When words fail - Debate by other means

Emotions have run high during this session of Congress, particularly in the House. Republicans are embittered by their loss of control in last November's election, while Democrats moved quickly to assert their newly gained power; and perhaps pay back Republicans for the shabby way Democrats say they were treated when they were in the minority.

The House may not be on the verge of a rumble under Capitol dome. But the sharp ideological divisions in Congress; the scorched-earth legacy of the conservative Republicans who controlled the House for a decade; and the general decline in civility, creates an atmosphere where cooler heads may not always prevail.

The House, in particular, has been a rich source of hotheads since the nation's earliest days. In 1789, two members fought on the House floor using a cane and a fire tong, according to the C-Span posting. In 1793, a House member fought a duel with a former member and killed him. In 1832, Representative Sam Houston, representing Tennessee at the time, attacked another member, William Stanberry, with a cane. Stanberry responded by taking a shot at Houston, but the pistol misfired.

In 1838, a freshmen Congressman was killed in a duel with another freshman; that same year two congressmen fought behind the Speakers chair at the front of the House chamber. In 1840 one member attacked another with a cane. Also in 1840, two members broke canes over each other's heads.

One of the most infamous incidents occurred in 1856, when South Carolina Representative Andrew Butler, entered the Senate chamber (surely a violation of protocol, in any event), and attacked Senator Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts. Sumner, an antislavery Republican, had charged Butler's uncle, South Carolina Senator Preston Brooks, with "taking a mistress...who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him...the harlot slavery."

Defending his uncle's honor, Butler beat Sumner senseless with a "cane of the type used to discipline a dog."

In more recent times, "occasional shoving and tie-pulling matches have replaced more lethal weapons," the C-Span posting noted. In 1995, one member of the House Ways and Means Committee angrily tanked the tie of another member. Members have shoved each other on the House floor. Just last week, a Republican member from Tennessee issued a release accusing Democrats of threatening "to inflict bodily harm" on Republicans.

Congress still has to deal with a host of thorny and divisive issues, including the Iraq war, energy legislation and global warming, all during the run-up to a congressional and presidential election year in 2008. When things get especially heated, members should count to 10 and consider this admonitory note on the C-Span site:
"When members get into physical altercations...The atmosphere becomes charged, making the civil exchange of ideas more difficult and the ability to reach a legislative consensus more uphill than ever."