Thread by @davidfrum

This is why it's no light matter for a candidate for Congress to endorse murdering the Speaker of the House. Once elected, that candidate could easily be in a position to make good her threat.

https://twitter.com/StephenGutowski/status/1357792048393420808

Quoting from "Field of Blood" by Joanne B. Freeman:

"In 1837, when a representative insulted the Speaker [of the Arkansas State Assembly], the Speaker stepped down from his platform, bowie knife in hand, and killed him. Expelled and tried for murder, he was acquitted ... 1/x

... and re-elected, only to pull a knife on *another* colleague during debate, although this time the sound of colleagues cocking pistols stopped him cold." p 5 2/x

A few years after the killing on the floor of the Arkansas state legislature, Charles Dickens published "Martin Chuzzlewit," a novel about an Englishman's misadventures in the United States. At one point, Martin is startled by the weapons carried by all around him. 3/x

Martin is then reprimanded by one of the Americans:

" 'It's singler!' said Pogram, lifting his umbrella high enough to look all round from under it. 'It's strange! You observe the settled opposition to our Institutions which pervades the British mind!'

4/x

" 'What an extraordinary people you are!' cried Martin. 'Are Mr Chollop and the class he represents, an Institution here? Are pistols with revolving barrels, sword-sticks, bowie-knives, and such things, Institutions on which you pride yourselves? ...

5/x

" 'Are bloody duels, brutal combats, savage assaults, shooting down and stabbing in the streets, your Institutions! Why, I shall hear next that Dishonour and Fraud are among the Institutions of the great republic!'"

That was 1844. More should have changed by now.

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