so, lori, can we bring you on to talk about what you have with us today? so i am joining you here today from the council chamber at the old state house to share with you what our treasures from the revolutionary spaces collection. and this item is a cane, which is described as the cane with which represent it of preston esperance assaulted charles sumner on may 22nd. 1856. so this cane played a key part in one of the most violent events in american congressional history. so to give you a little background on may 19th and 20th of 1856, charles sumner, who was a united states senator from massachusetts, said in a very lengthy speech criticizing slavery. and he particularly chastises some of the senators who supported the institution, including andrew butler of south carolina and he also basically condemned the entire state of south carolina. so even though andrew butler was not present during sumner's speech, his distant relative represented preston brooks, south carolina was angered by what he perceived as verbal attacks on both his relative and his home state. so on may 22nd, two days later, brooks waited for sumner until he was alone in the senate chamber. even entered the chamber with the cane. this is brooks's cane and which he had used because of a limp from an injury about 15 years earlier. after confronting sumner, he accused him of libelous comments, and then he began to viciously beat him over the head with this cane. and he was so furious that he actually broke the cane over sumner's head. so after the attack, the largest piece of the cane with the cap was retrieved by congressman henry edmondson, who then later presented it to the virginia governor henry whites. the became was originally made of gutta percha, but which is a form of hard latex that was made from a malaysian tree. and it was a fairly common material in the 19th century, kind of a predecessor to modern plastic. henry wise because the cane was broken. henry wise had it repaired and replaced a lot of the broken gutta percha with ebony wood. the gold cap is fully original and then wise ended up using the cane himself for many years. the wise family eventually then gave it to a family friend, lawyer ernest bagwell, who then presented it to the bostonians society in 1921. and it has been part of the collection ever since. laurie, thank you so much for sharing about the cane. do you know anyway how it came into revolutionary spaces collection? yeah. so the wise family, henry wise, had been gifted the cane and after the event and he ended up using the cane for many years. and then it was passed down to some of his family members who then gave it to a family friend, ernest bigalow. and then he was the one that donated it to the bostonian society, which was one of the organizations that was the predecessor of revolutionaries. so we've had it in affection since he donated it in 1921. and laurie, it was on display for a while. right. and that in the state house. yeah. and yeah, i think it's actually probably been on display more than once, probably a few times over the years since it's been in the collection for about 100 years. so. wow. wow. a crazy odd thing. and i would just share with everybody, you know, in conversation and dialogs with each other. i, i studied this incident in school and it's such a mythologized incident. we had actually learned it that it was a chair leg that brooks had ripped off and beaten sumner with. so so when i learned that it was a cane and that we had it in our collection, i thought, oh, my gosh, what an amazing artifact to to bring in to dialect and to share it everybody. because, you know, this is this is still something we are grappling with as americans today in a very, very heated reality that we are all living in. laurie, thank you so much. and everybody at home, if you just saw laurie won't be able to join us, as she said for the q&a. but if you have questions for the amazing lori erickson, please email public programs at revolutionary spaces dot org. i will make sure laurie gets all the questions you have about the cane and we hope that we can see you all in the space where laurie is in the council chamber soon whenever you are in boston, laurie, thank you so much for having me and with that, i want to bring on the one, the only the rock star, professor kc johnson, who is going to take this as an inspired nation and give us the an amazing seminar about legislative violence in the united states and using using the cane as inspiration. hey, steve, a stage is yours. all right. thank you. and my thanks to laurie first for setting this up, because the the the sumner caning, this is an artistic rendition is is i think without a doubt the most famous of the the attacks on congress. but sadly, this is a topic the violence against members of congress that is something of long standing. and so what i'm going to try to do tonight is go through it relatively quickly. but i sort of hit some of the the high points, what probably was the first instance of of of violence on the on the floor of of congress occurred in the 1790s after of of a fight again captured here on the the screen artistically between matthew lion. it was a jeffersonian congressman from from vermont. he's holding in his hand tongs from the fireplace that heated the then house of representative chamber. and he's attacking roger griswald, who was a federalist congressman from from connecticut, who had initiated the confrontation, trying to beat a lion over the head. this is an era of congressional history in which the capital was it was an almost entirely isolated environment. members would never take their their families. there were very few lobbyists who lived there. and personal grudges, especially between members of differing parties, were were hardly uncommon during the during the early period of american history, lion had a somewhat colorful history as as a whole. he fought during the revolutionary war in the new york vermont theater. he mustered out of the continental army and some controversy. but became a fairly wealthy entrepreneur or in early statehood. vermont was elected to congress as a affiliate of the of the jeffersonian party. the modern day version of this is the democratic party and shortly after his fight with griswald, he he carried his his opposition and more broadly criticizing the john adams administration during the undeclared naval war with with france. he was brought up on charges under the sedition act and spent the election of 1798 in jail from which he was reelected in vermont, didn't run for reelection in 1800, eventually moved to kentucky, started a second political career there, was elected to to congress from kentucky. his political career came to a conclusion then with the war of 1812, as he was in vermont, he was anti-war in kentucky, the war of 1812 was very popular in kentucky. and he moved from there to arkansas and very narrowly missed being elected territorial delegate in pre statehood. arkansas before he passed away in 1822. but the lion griswald battle kind of set the stage for a more personal mystic area era of violence. and in congress, which culminated in 1838 with the the first member of congress ever shooting and killing another member, this was a duel between william graves, who was a whig congressman from kentucky, and jonathan sele, who was a democrat, a congressman from maine. sally had insulted a whig newspaper editor on the floor of the house. the newspaper editor wrote simply a letter challenging in to a duel. sally declined