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Charles Sumner of Massachusetts at his desk. Brooks said, “Mr. Sumner, I have read your speech against South Carolina, and have read it carefully, deliberately, and dispassionately, in which you have libeled my state and slandered my white-haired old relative, Senator Butler, who is absent, and I have come to punish you for it.” Brooks then proceeded to beat Senator Sumner senseless with a metal-tipped cane.
    Sumner, who was angry about the escalation of violence in Kansas over the issue of whether to admit Kansas to the Union as either a free or proslavery state, called the proslavery militia from Missouri “murderous robbers.” He then went on to slam Butler, saying that he spat and stammered when he talked, which was in a sense true, since Butler had had a stroke. Butler’s cousin, Brooks, then took matters into his own hands.
    The inch-thick cane was smashed to splinters, and the bloody Sumner cried out, “I am almost dead, almost dead.” Brooks was finally restrained. The resulting Senate hearing failed to muster enough votes to expel Brooks; however, he resigned. Then he ran for reelection to fill the vacant seat he had just vacated. He won. Meanwhile, it took Sumner three years to recover from the attack. Brooks received many new walking sticks from his supporters.
More Violence in the House
    On January 30, 1798, two congressmen who didn’t care for each other, Matthew Lyon (a Republican from Vermont) and Roger Griswold (a Federalist from Connecticut), started shouting at each other. (Nothing new there.) Then things took a turn for the worse when Lyon spat tobacco in Griswold’s face after Griswold called him a coward. The Federalists moved to expel Lyon, and the House spent two long weeks debating it. Lyon apologized and the House fell short of the number of votes needed for expulsion.
    The next day, Griswold, who was obviously not happy with the apology or the vote, decided to settle the matter himself. He rushed across the House floor and, with his brand-new hickory walking stick, began beating on Lyon. Here is Griswold’s account: “I gave him the first blow—I call’d him a scoundrel and struck him with my cane, and pursued him with more than twenty blows on his head and back until he got possession of a pair of tongues [i.e. tongs], when I threw him down and after giving him several blows with my fist, I was taken off by his friends.”
    Here’s an even better account from Representative George Thatcher of Massachusetts: “I was suddenly, and unexpectedly interrupted by the sound of a violent blow. I raised my head, and directly before me stood Mr. Griswald [sic] laying on blows with all his might upon Mr. Lyon, who seemed to be in the act of rising out of his seat. Lyon made an attempt to catch his cane, but failed—he pressed towards Griswald and endeavored to close with him, but Griswald fell back and continued his blows on the head, shoulder, and arms of Lyon [who] protecting his head and face as well as he could then turned and made for the fire place and took up the [fire] tongs. Griswald dropped his stick and seized the tongs with one hand, and the collar of Lyon by the other, in which position they struggled for an instant when Griswald tripped Lyon and threw him on the floor and gave him one or two blows in the face.”

    One House member said Congress had been reduced to “an assembly of gladiators.” Griswold, not content to leave things alone, got in the last word: “I might perhaps have given him a second beating but the House was called to order.”
Even More Violence in the House
    Even thought it was outlawed, by the late 1700s dueling had become an accepted (if idiotic) form of resolving political disagreements and preserving honor. Even Abraham Lincoln was once challenged to a duel. Lincoln chose swords as the weapon, and thankfully all was resolved before the duel. Nevertheless, there were dozens of duels from the 1700s until around the end of the Civil War, when dueling