Join Paul Quigley to discover what prompted Preston Brooks’ attack on Charles Sumner and how it deepened the nation’s division over slavery.

In 1856, South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks caned Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner on the floor of the U.S. Capitol. The attack, which left Sumner unconscious, increased tensions across the nation and pushed the country closer to civil war. Join Paul Quigley as he explores what motivated Brooks’ actions and what it meant for an increasingly polarized nation.

Paul Quigley is the James I. Robertson, Jr. Associate Professor of Civil War History in the History Department at Virginia Tech, where he also serves as Director of the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies and Director of the Center for Humanities. Quigley is the author of the prize-winning book Shifting Grounds: Nationalism and the American South, 1848-65, and has edited works in publications ranging from the Journal of the Civil War Era to the New York Times and the Washington Post.