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.{{cite book|last=Hollis|first=Daniel Walker|year=1951|title=University of South Carolina: South Carolina College|volume=1|location=Columbia|publisher=University of South Carolina Press|page=139}} After leaving college, he studied law, attained admission to the bar, and practiced in Edgefield.{{sfn|Deitreich|page=34}}

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.{{sfn|Deitreich|page=53}} 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.{{cite book|author=Jack Allen Meyer|title=South Carolina in the Mexican War: A History of the Palmetto Regiment of Volunteers, 1846–1917|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jpu6VSjn1ZkC|year=1996|publisher=South Carolina Department of Archives and History|isbn=9781880067352}}

Brooks' first wife was Caroline Harper Means (1820–1843). They had one child, Whitfield D. Brooks, who was born in 1843 and died that same year. Brooks was widowed upon Caroline's death.{{cite web |url=https://www.ancestry.com/genealogy/records/caroline-harper-means-24-y1gs72 |website=Ancestory.com |access-date=February 23, 2023 |title=Caroline Harper Means 1820–1843 – Ancestry® }}

His second wife was Martha Caroline Means (1826–1901), his first wife's cousin.{{cite book |last1=Watson |first1=Margaret J. |last2=Watson |first2=Henry Legare |date=1970 |title=Greenwood County Sketches: Old Roads and Early Families |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jEETAAAAYAAJ&q=%22caroline+means%22 |publisher=Attic Press |page=165|isbn=9780879210663 }} They had three children, Caroline Harper Brooks (1849–1924), Rosa Brooks (1849–1933),{{cite web |url=https://www.ancestry.com/ |title=Virginia Death Records 1912-2014, Death Certificate for Rosa Brooks McBee |date=September 24, 1933 |website=Ancestry.com |publisher=Ancestry.com LLC |location=Provo, UT |access-date=March 11, 2016 |url-access=subscription }} and Preston Smith Brooks (1854–1928).{{cite web |url=https://www.ancestry.com/ |title=Tennessee Death Records 1908–1958, Death Certificate for Preston S. Brooks |date=July 6, 1929 |website=Ancestry.com |publisher=Ancestry.com LLC |location=Provo, UT |access-date=March 11, 2016 |url-access=subscription }} Martha outlived her husband.

Brooks was a member of the South Carolina 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 great controversy over slavery in the Kansas Territory and whether Kansas would be admitted as a free or slavery state. He supported actions by pro-slavery men from Missouri to make Kansas a slave territory. 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."{{Cite book|last=McPherson|first=James M.|author-link=James M. McPherson|year=1989|title=Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era|location=New York|publisher=Oxford University Press|page=[https://archive.org/details/battlecryoffreed00mcph/page/149 149]|isbn=978-0-19-503863-7}}

{{main|Caning of Charles Sumner}}

On May 20, 1856, Senator Charles Sumner made a speech denouncing "The Crime Against Kansas" and the Southern leaders whom he regarded as complicit, including Brooks's first cousin once removed, Senator Andrew Butler.{{rp|7}} Sumner compared Butler with Don Quixote for embracing a prostitute (slavery) as his mistress, saying Butler "believes himself a chivalrous knight".

{{Blockquote|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.Charles Sumner, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner: 1845–1860 edited by Edward Pierce (1893) [https://archive.org/details/memoirandletter17sumngoog/page/n462 Page 446 online]}}

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."Lockwood, John and Charles. The Siege of Washington (2011) p. 98

Sumner's language was intentionally inflammatory; Southerners often claimed that abolition would lead to intermarriage, arguing that abolitionists opposed slavery because they wanted to have sex with and marry black women.{{cite book |last=Przybyszewski |first=Linda |date=1999 |title=The Republic According to John Marshall Harlan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vMGRAAAAMAAJ&q=southerners+accuse+abolitionists+miscegenation |location=Chapel Hill, NC |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |page=111|isbn=9780807824931 }} Abolitionists reversed the argument by accusing Southerners of supporting slavery so they could make sexual use of slave women. As 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."{{rp|62}}

File:Laurence M. Keitt cph.3a02077.jpg

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 supposedly coarse and insulting language toward Butler.{{Cite web|url=http://bama.ua.edu/~ratli003/102/203sample.html|title=The Compromise of 1850, The Kansas/Nebraska Act, Dred Scott, and John Brown's Raid|work=Academic Outreach|publisher=University of Alabama|access-date=July 16, 2011|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110927163237/http://bama.ua.edu/~ratli003/102/203sample.html |archive-date=September 27, 2011}}{{Cite web|url=http://historyengine.richmond.edu/episodes/view/4628|title=Bleeding Congress|work=History Engine|publisher=University of Richmond|access-date=July 16, 2011}}. 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. In May 1854, 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.Ford, James. History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850: 1850–1854. [https://archive.org/details/historyunitedst02rhodgoog/page/n502 p. 486]

