Historic U.S. Senate Etiquette Breaches

Depiction of  U.S. Senator Henry S. Foote (“a voluble, unscrupulous, sharp and successful stump speaker”) drawing a pistol on the Senate floor and attempting to shoot a fellow politician. Foote is the only senator in American history to attempt such a thing.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 14, 1852 “It is a pity that there are not enough self-respecting gentlemen among the members of the United States Senate to put an end to the disgraceful breaches of decorum and common decency which are now of almost daily occurrence in that once honorable body.” –The New York Times

“Senators Rhett and Clemens have contributed largely, in their recent collision, to that unworthy-spirit which is been infused into the United States Senate within the last ten years, and which threatens, unless checked, seriously to impair the character and influence of that distinguished body. They have indulged in personal accusations, and in the use of epithets of the most offensive and reprehensible character. Language, which no man having respect for the ordinary courtesies of life would permit himself to use in private intercourse, has been freely bandied from one to the other upon the floor of what has been styled often times, and with justice, the most dignified deliberative body in the world. Charges of knavery, lying and cowardice have been hurled from one to the other, in open Senate, with all the volubility, and more than the vulgarity, of Billingsgate. Other Senators, so far from preventing these insults and outrages upon the character of that body, took special pains to encourage the actors in them, and to prompt their repetition.

“When the degradation in the manners of the Senate shall be complete, and that body shall have been converted into the prize-fight ring to which by such scenes it seems to approximate, the public temper will inevitably sink to a corresponding level. Much of the popular respect for law grows out of the feeling of confidence in those who make it; and nothing is more important to the preservation of a healthy and conservative spirit among the people, than a dignified, decorous, and impressive demeanor, on the part of our highest legislative bodies. When the Senate becomes simply an arena for personal quarrels, -- when attacks upon personal character take the place of deliberation and discussion on themes of national importance, the whole tone of popular feeling will be lowered and the public morality will suffer disastrous change.

“What have personal controversies to do with public interest? What right have Senators, met to consult for the common good, to bring their paltry personalities -- their private differences, upon the high platform of national affairs, to be canvassed and adjusted in sight of the world? Mr. Seward never stated a more pertinent fact, than when he said a year or two since, but no man's personal affairs or opinions were worth ten minutes of the time that belongs to the nation. Ten or fifteen years ago, when such men as Clay and Calhoun and Webster gave tone and character to the deliberations of the Senate, such a thing as a low personal squabble was unknown upon that floor. Personal attacks were made and repelled, -- but only upon grounds of important public principal, and in a tone and terms befitting that high position. 

“With the advent of Senator Foote, of Mississippi, commenced a new era in the history of the American Senate. He had established a reputation at home as a voluble, unscrupulous, sharp and successful stump speaker; and he evidently regarded the Senate as only a higher field for the exercise of his peculiar gifts. He talked to the Senate just as he had talked to mass meetings at home. He teased and bullied members of the opposite party, -- he hurled epithets and scattered accusations against all with whom he differed, -- he bandied names and drew pistols upon his fellow members, as he found each species of argument most convenient and serviceable for the special occasion. His whole career in the Senate was a systematic crusade against the dignity and decorum of that body. His spirit has lingered behind his retiring steps. And the Senate now has half a dozen members equally lacking in self-respect and in regard for the reputation of the body to which they belong.

“Neither house of Congress seems at all sensitive to the degradation which such practices are bringing upon both. From neither are any measures to be expected, which will correct the evil, or check the downward tendency of Congressional manners. The only remedy is in public sentiment, and the Press as its chief organ. It is the duty of the Press never to allow any such outrage upon propriety, to pass unscathed. When members of Congress, in either branch, shall come to feel that no breach of propriety can escape severe censure from the public press, and that neither party adhesion nor personal regard can procure immunity for such offenses, they will be more careful in their conduct, and pay a steadier regard to the requirements of decorum and self-respect.” 1852

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Congress Brawls, Breaches Etiquette

Famous depiction of Brooks caning Sumner ~ On May 22, 1856, in the United States Congress, Representative Preston Brooks attacked Senator Charles Sumner with his walking cane. Fellow South Carolinian Congressman Lawrence Keitt famously yelled, "Let them be!"while Brooks beat Sumner senseless. This was said to be in retaliation for a speech given by Sumner two days prior. The beating nearly killed Sumner. The sharply polarized response from the American public that this beating drew, on the subject of the expansion of slavery in the U.S., was considered highly symbolic of a breakdown of "reasoned discourse" which eventually led to the U.S. Civil War

