希瑟·洛克伍德，通讯经理

The recent argument that almost became a fistfight on the floor of the US Senate is not something new. T在这里 have been many political arguments that have resulted in duels, 拳脚相加, and beatings among elected and appointed officials, 政治活动家也是如此.

有一件事记录在一封来自 Senator Henry Cabot Lodge (1850–1924) to Theodore Roosevelt, 4 April 1917. Lodge decided against meeting with a group of pacifists who wanted to keep the United States out of WWI, 而他本人则支持美国的干预. However, he did step outside of his office to speak with them. 他们互相辱骂，然后打了起来. 他在信中描述了这场混战:

The pacifist crowd I went out in the corridor to speak with was composed of one woman and half a dozen men. They were very violent and very abusive and I was engaged in backing away from them and saying that we must agree to differ when the German member of their party said “You are a damned coward”. I walked up tp hit and said “You are a damned liar” and he hit me and I hit him. Then all the pacifists rushed at me and I thought I was in for a bad time buy my secretaries sallied forth to my rescue and t在这里 was a mixup. The pacifist who attacked me got badly beaten up and it all ended very comfortably and without hurt to me. At my age (66) t在这里 is a certain aspect of folly about the whole thing and yet I am glad that I hit him.

What occurred next was that the leader of the pacifists, 36岁的亚历山大·班瓦特被捕, 洛奇成了一个羞愧的全国名人. 他在信中继续写道:

The Senators all appeared to be perfectly delighted with my having [hit him] and some of them told me today that the further one went from Washington the more complete my action seemed. 华生[詹姆斯·E]. Watson (1864–1948) Senator from Indiana] said that in Indiana the general belief was, 他收集, that I had beaten him to a pulp and that when one got across the Mississippi the general belief probably was that I had killed him, – all of which for the moment has made me extremely popular.

洛奇没有起诉班瓦特, however a year later Bannwart pressed charges against Lodge for slander. Lodge settled by acknowledging that he punched Bannwart first, 因此开始了战斗, 虽然是他自己亲手做的, 他的故事, 起初, 班瓦特是教唆者吗.

The most famous attack on the Senate floor occurred on 22 May 1856. 参议员查尔斯·萨姆纳, (1811–1874), 一个废奴主义者, 两天前做过演讲吗, in which he insulted Representative Preston Brooks’s first cousin, 参议员安德鲁·巴特勒, who had coauthored the legislation that would bring Kansas into the country as an state allowing enslavement. Brooks attacked Sumner, beating him brutally with his cane, which eventually broke. Even after Sumner had lost consciousness, Brooks kept beating him. Although other senators tried to help Sumner, a Brooks ally prevented them by brandishing a pistol. After the assault, Brooks walked away, leaving the remnants of his cane. He was arrested, tried, convicted, and fined $300 but never spent time in jail. 他的选民在同一年选举他连任, and he spent much of his remaining lifetime making threats of duels and accepting duels that never took place. He died in 1857 of croup before his new term could begin.

Brooks’s attack demonstrated the political polarization in the United States. In the north, Sumner was a martyr, in the south, Brooks was a hero. Sumner’s speech insulting Brooks’s cousin was printed and distributed; Brooks was sent canes to replace his broken one, the remnants of which went on to have two distinct lives. The bottom part was cut into small pieces that Senators sympathetic to Brooks wore around their necks. 顶部的部分最终捐赠给了 革命性的空间 在波士顿，可以观看 在这里.

尽管萨姆纳在1856年11月再次当选, 他在外休养了三年, his empty chair a symbol and reminder of the assault. He would later be diagnosed with “psychic wounds”—today’s post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)—and severe brain injury, 为此他遭受了终生的痛苦. He returned to the senate in 1859 and gave his first speech in 1860—appropriately, 反对奴役.

Despite Sumner’s importance as a Massachusetts senator and his national political status, the collection of his papers at the MHS is surprisingly small. The reason for the shortage is political and personal. Sumner had a lengthy and bitter political feud with his boyhood classmate from the Boston Latin School, 罗伯特·C. Winthrop, who was the MHS president from 1855 to 1885. They had disagreed over the Mexican American War (1846–1848), causing Winthrop to block Sumner from becoming an MHS Member. The two enemies eventually reconciled in 1873, the year before Sumner’s death.