READ MORE: Violence in Congress Before the Civil War: From Canings and Stabbings to Murder In 1860, pro-slavery congressmen threatened an anti-slavery congressmen with pistols and canes while he spoke against slavery on the House floor. when a southerner grabbed a northerner by the throat. In 1858, a fistfight between about 30 congressmen broke out in the House of Representatives at 2:00 a.m. Freeman identified more than 70 violent occurrences between congressmen while researching her book, The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to the Civil War. The caning of Sumner was not an isolated incident. Brooks said he chose to attack Sumner this way because he didn’t want to break an 1839 law against congressional dueling, passed a year after a congressman had killed another in a duel in Maryland. In 1856, pro-slavery Representative Preston Brooks beat anti-slavery Senator Charles Sumner nearly unconscious with a cane on the Senate floor. One of the most famous incidents of congressional violence is the caning of Charles Sumner. It was a period in which anti-slavery newspapers faced mob violence, and the issue of slavery drove congressmen to attack one another. antebellum period was characterized by violence against enslaved Black people, free Black people and abolitionists. Brooks attacked Sumner following an anti-slavery speech by Sumner. Preston Smith Brooks, a fervent advocate of slavery, assaulting Senator Charles Sumner, an abolitionist, with a cane on the floor of the United States Senate, on May 22, 1856. Congressional Violence Erupts During Lead-Up to Civil War Over the next few decades, interactions between these congressmen became increasingly strained and violent. Instead, workers rebuilt the Capitol and continued to expand it as the number of states-and their representatives in Congress-grew (today, it covers over 1.5 million square feet and has more than 600 rooms). The fire didn’t completely destroy the Capitol, but it damaged enough of it that some members of Congress suggested relocating the federal government back to Philadelphia or find another city. In retaliation, British troops in 1814 burned federal buildings in Washington, D.C.-including the White House and the Capitol. A year into the conflict between the United States and the British Empire, American troops set fire to a capital in colonial Canada. The Capitol’s construction continued until the War of 1812, when the country’s wartime mobilization forced it to a halt. Congress began using the building in 1800, the year the federal government moved its operations from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C. Like many of the first federal buildings in D.C., the Capitol’s design was based on 19th-century neoclassical style, inspired by ancient Greek and Roman architecture. ![]() Enslaved Black people performed the actual construction of the Capitol. ![]() ![]() Capitol following British attempts to burn the building includes fire damage to the Senate and House wings, damaged colonnade in the House of Representatives shored up with firewood to prevent its collapse, and the shell of the rotunda with the facade and roof missing.Ĭonstruction of the Capitol formally began on September 18, 1793, when President George Washington laid the first cornerstone.
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