File:Southern Chivalry.jpg

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 Sumner wrenched the desk from the floor in an attempt to escape.{{rp|9}} By this time, Sumner was blinded by his own blood. He staggered up the aisle and collapsed unconscious.{{rp|9}} Senator John J. Crittenden, Representative Ambrose Murray (R-NY), and others attempted to restrain Brooks before he killed Sumner but were blocked by Keitt, who brandished a pistol and shouted at the onlookers to leave Brooks and Sumner alone.{{rp|9}}{{cite book |last=Gugliotta |first=Guy |date=2012 |title=Freedom's Cap: The United States Capitol and the Coming of the Civil War |url=https://archive.org/details/freedomscapunite0000gugl |url-access=registration |publisher=Hill and Wang |page=[https://archive.org/details/freedomscapunite0000gugl/page/237 237]|isbn=9780809046812 }} Brooks continued beating Sumner until the cane broke, then quietly left the chamber with Keitt and Edmundson.{{rp|10}} Brooks required medical attention before leaving the Capitol, because he had hit himself above his right eye with one of his backswings.{{rp|10}}

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.Mitchell, Thomas G. Anti-slavery politics in antebellum and Civil War America (2007) p. 95

{{Wikisource|On his assault on Charles Sumner}}

The national reaction to Brooks' attack was sharply divided along regional lines. In Congress, members in both houses armed themselves when they ventured onto the floor.{{cite book|author=Maury Klein|title=Days of Defiance: Sumter, Secession, and the Coming of the Civil War|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G7DjFOfv3k4C&pg=PA50|year=1999|publisher=Knopf Doubleday |page=50|isbn=9780679768821}} At no time, between the incident and his death, did Brooks apologize for the attack. In his speech to the House of Representatives announcing his resignation on June 14, 1856, Brooks insisted that he had behaved honorably and condemned any efforts to censure or punish him for his behavior.{{cite web| url = https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_his_assault_on_Charles_Sumner |title = On his assault on Charles Sumner – Wikisource, the free online library}}

Brooks was widely cheered across the South, where his attack on Sumner was considered legitimate and socially justifiable. South Carolinians sent Brooks dozens of new canes, with one bearing the phrase, "Good job"; another cane was inscribed "Hit him again." The Richmond Enquirer wrote: "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. Southern lawmakers made rings out of the original cane's remains, which they wore on neck chains to show their solidarity with Brooks.Puleo, 102, 114–115

In contrast, Northerners, even those previously opposed to Sumner's extreme abolitionist invective, were universally shocked by Brooks' violence.{{citation needed|date=March 2021}} Anti-slavery men cited it as evidence that the South had lost interest in national debate, and now relied on violence to express themselves. John L. Magee's political cartoon famously expressed the general Northern sentiment that the South's vaunted chivalry had degenerated into "Argument versus Clubs".

American Party Congressman Anson Burlingame publicly humiliated Brooks in retaliation by goading Brooks into challenging him to a duel, accepting, and then watching Brooks back out.{{cite magazine |last=Brady |first=Tim |date=Winter 1997 |title=Anson Burlingame: Diplomat, Orator |url=https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/217154999.pdf |magazine=JAAER: The Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education and Research |location=Daytona Beach, FL |publisher=Embry-Riddke Aeronautical University |page=17}} After Burlingame made provocative remarks, Brooks challenged Burlingame, stating he would gladly face him in any "Yankee mudsill" of his choosing.{{cite news |date=February 23, 1870 |title=Obituary: Hon. Anson Burlingame |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/74135272/burlingame-obituary/ |work=The Daily Evening Telegraph |location=Philadelphia, PA |page=4 |via=Newspapers.com}} Burlingame, a well-known marksman, eagerly accepted, choosing rifles as the weapons and the Navy Yards in the border town of Niagara Falls, Canada, as the location to circumvent the U.S. ban on dueling. Brooks, reportedly dismayed by both Burlingame's enthusiastic acceptance and reputation as a crack shot, backed out by citing unspecified risks to his safety if he was to cross "hostile country" (the Northern states) to reach Canada.{{cite magazine |last=Walsh |first=Warren B. |date=May 1945 |title=The Beginnings of the Burlingame Mission |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-asian-studies/article/abs/beginnings-of-the-burlingame-mission/53343EA5E737E4230D62103A087B9296 |magazine=The Far Eastern Quarterly |volume=4 |number=4 |location=Cambridge, England |publisher=Cambridge University Press |pages=274–277}}

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 else he would have used a different weapon. Brooks was tried in a District of Columbia court for the attack. He was convicted of assault and was fined $300, though he was not incarcerated.{{rp|83}}

A motion to expel Brooks from the House failed, but he resigned on July 15 to allow his constituents to ratify or condemn his conduct. They approved, returning him to office in the special election held on August 1 and then electing him to a new term in November 1856.

