On this day, May 22, in 1856

Southern Congressman Preston Brooks used his wooden cane to beat Senator Charles Sumner unconscious in the hall of the United States Senate. Senator Sumner, who was known for his radical abolitionist beliefs, had delivered a speech 3 days earlier in which he condemned slavery and insulted the authors of the Kansas-Nebraska act, one of whom was Congressman Brooks’ uncle. The Kansas-Nebraska Act allowed the settlers to decide weather each territory would be admitted as a slave or Free State. As the nation was on the brink of civil war, the issue became a tense national debate and the settlers engaged in bloody conflict. It took Senator Sumner 3 years to fully recover from the attack.