to respond, and so the editor reached out to grades who challenged sally to a duel, shot him and killed him, and the response to this episode of legislative violence. unlike the the lion griswold fight, which kind of just passed into the law, was a change in federal law. conger congress passed a law not only outlawing dueling in the district of columbia, but making it a crime to solicit or engage in a duel initiated in the district of columbia, but perhaps fought in another part of the of the country. the the lion battle in the 1790s and the graves silly duel in the 1830s are similar here. i mean, obviously they've different endings, but they're similar in that they reflect a kind of male dominated society in which there was a willingness to fight and in some cases kill. but more for personal listing challenges than than for anything ideological. this changes during the path to the civil war. so a wonderful book on this topic by joanne freeman as a historian at yale called the field of blood. and freeman went back through newspapers through contemporary legal accounts, and discovered dozens of episode of of legislative violence. member on member threats, on during the 18 late 1830s 1840s, 1850s in the run up to the civil war. and, you know, think of what's going on more broadly in american history during this period. we have struggles intra regional struggles over slavery. we have significant aspects of party realignment and realignment. the demise of the whig party and the congressman graves, his former party, its replacement initially by this nativist party called the no nothing party, and then eventually by the republican party in the late. 1850s and the the spreading of the slavery issue more broadly onto the national scale with the dred scott decision of 1857, in which the supreme court, in one of its probably three most infamous decisions, holding that under the constitution, a slaves should be considered as property and therefore didn't even have standing to to bring a lawsuit was in this environment that we get this wave of legislative violence in the 1840s and fifties. and freeman argues i think convincingly that the pre-civil war violence differed from this earlier period of violence in which even though that there was a kind of personal mystic battle, that essentially this was a regional controversy between southern congressmen and northern congressmen, between southern senators and northern senators and congressmen, deliberately here. this is, of course, a period in which all of the members of congress are are male. and also during this period, because marshall deal violence was a was a greater characteristic of antebellum southern politics than the antebellum northern politics. southern members tended to have something of an advantage. and this process really began with this provision and how in the history of the house called the gag rule, it dated. from 1836 to 1844. it's part of an early sign of a skirmish between the regions on the issue of of slavery and the backdrop to this is is basically as follows in the 1830s, there begins to be a transformation in american society in terms of attitudes towards slavery in the south, which during the revolutionary period had certainly continued slavery. but you have lots of southern leaders. thomas jefferson, james madison, george washington, who are somewhat embarrassed by the concept of slavery and are working under the assumption that perhaps slavery will somehow go away beginning the 1830s and 1840s, though there was a new attitude towards slavery of redemption, notion of slavery by some southern office holders, arguing that slavery was a positive good, that it benefited american society and indeed that it benefited black slave as well. an extraordinary change of approach. and in the north, where abolitionism had a sort of surge in the revolutionary period and that subsided in the 1790s, 1818, 18, there there is a small sign of of abolitionist political activism which become much more prominent in the 1850s. and early side of this comes from john quincy adams, the only president to subsequently serve in congress. adams was elected to the house of representatives from a suburban district in in boston, and adams, along with a handful of other members, the best known is probably joshua giddings, who was awakened by later a republican congressman from from ohio, begin to think of ways to challenge this idea of slavery as a positive, good and working in concert with abolitionist movements, they come up with the idea of in covering these movements to present petitions, which is, of course, something that is guaranteed by the constitution to congress. the petitions could then be debated on the floor of congress. those debates then could be sent far and wide through the congressional frank, which literally was members of congress signing a document so that it could be mailed for free and sent these to the south. so basically, this is a propaganda effort designed to spread abolitionist ideas into the south in a region that had become very hostile to the to the concept of a freedom. southern members responded to this by coming up with the gag rule, which changed internal congressional procedures to automatically refer all slavery related petitions to a house committee that would then simply dispose of them. there would never be any floor debate. there would be never, never be anything to print. the idea was to circumvent a debate about slavery and when adams giddings and a handful of other abolitionists or abolitionist sympathizing members of congress attempted to challenge this, there were threats of violence carried against them, although there were no physical acts. and this idea of a willingness to threaten violence, i think is a useful backdrop to to the caning of charles sumner, which, of course, is the most famous of these episodes, but is hardly, hardly unique, as we heard from laurie. this is this is an attempted murder on the floor of the senate. sumner was an affiliate of the abolitionist cause, a strong supporter of other anti-slavery activism. he was also a difficult man with which to deal. he didn't have lots of friends in in congress. and so his attack was seen as a violation of congressional decorum that he an attacked senator butler from south carolina, but had not alerted him previously to the idea that he was going to criticize him on the senate floor. and that's what enraged preston. preston brooks, the you would think you would hope that the brooks keening of sumner would have triggered a reevaluation of the concept of congressional violence. it did not work out that way. brooks resigned his seat, returned to south carolina, and was overwhelmingly reelected by his constituents. sumner didn't return to the senate for two and a half years, recovering both from the physical violence, but also from what we would now call ptsd, although that concept wasn't in use at the time and violence and threats of violence continued in the run up to the civil war, the most famous of these episodes, certainly the most widespread of them, occurred in 1857. the issue before congress was a decision by president james buchanan, who was a northerner, a democrat from pennsylvania, but a sympathizer with the south to present to congress a constitution that had been approved, moved by slaveholders through chicanery, approved by slaveholders in kansas, requesting that the kansas join the union as a slave state. the backdrop to this was that in 1854, congress had enacted a law called the