Brooks died unexpectedly from a violent attack of croup on January 27, 1857, a few weeks before the March 4 start of the new congressional term to which he had been elected.{{cite news |date=January 28, 1857 |title=Death of Preston S. Brooks |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/145333774/ |newspaper=Washington Evening Star |location=Washington, DC |page=2 |url-access=subscription }} He was buried in Edgefield, South Carolina.{{cite book |last=Spencer |first=Thomas E. |date=1998 |title=Where They're Buried |url=https://archive.org/details/wheretheyreburie00spen |url-access=registration |location=Baltimore, MD |publisher=Clearfield Company |page=[https://archive.org/details/wheretheyreburie00spen/page/298 298] |isbn=978-0-8063-4823-0}} The official telegram announcing his death stated "He died a horrid death, and suffered intensely. He endeavored to tear his own throat open to get breath."{{cite book |last=Sumner |first=Charles |date=1871 |title=The Works of Charles Sumner |volume=4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jy1TAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA271 |location=Boston |publisher=Lee and Shepard |page=271}} Despite terrible weather, thousands went to the Capitol to attend memorial services.{{cite book |last=Stampp |first=Kenneth M. |date=1990 |title=America in 1857: A Nation on the Brink |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q5WF8NCK9YYC&pg=PA17 |location=New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=17 |isbn=978-0-19-503902-3 |ref={{sfnRef|America in 1857: A Nation on the Brink}}}} After his body was transported back to Edgefield, another large crowd took part in funeral ceremonies before he was buried.{{sfn|America in 1857: A Nation on the Brink}}

The city of Brooksville, Florida (created from the merger of the towns of Melendez and Pierceville),{{Cite web|url=https://www.cityofbrooksville.us/about|title=History of Brooksville|publisher=City of Brooksville|access-date=May 20, 2010|archive-date=May 8, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200508050124/https://www.cityofbrooksville.us/about|url-status=dead}} and Brooks County, Georgia,{{Cite web|url=http://georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu/courthouses/brooksCH.htm|title=Brooks County Courthouse|work=GeorgiaInfo|publisher=Digital Library of Georgia|access-date=May 20, 2010}} are named after Brooks, as was present-day Big Bend, West Virginia which was previously known as Brooksville, Virginia. All were named shortly after his caning of Sumner.

Preston Brooks was portrayed by Johnny Knoxville in the 2014 "Charleston" episode of the TV series Drunk History. Patton Oswalt played Charles Sumner, and an inebriated Seth Weitberg told the story.

• List of federal political scandals in the United States
• List of United States Congress members who died in office (1790–1899)

{{reflist|30em}}

• {{Cite book|last=Hoffer|first=Williamjames Hull|year=2010|title=The Caning of Charles Sumner: Honor, Idealism, and the Origins of the Civil War|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|location=Baltimore|isbn=978-0-8018-9468-8}} (160 pages).
• {{Cite book|last=Puleo|first=Stephen|year=2012|title=The Caning: The Assault That Drove America to Civil War|publisher=Westholme Publishing LLC|location=Yardley, PA|isbn=978-1-59416-516-0}} (374 pages).

{{commons category|Preston Brooks}}

{{CongBio|B000885}}

• {{Cite web |url=http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/seminar/unit4/sumner.html |title=Full text of Sumner's speech |access-date=December 7, 2004 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20021226032023/http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/seminar/unit4/sumner.html |archive-date=December 26, 2002 |url-status=dead }}
• [http://www.bartleby.com/268/9/15.html Brooks's response, after the beating]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20100129091444/http://www.kevinbaker.info/c_cp.html An account of the incident, the participants, and the aftermath]
• {{Find a Grave|2874|Preston Smith Brooks}}
• [http://scs.student.virginia.edu/~jefflds/member/alumni/news_fa98.php Jefferson Society Notes]{{Dead link|date=March 2022 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}

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{{s-ttl|title=Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Brooks, Preston}}

Category:1819 births

Category:1857 deaths

Category:19th-century American lawyers

Category:American duellists

Category:American people of English descent

Category:American military personnel of the Mexican–American War

Category:American people convicted of assault

Category:19th-century American planters

Category:American proslavery activists

Category:American shooting survivors

Category:Brooks County, Georgia

Category:Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives from South Carolina

Category:Democratic Party members of the South Carolina House of Representatives

Category:People from Edgefield County, South Carolina

Category:South Carolina lawyers

Category:United States Army officers

Category:University of South Carolina alumni

Category:Members of the United States House of Representatives who owned slaves

Category:South Carolina politicians convicted of crimes

Category:19th-century members of the United States House of Representatives

Category:19th-century members of the South Carolina General Assembly