may 22, 1856 - Bleeding Sumner/The Sumner Affair

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After making disparaging remarks about the Kansas-Nebraska acts and the senator Andrew Butler (D-SC) who proposed it, senator Charles Sumner (R-MA) was beaten in the senate chamber by Butler's cousin. representative Preston Brooks (D-SC), while accomplices fended off others. Sumner recovered, but pro-slavery proponents in the South held Brooks to be a hero, incensing northerners and furthering north-south sectionalism.

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