Preston Brooks v.s. Charles Summer: Fisticuffs!!

While reading tonight's assignment I found one passage particularly interesting. The passage describing Preston Brook's attack on Charles Summer in the U.S. Senate. I would have never guess that an attack that debilitated Summer for two years who what been allowed to happen right in the middle of the senate floor. Are these men not states men who believe in the codes of chivalry and the power of compromise over violence? After the attack was Brooks allowed to continue his duties as a senator? Today if John Mccain got into a fist fight with Hilary Clinton in the middle of the senate floor both of their political careers would be instantly over. Yet in the 19th century nothing happened to Brooks. Either the people of the South advocated this type of behavior or they truly hated the Northerners.