kansas nebraska act, which had repealed the missouri compromise, and had said that slavery would be possible in the kansas and nebraska territories. through the concept called popular sovereignty. basically, when these territories wanted to join the union as a state, the citizens of the territory could vote whether or not they wanted to legalize slavery. and so you had all kinds of slaveholders from missouri who flocked to kansas trying to make kansas a slave state. and lots of abolitionists, especially from from ohio, who flocked to kansas, hoping to make kansas an abolitionist state. so the pro-slavery kansas constitution is before the house. it is a bitter, bitter debate and it quickly becomes clear that the process slavery side does not have a majority on the floor as part of this political realignment that i had mentioned earlier, the northern wing of the democratic party collapses after the passage of the kansas-nebraska act, and by 1857, a majority of the house is at the very least suspicious of the idea of slavery spreading into the into the territories. add on to the fact that everyone seemed to understand that the vote to two legalized slavery in kansas was not was not fair. the the debate, however, is dragging on gets to 10:00, keeps moving on 11 p.m., gets to midnight, eventually gets to 2 a.m. the man on the left is is galicia groh, who will later be speaker of the house of representative. it's for the first two years of the of the civil war. he was formerly a free soil democrat from pennsylvania. free soil advocates for people who did not necessarily call for the immediate abolition of slavery, but who did argue that the federal government should prohibit slavery in any territory in in the u.s.. and the assumption here is that if slavery could not expand into the territory, it ultimately would up, would die, grow was being particularly difficult procedurally with southerners who were attempting to adjourn the session in the hopes that perhaps some of the northerners would return the next day and they could get the the pro-slavery constitution through and eventually starts to exchange words with the man on the right, lawrence keyte, who was a pro-slavery democrat, congressman from south carolina. you'll note the connection here with preston brooks. south carolina had a reputation which was well-deserved in the run up to the civil war as sending the most ardently and aggressively pro-slavery members to to the house. eventually, one thing led to another, and the two men started to throw punches at each other on the floor of the house. at that point, everything starts to break down. this document here that i have on the left of the screen is from a publication called the congressional globe until 1873. this was the that was a bound vomehat came out every year on the described events that had occurred on the floor of both houses of congress. the globe would hire reporters who would summarize what all members would would say. and as you can see, this is how it's summarized at the time. at this moment, a violent personal altercation commence down the aisle to the right of the speaker's chair between mr. keeton, mr. groh in an instant the house was in the greatest possible confusion. members in every part of the hall are. the estimate here, by the way, was 50 to 60 membe rhed over to the scene of the conflict and several members seemed to participate in it that we could drop. they seemed to this was a mass brawl on the floor of the house of representatives. the speaker congressional club tells us, made loud and repeated calls to order and required the sergeant at arms to arrest the members, acting contempt of the house. the sergeant of arms screamed out that they were under arrest. the members continued to to fight. and at that point, the sergeant of arms moved on to the house floor with the mace of the house. that's quite a imposing looking item that i have here on the screen over on the right, attempting to stop the the fight, the according to the globe. eventually, this succeedein bringing orders. it turns out it was not actually the the sergeant of arms traveling around the floor with the with the mace that led to the to the fight. instead, it was an incident involving this man, william barksdale, who was a democratic congressman from tennessee and who was a participant in the in the fight a an anti slavery member seems to have swung at at barksdale and missed out trying to punch him in the face, but did manage to wipe off his hairpiece. barksdale was, as you can see from this early photograph, somewhat a vain man. and barksdale is scrambling around the floor with his, trying to pick up his hair at least put it back on, admittedly, to put it back on in the wrong direction, at which point another reporter was covering the event indicated that members on both sides of the aisle broke out into laughter. and it was the the mockery of barksdale, rather than the the speaker and the sergeant of arms with the mace that led to the ending of the of this house. house brawl. barksdale, by the way, eventually would would fight for the confederacy, resigned from congress when tennessee leaves the union and would fight for the confederacy. during the civil war, he perished at at gettysburg. but this is really it's a frightening period in in american history. richard baker was the former historian of the senate, has argued that the caning of sumner should be seen correctly. i think, as an assault on american democracy, that the that the that the the the chambers, the house and senate chambers are designed and both for speaking and for listening in the out in sort of to envision a kind of roman style debate and environment in which physical violence can be a response to speech that undermines the nature of of american democracy as as a whole. the the art of sort of physical violence expands after the civil war in the house to what is i think, the first political assassination in congressional history. it involved this man, james hines was a republican congressman from arkansas. hines was elected in 1866. he served for less than than one term. his election came when arkansas was was readmitted to the union during the period of reconstruction, after the civil war. after the civil war, like many northerners who moved south following the civil war, hines was an advocate of abolition and in 1868, he starts to to go around the state to campaign for ulysses s grant, who's the republican nominee for president. he, he and a companion get lost to one campaign event. they go to the local sheriff's office. the sheriff purports to give them direction. the sheriff is actually a member of the ku klux klan, shoots hines in the back and and kills him. hinds is not the only member of congress who perishes as a result of the the divide over slavery. the first member of the senate to be killed in the line of duty perished in part because of debates over slavery as well. all this had occurred before the civil war rather than after the the man was was david broderick. who's the photograph that i have here on the on the left of the screen? he was a democratic senator from california. all of us know the basic history of california. it was admitted to the union shortly after the us seizes it from mexico in the mexican war. in the aftermath of the california gold rush. but it was it's a it's a distinct area in american history in that up until this point, every new state to have been admitted was contiguous to at least one other state. california was not it was a