Quotes from Joanne B. Freeman

It was hard to be moderate in immoderate times.

Dueling restrained violence, Preston argued; indeed, even the mere threat of a duel urged good behavior. Wise agreed. When it came to slander, he noted, "The law cannot restrain it—a pistol sometimes will.

As a representative institution, the U.S. Congress embodies the temper of its time. When the nation is polarized and civic commonality dwindles, Congress reflects that image back to the American people.

The Arkansas House deserves special mention. In 1837, when a representative insulted the Speaker during debate, the Speaker stepped down from his platform, bowie knife in hand, and killed him. Expelled and tried for murder, he was acquitted for excusable homicide and reelected, only to pull his knife on another legislator during debate, though this time the sound of colleagues cocking pistols stopped him cold.

In this sense, the crisis of the Union was a crisis of communication. Northerners were waging war against the South with dangerous words; Southerners were trying to stifle those words with force, and the cross-fire was cutting off conversation, particularly in Congress, an institution grounded on open debate and free speech.

John Quincy Adams's bald head was a barometer of anger; the redder it got, the madder he was.)

Most congressional bullying wasn't about bloodlust, although some blood was shed. It was grounded on the gut-wrenching power of public humiliation before colleagues, constituents, and the nation-at-large.

Ironically, a Slave Power–less Congress confirmed a long-held truism about the code of honor: it did indeed force men to watch their words.

Discussing the bill wasn't easy, even in the abstract. Although Northern congressmen opposed dueling, supporting a law that seemed aimed at protecting themselves seemed cowardly.

As tempting as it is to dismiss American slavery in the pre–Civil War decades as an antiquated holdover doomed to extinction, in the early decades of the nineteenth century it was flourishing.7

Grave Senators should never let Their angry passions rise, Their little hands were never made To scratch each other's eyes.52

Sectional conspiracy theories were eroding cross-sectional trust inside and outside of Congress, destroying any hope of a middle ground.

They had written it "for those who come after us to study, as an example of what it once cost to be in favor of liberty,

Pledged to fight the Slave Power, Republican congressmen stayed true to that pledge. Face-to-face with slaveholders, they propounded their cause with strong words, bold actions, and—when pushed to extremes—the force of their fists, knives, and guns, and were applauded by Northerners for doing so. Like French, they were prepared to fight for Northern rights if necessary—even to the point of disunion

Although a few Northern newspapers bought Foote's threat wholesale, most considered gunplay possible but not probable. Armed Southerners probably wouldn't break up the House, they advised, but hadn't Southern congressmen proven time and again that they were capable of it?

Democracy is an ongoing conversation between the governed and their governors; it should come as no surprise that dramatic changes in the modes of conversation cause dramatic changes in democracies themselves.

Southern whites vented their outrage and asserted their control in a new arena, inflicting a reign of violence on the Reconstruction South and once again bullying their way to power, using terrorism and Black Codes to assert white supremacy.