Our Social Manners

Congressman and bully, Preston Brooks

The episode which occurred on Saturday morning, in the House of Representatives at Washington, has a social, as well as political aspect, which a sensitive people like ourselves would do well to consider. We allude to the probable effect of these "little difficulties" upon the world's opinion about ourselves and our civilization. Of course, we think it right, before we say a word on the subject, to protest that we need not care a six-pence about the world's opinion. Lords of the Alleghenies and the Cordilleras, of the Mississippi and the Hudson, of the broadest lakes and the most interminable prairies of the earth, we naturally are to despise and condemn the effete criticism of all the human race besides. Our innumerable banks and our indefinite railways make us independent of foreign nations, as of foreign cash. Unfortunately, however, all things are not as they should be, even in our model country, and we particularly do care a great deal more than we are always ready to admit, what Englishman and Frenchman say of our manners and customs. We are always on the look-out for any little scrap of comment upon us that a foreigner happens to let drop. If it is favorable we purr beneath it, like a well-stroked cat -- if unfavorable, our fury is a frightful thing to see. The faintest insinuation that our men are not all "high toned" and chivalrous, and our women are not all graceful and handsome, throws us into convulsions. If a roving English tourist hints that somebody he met at Washington eats peas with his knife, the peaceful relations of the two countries are immediately endangered. If a London penny-a-liner throws out an insinuation that the stewed prunes on board a Collins steamer are not so good as on the Cunard line, the whole nation rises in frenzy. In short, there is not a fool or knave, from Maine to California, who is not sure of having his absurdities or rascalities defended to the death by the whole of this republic, if you can only get a foreigner to print unkind remarks about them.

A "Harper's Weekly" depiction of two observers in the gallery, commenting on the fracas described in this New York Times article ~ Lawrence Keitt, the man who yelled "Let them be!" while Brooks beat Sumner 2 years earlier, got into a fight of his own in 1858. During a very late, 2 a.m. House session, Republican Galusha Grow wandered over to the Democrats' side of the aisle, and Keitt reportedly yelled, "Go back to your side of the House, you Black Republican puppy!" Grow retorted, "No negro-driver shall crack his whip over me." The resulting brawl embarrassingly involved 50 members of Congress. 

Such being the state of affairs, the manners and customs of our leading men, upon whom the eyes of the world are most apt to fall, really assume a portentous importance. What is to be done, if our Solons want conduct themselves with propriety? If they will treat themselves in the Legislative halls to "a rough-and-tumble and drag-out fight," Punch will make fun of us, the London Times will jeer at us, and many of the rotten and worn-out Aristocracies of the Old World, whom we despise in our hearts, will say that there are no gentleman among us. Here, for half a century we have been bragging to all of Europe of the exquisite polish and chivalric refinement of our Southern seaboard planters, of our Carolinian Huguenots and our Virginian Cavaliers. We gave up the Yankees; from the sons of the Roundheaded Puritans nobody could look for anything better than gaucherie and inquisitive impertinence. But our "proud answer to the despot and the tyrant," to the old fogies of London, and Paris, and Vienna, when they boasted of their society and their manners, was a warning to wait till his fortunate stars should bring him into contact with the chivalry of the Old Dominion or the Palmetto State. We had gradually convinced ourselves and almost all the world as well, that our rice-swamps and our tobacco-fields were stocked with a noble army of plantation Bayards and of "mute, inglorious" Sidneys. It was a dreadful shock to all of us that Brooks, of the line of Butler, gave when he behaved like a pot-house bully in the Senate Chamber, and listening lords and ladies of his native State applauded. People began to think our "chivalry" in someway connected with the celebrated "Mrs. Harris," but we tried to stifle all their doubts by asserting that Brooks had derogated through overmuch drink, and that it was only very vulgar people who clubbed together to buy him canes. And now comes up Mr. Keitt, another "gentleman" of our "well-known style," and plunges us into a worse scrape than the first. He has behaved so very much like a man who is been bred "behind" the bar and so very unlike a man who has been accustomed to behave himself in decent company, but unless we can make it appear beyond a doubt that he always was considered a low fellow even at home, and that they sent him to Congress to get him out of Carolina, we may be obliged to go to war to prove that we are well-bred people; unless indeed, we adopt a hint from the "World Exhibition," and, as soon as Kansas shall have been fairly pacified, pick up a few specimens of the "real high-toned chivalric gentleman," and send them over properly ticketed, guaranteed and indorsed, to be shown at Willis' rooms or the Conservatoire, under the supervision of the United States Minister.             Originally printed in The New York Times February 9, 1858