long ways away from the closest state, which was texas. and it developed a unique political culture that divided on grounds of of ethnicity, of of ideology, and featured intense intraparty divisions as well. broderick was a democrat, but was a free soil democrat and would be a leader in what became the the unionist democrats of california. that is the wing of the democratic party that was loyal to the union during the during the civil war. he was an ally of the man, initially an ally of the man on the right, david terry, who was elected chief justice of the california state supreme court. california then as well as now, aleksej judges through the popular vote. but the two men had a falling out over slavery, whereas broderick was anti slavery. terry was a strong supporter of slavery. broderick, who was a political boss in san francisco, withdrew his support from terry in the 1858 elections, and as a result, terry lost. terry attribute to his defeat, perhaps not incorrectly, to broderick challenged him to a duel. unlike the silly graves duel that i had mentioned earlier, which was kind of a personal challenge, this was an ideological challenge between a pro and anti-slavery force on. and terry, you had the immediate former chief justice of the california supreme court shot broderick dead in this and still he fled the state during the civil war. participate on the side of the of the confederacy. but this is not the last we will hear of former chief justice terry during the civil war, congress enacts a law changing the nature of the federal judicial system and create what's called a new federal appellate circuit. the 10th circuit, which then consisted of california and oregon. the reason for this was not so much popular asia, but the curious nature of the federal courts during the 18th and 19th century, quite unlike the system that exists today, which the federal courts are easily divided between district court judges, appellate court judges and judges on the supreme court during the the 18th and well into the 19th century, because there wasn't enough business for the supreme court to sustain an entire year. justices on the supreme court would also what's called rights circuit that is that they would go to, you know, to whatever circuit they were assigned and act as district court judges or appellate judges in that circuit. and so the the supreme court justice who was assigned to the 10th circuit is a man named stephen field, who was a unionist democrat, a former ally of senator broderick, who was appointed by abraham lincoln in 1863. he comes again from a different wing of the democratic party, state democratic party, than the former chief justice terry. terry has resurrected his career in the aftermath of the civil war. as a prominent lawyer within california. and he crosses justice field's path in another context, he represents this woman, sarah hall, who was an ambitious up and comer in the the world of california politics in the 1870s. she attached herself to a wealthy industrialist and presented herself as married. although it seems that she was just the man's mistress. when the two separate, she produces a piece of paper that she claims is a marriage license and demands half of her ex-lovers, a state she is represented by former chief justice terry and. eventually the two, while terry is representing her, mary, she goes before a federal district court in california. the district court correctly it seems, rules that th that there never was a marriage. it goes to the 10th circuit court of appeals and a justice field is on the the panel ruling against terry both terry and hall did not seem to take their loss very well in the courtroom. they actually made threats against justice field. and as a result of this, in when when justice field returns to california for his last what turns out to be one of his last rounds of circuit in 1889, he is assigned legal protection from the department of justice. and you can see the letter i've written it on the on the screen over here on the on the right. and the justice department decides to appoint a u.s. marshal to to protect it does so the the the marshal a man named david nagle, is defending justice field on a train when he notices david terry and his wife coming up. and terry starts to slap chief justice field. nagel shoots terry. terry is arrested and ed nagle is arrested. terry is killed, arrested by a local sheriff with sympathetic to the terry wing of the democratic party. and eventually this case works its way to the supreme court. and a decision called in ray nagle, the supreme court, us says that the the u.s. marshal was acting at the behest of the federal government, protecting a federal employee. he cannot be charged for law enforcement violation in the capacity of protecting this federal employee by a state official. this this sounds like it's a bizarre episode. and of course, it is a bizarre episode. it's an outgrowth of legislative violence, but it's also something that turns out to be of significant of significance in american htory. those of you who know the history of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, the kennedy justice department, in particular, a pointed members of the u.s. marshals service to protect civil rights activists in the south, absented decision. like in ray nagle, it's entirely possible that these marshals would have been prosecuted by segregationist southern politicians. this idea of random violence generating significant developments in american history. there's one other example of this, although it comes a generation and a half later, in 1917, the man on the left is senator paul husted. he was a democrat senator from wisconsin, a state that that was was was a republican dominated state, basically for the entire period after the the civil war. but there were realignments in wisconsin politics in the early 20th century. this is the era of robert lafollette, the great progressive leader. there's a who who heads the progressive wing of the state republican party. it's the conservative wing of the state republican party and hunting is what divided republicans elected in 1914, is a loyal supporter of woodrow wilson in 1917. he's a supporter of world war one. he goes home during an intersession, is out hunting with his brother and accidentally is is shot under wisconsin law and killed under wisconsin law. there is a requirement for a special election. the special election is a wild contest between urban on land route who was a conservative republican part of the anti la follette wing joseph david had supported it and this is why berger will not decides not to go down, not just stand, decide to take his burger and davis divide the left wing vote land route ultimately wins. why does any of this matter in terms of broader american history? in 1918, the democrats lose control of the u.s. senate by one seat. 49 to 47 is the ultimate tally. and as a result, republicans control, the u.s. senate, during consideration of the league of nations covenant, if senator hasting hadn't been the victim of this accident, the democrats would have maintained control of the senate of like what we have now with a 5050 senate and the republican and vice president harris casting the tie break vote, then it would have been 4848 with wilson's vice president, a guy named thomas marshall, casting the tie breaking vote. the league of nations would have been very quickly brought to the floor and probably would have gotten the two thirds necessary to to be ratified. the u.s. would