Tag: The Violence

The period’s raging debate over slavery fractured political parties, paralyzed the national government and divided the nation. Fistfights, shoving matches, weapon wielding, mass brawls: Largely forgotten now, these clashes show a momentous political struggle unfolding in real time. In the end, Cilley opted to fight, though not with Wise. Dawson routinely wore both a Bowie knife and a pistol, and he wasn’t shy about using them in the House, particularly when someone dared to attack slavery. Four armed Southern Democrats immediately joined him, which prompted four Whigs to position themselves around Giddings, several of them armed as well. Not surprisingly, debate over the act raised the passions of the slavery debate — and congressional violence — to new heights. Dedicated to fighting the Slave Power, Republican congressmen did their duty, confronting Southerners as never before, and Southerners replied in kind. One of those Democrats — the equally feisty Laurence Keitt of South Carolina — immediately took offense, insisting that Grow object on his own side of the House. By the late 1850s, Northerners and Southerners alike were urging their congressmen to fight — literally — for their rights. At the center of this conversation is the United States Congress, the only institution in which representatives from throughout the nation come together to hash out national policy.