Senator Sumner's speech regarding the withholding of statehood from five Western states on the basis of their anti-slavery constitutions, directed at Senator Andrew Butler of South Carolina:
The senator from South Carolina has read many books of chivalry, and believes himself a chivalrous knight with sentiments of honor and courage. 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. For her, his tongue is always profuse in words...
Sumner's speech became quite the object of controversy among Southerners—the assertion that Butler, and other slaveholders, prostituted themselves to slavery was, although true, not proper talk in polite society.
The remarks so infuriated Representative Preston Brooks, Butler's cousin, that he wanted to challenge Sumner to a duel, but, after being convinced by a friend that Sumner was not his equal, decided to flog him as one might a slave.
Two days later, Brooks entered the mostly empty Senate chamber with two friends, walked over to Sumner, who was writing at his desk, and said to him:
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.
He then proceeded to viciously beat him over the head with a thick, gold-headed cane. Sumner, unable to rise in time, fell to the floor and began to convulse in a pool of his own blood. This did not dissuade Brooks from continuing his assault; nor did the snapping of his cane. He continued hitting Sumner with the gold head until, finally, two representatives managed to break through Brooks' friends and restrain him.
Sumner survived the assault but was unable to continue his duties as senator for three years. His home state of Massachusetts re-elected him while leaving his seat empty in defiance. He never fully recovered from his injuries.
Brooks was fined for the incident and soon resumed his normal duties.
The assault became a lightning rod for Northern and Southern expressions of grievance. The North deemed the assault one of the most infamous incidents in the halls of government in the nation's history, a sign of slavery's degradation of the South into complete barbarity. The South hailed Brooks as a hero while simultaneously claiming that Sumner had gotten off easy and had barely been attacked at all. Whatever had happened, they argued, he deserved it because of his inflammatory attacks on Southern honor.
Politically, the attack galvanized Republicans, who would go on to win many state legislatures in the North and, consequently, additional Senate seats.
