December 12, 2023 • 54 mins
Media pundits love to say America is 'divided as never before' -- but how true is that? In today's episode, Ben, Noel and Max dive into multiple Congressional debacles, from that time a civil war almost happened (before the actual civil war) to that time one guy literally assaulted another dude with a cane, and much more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. Oh, in these divided political times, you
have to wonder how difficult it may be to maintain decorum.
Let's give a shout out to our super producer, mister
Max Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Shout out.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Who you talking about?
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Max Williams from earlier, Yes, from earlier, like Henry Kissinger
from earlier, You're Nold Brown, I'm Ben Bolan and day
we are with the help of our returning guest Alex Circa,
we are exploiting.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
We are exploring.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
We are exploring a series of times that people in
Congress and the US Congress and the wholes of power
didn't feel their words were adequate to navigate situations.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Yeah. They in some cases entered into fisticuffs like the
fighting Irish you know, little fella, what do you call
that pose? Yeah, it seems very unpractical, impractical, or maybe
it's completely practical. It is like one of the fists
for blocking the old one two.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Yeah, the hook and the jazz.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
I think whoever drew it didn't know how to.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Underhanded boxing is definitely No, it's I see all the
time and old movies. It's like a very specific old
timey boxing pose and it requires fancy footwork too.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
You know, you think these beefing congressmen got into some
little tappity dancing when they were fighting each other.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Well, we're about to see they certainly were not practicing bipartisanship,
right the old can't we all just get along?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
We can't.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Spoiler alert spoiler Yeah. Let's go to Deborah Caldwell in
a great article eleven historic fights worse than the Sequester.
Debora points out Congress has always been a wild and
wooly place, and I think, you know, for a lot
of us, you know, the majority of people in the
(02:32):
United States are not, in fact members of Congress. We
can't even get elected to the House, right, which.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
Is unless you're a member of the New Hampshire State
of House Representatives, which is like four hundred and fifty
people for New Hampshire.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
This that note in here, right here.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Classic granite state Max with the facts.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
That seeking in the fon and peace fall in love.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
It's just right now, we've got several different situations here.
This is Nola, a bit of a listical episode.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
What'd you say, uh huh, Yeah, it is indeed, So
let's go ahead and jump right in with the eighteen hundred
election that nearly led to a Civil war. One thing
that I think we've all experienced is sort of the
rose colored glasses approach to history. That is often the
case in like early childhood education, middle school even where
it's sort of like, oh, you know that all the
(03:33):
founding fathers were pals and they were just hanging out,
and you know it was just all sunshine and roses
and getting drunk together, and well that probably that part,
that's why that part was true. Yeah, you know, despite
coming from different backgrounds, different political ideologies and belief systems,
they all were able to just get along, chop it
(03:53):
up and make nice and get things done right right, No,
they didn't. That cartoon verse, though, is often the way
it's portrayed. Sure, just learning about this stuff, just.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Like the first Thanksgiving, Right, there's a bit of myth
making a foot because we know that these guys often
did not get along put diplomatically. I also will find
it unendingly hilarious how back in the day, if you
ran for president and you won, then your vice president
(04:28):
would be the guy who ran against you. It's a
very weird, weird way to set up a crew. But
as you were saying, well, this stuff comes to a head,
there are legendary disagreements between founding fathers and two of
the guys who beefed the hardest really got beefed up.
(04:48):
They were beefing John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. And it
goes to exactly like our culminating moment. Here is the
election of eighteen hundred and go to a Encyclopedia Virginia
A for Dare, I say, blow by blow.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Oh you dare, and I will back you up on this.
So the Democratic Republicans had won the election. Again, I
always get a little flummoxed when it comes to like
early versions of Democrats and Republicans. In this case it
was the Democratic Republicans, which seems like some sort of
weird kaiju hybrid of political leanings. But they had in
(05:28):
fact since the election, but unfortunately it wasn't clear who
was actually going to be the president. This was something
that was totally TBD. And in eighteen hundred, this Constitution
that we've heard so much about did have a stipulation
that each elector be awarded to votes, and that whichever
(05:48):
candidate got the majority of votes would be president, while
the second place, the runner up they also ran, would
be vice presidents.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Great idea, again, he says with sarcasm.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
So these electoral votes, this is basically the founding of
the electoral college. Right, this is totally.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
This is like the second time and the first time
the first two elections weren't really elections.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Well, I'm just saying what we know is the electoral
college today is a little different than this, but this
is sort of the like bones of it.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
And this is Yeah, you're right, we could call this
a precedent of sorts. I would argue it is a
president indicative of the deep structural problems with the electoral
college in general. Jefferson is hanging out after these electoral
(06:41):
votes are counted, and all those Democrat Republican folks, who again,
as you point out, are the same party at this point,
they wanted Jefferson to be president. They were like, this
is the guy we picked him. Jefferson has seventy three
electoral votes. But plot twist, Shyamalan does Aaron Burr and
(07:01):
that's the one all these guys are picked to be
vice president. They were worried about taking off Burr. He's
kind of a hot head. He does shoot people in duels.
And this is way before the musical made him catchy
to the American public. We've talked in the past about
(07:23):
his troubled career, and the Democratic Republicans kind of messed
up their grounds game, their electoral game. They were supposed
to arrange for at least one of their people not
to vote for Burr so they could say without pissing
Burr off. Ah, good, hustle, Bud, your vice president Jefferson
(07:47):
just has more votes.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
That's a little greasy, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
That's super greasy. I mean, that's politics, it really is.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
And again, a system that is relatively easily gamed when
you have these sort of kots. I guess is that
a thing. I'm just gonna call it cahoots. That's a
fun word. A game. There's a board game called.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
There's a board game called alex Is a Green.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Yeah, got a good We got a solid nod from
from Circus very Oh. I'm sure I definitely remember playing
it at least once. I'm the kind of guy, by
the way. As an aside, that buys board games that
never placed them chest of board games that I've never
been opened, because I get one that I think is
super nerdy and fun. I'm like, this is confusing. I
(08:30):
can't figure out how to play Murder on the Haunted
Hill or whatever.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
All the rules and I will strictly tell everyone the rules.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Will we we'll play block with you guys for money.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Is awesome, but I lost a couple of the pieces
and now useless. Well, I got one that's a game
that's so fun. It's it's not that big a deal
to have to buy it a few times. But cahoots aside,
Like you said, this doesn't really pan out the way
that they anticipated.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Oh no, you know, because these guys are going head
to head against a group called the Federalists, which you
might remember from their famous papers. They were named very creatively.
So the Federalist Party saw this as an opportunity to
block US Jefferson out of the presidency, and they really
(09:22):
did not want Jefferson to be president, so they said, look,
we'll do whatever. You know, there is no expense that
we are scared of here. Yet again, that old document,
the Constitution had some rules, had some board game Rules
for the Future of America, and this little piece of
(09:43):
paper specified that a tie has to be resolved by
a specific group, the House of Representatives, voting by state,
and that Federalists love this because they control several delegations
in the House of Reps.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
Yeah, tiebreaker pretty common in most board games and politics.
