Senate floor gets bloody
Preston Brooks beats Charles Sumner within inches of death
How did the Kansas and Nebraska Act lead to this???
Representative Preston Brooks
The attacker
Brook's walking cane
Senator Charles Sumner
The victim
The Kansas Nebraska Act of 1854 is creating new territories for Kansas and Nebraska. New lands are open for settlement. Each territory will decide through popular sovereignty whether they will allow slavery. We have democratic senator, Stephen A Douglas of Illinois to thank for this act. He hopes to open up thousands of new farms and start a Midwestern Transcontinental railroad. Pro and anti slavery groups are flooding into Kansas with the goal of voting slavery in or out. A bloody civil war is on the horizon.
It was a horrific day on the senate floor yesterday. Nobody could believe what they saw. Preston Brooks of South Carolina who was so outraged and angry about Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner's antislavery speech, he attacked him with his cane. Brooks was so upset, he swore to take vengeance of his own. Charles Sumner was hit over and over and left within inches of death. They say it will take years to recover from the beating. Representative Preston Brooks is being hailed as a hero in the south, but the North would like to beat him with their own canes.
By, Colin Wahlers