South Carolina has cornered the market when it comes to perpetrating acts of actual physical violence in Congress.
Apparently, being congressional members from the same state and of the same party does not always ensure friendly relations. In 1902, John L. McLaurin and Benjamin R. Tillman were both serving as South Carolina Democrats in the Senate. They had been on friendly terms for many years; Tillman, in fact, used his influence while serving as Governor of South Carolina to help the younger McLaurin along in his political career. Allegiances can be fickle, though.
The Senate was debating the Philippine Tariff bill on February 22, 1902. Senator Tillman was in the process of delivering a speech when he got into a “lively colloquy with Mr. Spooner, regarding the ratification of the Paris treaty.” This treaty, ratified four years earlier in 1898, ended the Spanish-American War and provided for, among other things, the annexation of the Philippines. It also provided the fuel for Tillman v. McLaurin.
Mr. Spooner had argued that William Jennings Bryan’s influence was critical to getting the Paris treaty passed. Tillman, however, retorted that even with Bryan’s support, the Republicans didn’t have the votes. Tillman insisted that he had “received information from that (the Republican) side of the chamber. I know from that that improper influences were used in getting those votes.” After being challenged by Spooner to name the man, Tillman further asserted that “patronage – the federal patronage – of a State has been parceled out to a Senator since the ratification of that treaty.” When pressed more to reveal the name, Tillman revealed that the guilty party hailed from South Carolina, clearly implicating McLaurin. “I know that he voted for the treaty. I know that improper influences were brought to bear. I know what I believe.” And in a hilarious epistemological response, Spooner replied, “You simply believe what you do not know.”
McLaurin’s seat was absent during this whole exchange, but when he heard about what was said, he returned to rebut the charges. Rising with deliberation, McLaurin said “with distinct emphasis upon every word and half turning toward his colleague, Mr. Tillman, who sat in the same row only three seats away, ‘that the statement is a willful, malicious, and deliberate lie.’”
What do you get when you have two South Carolinians with honors besmirched? Fisticuffs:
Mr. McLaurin got no further with his statement….Mr. Tillman sprang with tigerlike ferocity at his colleague….Mr. McLaurin sprang to meet the attack half way. Mr. Tillman aimed a wild blow at his colleague with his right fist. It landed upon Mr. McLaurin’s forehead, just above the left eye, although its force was partially spent upon McLaurin’s arm, which he had raised in an effort to parry the blow.
(You’ve got to love the majesty of this language; I can almost see the scene unfolding in slow motion. Sorry…back to the fight.)
Instantly, McLaurin’s right arm shot out, the blow landing on Tillman’s face, upon the nose. Again Tillman struck out frantically, this time with his left hand. The blow did not land on McLaurin. Then followed a wild scrimmage, both Senators clutching at each other madly.
Both avoided expulsion from the Senate; however, a Censure was approved on the 28th of February. We really must be moving on to the main event, though.
The caning of Charles Sumner by Preston Brooks of South Carolina in 1856 will serve to round out our examination of Congressional blowups.
Though very well known, this case will never lose its appeal; the sheer ferocity of the attack acts as a whetstone on our memory, the event another somber brick laid to help build that road upon which hundreds of thousands of Americans would soon be marching to their deaths.
After slave supporters sacked Lawrence, Kansas, an antislavery epicenter, in May of 1856, Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts delivered a bitterly worded speech denouncing the affair and those he saw as sympathetic towards the attackers, especially the Senator from South Carolina, Andrew Butler. Here are a couple of Sumners’ real zingers:
The Senator from South Carolina has read many books of chivalry, and believes himself a chivalrous knight, with sentiments of honor and courage. Of course he has chosen a mistress to whom he has made his vows, and who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight. I mean the harlot, Slavery. For her, his tongue is always profuse in words.
If the slave States cannot enjoy what, in mockery of the great fathers of the Republic, he misnames equality under the Constitution in other words, the full power in the National Territories to compel fellowmen to unpaid toil, to separate husband and wife, and to sell little children at the auction block then, sir, the chivalric Senator will conduct the State of South Carolina out of the Union! Heroic knight! Exalted Senator! A second Moses come for a second exodus!
Now, if Butler had been in the chambers to hear this speech, perhaps the matter would have ended then and there. But as it was, two days later Charles Sumner sat in his Senate chamber desk working quietly when a distant cousin of Andrew Butler, Preston Brooks (another South Carolina representative – a member of the House) strode up to him and promptly beat him into oblivion with his cane. Sumner was beaten so badly he was not able to return to the Senate for three years, his seat kept vacant by the people of Massachusetts as a show of respect.
If there ever existed a reason that could cause one people to carpet-blame another group of people, this was it. It did not help certain Northern opinions about the “murderous brutality of the minions of Slavery” when from across South Carolina canes were sent to Brooks to replace the one he shattered on the body of Sumner.
So, when we review Joe Wilson’s outburst, I think it helpful to take into account how things used to be, or at least how they could be. I just can’t decide whether or not we’ve made progress in expressing our disagreements.
I do declare there is something about the glint of pistols at half past six that rings more true than a representative who shouts out a challenge and then whips out a BlackBerry.
P.S. If you are interested in Congressional beatings, there is another interesting one, perhaps the earliest – the 1798 hickory-cane beating given by Roger Griswold to Matthew Lyon on the floor of the House of Representatives. Read all about it.
This is the second part of a two-part series. Read part one.
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Dave said:
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October 21st, 2009 at 11:11 am