“B” is for Brooks, Preston Smith (1819-1857

“B” is for Brooks, Preston Smith (1819-1857). Congressman. Born near the town of Edgefield, Brooks was elected to the U. S. House of Representatives in 1852. In May 1856 an unusually harsh speech by U.S. Senator Charles Sumner assailed South Carolina's role in American history (especially during the Revolutionary War) and attacked by name Senator Andrew P. Butler (a distant cousin of Brooks). With the aged Butler unable to defend himself or his state, the task fell to his nearest relative, Congressman Brooks. He entered the Senate chamber and struck Sumner in the head with a cane. A special House of Representatives committee recommended Brooks’s expulsion, but its report failed to receive the necessary two-thirds vote. Though Preston Smith Brooks denied the House’s constitutional jurisdiction over the matter, he resigned in July 1856 and was subsequently reelected to fill his own vacancy.