Congressional Duels, Fisticuffs, and Biting

[orangecrush]

Think Congress is bad now? New book charts their fist fights, duels — even biting — in pre-Civil War years






In the end … I told the kind of story that I wanted to tell,” she said. “A tale of ground-level violence among political power-holders, of powerful emotions and of extreme polarization that shaped the coming of the Civil War.”

Freeman makes a powerful argument that political violence not only led to the Civil War, but in some ways constituted an informal beginning to the American tragedy.


In 1858, a Northerner and Southerner got into a fight on the floor of the House. When the Northerner clotheslined the Southerner, the other Southern congressmen raced to his aid. Seeing the danger, the Northern congressmen made a beeline for their endangered colleague.

“Ultimately, there was a mass brawl with dozens of congressmen in the space before the speaker’s chair, featuring punching, shoving, and tossed spittoons,” Freeman said.

“People at the time noted that a group of Northerners — some of them armed — running at a group of Southerner’s looked remarkably like a battle of North against South, which indeed it was,” she said.


Freeman continued, “One could argue that the first battles of the Civil War took place in the halls of Congress.”








........

My all-time favorite bit of fighting lingo comes from the 1850s and involves a fight between a Virginia congressman and a newspaper editor,” she said. “After the congressman nearly bit off the editor’s thumb during a street fight, the press reported that the editor’s finger had been ‘catawampously chawed up.’”

“This phrase is too darned good to leave in the past,” Freeman said. “It deserves some modern play.”



https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.deseret.com/platform/amp/2018/9/25/20654290/think-congress-is-bad-now-new-book-charts-their-fist-fights-duels-even-biting-in-pre-civil-war-years

[I_UndergroundPanther]

1. I like the idea of

Being a catawampus.

I will bite to defend myself.If it comes to that.
*Files teeth*.

[orangecrush]

2. I actually have

Bitten a thumb and broke it while in a headlock by a bully.


1974, Junior year in high school.

Football team quarterback was out for the year.

Jocks loved to pick on guys with long hair in those days.