have joined the league and subsequent history would have would have differed legislative violence, alas, moves on during the 1930s, forties, fifties, we have a couple of quite high profile fall events targeting senator who are also major presidential candidates. the first is the assassination of huey long the party boss in in louisiana killed by an anti long activist who was attempting to vindicate the the position of his father in law, who was a local louisiana politician, anti-war figure, who had been redistricted out of his office by the louisiana legislature, which was controlled by by. the longest plan to run for president in 1936 as a left wing challenger to fdr, he probably would not have won, but he might have siphoned enough votes away to make the republican competitive. two generations later, we have perhaps the most famous political assassination of the us senator robert kennedy. after his victory in the california presidential primary assassinated by a palestinian activist who was angered by kennedy's positions on on israel. both long and kennedy's assassin nations are a reminder that even though we think of the concept of political assassination, often in presidential terms, president lincoln being assassinated, president kennedy being assassinate, president mckinley being assassinated. the concept of political assassination has also touched congress as as well. it's and it's not just the senate. the most famous political assassination of a house member involved, this man, leo ryan. ryan represented a district that included parts of san francisco, an extended down and to sort of residential suburb in san francisco down to redwood city what is now a very very strongly democratic district. but in the 1970s was a pretty competitive district between democrats and and republicans in 1977 and early 1978. ryan starts to hear reports of the of the jonestown and temple movement. there was a cult just based in san francisco. its leader is a man named jim jones comes under the attention of american law enforcement. and jones and his disciple ailes decamp to the small country of guyana on the northern shores, south america, where they set up a temple compound and attempt to evade american law enforcement. there are children of some of ryan's constituents. ryan starts to investigate, along with members of his staff, including a young legislator assistant named jackie spear, who eventually will succeed to basically a similar spear is still in the house of representative. she's she's retiring this this year ryan spear and a host of other are sort of house staffers to guyana to jonestown to investigate and also to set up a system in which members of the the people's temple will be allowed to return to the united states. unbeknownst to them, jones and the upper leadership of the cult had a plan. they they were under the impression that mercenary guys were going to come in and try to try to free some of the the people who were trapped in the cult. and the plan was to kill any mercenaries and then commit a mass suicide. ryan is shot and dies on the scene in guyana. spears is also shot, is left there for 22 hours and miraculous survived to an interview a couple of years ago in which she was strongly of the state department. she argued that basically and i think she's correct here that the state department was the one that should have been handling this, not an individual member of congress was basically forced to travel on own to see if he could safeguard his constituents. but the leo ryan was an example of a house member who was the target of a political assassination as well, that these were individual. that's ryan, robert kennedy huey long but there also have been what amounts to instant to tional violence against congress itself. we obviously have experienced something like this and in the very recent past with the with the january 6th insurrection. but another example and and without a doubt, i think the highest profile example came in the mid-19th fifties when a group of puerto rican independence activists engaged in an act of political terrorism and shoot five members of congress from the floor of the house chambers. puerto rican. today is something you know, there's a divide between advocates of puerto rican statehood and advocates of the current commonwealth status. but during 1930s there was a quite prominent and increasingly quite radical puerto rican independ dence movement and the shooters in the in the 1954 attack are part of that approach. bill goodwin was was a i house page office that no longer exists. but there there was a time in which the house would arrange for people late in their high school years, or perhaps a freshman in college to go and, and work as a volunteer for in the house for a year they would have a dorm that the idea would be to sort of inculcate them to do public service. and goodwin was interviewed by the house historian ben's office, a little over a decade ago. and here his recollection of that day on the floor of the house. and i was standing in the doorway of the cloakroom looking out, just watching things that was going. it's very quiet and no one was talking or moving and then all right, directly to the corner across from me in the gallery, this is gallery in the corner over there on the southwest corner of the chamber. there's some movement. i just looked up. i saw the movement economy and i looked up and this man stood up and he had a dark suit on a tall, lanky guy. he had a dark suit on. and i just it just caught my eye when he looked up when he moved. i mean, i looked up and he reached inside of his coat pocket and pulled out a pistol. and i just that is a pistol i couldn't believe i knew it was a pistol. he had it and he started shooting right away. then everybody started hitting it, hitting the ground. some congressmen like myself, just stood there looking at the guy and even some members of congress i heard say later on say that they thought firecrackers going off and they were looking just heard a pop, pop, pop, pop. and he was shooting. and then i remember the gun stopped empty. he pulled the clip out, threw it down on the floor, pulled another out of his pocket, put the clip in, and he started shooting again and his gun jammed about that time. well, and then about the same time, the second man stood up, he pulled out a gun and he started shooting. he was in a light blue suit. i remember that laser suit, maybe gray. and he started shooting while the second guy was reloading and didn't shoot in the second guy. the first guy with the second clip, his gun quit on him or jammed. and so he turned and ran up the steps out of the hall in the gallery. and i learned later that as he ran out into the hallway out there, a cop was coming and nailed him and just hauled off and slugged him. good. not for the first time. this this kind of attack. a sort of. but would describe it as an attack on the institution of the house, although it generates violence, doesn't generate any deaths of of members. a second type of institution. although five americans ultimately die as a result of the anthrax attacks, are the aftermath of 911, in which senator daschle's office, tom basham was then the democratic leader of the senate and senator leahy's office. pat leahy, democratic senator from vermont, received letters tied into 911, although they they appear to have come from a disgruntled science artist. that was not a kind of political agenda here, threatening containing anthrax and threatening additional attacks. this