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Preston Brooks, the controversial American congressman from South Carolina, gained infamy for his violent assault on Senator Charles Sumner on the floor of the U.S. Senate in 1856. As a staunch defender of slavery and states' rights, Brooks' brutal attack sparked national outrage and deepened the divide between North and South on the eve of the Civil War, leaving a dark stain on the annals of American history.
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"I should have forfeited my own self-respect, and perhaps the good opinion of my countrymen, if I had failed to resent such an injury by calling the offender in question to a personal account."

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"If I desired to kill the senator why did I not do it? You all admit that I had him in my power."

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"But if I had committed a breach of privilege, it was the privilege of the Senate, and not of this House, which was violated. I was answerable there and not here."

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"They had no right, as it seems to me, to prosecute me in these Halls; nor have you the right in law or under the Constitution, as I respectfully submit, to take jurisdiction over offenses committed against them."

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"But, sir, they have written me down upon the history of the country as worthy of expulsion, and in no unkindness I must tell them that for all future time my self-respect requires that I shall pass them as strangers."

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"Whatever insults my State insults me."

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