What was Preston brooks beliefs?

Answer 1

Preston Brooks's was a true Southern rebel born in South Carolina. Married twice and widowed once during first marriage, with children from both marriages. He was earlier an assistant to Robert E. Lee and his first cousin was a Confederate general. He was officially associated with the Democratic Party and elected to the US Congress in 1853. Brooks had a vulgar mouth at times and a known temper, being expelled from the University of South Carolina just before graduation for threatening local police with firearms. Fought in a duel with future Texas Senator Louis T. Wigfall and he was shot twice in the hip, causing him to walk with a walking cane. Then in 1856 Brooks beat Senator Charles Sumner to bloody unconsciousness with his walking cane at Sumner's desk in his Senate chambers, until his cane broke. Brook's was Pro-slavery and was furious about a speech Sumner made three days prior to this event, blaming the Southerners for the violence in Kansas. In defense of his attack on Sumner, Brooks said... "A senator from Massachusetts allowed himself, in an elaborately prepared speech, to offer a gross insult to my State, and to a venerable friend who is my State representative and who was absent at the time...Whatever insults my State insults me...; and in her defense I hope I shall always be prepared, humbly and modestly, to perform the duty of a son... It was a personal affair, and in taking redress into my own hands I meant no disrespect to the Senate of the United States or to this House But if I had committed a breach of privilege, it was the privilege of the Senate, and not of this House, which was violated...And now, Mr. Speaker, I announce to you and to this House, that I am no longer a member of the Thirty-fourth Congress." The Congress failed to expel him for his hostile actions but, still he resigned, then that same year he was reelected, where he served until his death in 1857. http://www.bartleby.com/268/9/15.html *(Assuming: Brooks and his beliefs, being the reason South Carolina was the first state to secede in 1860, at the start of American Cilvil War)