{"id":3734,"date":"2023-01-09T04:43:43","date_gmt":"2023-01-09T10:43:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=3734"},"modified":"2023-03-21T02:11:44","modified_gmt":"2023-03-21T07:11:44","slug":"dozens-of-representatives-brawled-on-the-house-floor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=3734","title":{"rendered":"Gaetz and Rogers weren\u2019t the first: Here are the wildest times lawmakers have come to blows inside the Capitol<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s, R-Calif, bid for speaker nearly caused a fistfight as Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala.,\u00a0had to be restrained\u00a0in 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.
\nBoth the\u00a0House of Representatives\u00a0and 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.
\nOne 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.
\nThe 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.
\nTHE VOTE FOR HOUSE SPEAKER
\nUnsurprisingly, 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.
\nKEVIN MCCARTHY ELECTED HOUSE SPEAKER IN 15TH FLOOR VOTE AFTER DAYS OF HIGH DRAMA
\nSoon 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\u00a0in the Senate.\u00a0The victim, Sen. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, had criticized a family member of Brooks’ and derided slaveholders as “pimps.”
\nWhile 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.<\/p>\n

Foxnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s, R-Calif, bid for speaker nearly caused a fistfight as Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala.,\u00a0had to be restrained\u00a0in 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\u00a0House of Representatives\u00a0and the Senate have a checkered history […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":3735,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2932,1386,3990,2878,1345,1588,1589,3991,2066],"class_list":["post-3734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-american-politics","tag-capitol","tag-divided","tag-house-of-representatives","tag-mccarthy","tag-rep","tag-representatives","tag-running-for-speaker","tag-senate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3734"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8163,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3734\/revisions\/8163"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}