So that being the case, ben with the Federalists controlling
some of these key House delegations, they were able to
block the election of Jefferson for thirty five of these
roll call votes over the course of six days. And
if you can imagine, this is almost like filibuster level obstructionism.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Well, Dungeons and Dragons would call their alignment lawful evil
at this time because they're weaponizing parliamentary.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Proceeds, right exactly.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
Mean, how many votes did it take Mcarthury to get
in there, because that's a good cop. It's like, how
many you took mcarthy get I think I think that
was like sixteen, So we think about like more than
twice as many votes.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
So they're saying.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
The Federalists are they go to Aaron Burr Pictures, smoky
back room and yeah, yeah, yeah, and we could get
a sound effect whatever the Illuminati version is.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
There was a smoky sound effect. It doesn't really make smokes,
I guess sort of inherently.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Well, let's play in now. It's yeah, yeah, let's trigger
you little jazz nastasia. Yeah, speakeasy time, far before the
invention of speakeasies and jazz.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
And you nailed it though.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Yeah. So we're going for the vibe, folks, and thank
you for having our backs.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
These guys go to birth in this back room and
they say, look, will help you quick pro quo if
you will do a couple of things for us, you know, scratch,
we'll scratch yours. You don't like Jefferson either, and X
And outside this room, by the way, Uh, there's the
(11:39):
other political party of the time, the Democratic Republicans, and
they're going bang bang bang on the door, their cop
knocking on the door, and they're like, you guys are
stealing the election. And you know that's super mids of you.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Wow, this is way before the invention of the term mids.
By the way, we're in it for style poetic license.
I don't we're talking about Jefferson here, are we sure?
Speaker 4 (12:02):
Before the invention of the term mids, we.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
The concept of mids is eternal. But I don't think
that that.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
You guys are so hard right now shout out to
Oxford's a word of the year.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Of the year. I only just found out that it's
short for charisma. It is. I did not it is
it is. It is, yes, charisma quote Matt Berry spelled differently, right,
are I z Z.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
We don't want to make an enemy of big o
Ed Oxford English.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Apparently the kids also refer to people that have a
lot of ris being wrizzlers, like other wrizzler, you know, batman,
villain of style. Shout that's superpower, really fetching, you know.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
So these rumors start flying around, well again, this sort
of rarefied air of people who run the United States,
and folks are talking, the streets are talking, and the
streets are saying, these federalists are going to put a
member of their own party into the presidency. They're going
to do a little finger move, right, Chaos is a ladder,
(13:10):
et cetera, et cetera, from Song of Ice and Fire
or Game of Thrones, And so Jefferson tells Adams any
attempt to defeat the presidential election will be met with
quote resistance by force and incalculable consequences.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Wow, that's fighting words.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
It's definitely a threat. It's it's a weird one.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
So the Democratic Republican governors are absolutely livid, and it
starts to become pretty clear that they are going to
gather up their forces in the form of militias, which
is important because there wasn't really an official, actual facts,
(13:53):
you know, government funded mandated army, right, there was a
series of these loose kind of collections of forces.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Well, they're coming off of a revolution which taught them
to distrust large armies from say, the British Empire, etc.
So the governors in this time are in the in
the late eighteenth century early nineteenth century, they're kind of suserings, right,
(14:21):
they have these fiefdoms that they're running, and so they
gather up their gangs and they say, look, if the
Federalists steal this election from Jefferson, whom we have all
chosen to be the president, that we're going to roll
on you, you know, if you want to smoke. And there's
(14:42):
a letter from March twenty first, eighteen oh one that
is a great example of this from Pennsylvania.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
It is where you start seeing terms like usurping or
usurpation is also a very assan of ice and fire
term usurper. I called you usurper. But really quickly, you guys,
is what they were doing illegal? Or was it just
kind of in bad tastes? You know what I mean?
It was just sort of a dick move the election enough,
(15:10):
the laws is sort of being written as they go.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
But questions in terms of fixing the election, right, in
terms of raising.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
A militia, No, in terms of fixing the election, like,
did they the idea of them stealing it seems more
of an alarmist kind of propagandistic way of talking trash
about your your rivals.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
And they also know because like it was just a
flawed systems.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
But they agreed on the system, you know, it just
happened to not work in their favor this time.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Also, let's point out that this is like this is
an example of no odor among thieves, right, because they've
already kind of determined who the president will be and
they did not ask the entirety of the American public
at this point. They also did not consent. Are a
(16:00):
lot of people living in North America or the United
States to be people so they're building. They're building the
top of flawed Djenga Tower already, and I'm with you
on usurpation and so on. Governor Thomas McKee, Pennsylvania, classic guy,
you know him, you know him. He said, look, I'm
(16:25):
going to take the Pennsylvania Militia, the Penny Boys, and
we are going to arrest anybody anti Jefferson and we're
going to charge them with treason. And then there's another
letter from Virginia.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Very British of them. Don't you think his behavior feels
very kind of British Crown.
Speaker 4 (16:46):
Moves only if they are going to threaten people with
being drawn and corded.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
All the season and this whichland kind of atmosphere exactly.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
I completely agree.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
All they knew was in terms of governance. All they
knew was systems like monarchies, aristocracies and the French Revolution, right,
and then their own revolutions. So they were kind of
just to be honest, they were improving, they were improvising,
and they weren't sure what to do in the long term,
(17:19):
but they were sure what they didn't want to happen.
And some of these folks want Aaron Burr. Some of
these folks want Jefferson. They've got this back and forth
of correspondents. We're not talking about when we say militia.
By the way, we're not talking about getting a posse together.
It's not like alex Max Nol and yours truly saying, oh,
(17:42):
we're gonna January sixth up to Washington. On this Jefferson thing,
we're talking about Pennsylvania having twenty two thousand dudes ready
to go beef, and then we're talking about we're talking
about sixty thousand train militia from Massachusetts who were gonna
(18:02):
Those guys were veterans, they would absolutely demolish that outnumbered
mob from Pennsylvania. And these folks are these are farmers.
It's like a shorts to plowshare situation. The folks from
Pennsylvania and Virginia, they are literally practicing military maneuvers and
drills with corn stalks. So, uh, this is where we
(18:27):
go to one of Nole's favorite musicals, Alexander Hamilton.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Yeah, or Hamilton for sure. It's not you know, I
get it. It's good. I just I just didn't finish it.
It doesn't mean that I didn't like it. I liked
what I saw, but I just I got distracted. I'm
gonna have to go back to it now now that
it's not, you know, the hottest ticket in town anymore.
But maybe I can actually see ruins on state. That
is part of it too. Yeah, I think I'm separated
(18:51):
enough from the hype now that if I went and
saw it in a theater with a proper show, I
think that's the way to experience something like hype.
