Bleeding Kansas/Caning of Charles Sumner

Preston Brooks, angered by Charles Sumner's criticism of his cousin, savagely

beat him with a cane in the Senate chamber.

Because Eastern Kansas had the same climate and soil as Missouri, farmers moving from Missouri were likely to bring their slaves with them, effectively claiming Kansas for the South.  Realizing this, Northern anti-slavery supporters, supported largely by the New England Emigrant Aid Society, took arms and supplies, and headed South.  Northerners arriving in Kansas recruited and outfitted antislavery settlers against the anti-slavery supporters flooding Kansas.  On May 21, 1856, Southern anti-slavery supporters, referred to as "border ruffians by the press," attacked the town of Lawrence, an anti-slavery stronghold.  They destroyed printing presses, plundered shops and homes, and burned a hotel and the home of the free-state elected governor.

While Bleeding Kansas was occurring in the South, tempers flared over the issue of the Western territories.  In mid-May of 1856, a Massachusetts Senator named Charles Sumner gave a speech accusing the pro-slavery senators of forcing slavery upon Kansas.  During his speech, he mentioned one such senator, Senator Andrew P. Butler by name.  On May 22, Andrew Butler's second cousin, Representative Preston Brooks, approached Charles Sumner's desk in the Senate chamber and after shouting that the speech was "a libel on South Carolina, and Mr. Butler, who is a relative of mine," he beat him and left him injured and bleeding on the chamber floor.

These events marked the first violent confrontations between pro-slavery and anti-slavery supporters.  It also showed that the issue was deep in the government, as well as the people.