Preston Brooks vs. Charles Sumner, 1856
The 1856 conflict over slavery called "Bleeding Kansas," managed to draw blood in Washington too. As a debate raged in Congress over the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which would grant popular sovereignty to the two newly-formed states, Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner blasted the bill's author Senator Andrew Butler of South Carolina, whom he accused of embracing slavery as "a mistress." South Carolina Rep. Preston Brooks, who was engrained with a strong sense of state-pride, stomped into Sumner's senate chamber on May 22, 1856 to give him a piece of his mind. He gave him a lot more than that. Brooks beat Sumner with a wooden cane, stopping only when the cane shattered. Sumner, who took many blows to the head, took two years to recover before he could return to Congress. The violent attack was surely a sign of things to come as Civil War broke out over the same issues just five years later.