Speaker 4 (18:58):
You guys excited for the thing that we're all hyped
out in April that we were talking about on the side.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Sure, yeah, death cap for QUDI and postal.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Service a second time buying tickets on Speaking.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Of hype ruining things, let me show to you exhibit A, folks. Uh,
this is a paper straw.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Here's the problem with paper straws.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Terrible look at that, man, No, no.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
I can't weird.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Well, I've got a BUCkies mug.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Thank you for themr So uh so we do o
a debt of gratitude to the founding fathers, and we
want to let you know, like there's so many of
us listening right now who are going get to the fight.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Get to the fight.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Alexander Hamilton comes in and it's so hard to say
that without singing it. He weighs in on Jefferson's behalf
and uh, he says, look, my brother in Christ, I
get it. Jefferson is a contemptible hypocrite at last. Part's
a quote. But we cannot adopt a violent system that
(20:12):
undermines this American government. And Aaron Burr, because Hamilton always
had to slide in a nag on Aaron Burr, they
were very insecure, and he says, look, Burr also has
extreme and irregular ambition. He's got no principle public or private,
which was a real like these guys would have been
(20:32):
savages on Twitter. And Hamilton says, look, the Federalists are
playing a foolish game. You kind of have to give
Jefferson the presidency because we all agreed on it, and
to do otherwise now is anathema to what we proposed
this government should function as.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
So Eventually, one of the fellas that Hamilton wrote to,
one James A. Bayard, told his colleagues that he would
withdraw support from Burr and throw his support behind Jefferson,
allowing him to win, in order to prevent this again
this like civil war. It's essentially what we would be
(21:17):
looking at and no Federalists at the end of the
day voted for Jefferson. Several, however, Federalist members of the
House of Representatives. They positioned their state delegates to support Jefferson,
and on February seventeenth of eighteen oh one, on the
thirty sixth attempt at this vote, Jefferson won by a
(21:40):
ten to four margin two states. Stateing and Bayard later
claimed that Jefferson had promised to maintain a particular flavor
of government, specifically referring to the monetary system, the fiscal system,
(22:00):
and also to maintain which is this is probably a
term that you remember hearing them when you're studies of
the Constitution is strong navy, and not to can any
of the Federalists, who you know, had potentially made themselves
target for that kind of retribution. But you wouldn't, he said,
He said, he said, a lot of no honor among
(22:22):
thieves to your previous point, but Jefferson's he claimed to
the bitter end that no such deal had ever existed.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Federalist who were those guys? Anyway, It's March fourth, says Jefferson,
eighteen oh one. I am now the third president of
the United States. A war that didn't quite happen. Now
we know that a lot of us are listening today
and saying, all right, so your first example is the
(22:53):
time there was almost a fight.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
But what about you know what.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
About some street level fisticuffs, you know what about some
varments varmenting out in the halls of power? This is
our next example. Right before the Civil War. One of
the big issues in American discourse is the concept of slavery,
(23:23):
the idea that you could somehow rationalize removing all the
rights of a human being by saying that they are
somehow not human and instead that they are property. And
one side of the argument said, look, this is part
of American law, and the other side, which won, by
(23:44):
the way, spoilers thankfully, the other side said, slavery is
super sucking gross. It needs to be outlawed. Thanks for
the beat, Max. And obviously no one here and hopefully
no one listening is going to argue otherwise. But at
(24:05):
this time we have to introduce a heel as wrestling
MC call him Uphill, a real you know what, he's
a real dish of cold rubbery eggs. John C.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Calhoun. I think John C. Calhoun is the namesake of
a very short, non impressive expressway in my hometown of Augusta, Georgia.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
How long?
Speaker 2 (24:31):
How long is it South Carolina?
Speaker 3 (24:33):
So yeah, okay, there you go. Yeah, it's just like
the road that you take to get from like one
side of town to downtown. So I would say no
longer than maybe two miles, three miles. It's the John C.
Calhoun Expressway.
Speaker 4 (24:48):
It's Calhoun is one of these guys that, for like
a large swath of this part of history, is just
always president, like him and Henry Clay are always president,
and oddly enough, John Quincy Adams is always around two.
He did a lot after being president. He was around
for a while to being president.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
We need to talk about Millard Fillmore, vice president two
days after infamous cold eggs and later expressway namesake. John C.
Calhoun dies March thirty first, eighteen fifty. There's this guy,
his name's Millard. He's vice president. He also kind of stinks,
(25:24):
and he does the funeral for Thank you for the
thumbs down, Max, I agree with you. He does the
funeral for Calhoun in the chambers of the Senate, and
everybody is kind of on edge, right, what's going to happen.
The leader is dead. This guy who is ostensibly in
charge now his name's Millard? Are you kidding me? And
(25:46):
so amid this chaos, Vice President Pillmore addresses the Senate.
He does a live show and he says, look, when
I first became the presiding Officer of the Senate last year,
I didn't think I would have to maintain order in
a group of adults. He looked around and he was like, guys,
(26:08):
you're supposed to be grown ups. You're supposed to be
courteous to each other, you're supposed to be collegiate. You know,
order must prevail.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
Well, it's one of these things where, like you know,
with the recent presidential situations, let's just say, in this country,
where you know it's easy to take for granted, how
much just decorum and tradition is literally all. It's holding
the whole thing together. And when people decide to ask
out and just totally ignore that stuff, there's not much
(26:41):
you could do about it.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
It's so weird, man. I remember several years back, someone
got trapped up in parliamentary procedure. They stood up and
they were like, the honorable member of so and so
apologizes for offending the honor of the gentleman from so
and so, and I thought you guys hate each other.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
It's pretty obvious question, but.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Like, can you imagine being in a situation where someone
says you have offended my honor and then there's a vote,
and then the other person has to stand up and
be like, I apologize for offending your honor.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
Well, even just the idea of getting censured, you know
what I mean, it's sort of like a public pillarying,
you know, a slap on the wrists be it's basically
officially embarrassing you in front of your friends.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
So, in its earliest years, the US Senate had given
the presiding officer the superpower. If you are in charge
of the Senate, you can call these other senators out.
You can be like, M, that's a no, no, that
is inappropriate language or behavior. And the full Senate didn't
(27:57):
have to vote. There was just this one guy who
was like, your ViBe's off. And because of John C. Calhoun,
this practice changes in eighteen twenty eight.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
You have to stay in my line, all right?
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Well, Max, how would you describe John C.
Speaker 4 (28:13):
Calhoun real life Emperor Palpatine? And side note, if you
guys want to get a laugh. Every single time Calhoun
is mentioned in this brief, there's a different photo of him,
and they all have a theme.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
Is he wearing an ominous hood and clothes?
Speaker 4 (28:29):
He just looks like the most evil dude in every
photo and every painting of this man. I guess there's
no photos of it, but every painting of this man,
he looks like the most evil dude ever.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
He looks like he's.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Look so racist.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
Yeah, he looks like he doesn't blink. He looks like
he's always mad at someone to the left or the
right of the portrait.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
I bet he used to beat people with sticks.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
This is the guy who was so mean, so racist,
and so crazy that Andrew Jackson was freaked out by the.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
He kind of has a bizarro Andrew Jackson look about him.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
He was He was Jackson's first VP and then quit
and formed his own party to a post Jackson. He's
one of the guys that started the Whig Party.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
I always think when I see these portraits of guys
who are not looking directly at the at the audience,
I always think maybe they had wonky eyes like Calhoun
looks like he might have.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
He might have some Walleye And honestly, in this painting
that I'm looking at, he basically is wearing a spooky cloak. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Well it was a different time. Yeah, for sure, they
didn't have central heating. But the so because of Calhoun,
who was a little bit too active for the rest
of the Senate. Because of him, the Senate changed this
rule and they said, look, everybody should be able to
call someone out if they're behaving offensively. And I think
(29:53):
we can all agree that kind of accountability is key.
If the Senate objected to the Vice president's ruling on
a certain call, right, if he was being too tyrannical
or so on, then they could vote and they could
overrule him, and they could say, actually, the guy you're
mad at isn't being a dick. He raised a really
(30:13):
good point. You're outvoted. Let's move on to other business.