of courses in the immediate aftermath of 911. congress is about is in a heightened state of security anyway as a response to this the house actually shuts down for a few days several members of the senate briefly closed their offices one member of the senate, mark dayton, permanently closes his his capitol office out of a fear of of members of his of his staff. this is a you know, it's an event that's that i think is forgotten almost in part because no members ultimately are are killed. but it's part of this this trend of institutionalized violence. and then some episodes from quite recent periods with which i suspect all of us remember the first was the shooting of gabby giffords at a congress on the corner event in 2011. the giffords attack, although it was assumed in the immediate aftermath of the attack it was assumed that had a political agenda. it appears not to have had one. the shooter was was mentally unstable, but the scope of the violence was extraordinary. and giffords, his political career ultimately was was ended as a result of the attack, although fortunately, she does survive. and then this 2017 attack on a republican members of congress who were practicing for the annual house of representatives baseball game, democrat versus versus republican and much like the 1954 attack by the puerto rican terrorists, there's this 2017 attack, which is undertaken by a sort of extremist type on the far left just as easily could have led to several deaths, but to an accident of faith, the only person who is who is ultimately killed is the is the shooter the most seriously injured in this attack? was the then majority whip of the house of represent steve scalise, republican from louisiana. the third most powerful member of the house of representatives. and scalise did an interview with nbc a couple of years ago in which he he recalled his experiences of the day. let's take a quick listen. the morning of the shooting, it really started like any other day. i was going to practice for a charity baseball game that we play in congress around 7:00. a shot comes out and i didn't really know. it's a gunshot. you're not thinking. next thing you know, another shot. and that's when we knew it was gunfire. and then i was hit. you know, the first thing that came to mind was was my my daughter. she's ten years old at the time, but i just prayed to god that that madison doesn't have to walk up the aisle alone. that's what came into my mind and ultimately kind of one unconscious was rushed to the hospital and nearly died. my trauma surgeon told me there were at least two times in that first few hours where i didn't almost didn't make it. and, you know, there were a lot of miracles and a lot of heroism. capitol police officers were both shot during the shootout and then ultimately took the shooter down and saved my life and so many others while other lives. and then. and then i. to learn how to walk again. and ultimately to get back in the game. as we said this this is a shooting that could have been much worse. i mean, it could have, you know, led to several members of of congress being killed. they were they were on the baseball field practicing. they had no real protection in the initial stages of the attack. and then the most recent of these episodes of a violent targeting, members of congress was was the january 6th insurrection. and as with the targeting of scalise or in the 1954 attack, one of the things to me and thinking on events of january the sixth, is it simply it's it's remarkable that no members of congress were were killed. mitt romney, for instance, has told the story of almost running into a mob and being redirected by a very brave capitol police officer. you know, you don't need to be to have too much of an imagination to to to sort of see this this process ending and indifferently. something i should note, however, we we do live in an increasingly violent world. and although i all of us you know, for for understandable reasons, are focused on the concept of of of violence in the u.s., we have in the last few years also seen this kind of violence targeting legislators in other western democracies. and i think the the clearest examples have come in the u.k. , which in the last decade has seen two political terrorist attacks leading to the deaths of of members of parliament, the first in 2006, when jo cox, who was a labor party member of parliament, an internationalist, an opponent of brexit, was murdered by, a brexit supporter. a classic case of political assassins. and then last year, a conservative mp, david amos, who was stabbed to death, stabbed to death by and an islamist terrorist who was just sentenced to a life sentence in the uk. a couple of a couple of weeks ago. you know, the cox name is killings are they related to that, to, you know, to aspects of british politics? but they are a reminder that the concept of legislative violence is hardly something that is confined to to the us. a couple of concluding remarks that hopefully people will have some questions. at the broadest level, it seems to me that this basic subject, the idea of legislative violence, the sense that members of congress are targeted for violence, is a symbol of of of the broader health of of the body politic. that is, if you think of periods of, american history in which the concept of legislative violence has seemed utterly beyond the pale, these have been periods where in a situation has been at least, you know, a somewhat healthier political system. on the other hand, if you think back in american history to the periods in which violence seemed to be. a more consistent aspect of congressional life, these are periods where we think of as one of of significant put a poor health of democracy. the pre the pre period to the civil war especially the 1850s, is one such example. but i think a strong argument could be made that there's a similar environment in which in which we live now just last year. republican member of of congress named paul gosar from arizona retweeted a video that seemed to be fantasies saying about the murder of of of aoc. you know, obviously as someone who is not particularly liked by people and gosar is ideological circles. but the idea that a member of congress could seem to almost cavalierly threaten the life of another member. gosar was censured by the house and stripped of his committee assignments, but has thus far refused to to resign his seat. it is a reminder that we live in perhaps quite perilous times in terms of the health of our of our democracy. and as the former senate historian -- baker said, we need environment in which legislators not merely speak but are willing to listen to one another. and in an environment in which violence seems to hover over all aspects of political life, the art of political listening is is very difficult to achieve indeed. and with that, hopefully people have some questions. casey, thank you so much. again. fantastic. so question from lynn that we just got she said bravo. so interesting. where were you? and i think it makes that american history in grammar school. high school and college. that's a great question, lynn. great, great question. and thank you. thank you for joining as that is a casey casey is at brooklyn college is where she is where he was he teaches at as a cuny graduate center. casey, that's that's still accurate. it yes. but he is he is in maine. so we are hopeful that we can bring him down to to the spaces at i are out as they say once we start having a more critical