The Old Senate Chamber: The Sumner-Brooks Affair

Charles Sumner

During the era of Jackson, “unseemly acts of violence repeatedly disgraced the Capitol.”[1] In one such event, a dramatic assault occurred on May 22, 1856 inside the Old Senate Chamber that further sectionalized the Congress and, in turn, widened the chasm dividing North and South. Charles Sumner, a Republican Congressman from Massachusetts, delivered a powerful oration against the proposed Kansas-Nebraska Act. He argued that this legislation was grounded in motives that “may be clearly traced to a depraved desire for a new Slave State… in the hope of adding to the power of slavery in the National Government."[2] Throughout his climactic speech, Sumner directed poignant personal insults towards the act’s primary authors, Stephen Douglas and Andrew Butler. In today’s culture, it is difficult to comprehend the seriousness with which men “defended their honor.” Until outlawed, duels had been a frequent method for settling offenses. In light of these disgraceful and ungentlemanly remarks, Butler’s nephew, Preston Brooks, felt compelled to defend the honor of his family and decided to take action into his own hands! Two days after Sumner’s oratory, an infuriated Brooks confronted Sumner during debate in the Old Senate Chamber and, after exchanging a few words, proceeded to beat him with a cane until it broke in two, leaving Sumner battered and bloody.[3]

Preston Brooks

Because of the ideological differences represented by these two men, this event was received, rebutted, and remembered differently by the North and South. Brooks’ dramatic and public attack fueled the embers of geographic sectionalism that had begun to flicker from Carolina to Connecticut. The North wrote articles and produced imagery that presented Sumner as a martyr and voice for their cause of emancipation. In many respects, this personal attack “gave additional energy to the will, and strength to the arm of the emerging Republican Party.”[4] A collective spirit of righteous opposition in the North resulted in regular “indignation meetings” that catalyzed the demand for action against southern slave-holders.[5] Many northerners “linked the assault to … emancipation, proclaiming that each blow to Sumner’s bloody brow drove one more nail into the coffin of slavery.”[6] What resulted “in the wake of the caning” was a more “unified North” determined that the actions of proslavery Democrats like Brooks “were a threat to the norms of republican government.”[7] In the South, many aristocratic Southerners deemed his actions to be chivalrous as he was acting in defense of his family name and way of life.[8] As a gesture of unwavering loyalty, brand new “replacement” canes were gifted to Brooks from hundreds of Carolinians as physical demonstrations of their support. With 21st century perspective, it is clear that the Sumner-Brooks affair that stained the Senate floors red foreshadowed the bloody war to come. The violence of both word and deed revealed that sectionalism was rising exponentially, the secession of the South was likely, and a Civil War was not only plausible, but probable.

[1] Howe, What Hath God Wrought?, 436.


[2] Michael William Pfau, "Time, Tropes, and Textuality: Reading Republicanism in Charles Sumner's 'Crime Against Kansas'", Rhetoric & Public Affairs 6:3 (2003): 393.


[3] Manisha Sinha, “The Caning of Charles Sumner: Slavery, Race, and Ideology in the Age of the Civil War.” Journal of the Early Republic 23:2 (Summer 2003): 233.


[4]Michael E. Woods, “The Indignation of Freedom-Loving People: The Caning of Charles Sumner and Emotions in Antebellum Politics,” Journal of Social History 44:3 (Spring 2011): 689.


[5] Ibid.


[6] Ibid.


[7]Manisha Sinha, “The Caning of Charles Sumner,” 235.


[8] Ibid.