Order will prevail. Vice President Fillmore didn't quite vibe with this.
In eighteen fifty he says, look, a lot of our fellows, senators,
a lot of these honorable gentlemen, seem reluctant to hold
(30:37):
each other to order. So what I'm going to do
is quellvis I'm going to contain the first sparks of
disorder before they blossom into a fire.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
Right, and so.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
So he said the following quote, which seems a little hardcore.
I'm interested. I'm interested in your thoughts here.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
Might attack or even insinuation of a personal character often
provokes a more severe retort, which brit retort. Sorry, it's
gonna make sure you those clear, which brings out a
more disorderly reply, each senator feeling a justification in the
previous aggression. Okay, this is an unpacker, guys, a slight
(31:22):
attack or even insinuation, okay of a personal character to
don't talk trash. If you do, it may provoke a
serious reaction. Someone's gonna come at you, right, which may
bring out and even more distant sort of chain reaction,
which may even bring out a more disorderly reply, each
senator feeling justification in the previous So this is basically
(31:45):
a chain of aggression.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
That's what you're saying, chain, chain, chain. So the idea
is that the idea is that there would be this
sort of arms race, for lack of a better word,
of insults leading to chaos in the Senate, which could
very well lead to instability in the nation. The question
is what is insinuation? Right? So and so said such
(32:11):
and such, and I took that personally. But it turns
out old Old Millies, shout out to hip hop fans
in the audience, Old Millies was correct. Two weeks after
he makes this statement, the things he predicted happened. He
said to a Missouri Senator, Thomas Hart Benton, he said,
(32:31):
you're out of order. And then a guy from Kentucky
named Henry Clay you may recognize from earlier stories, he says,
the vice president is out of pocket. He's making an
attack on the power and dignity of this noble institution,
the Senate. And then everybody else is like.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
So in this ensuing debate, there is quite a nasty exchange.
It takes place between Benton and Henry Foot. Foot Foot,
I'm gonna go with Foot. It just sounds good. Yeah whatever. Benton,
who's a bit of a bullish fellow, likes to throw
his weight around, literally and figuratively. Uh. He pushes aside
(33:18):
his chair and begins to approach mister Foot, who, if
the name of is an indication, is a bit of
a slight fellow. Uh. At this point, at this you know,
the sight of this you know, steam locomotive of a
man coming at him full bore foot, decides he needs
(33:39):
to defend himself with not his brawn, but with you know,
this concealed pistol that he's got. He strapped. He is strapped. Uh.
We can't coaching a biscuit right right there.
Speaker 4 (33:51):
It is.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
We can't get away with late books at the library.
But this guy's rolling up into the Senate with a
they did not and uh, and so everybody's losing their mind.
An old old steam truck. Benton is bellowing, I have
no pistols. Let them fast out of the way.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
Let the assassin fa yeah, becausin of steamboat Willie, no doubt. Uh,
that's amazing. So these boy, this guy is a is.
He's got h you know what I'm doing, the hand
thing he got, he's got the hutsbah, he's got the cajones. Uh.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
And he is not.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
He will not be stopped. He continues on towards him. Uh.
And then at this point I guess the funnies enough
for the for the presiding officer pillmore to to adjourn.
It's like, okay, I.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Love how Max puts it to Uh, quickly entertained emotion
to a journy. So like this one guy's this huge
dude's running at this other guy. He's like, shoot me,
then shoot me do it, and this guy is I.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Got a first a little bit of a bubble making it.
I didn't put that. The US Senate put that.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
That's even better.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Oh my gosh, we paid for that beautiful line. Taxpayers
quickly entertained a motion to adjourn, which literally means while
this chaos was happening, Vice President Millard Fillmore was like, hey,
should we get lunch or we done? Clap clap clap,
lap clip clap with a gavel, and everybody else who wasn't,
(35:28):
you know, shooting or being shot at, was like, yeah,
things took.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
A turn, and that man became president and that.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Man became president. No, there is another example we have,
and I love the way you set this up. Earlier
you talked about beating people with sticks.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
Oh yeah, I just you know, I thought that Calhoun
had that look about him, some of the eyes right
in the eyes, a bit of a wildness, and also
that cloak man like Harlem globetrotter style. You can probably
can seal quite a large stick in there you would
just carry around sort of a chalelee of sorts, you know. Oh,
there we go.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Nice reference. Yeah, and so probably the one of the
most infamous physical altercations in US congressional history occurs on
May twenty second, eighteen fifty six.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
Yeah, And as it turns out, there's an official name
for beating someone with sticks. It is often referred to
as caning. The brutal and barbaric practice, of course, holdover
from slave times as well. Like I mean, people were
beaten on their backs until they were had bloody stripes
and stuff like that. I believe it's a it's a
tactic that still happens in some countries more mistaken.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Singapore, multiple actually multiple other countries. And when you specifically
beat people on the soles of their feet such that
they cannot walk or run away, that torture is bastinado.
None of these are allowed technically in political discourse in
the halls of Congress. The US doesn't cane people. But
(37:08):
it turns out some of the king makers of the
US government did get into a caine altercation. This would
be I believe aggravated assault technically because there was a
use of a weapon.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
Yeah, that's right in the halls of governments. No less,
I guess what led to this beef. The thing. The
inciting event occurred three days prior when Senator by the
name of Charles Sumner from Massachusetts, who was an anti
(37:42):
slavery Republican exactly addressed the Senate spoke to the Senate
on the issue of whether Kansas should be allowed to
enter the Union as a slave state or as a
free state. Man, can you believe this was stuff that
had to be discussed. I'm sorry, I know it's it's
(38:03):
it's just bonkers to me sometimes, how relatively recent some
of these barbaric parts of.
Speaker 4 (38:10):
History, you know, right, I mean, dad, do this wild
dance anytime they want it at a state in because
they had to have just many slave states as free states.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
So three fifths compromise. It was really nasty stuff.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
And to your point, it's right there in history, not
that long ago.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Now, history is always closer than it looks in the.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
Rear view mirror. I mean, think about it. There is
a living man.
Speaker 4 (38:35):
Father was born around then, as we learned the John
Tyler episodes.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
And there are people listening today who were alive during
state supported segregation. Right, Uh, this is this stuff matters.
So as you were saying, all this guy Sunder, he
makes a speech it's called or it's titled Crime against Kansas,
and in his beach Sumner name checks two Democratic senators.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
And also out its last.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
Yeah, he calls for them. He sends for them, you
would say in UK hip hop. They're Stephen Douglas of
Illinois and Andrew Butler of South Carolina. And while these
guys are in the room, Sumner is talking trash and
it's not friendly. It's not like a Friar's Club roast.
(39:27):
Or if it is like a Friar's Club roast, it's
like the Chevy Chase roast where you can tell no
one likes him, no one likes it. Yea.
Speaker 3 (39:34):
To this day, I don't think he's a very popular guy. Beg,
can I can I say this trash talk? At least?
Please please get to do it? What does he say
to Douglas serious, dis is man? Holy cow, these are
like beast level cutdowns. He calls him a noisome, squat
and nameless animal, not a proper model for an American senator.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
And people are people, Yeah, people are like, oh snap
and then he has this moment in his speech.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
Where he's like, and I'm not done. I do not
field my time.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
Andrew Butler, South Carolina. You know, gosh, he says, He says,
you have taken a mistress who ugly to others, is
always lovely to him, though polluted in the sight of
the world, is chased in his sight. I mean the
Harlot slavery.
