A congressman walked onto the Senate floor and beat a senator nearly to death with a cane — then his constituents sent him commemorative canes reading 'Hit him again.'
On May 22, 1856, Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina strode into the U.S. Senate chamber and beat Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts with a metal-tipped gutta-percha cane until it shattered — while fellow congressmen blocked anyone from intervening.
The attack was retaliation for Sumner's 'Crime Against Kansas' speech, in which he savagely mocked Senator Andrew Butler — Brooks' cousin — by comparing slavery to his 'mistress' and ridiculing his speech impediment caused by a recent stroke.
Brooks deliberately chose caning over a duel. In Southern honor culture, you challenged an equal to a duel; you caned a social inferior. By choosing the cane, Brooks was publicly declaring Sumner unworthy of gentlemanly treatment.
Sumner was trapped under his Senate desk, which was bolted to the floor. He finally wrenched it free from its moorings before collapsing in the aisle, nearly blind and drenched in blood. Brooks continued striking even after Sumner fell.
Brooks was convicted of assault and fined just $300 — no prison time. He resigned from Congress, but South Carolina immediately reelected him and supporters sent him commemorative canes engraved 'Hit him again' and 'Use knock-down arguments.'
In the North, Sumner became an instant martyr. Massachusetts left his Senate seat conspicuously empty for three years as a silent accusation against the South, and Republicans plastered images of the 'Bleeding Sumner' across their campaign materials.
Sumner suffered severe head trauma — chronic pain, light sensitivity, and symptoms now recognized as PTSD and traumatic brain injury — keeping him absent from the Senate for over three years, though some contemporary critics questioned whether he exaggerated his injuries.
The nation's reaction split along sectional lines with startling clarity: Northern newspapers called it an act of barbarism that proved slaveholders would silence free speech by force; Southern papers celebrated Brooks as a defender of honor who gave Sumner what he deserved.
Brooks died in January 1857 at just 37 years old — only months after the attack and before he could serve his triumphant new term — reportedly of croup, never facing further consequences for the assault.
The caning is now seen as a turning point on the road to the Civil War, a moment when the conflict over slavery visibly burst out of political debate and into physical violence at the very heart of American democracy.