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Events on Thursday 22 May 1856 1
1856Caning of Charles SumnerCongressman Preston Brooks beats a senator on the Senate floorOn 22 May 1856, Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina beat Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts with a cane in the Senate chamber, in retaliation for an antislavery speech. Sumner was severely injured and did not fully return to the Senate for three years. The attack deepened sectional divisions between North and South ahead of the Civil War.