Brooks, Preston Smith

Life Span
to
    Full name
    Preston Smith Brooks
    Place of Birth
    Birth Date Certainty
    Exact
    Death Date Certainty
    Exact
    Gender
    Male
    Race
    White
    Origins
    Slave State
    No. of Spouses
    2
    No. of Children
    4
    Family
    Whitfield Brooks (father), Mary Caroll Brooks (mother), Caroline Harper Means (first wife), Martha Caroline Means (second wife)
    Education
    University of South Carolina
    Occupation
    Politician
    Military
    Political Parties
    Democratic
    Government
    US House of Representatives
    Military
    US military (Pre-Civil War)

    Preston Smith Brooks (Congressional Biographical Directory)

    Reference
    BROOKS, Preston Smith, a Representative from South Carolina; born in Edgefield District, S.C., August 5, 1819; attended the common schools and was graduated from South Carolina College (now the University of South Carolina) at Columbia in 1839; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1845 and commenced practice in Edgefield, S.C.; member of the State house of representatives in 1844; served in the Mexican War as captain in the Palmetto Regiment of South Carolina Volunteers; elected as a Democrat to the Thirty-third and Thirty-fourth Congresses and served from March 4, 1853, until July 15, 1856, when he resigned even though the attempt to expel him for his assault upon Charles Sumner on May 22, 1856, had failed through lack of the necessary two-thirds vote; chairman, Committee on Expenditures in the Department of State (Thirty-fourth Congress); reelected to the Thirty-fourth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by his own resignation and served from August 1, 1856, until his death in Washington, D.C., January 27, 1857; had been reelected to the Thirty-fifth Congress; interment in Willow Brook Cemetery, Edgefield, S.C.
    "Brooks, Preston Smith," Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774 to Present, http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=B000885.
    Chicago Style Entry Link
    Gienapp, William E. "Crime Against Sumner: The Caning of Charles Sumner and the Rise of the Republican Party." Civil War History 25, no. 3 (1979): 218-245. view record
    Sinha, Manisha. "The Caning of Charles Sumner: Slavery, Race, and Ideology in the Age of the Civil War." Journal of the Early Republic 23, no. 2 (Summer 2003), 233-262. view record
    How to Cite This Page: "Brooks, Preston Smith," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/5206.