Speaker 3 (40:31):
Oh snap, okay, I thought he was really like putting
his bearing his dirty laundry. He got there too.
Speaker 4 (40:38):
That's what Hamilton did. Hamilton one time too, an article.
Out these ten sex workers that I talked to, they
all say that Aaron Burr is, you know, their favorite client.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
Yeah, Hamilton, the creator of the listical I believe absolutely.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
Oh man, the Harlot slavery. That's that's good, although I
will say not very sex positive, a little bit misogynistic,
but it kind of works well.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
The time, well they were you know, they were all gas,
no breaks, and they were all still, of course, very prejudiced.
There's another guy in the crowd, you know. That's why
I have to be careful with roast and stand up comedy.
There's a guy named Preston Brooks. He's important to this
story because he is boys with Butler. He's from South
(41:24):
Carolina as well, and if he if he did things
the quote unquote right way for the time, he would
have challenged Sumner to a duel and they would have
met with you know, pistols or rape year zadan or
something like that. Instead, he picked up the kind of
cane that people like him use to beat dogs and
(41:48):
also probably other people. So he waits until Senate has
rapped for the day, rapped for the day, and he
walks into the chamber and he finds some there. Picture
it like walking into a lecture hall after class and
(42:10):
Sumner is Sumner is putting his stamp on various copies
of his speech where he dissed these guys, and then Brooks,
catching him unaware, slams his cane onto Sumner's head. He
doesn't even waste like nothing cinematic like hitting a hand
or something like, you're not gonna stamp that way.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
Yeah. Have you guys seen most or any of the Sopranos. Yeah,
there's a really incredible scene where Tony he's got this
like I think he's a lawyer or no, he's a
politician actually, and he finds out that he's sleeping with
Tony's ex gar or whatever, remember, and he just walks
into the dude's house while he's his underwear and just
(42:52):
takes his belt off and just starts like slamming him,
you know, while the guy's like whippering in the corner.
That is how I picture this guy. That is an
excellent scene.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
It's wallop after wallap headshots and Brooks is like Bam,
South Carolina, Bam, I'm a jerk, Bam, bam bam. And
Sumner is recovering from this head wound and he's running
about trying to protect himself. It doesn't it does these
kinds of If you've ever been in a fight like this,
(43:23):
you know, they typically don't last very long. This guy's bleeding,
he's likely concussed. Head wounds are just super gushers. He
has to be carried away. He can't walk on his
own power. And Brooks when he's done with this, he
walks calmly out of the chamber. It's like if since
(43:43):
we're doing anachronistic music, probably in his head there's something
like easy, like a Sunday morning play like that. Yeah,
he's like and amasic, right, and.
Speaker 3 (43:56):
It's interesting because both of these guys, to their respective crony,
He's kind of become like the symbolic kind of hero,
so weird, oh regard super weird, and I believe doesn't.
The dispenser of the beating resign and he gets yeah,
and what happens next He gets reelected, but then he dies, Yeah,
(44:24):
at the age of thirty seven. So it's not all bad.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
And that's what he's most famous for. And Sumner does live.
Sumner takes some time recovering. He eventually returns to the
Senate and he serves there for another eighteen years. This
turns out to be somewhat prescient, somewhat of an omen
for the future of the United States, which is hurtling
(44:51):
headlong toward an actual civil war.
Speaker 3 (44:54):
Yeah, oh, it was bound to happen sooner or later.
I think we've got one more, really juicy one involving
fisticuffs to take us home with. Yeah, let's take it
homes one.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
It's fast.
Speaker 3 (45:09):
We saved it.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
So the most infamous floor brawl in the history of
the US House of Representatives. This is, by the way,
from the US House of Rep's website. This thing happened
when members of the House debated the Kansas Territories pro
Slavery Constitution late into the night of February fifth through sixth,
(45:34):
eighteen fifty eight, and right right before two am, Pennsylvania
Republican named Galusha grow real.
Speaker 3 (45:43):
Name, Galusha, grow your big Galot.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
Right, they're perfect. Yeah, it gets into a tangle with
a Democrat from South Carolina named Lawrence Kiett.
Speaker 3 (45:55):
Well, it's interesting too because, like several of these stories,
or at least this one in the last one, really
show you the tension that was building around, you know,
slavery and the issue, the political divide that was coming
very very clear, and it was going to just come
to a boiling point. And I think that's largely why
he can so many of these, like actual brawls taking
(46:18):
place during this time really sensitive. You know, a little
spark could just set off a whole forest fire. And
that's exactly what happens here. On February sixth, eighteen fifty eight,
in an odd precursor to the Civil War, rights Will
Fermia for MSNBC, the House of Representatives dissolved into a
bench clearing brawl. Is that like where so I guess
(46:41):
a bench clearing brawl is in a sport where like
all your buddies come to your aid because like you're
getting all kicked out on the basketball court almost a
basketball field. Because I'm totally a sportsman.
Speaker 4 (46:52):
It's very common in baseball. So in vice breakout in
baseball is that the bench wall come out. But when
it gets really serious, people from the bullpen, which is
out on the outfit will run in and get in the.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
Fight as well.
Speaker 1 (47:01):
Got shout out of Philadelphia exactly almost at yeah, famous
famously chill City.
Speaker 4 (47:10):
Side note, I'm writing an episode you guys don't even
know about this one yet where I uh it talks
about how Pennsylvania is just extra I've got.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
This discontinued soda stuff too. I know all of us
are excited about that.
Speaker 3 (47:23):
Oh you doing that one? Cool? Yeah yeah yeah, I
am gonna do karaoke, yeah yeah yeah. It was reported
at the time by the Congressional Globe that in an
instant the House was in the greatest possible confusion, with
more than thirty of its members uh joining in to
this brawl. You know, like literally picture the cartoon fight
(47:46):
with the giant cloud of dust and like people are
jumping in and coming out, crawling out, being dragged back
in you know. M yeah, it giant on a monopoia.
Texts on screen, you.
Speaker 1 (47:57):
Know, raining cats and dogs, of punches, fisticuffs, uppercuts, you know,
hooks and jabs, probably you know, maybe a couple of roundhouses.
I like the idea of one dude launching himself and
doing that full like two person or two foot kick,
you know, or why not a lu king bicycle kick.
(48:17):
At this point, it's those linings, right, you know, inventing
moves that the WWE will make billions off of in
the future.
Speaker 3 (48:27):
Nor the.
Speaker 1 (48:29):
Northern Republicans of Free Soilers team up against Southern Democrats,
and I got to tell you there are probably a
lot of grudges getting settled here. There are probably a
lot of sneak shots at people who didn't like each
other from the jump, and some of those examples are
lost to history. But it was absolutely a brawl. The
speaker of South Carolina Democrat named James Orr was just
(48:52):
uselessly hitting the gavel. It was like order order, and.
Speaker 3 (48:58):
It wasn't the menu today, buddy.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
They weren't listening because they were busy beating the snot
out of each other. So eventually he leans to the
sergeant at arms, a guy named Adam J. Glossbrenner, and
he says, you know, look, if people aren't listening, arrest them.
