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Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of IHeart Radio.

Hello and welcome to the podcast.

I'm Tracy V. Wilson.

And I'm Holly Fry.

This is the third part of our three-parter about Charles Sumner. and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson. And I'm Holly Fry.

This is the third part of our three-parter about Charles Sumner.

I don't want to call this a cliffhanger because we're talking about a person's actual human life. But we did leave off at a precarious moment.

Charles Sumner had delivered an incendiary speech before the Senate called

Crime Against Kansas. He had delivered that over two days in May of 1856. And so we are picking up

with what happened two days later on May 22nd when Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina

came into the Senate chamber and attacked

Charles Sumner at his desk. Representative Brooks thought Senator Sumner deserved to be

punished for what he had said in his crime against Kansas speech. Brooks also thought this

should be humiliating for Sumner and his initial plan was to use a whip.

But Sumner was a big man. He was six foot four with a barrel chest, and he outweighed Brooks by about 30 pounds.

Brooks thought that Sumner might just take a whip out of his hand, so he decided to use a walking cane.

When Brooks arrived at the Senate chamber that day, Sumner was at his desk.

He was franking copies of the speech that he had just given.

Another South Carolina representative, Lawrence Kitt, accompanied Brooks and was prepared to get in the way of anybody who might intervene.

Kit was a major part of planning this attack

...