mass of in-person programing. i really want to encourage everybody to to ask questions if you have any. just drop them in chat box and we will address them. but i'm going to start with a question for casey that i had as as i was listening to you speak so brilliantly. as always. what what about the sumner? sumner case lives in such cultural memory that it's this iconic thing that you read about history books and do you think that we're going to have another one of those in 100 years, will that be january six? will that be mitt romney turning around? what those instances to the to the top that we just remember. that's a good question. i think with sumner there there are there are several things that combined that make this the the iconic episode of legislative violence and in american history. the first is that this is a very, very serious injury that he experiences. you know, he is out of the senate for more than two years as a result of this of this attack. and, you know, so it's not a trivial it's not a trivial attack. the second, of course, is that the attacker is another member of congress. i'm think back into sort of the episodes that i described over the the the session most instances of legislative violence in american history. this is him the hairpiece case is an exception involve outside ers in one way or another targeting members of congress. but the idea of intra congressional violence, which is what we see in the in the sumner case, is is rare and is and is shocking. the fact that preston brooks, the attacker, was really acted despite arguably because of the the attack that, you know, this is the you know, the you know, it's difficult to imagine. and then i think lastly, there there is there, you know, in terms of analyzing congressional politics, as a general rule of thumb, i think historians want to stay away from a good versus evil analysis. you know, most politician are not pure, you know, across the board. but morally, this was a good versus evil confrontation. i mean, brooks was rep presenting slave power capital s capital p sumner was the most prominent abolitionist member of the of the senate and so the attack on sumner was in reality an attack on the spirit of freedom. and so it can analogized in in a kind of broader way as, say, the, the the murder of of congressman kelly from my home state of maine. it's difficult to analogize that the concept of duels, you know, has sort of passed. the other thing here and this kind of ties into the the the comment that then was was offering one of my big complaints about the study of of u.s. history period, is that too often we exclude congress from the from the study of the study of history. it can be complex, difficult to describe lots of procedure. but this the 1850s is an era in which congress was the dominant branch. and so this is you know, this attack was the equivalent of something that may be an attack on an a president in the 1930s or 1940s. i mean, sumner was a nationally known figure. this was big news around the around the country. so there is a justifiable nature of it in terms of of whether there'll be a future one. i guess my answer of that is i hope not, because the attack on sumner really does, you know, it's it prefigures the coming of the of the civil of the civil war. certainly, if there had been any member of congress who who directly experience violence that, you know, let's imagine, you know, a member who was was just attacked by the mob during the insurrection and had to go to hospital and was out for a long period of time. you know, i suspect that would have been the equivalent. and lynn just had a fantastic follow up and that is why are other events forgotten by or unknown to most? yeah, that's an excellent question. and and i, i don't have an easy answer to to this part, partially because, you know, it most of us here, i suspect, you know, you know, even thinking back to your to just think back to your high school history classes probably you know the name charles sumner, right. you know, it's an important enough event that it kind of permeates most of these other figures except for the assassination of of of kennedy and perhaps the the jonestown episode with leo ryan. although, again, i think most of us remember jonestown. do we? nessus early, remember leo ryan probably not. and he was a he was quite a heroic member of congress who basically gave his life for some of his constituents sort of thing that, you know, we have so much bad news in american politics. this is actually someone who you know, who does the ultimate sacrifice part of it, though? i do think is is the fact that as a whole, we tend not to study congress, not just in in sort of history classes, but in general coverage. partly it's you know, it's difficult to to sort of generalize about congress that grow quite a house fuller ball that i was mentioning with the guy loses his hairpiece. yeah gina you mentioned in the comments that that we need the hairpiece at revolutionary spaces we could have a profile of that on this is a rare event of of something that could be described as a kind of institutional fight. it it seems like from the contemporaneous reporting that everyone was involved in this. but lots of these are episode four. it's just one or two members and they kind of get lost to history and of those that i talked about tonight, the one that i, i wish got more attention in sort of standard history approaches is is james hines the the arkansas congress members assassinated by the ku klux klan member you know are teaching of reconstruction is better now than was the case. you know, 20 or 30 years ago. but there still is this image that, you know, both sides were maybe there was something justifiable with book, with both the you know, the wit to me the way to understand reconstruction is that it's a period of political violence in which southern segregationists are attempting to to claw back their defeat in in the civil war. and the idea that you have a sitting member of congress who was a sas affiliated solely because of his political positions, this is something that deserves it deserves attention and question from sheila thatcher, was there ever a time after the civil war that terry prosecuted for the murder? he did. this is a great question to imagine the idea of a former chief justice of your of your supreme court, whose fighting around shooting people. it's it's just it's just extraordinary. this this does reflect fact the the kind of odd nature of the concept of dueling in american society and the sense that even among very prominent figures, that dueling was was seen as as something of of acceptable conduct. now, it is true, after the silly duel, if congress passes this law. but california is this it's it it is literally the wild west in the 1850s and 1860s is largely beyond federal control. and terry is someone who has significant political support in the in the state. so, you know, in retrospect, they should have prosecuted at the time. but he resurrects himself. i mean, he fights for the confederacy in the in the civil war. he comes back in california is still a prominent a prominent figure. so he you know, he reinvents after the civil war and, you know, his previous misdeeds are largely forgotten forgotten. we just we have so many great ones coming in that dave has asked. it seems as though we've entered a period where more house and senate members are more focused on ideology, i.e. rep gosar from my state than on delivering tangible results for their constituents. hearing