Book Review: The Field of Blood
Sep. 11th, 2018 08:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerI found Joanne B. Freeman’s The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War unexpectedly enthralling. I knew about Sumner’s caning, when a southern senator caned abolitionist senator Charles Sumner, but I hadn’t known that antebellum Congress was a positive hothouse of violence. Congressmen menaced each other with bowie knives, threw punches on the floor, got into street brawls, and challenged each other to duels.
One congressman, Cilley, actually died in a duel. Congress contemplated censuring the man who killed him, the aptly named Graves, but in the end they couldn’t bring themselves to do it - although Graves resigned over the prospect, and went back home, and was promptly re-elected.
I would like to say “antebellum America, man, what a weird place,” but honestly I suspect that if our congresspeople started dueling today, we would re-elect them just as cheerfully.
There was also a particularly hot-headed congressman who threatened to slit a detractor’s throat “from ear to ear,” which became a sarcastic byword in Congress for a melodramatic threat. “Are you going to slit my throat from ear to ear?” a congressman would scoff, when another started to get threatening.
Now you may wonder why in such a hothouse of violence (the press started calling congress a “bear garden,” a reference to bear-baiting) the caning of Charles Sumner made such an impression that it showed up in my high school history textbook a century and a half later. The reason is that Brooks, the man who beat him, broke the rules that governed congressional fights, which were unofficial but no less powerful.
Brooks beat Sumner in the Senate, which was the more prestigious and restrained of the two houses of Congress, and generally less violent. Moreover, Brooks beat Sumner while Sumner was sitting at his desk, and therefore unable to escape or fight back.
Brooks’ attack was not a sudden outburst of temper (among nineteenth-century men, especially southern men, a hot temper was rather admired), but a result of cold-blooded premeditation. Indeed, he arranged to have friends stand guard so the other Senators couldn’t interfere. Generally when someone attacked, other congressmen would rush in to break up the fight and/or gawk.
And finally, Sumner was an acknowledged non-combatant, and it was generally considered bad form to beat up someone who wouldn’t or couldn’t fight back.
(This last, incidentally, is why John Quincy Adams got away with challenging the gag rule of slavery discussions throughout the 1830s & 40s. Other congressman got jumped in the street or challenged to duels for such behavior, but Adams was a former president and also an elderly man and therefore off limits.)
When Sumner returned to the Senate three years later (he needed a while to recover from the head trauma), he gave a four hour speech about how slavery was evil, the south was barbarous, and the southern habit of intimidating political opponents with physical violence was behavior unbefitting of a democracy.
By the final congress before the war, congressmen both northern and southern went to Congress with pistols and bowie knives strapped to their belts. Compromise and civility had so utterly broken down that both sides were convinced that the other might at any moment start a bloody riot in Congress, and they wanted to be able to defend themselves.
A thought-provoking book, and well-written and entertaining too. Highly recommended for anyone interested in American history.
One congressman, Cilley, actually died in a duel. Congress contemplated censuring the man who killed him, the aptly named Graves, but in the end they couldn’t bring themselves to do it - although Graves resigned over the prospect, and went back home, and was promptly re-elected.
I would like to say “antebellum America, man, what a weird place,” but honestly I suspect that if our congresspeople started dueling today, we would re-elect them just as cheerfully.
There was also a particularly hot-headed congressman who threatened to slit a detractor’s throat “from ear to ear,” which became a sarcastic byword in Congress for a melodramatic threat. “Are you going to slit my throat from ear to ear?” a congressman would scoff, when another started to get threatening.
Now you may wonder why in such a hothouse of violence (the press started calling congress a “bear garden,” a reference to bear-baiting) the caning of Charles Sumner made such an impression that it showed up in my high school history textbook a century and a half later. The reason is that Brooks, the man who beat him, broke the rules that governed congressional fights, which were unofficial but no less powerful.
Brooks beat Sumner in the Senate, which was the more prestigious and restrained of the two houses of Congress, and generally less violent. Moreover, Brooks beat Sumner while Sumner was sitting at his desk, and therefore unable to escape or fight back.
Brooks’ attack was not a sudden outburst of temper (among nineteenth-century men, especially southern men, a hot temper was rather admired), but a result of cold-blooded premeditation. Indeed, he arranged to have friends stand guard so the other Senators couldn’t interfere. Generally when someone attacked, other congressmen would rush in to break up the fight and/or gawk.
And finally, Sumner was an acknowledged non-combatant, and it was generally considered bad form to beat up someone who wouldn’t or couldn’t fight back.
(This last, incidentally, is why John Quincy Adams got away with challenging the gag rule of slavery discussions throughout the 1830s & 40s. Other congressman got jumped in the street or challenged to duels for such behavior, but Adams was a former president and also an elderly man and therefore off limits.)
When Sumner returned to the Senate three years later (he needed a while to recover from the head trauma), he gave a four hour speech about how slavery was evil, the south was barbarous, and the southern habit of intimidating political opponents with physical violence was behavior unbefitting of a democracy.
By the final congress before the war, congressmen both northern and southern went to Congress with pistols and bowie knives strapped to their belts. Compromise and civility had so utterly broken down that both sides were convinced that the other might at any moment start a bloody riot in Congress, and they wanted to be able to defend themselves.
A thought-provoking book, and well-written and entertaining too. Highly recommended for anyone interested in American history.
no subject
Date: 2018-09-11 12:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-11 01:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-11 12:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-11 01:53 pm (UTC)But I think the northerners took a different attitude toward it after the war. Before the war, the south was the dominant partner in the US project, and for a long time the northerners felt that they had to appease the south to keep them in the Union. But after the war the roles had been very definitely reversed, and southerners could no longer threaten to leave the Union or claim that they could whup the North anytime they wanted, which must have made violence in congress less effective.
And I think as it was used less and less, it probably came to be more and more frowned on. Although even today I suspect there's a certain amount of mental thuggery going on in Congress, even if people aren't pulling bowie knives.
no subject
Date: 2018-09-11 01:58 pm (UTC)You're never going to stop people thinking violent thoughts, but I'm definitely cool with setting the bar at no-stabbings/no-beatings, at the very least.
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Date: 2018-09-11 05:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-12 12:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-11 06:01 pm (UTC)I heard about this book back in May—the author is a friend of a friend of mine. I wanted to get hold of it when it came out, and now it has. I'm so glad it's this good. Thanks for both the review and the alert!
no subject
Date: 2018-09-12 12:15 am (UTC)