Bowie knives, brawls and fisticuffs on Capitol Hill was once the norm. Congress used to be a violent, aggressive place, according to “Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War,” a new book by Joanne B. Freeman, a Yale University professor of history and American studies.
“The paintings from the time show senators in black frocks debating, their fingers thrust into the air in emphasis,” the author told Smithsonian magazine. “But in truth, Congress was a violent place. That was in part because the nation was violent, too. There were riots in cities over immigration and fighting on the frontier over Native American land. The system of slavery was grounded in violence. It was not a kind era.
“I found roughly 70 violent incidents in the 30 years before the Civil War — and very often the incidents featured a Southerner trying to intimidate a Northerner into compliance,” Ms. Freeman said. “It’s all hidden between the lines in the Congressional record; it might say ’the conversation became unpleasantly personal.’ That meant duel challenges, shoving, pulling guns and knives. In 1858, South Carolina Representative Laurence Keitt started trouble with Pennsylvania’s Galusha Grow. It turned into a mass brawl between Southerners and Northerners in the House.”
Back in the day, a lawmakers’ prowess could be an asset with voter appeal.
“There were certain people who were elected to Congress because they played rough,” the author noted. “That’s why their constituents sent them there, to play rough, to defend their interests with gusto. And that included sometimes threats and even also sometimes fists or weapons. People knew who they were electing to Congress, and they did it for a reason.”
The news media of the time had a part in the fracas even then.
“Over time, it played a more central role as things like the railroad, the telegraph, the steam powered printing press, and new ways of creating paper — there are all of these technological innovations that make the press bigger and faster and further reaching between the 1830s and the Civil War,” Ms. Freeman said.
The hefty, 480-page book is published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux and will be on shelves Sept. 11.
• Jennifer Harper can be reached at jharper@washingtontimes.com.
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