your presentation today, though, it seems that might have been the case in previous eras as well. that this is this is quite a good point you know i think that that to me the best way to understand the contemporary congress is that it's essentially a quasi parliamentary institution that is that, you know, it seems like virtually all republicans in congress, but one way all democrats in congress vote the other way and the kind of environment that we may maybe had in the 1960s or 1970s, in which you'd often have members, you know, in you. so think of of arizona, the the longtime senator from arizona, carl, who was a democrat, but who was a, you know, basically brought back tons of federal money for arizona, just kept getting reelected and reelected. that kind of legislator no longer exist. now, is what we have in the current environment. the norm for american history? i would suggest not. but has it occurred previously in american history? absolutely. we certainly saw it in the 20 years before the civil war. it also, frankly, as a characteristic of the gilded age, the 18 late 1870s, 1880s and 1890, which are very, very partizan periods, american history. and there were huge shifts politically on and in some ways, although it's trickier we see this in the 19th in the 1930s. and to me, you know, again, i'm i'm biased here. i'm a congressional historian. i like i like congress. i like studying congress. one of the things that makes congress so interesting is that it's it's traditionally not a parliament that is that you can get these distinctive members of congress from out of the way places. i did a biography of ernest greening was a democratic senator from alaska. a very left wing senator. you don't think of alaska as a particularly left wing state, strong critic of the vietnam war in the 1960s. and as we moved into this, this the current kind of politics that we have now, we've we've sort of lost that aspect of american political life. this next one, it's a little bit of a doozy. and i don't think that we're going to have time to totally answer it. but maybe you can give us a sneak peek into maybe where to look up resources for it. what is the history of the us capitol police origins mission future it's cetera. is it's this actually. it's relatively easy to find one of the great things about all of these federal agencies is that they have they have offices of historians. so you can go to their website. they have a historian's office that that quote that i or that video that i played from from bill goodwin, the former house page. that's from house historian's office. and so federal agencies are actually pretty good at providing at least, you know, conditional summaries their of their history. i will just jump in and make a comment that i do think it's interesting, you know, with our our policing system in america, we don't have a national police. everything is localized. and then we have the capital police, which is its own thing. so it's an odd situation we have compared to a lot of other countries. right. and that's and that's where you get the marshal service, which is which is the closest thing to a national police force. but it's not really a national police force. so definitely interesting. and maybe that's an inspiration for a future lecture that we have going on or panel. this is from sherry. i am absolutely poleaxed. i had no idea there was such violence in our country in the legislative world. does this make you sad and crazy? is this who we are at the start of your presentation, i was very attentive to the start of the war and the attention to the anti-slavery issue. i just heard a very clear lecture by roger lowenstein, who talked about the economic factors comparing the state of the south with the russian world right now. it turned my assumptions around entirely. yeah, i do think that this this general topic, the topic of legislative violence, to the extent that we really think of it at all, we do tend to think of it in the in the pre-civil war period, again, in part because of the cane that larry let us off with tonight that gave a sense of of this of this overt of political violence. and, yes, we have. but we've had this really throughout american history, and it certainly makes me sad. i mean, the idea that and in particular the idea that legislative violence seems to be on the uptick in the last in the last decade is is troubling with to the to the civil war and factors this is a subject of, i would say, robust debate among among historians. you know there are there are some who argue that basically this is an economic confrontation between a capitalistic north and and a more agrarian south that's organized around the slave economy. there are others who make an argument that this is more it's more ideological over the issue of of of of the image of the united states and the concept of of slavery. there are others basically see this as a regional confrontation. and i think what makes civil war and the origins of the civil war such a fascinating topic for study as a whole is that, you know, when you listen to this, all of these factors are really complementary and the debate is, all right, which one of these is perhaps the most significant but everything you can kind of see coming coming together. i think that's the last that we have from our our chat box that just in case there are any last questions coming in, i'm going to ask casey to divine if he will, on the upcoming election. we're coming out of january six, where we saw a lot of legislative in your opinion, should we expect, unfortunately, to see more during election season? are we living in that very high tension world right now still that we feel is like parallel when the body isn't healthy, we have that violence. has there been any adjustment that you've see since january sixth or are we still living in the eye of the storm? i fear that we're still living in the eye of the storm. you know, you could imagine a different scenario where there was a a meaningful bypass partizan investigation of january to determine what had happened and recognize that this is something that is beyond the in american society. obviously, you don't need me to tell you this has not happened. you know, we've had a kind of different response to the january 6th. and as the gosar tweet of aoc, i mean, when i first saw that tweet, i just assumed that this was a ghost, that this somehow like it was a parody account of gosar, you know, someone who was trying to make him look bad or something, but the kind of cavalier ness of, a violence it is something that is that is present. and i certainly hope that if we were all to come back here, say, a decade from now, there would be no instances of a who was seriously injured or even killed as a result of politically inspired violence. but i don't think any of us really could, you know, could could make a case that's likely to to occur. it seem to to be increasing. that's one of the reason why i mentioned that those two british cases, obviously british politics, is different than that. u.s. in many ways. but there are some of overlap. and just as we've seen this kind of intense polarization in britain, not as intense as in the u.s., but nonetheless a pretty bad violence has been normalized there in a way that really it hadn't been for for several, several generations. casey thank you, as always, and thank you all so, so much. thank you, casey. thank you. thank you to laurie out there. thank you to law. thank you to everyone. we to see you soon.