![]() Sumner was a passionate abolitionist who had entered the Senate in 1851, just as the controversy over the Compromise of 1850 was in full bloom. That the Brooks-Sumner imbroglio revolved around sectional lines was no coincidence. But Lawrence Keitt, a fellow South Carolinian and friend of Brooks, brandished a pistol and snarled, “Let them be!” The would-be rescuers stopped in their tracks and the bludgeoning of Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts continued. The merciless blows from his thick gutta-percha cane echoed in the cavernous space, as a few concerned witnesses tentatively stepped toward the scene. ![]() With swift, powerful strokes, South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks battered the prostrate body in the aisle of the nearly empty U.S. Preston Brooks’ big stick diplomacy: Heated oratory leads to violence in the hallowed halls of the U.S. ![]()
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