Brooks, Preston S. (1819-1857) [Print with a clipped signature of Preston S. Brooks]
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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC02095.37 Author/Creator: Brooks, Preston S. (1819-1857) Place Written: s.l. Type: Engraving Date: no date Pagination: 1 p. ; 23 x 14.5 cm. Order a Copy
With clipped signature of Brooks. Both engraving and signature are pasted to backer page. A pencil note, also on backer page, explains that Brooks attacked Charles Sumner after Sumner's famous "Crime Against Kansas" speech in the Senate.
Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina believed that Sumner had insulted his uncle, Senator Andrew Butler, in Sumner's two-day oration against slavery, The Crime Against Kansas, delivered 19-20 May 1856. In retaliation, Brooks used his cane to beat Sumner unconscious in the Senate chamber 22 May 1856. The South applauded Brooks, while the North used the caning to symbolize the savagery and brutality of the South. Sumner did not fully recover, or return to his Senate seat, until 1859.
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