Sumner - Brooks Incident :: essays research papers

P recesson put up was born(p) in Edgefield District, confederation Carolina on August 5th, 1819. He graduated from South Carolina College (now known as the University of South Carolina), in 1839, and after he graduated he studied legal philosophy and was admitted to the bar in 1845. Brooks also served in the Mexican-American War with the Palmetto Regiment. later he had returned from the war, Brooks fought a duel with future Texas Senator Louis T. Wigfall. In the duel, Brooks was shot in the hip, forcing him to use a walking chew out for the rest of his life.In 1853, Brooks was elected to the 33rd Congress as a member of the Democratic Party. musical composition in office, Brooks had met an anti-slavery campaigning Senator named Charles Sumner. Charles Sumner was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and graduated from Harvard law school in 1830. He redact a law review, the American Jurist, and served as a reporter for the unify States Circuit Court. Sumner also lectured on constit utional and international law at Harvard s law school for three winter terms. Sumner first became a politician in 1845, while the Mexican-American War was in dispute. In an freedom Day speech before city officials in Boston, Sumner denounced the use of war for settling international disputes and promoted arbitration instead. He also opposed the annexation of Texas and criticized the institution of slavery. From these speeches, Sumner was known as a keen and favored commonplace speaker. In 1848, Sumner abandoned the Whig party in support of Martin Van Burens unsuccessful Free-Soil campaign for presidency. In 1851, a Democratic-Free-Soil coalition in the Massachusetts legislature chose Sumner to fill the U.S. Senate seat of Daniel Webster, who had resigned to become Secretary of State. While Sumner was in the Senate, he became a leader of the anti-slavery-forces. During the debates on slavery in Kansas in May 1856, Sumner delivered a two-day oration called The Crime against Kansas, that brutally defamed Confederate expansion of slavery. When Sumner gave this speech, Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina believed that Sumner had insulted his uncle, Senator Andrew Butler. Brooks backfired and used his cane to beat Sumner, who was seated at his desk on the Senate floor, until he was unconscious. Sumner, bleeding profusely, had to be carried out of the room. Sumners injuries from the beating kept him out of office for three years. The severe beating on the Senate floor helped escalate the tensions that led to the civilian War and became a huge symbol for both the North and South.