Speaker 3 (49:13):
Yeah, get them out of it. Have you guys ever
been to like a I guess, for lack of a
better term, minor league wrestling events, Yes, like, yeah, a
lot of times. There are some very interesting and problematic
political kind of like they'll be like the Luca Libre
guy fighting like a mister America, you know, and it's
clearly a kind of creepy commentary on you know, border protection.
(49:35):
I picture this, This whole scenario should be made into
a wrestling event with all of these you know, government
reps just having at each other, you know, pulling off
their powdered wigs. Yeah, yeah, with that. I don't know
if they wore powdered wigs, but I'm just you know,
it's a good they were.
Speaker 1 (49:51):
Fancy they wore powdered wigs, otherwise everyone would know they
had lice. Please check out the very first episode of
our show. Why do Bidish lawyers wear those wigs? They're
called perukes. So okay, if you are James Orr at
this point then you're doing the right thing. You have
followed your order of order of operations. And if you
(50:15):
are Adam Glossbredder, now the onus is on you. Now
the ball is in your court. What are you gonna do?
He's got the house mace. What you guys know about
it's symbolic, it's kind of ridiculous. It's a fancy or kine.
And so he according to this MSNBC article we quoted earlier,
he walks into the fray and he is getting in fights.
(50:40):
These people, by the way, to the point about hair pieces,
they are literally snatching wigs. John Bowie, Knife Potter and
Cad Walader Washburn riped the way they snatched the wig
off a democrat from Mississippi named William Barksdale. And then
Potter like holds it up and he goes scout, super classy,
(51:02):
super classy. This like a world Star moment. You know,
if this were filmed on a cell phone, you would
hear the person filming it just yelling world star. That's
an Internet reference that might do.
Speaker 3 (51:14):
And I think you know, Barksdale was kind of getting
clowned already because he was wearing a wig or it
was like more of a two paves. Was not a
ceremonial peruke or or you know, hair piece. It was
definitely a cosmetic thing to hide a lack of actual hair.
But apparently when he put it back off, he put
it on backwards, getting it kind of caught up in
(51:35):
the melee of it all.
Speaker 2 (51:36):
What's even worse is no one knew he was wearing
a wig, and tis what I mean.
Speaker 3 (51:41):
Yeah, they were totally like, you know, mocking him.
Speaker 1 (51:45):
It was.
Speaker 3 (51:45):
This is actually a moment that's often played for laughs
in a kind of physical comedy, you know, where a
character you know, will get.
Speaker 1 (51:52):
This where the humor kind of quells the tension.
Speaker 3 (51:56):
That's what happens, right, It becomes more of like a
ah like that think of this dummy, and you know
they have.
Speaker 1 (52:04):
That pause and the music stops and they pointing each
other like and then the other guy was about to
kill him, is like, I guess that is funny, and
then everybody starts laughing, and then it goes to a
freeze frame roll credits.
Speaker 3 (52:19):
The mid air jump, you know, right, high fives. Look
what are we doing? Guys love each other, you know,
the business of running the country.
Speaker 1 (52:29):
So we are going to call it a rap, thanks
of course our recurring guest Alex Circa.
Speaker 3 (52:36):
And it's also just ninety something.
Speaker 1 (52:40):
Yes, a fan of circumstance, we are. We also want
to point out that, of course we're dunking on the
United States here with the help of our research associate
mister Max Williams. However, it is very important for us
all to know this is not a glasshouse situation. It
is a glass planet. There are tons and tons of
(53:00):
parliamentary fisticuffs and fights and brawls. I want to give
a shout out to South Korea in twenty twenty where yeah,
when more the almost forty people got got up in
a tangle like a massive fight. It happens more often
than you think, folks.
Speaker 3 (53:17):
Indeed, I mean, after all, you know, these people aren't
somehow superior supreme beings. They have just as many foibles
and failings as the rest of us, in some cases
way more so. You know, always important to remember not
to put anybody up on a pedestal. Least of all,
are our humble politicians humbule public sent not very humble,
(53:39):
are very humble modest public servants.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
Also good not to put canes to people's heads, as
everybody's grade school teacher once said use your words, so
I think it was always to a super producer, mister
Max Williams. Thanks to our own King over the Head,
Jonathan Strickland aka the Wizard. Shout out to Alex Williams,
(54:02):
composed this slap and pop.
Speaker 3 (54:04):
Indeed, thanks to Eaves, Jeff Coates, and Christopher frasiotis here
in spirit. Ben, Thanks to you for not coming at
me with a cane, even though I see it in
your eyes sometimes that you really want to.
Speaker 1 (54:16):
I don't look at you as often as you think.
Speaker 3 (54:18):
Man, WHOA careful We'll see you next. Type Books. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. Oh, in these divided political times, you
have to wonder how difficult it may be to maintain decorum.
Let's give a shout out to our super producer, mister
Max Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Shout out.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Who you talking about?
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Max Williams from earlier, Yes, from earlier, like Henry Kissinger
from earlier, You're Nold Brown, I'm Ben Bolan and day
we are with the help of our returning guest Alex Circa,
we are exploiting.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
We are exploring.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
We are exploring a series of times that people in
Congress and the US Congress and the wholes of power
didn't feel their words were adequate to navigate situations.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Yeah. They in some cases entered into fisticuffs like the
fighting Irish you know, little fella, what do you call
that pose? Yeah, it seems very unpractical, impractical, or maybe
it's completely practical. It is like one of the fists
for blocking the old one two.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Yeah, the hook and the jazz.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
I think whoever drew it didn't know how to.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Underhanded boxing is definitely No, it's I see all the
time and old movies. It's like a very specific old
timey boxing pose and it requires fancy footwork too.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
You know, you think these beefing congressmen got into some
little tappity dancing when they were fighting each other.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Well, we're about to see they certainly were not practicing bipartisanship,
right the old can't we all just get along?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
We can't.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Spoiler alert spoiler Yeah. Let's go to Deborah Caldwell in
a great article eleven historic fights worse than the Sequester.
Debora points out Congress has always been a wild and
wooly place, and I think, you know, for a lot
of us, you know, the majority of people in the
(02:32):
United States are not, in fact members of Congress. We
can't even get elected to the House, right, which.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
Is unless you're a member of the New Hampshire State
of House Representatives, which is like four hundred and fifty
people for New Hampshire.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
This that note in here, right here.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Classic granite state Max with the facts.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
That seeking in the fon and peace fall in love.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
It's just right now, we've got several different situations here.
This is Nola, a bit of a listical episode.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
What'd you say, uh huh, Yeah, it is indeed, So
let's go ahead and jump right in with the eighteen hundred
election that nearly led to a Civil war. One thing
that I think we've all experienced is sort of the
rose colored glasses approach to history. That is often the
case in like early childhood education, middle school even where
it's sort of like, oh, you know that all the
(03:33):
founding fathers were pals and they were just hanging out,
and you know it was just all sunshine and roses
and getting drunk together, and well that probably that part,
that's why that part was true. Yeah, you know, despite
coming from different backgrounds, different political ideologies and belief systems,
they all were able to just get along, chop it
(03:53):
up and make nice and get things done right right, No,
they didn't. That cartoon verse, though, is often the way
it's portrayed. Sure, just learning about this stuff, just.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Like the first Thanksgiving, Right, there's a bit of myth
making a foot because we know that these guys often
did not get along put diplomatically. I also will find
it unendingly hilarious how back in the day, if you
ran for president and you won, then your vice president
(04:28):
would be the guy who ran against you. It's a
very weird, weird way to set up a crew. But
as you were saying, well, this stuff comes to a head,
there are legendary disagreements between founding fathers and two of
the guys who beefed the hardest really got beefed up.
