Brooks-Sumner Affair | Palmetto Heritage

In 1857 during the heated debate on Kansas in the Senate, Charles Sumner delivered a two-day speech entitled "The Crime Against Kansas," which contained an insulting denunciation of Senator Andrew Butler of South Carolina. Two days later, Senator Butler's nephew, Representative Preston Brooks, avenged his uncle and the South by bludgeoning Sumner with a cane. Representative Edmunds, (D Va) cautions Preston Brooks to remain calm about the matter but Preston enters the Senate Chamber and attacks Sumner.

Standards

• 4.3.CX Contextualize South Carolina’s role in the development of sectionalism during the antebellum period.
• 4.4.CO Compare the economic and political causes of the Civil War.
• 8.3.CO Compare the debates between South Carolina and the federal government regarding slavery, federalism, and the Constitution.
• This indicator was developed to encourage inquiry into the debates, heightened by Westward Expansion, over federal and state power concerning slavery, and the government's role in protecting and securing natural rights.
• 8.3.CC Analyze debates and efforts to recognize the natural rights of marginalized groups during the period of expansion and sectionalism.
• This indicator was designed to encourage inquiry into the continuities and changes of the experiences of marginalized groups such as African Americans, Native Americans and women, as the U.S. expanded westward and grappled with the development of new states.

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