Further inflamed sectional passions over the
institution of slavery and its future in the Republic.
Brooks, a Democrat, was an intense supporter of servitude and states' rights.
He is essentially associated with his May 22, 1856, ambush upon abolitionist
and Republican Senator Charles Sumner; Brooks beat Sumner with a stick on the
floor of the United States Senate in striking back for an abolitionist
subjugation discourse in which Sumner verbally assaulted Brooks' second cousin.