(04:48):
They were beefing John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. And it
goes to exactly like our culminating moment. Here is the
election of eighteen hundred and go to a Encyclopedia Virginia
A for Dare, I say, blow by blow.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Oh you dare, and I will back you up on this.
So the Democratic Republicans had won the election. Again, I
always get a little flummoxed when it comes to like
early versions of Democrats and Republicans. In this case it
was the Democratic Republicans, which seems like some sort of
weird kaiju hybrid of political leanings. But they had in
(05:28):
fact since the election, but unfortunately it wasn't clear who
was actually going to be the president. This was something
that was totally TBD. And in eighteen hundred, this Constitution
that we've heard so much about did have a stipulation
that each elector be awarded to votes, and that whichever
(05:48):
candidate got the majority of votes would be president, while
the second place, the runner up they also ran, would
be vice presidents.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Great idea, again, he says with sarcasm.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
So these electoral votes, this is basically the founding of
the electoral college. Right, this is totally.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
This is like the second time and the first time
the first two elections weren't really elections.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Well, I'm just saying what we know is the electoral
college today is a little different than this, but this
is sort of the like bones of it.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
And this is Yeah, you're right, we could call this
a precedent of sorts. I would argue it is a
president indicative of the deep structural problems with the electoral
college in general. Jefferson is hanging out after these electoral
(06:41):
votes are counted, and all those Democrat Republican folks, who again,
as you point out, are the same party at this point,
they wanted Jefferson to be president. They were like, this
is the guy we picked him. Jefferson has seventy three
electoral votes. But plot twist, Shyamalan does Aaron Burr and
(07:01):
that's the one all these guys are picked to be
vice president. They were worried about taking off Burr. He's
kind of a hot head. He does shoot people in duels.
And this is way before the musical made him catchy
to the American public. We've talked in the past about
(07:23):
his troubled career, and the Democratic Republicans kind of messed
up their grounds game, their electoral game. They were supposed
to arrange for at least one of their people not
to vote for Burr so they could say without pissing
Burr off. Ah, good, hustle, Bud, your vice president Jefferson
(07:47):
just has more votes.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
That's a little greasy, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
That's super greasy. I mean, that's politics, it really is.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
And again, a system that is relatively easily gamed when
you have these sort of kots. I guess is that
a thing. I'm just gonna call it cahoots. That's a
fun word. A game. There's a board game called.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
There's a board game called alex Is a Green.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Yeah, got a good We got a solid nod from
from Circus very Oh. I'm sure I definitely remember playing
it at least once. I'm the kind of guy, by
the way. As an aside, that buys board games that
never placed them chest of board games that I've never
been opened, because I get one that I think is
super nerdy and fun. I'm like, this is confusing. I
(08:30):
can't figure out how to play Murder on the Haunted
Hill or whatever.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
All the rules and I will strictly tell everyone the rules.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Will we we'll play block with you guys for money.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Is awesome, but I lost a couple of the pieces
and now useless. Well, I got one that's a game
that's so fun. It's it's not that big a deal
to have to buy it a few times. But cahoots aside,
Like you said, this doesn't really pan out the way
that they anticipated.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Oh no, you know, because these guys are going head
to head against a group called the Federalists, which you
might remember from their famous papers. They were named very creatively.
So the Federalist Party saw this as an opportunity to
block US Jefferson out of the presidency, and they really
(09:22):
did not want Jefferson to be president, so they said, look,
we'll do whatever. You know, there is no expense that
we are scared of here. Yet again, that old document,
the Constitution had some rules, had some board game Rules
for the Future of America, and this little piece of
(09:43):
paper specified that a tie has to be resolved by
a specific group, the House of Representatives, voting by state,
and that Federalists love this because they control several delegations
in the House of Reps.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
Yeah, tiebreaker pretty common in most board games and politics.
So that being the case, ben with the Federalists controlling
some of these key House delegations, they were able to
block the election of Jefferson for thirty five of these
roll call votes over the course of six days. And
if you can imagine, this is almost like filibuster level obstructionism.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Well, Dungeons and Dragons would call their alignment lawful evil
at this time because they're weaponizing parliamentary.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Proceeds, right exactly.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
Mean, how many votes did it take Mcarthury to get
in there, because that's a good cop. It's like, how
many you took mcarthy get I think I think that
was like sixteen, So we think about like more than
twice as many votes.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
So they're saying.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
The Federalists are they go to Aaron Burr Pictures, smoky
back room and yeah, yeah, yeah, and we could get
a sound effect whatever the Illuminati version is.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
There was a smoky sound effect. It doesn't really make smokes,
I guess sort of inherently.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Well, let's play in now. It's yeah, yeah, let's trigger
you little jazz nastasia. Yeah, speakeasy time, far before the
invention of speakeasies and jazz.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
And you nailed it though.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Yeah. So we're going for the vibe, folks, and thank
you for having our backs.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
These guys go to birth in this back room and
they say, look, will help you quick pro quo if
you will do a couple of things for us, you know, scratch,
we'll scratch yours. You don't like Jefferson either, and X
And outside this room, by the way, Uh, there's the
(11:39):
other political party of the time, the Democratic Republicans, and
they're going bang bang bang on the door, their cop
knocking on the door, and they're like, you guys are
stealing the election. And you know that's super mids of you.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Wow, this is way before the invention of the term mids.
By the way, we're in it for style poetic license.
I don't we're talking about Jefferson here, are we sure?
Speaker 4 (12:02):
Before the invention of the term mids, we.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
The concept of mids is eternal. But I don't think
that that.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
You guys are so hard right now shout out to
Oxford's a word of the year.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Of the year. I only just found out that it's
short for charisma. It is. I did not it is
it is. It is, yes, charisma quote Matt Berry spelled differently, right,
are I z Z.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
We don't want to make an enemy of big o
Ed Oxford English.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Apparently the kids also refer to people that have a
lot of ris being wrizzlers, like other wrizzler, you know, batman,
villain of style. Shout that's superpower, really fetching, you know.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
So these rumors start flying around, well again, this sort
of rarefied air of people who run the United States,
and folks are talking, the streets are talking, and the
streets are saying, these federalists are going to put a
member of their own party into the presidency. They're going
to do a little finger move, right, Chaos is a ladder,
(13:10):
et cetera, et cetera, from Song of Ice and Fire
or Game of Thrones, And so Jefferson tells Adams any
attempt to defeat the presidential election will be met with
quote resistance by force and incalculable consequences.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Wow, that's fighting words.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
It's definitely a threat. It's it's a weird one.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
So the Democratic Republican governors are absolutely livid, and it
starts to become pretty clear that they are going to
gather up their forces in the form of militias, which
is important because there wasn't really an official, actual facts,
(13:53):
you know, government funded mandated army, right, there was a
series of these loose kind of collections of forces.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Well, they're coming off of a revolution which taught them
to distrust large armies from say, the British Empire, etc.
