Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s, R-Calif, bid for speaker nearly caused a fistfight as Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., had to be restrained in a confrontation with Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., but it would’ve been far from the first time a disagreement among lawmakers came to blows in the Capitol.
Both the House of Representatives and the Senate have a checkered history of lawmakers attacking one another over various disagreements, with the fights ranging from a single punch or a beating with a cane to the drawing of firearms on the floor.
One of the first widely recorded incidents came in 1798 between Roger Griswold and Matthew Lyon, a pair of lawmakers from Connecticut and Vermont, respectively. Griswold called Lyon a “scoundrel” during a disagreement, considered an aggressive curse at the time. Lyon responded by spitting in Griswold’s face, and the two then went at it until their colleagues separated them.
The pair weren’t done, however, as Griswold again attacked Lyon a few weeks later, this time using a cane. Lyons defended himself using a pair of fire tongs, according to the Congressional Record.
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Unsurprisingly, many fights between lawmakers centered on debates over slavery just prior to the Civil War. In 1850, Thomas Benton of Missouri, a Democrat who opposed slavery, drew a pistol and pointed it at his colleague, Henry Foote of Mississippi, during a long disagreement about the topic. Benton’s colleagues were able to talk him down before he fired, however.
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Soon after in 1856, Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina, who was pro-slavery, severely beat a fellow lawmaker with a cane shortly after he had made a floor speech in the Senate. The victim, Sen. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, had criticized a family member of Brooks’ and derided slaveholders as “pimps.”
While lawmakers attempted to intervene in the beating, Brooks’ fellow South Carolina congressman, Sen. Laurence Keitt, drew a pistol and threatened anyone who attempted to intervene. Sumner was left unconscious and took years to recover.

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