So the governors in this time are in the in
the late eighteenth century early nineteenth century, they're kind of suserings, right,
(14:21):
they have these fiefdoms that they're running, and so they
gather up their gangs and they say, look, if the
Federalists steal this election from Jefferson, whom we have all
chosen to be the president, that we're going to roll
on you, you know, if you want to smoke. And there's
(14:42):
a letter from March twenty first, eighteen oh one that
is a great example of this from Pennsylvania.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
It is where you start seeing terms like usurping or
usurpation is also a very assan of ice and fire
term usurper. I called you usurper. But really quickly, you guys,
is what they were doing illegal? Or was it just
kind of in bad tastes? You know what I mean?
It was just sort of a dick move the election enough,
(15:10):
the laws is sort of being written as they go.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
But questions in terms of fixing the election, right, in
terms of raising.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
A militia, No, in terms of fixing the election, like,
did they the idea of them stealing it seems more
of an alarmist kind of propagandistic way of talking trash
about your your rivals.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
And they also know because like it was just a
flawed systems.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
But they agreed on the system, you know, it just
happened to not work in their favor this time.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Also, let's point out that this is like this is
an example of no odor among thieves, right, because they've
already kind of determined who the president will be and
they did not ask the entirety of the American public
at this point. They also did not consent. Are a
(16:00):
lot of people living in North America or the United
States to be people so they're building. They're building the
top of flawed Djenga Tower already, and I'm with you
on usurpation and so on. Governor Thomas McKee, Pennsylvania, classic guy,
you know him, you know him. He said, look, I'm
(16:25):
going to take the Pennsylvania Militia, the Penny Boys, and
we are going to arrest anybody anti Jefferson and we're
going to charge them with treason. And then there's another
letter from Virginia.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Very British of them. Don't you think his behavior feels
very kind of British Crown.
Speaker 4 (16:46):
Moves only if they are going to threaten people with
being drawn and corded.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
All the season and this whichland kind of atmosphere exactly.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
I completely agree.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
All they knew was in terms of governance. All they
knew was systems like monarchies, aristocracies and the French Revolution, right,
and then their own revolutions. So they were kind of
just to be honest, they were improving, they were improvising,
and they weren't sure what to do in the long term,
(17:19):
but they were sure what they didn't want to happen.
And some of these folks want Aaron Burr. Some of
these folks want Jefferson. They've got this back and forth
of correspondents. We're not talking about when we say militia.
By the way, we're not talking about getting a posse together.
It's not like alex Max Nol and yours truly saying, oh,
(17:42):
we're gonna January sixth up to Washington. On this Jefferson thing,
we're talking about Pennsylvania having twenty two thousand dudes ready
to go beef, and then we're talking about we're talking
about sixty thousand train militia from Massachusetts who were gonna
(18:02):
Those guys were veterans, they would absolutely demolish that outnumbered
mob from Pennsylvania. And these folks are these are farmers.
It's like a shorts to plowshare situation. The folks from
Pennsylvania and Virginia, they are literally practicing military maneuvers and
drills with corn stalks. So, uh, this is where we
(18:27):
go to one of Nole's favorite musicals, Alexander Hamilton.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Yeah, or Hamilton for sure. It's not you know, I
get it. It's good. I just I just didn't finish it.
It doesn't mean that I didn't like it. I liked
what I saw, but I just I got distracted. I'm
gonna have to go back to it now now that
it's not, you know, the hottest ticket in town anymore.
But maybe I can actually see ruins on state. That
is part of it too. Yeah, I think I'm separated
(18:51):
enough from the hype now that if I went and
saw it in a theater with a proper show, I
think that's the way to experience something like hype.
Speaker 4 (18:58):
You guys excited for the thing that we're all hyped
out in April that we were talking about on the side.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Sure, yeah, death cap for QUDI and postal.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Service a second time buying tickets on Speaking.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Of hype ruining things, let me show to you exhibit A, folks. Uh,
this is a paper straw.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Here's the problem with paper straws.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Terrible look at that, man, No, no.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
I can't weird.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Well, I've got a BUCkies mug.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Thank you for themr So uh so we do o
a debt of gratitude to the founding fathers, and we
want to let you know, like there's so many of
us listening right now who are going get to the fight.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Get to the fight.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Alexander Hamilton comes in and it's so hard to say
that without singing it. He weighs in on Jefferson's behalf
and uh, he says, look, my brother in Christ, I
get it. Jefferson is a contemptible hypocrite at last. Part's
a quote. But we cannot adopt a violent system that
(20:12):
undermines this American government. And Aaron Burr, because Hamilton always
had to slide in a nag on Aaron Burr, they
were very insecure, and he says, look, Burr also has
extreme and irregular ambition. He's got no principle public or private,
which was a real like these guys would have been
(20:32):
savages on Twitter. And Hamilton says, look, the Federalists are
playing a foolish game. You kind of have to give
Jefferson the presidency because we all agreed on it, and
to do otherwise now is anathema to what we proposed
this government should function as.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
So Eventually, one of the fellas that Hamilton wrote to,
one James A. Bayard, told his colleagues that he would
withdraw support from Burr and throw his support behind Jefferson,
allowing him to win, in order to prevent this again
this like civil war. It's essentially what we would be
(21:17):
looking at and no Federalists at the end of the
day voted for Jefferson. Several, however, Federalist members of the
House of Representatives. They positioned their state delegates to support Jefferson,
and on February seventeenth of eighteen oh one, on the
thirty sixth attempt at this vote, Jefferson won by a
(21:40):
ten to four margin two states. Stateing and Bayard later
claimed that Jefferson had promised to maintain a particular flavor
of government, specifically referring to the monetary system, the fiscal system,
(22:00):
and also to maintain which is this is probably a
term that you remember hearing them when you're studies of
the Constitution is strong navy, and not to can any
of the Federalists, who you know, had potentially made themselves
target for that kind of retribution. But you wouldn't, he said,
He said, he said, a lot of no honor among
(22:22):
thieves to your previous point, but Jefferson's he claimed to
the bitter end that no such deal had ever existed.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Federalist who were those guys? Anyway, It's March fourth, says Jefferson,
eighteen oh one. I am now the third president of
the United States. A war that didn't quite happen. Now
we know that a lot of us are listening today
and saying, all right, so your first example is the
(22:53):
time there was almost a fight.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
But what about you know what.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
About some street level fisticuffs, you know what about some
varments varmenting out in the halls of power? This is
our next example. Right before the Civil War. One of
the big issues in American discourse is the concept of slavery,
(23:23):
the idea that you could somehow rationalize removing all the
rights of a human being by saying that they are
somehow not human and instead that they are property. And
one side of the argument said, look, this is part
of American law, and the other side, which won, by
(23:44):
the way, spoilers thankfully, the other side said, slavery is
super sucking gross. It needs to be outlawed. Thanks for
the beat, Max. And obviously no one here and hopefully
no one listening is going to argue otherwise. But at
(24:05):
this time we have to introduce a heel as wrestling
MC call him Uphill, a real you know what, he's
a real dish of cold rubbery eggs. John C.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Calhoun. I think John C. Calhoun is the namesake of
a very short, non impressive expressway in my hometown of Augusta, Georgia.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
How long?
Speaker 2 (24:31):
How long is it South Carolina?
Speaker 3 (24:33):
So yeah, okay, there you go. Yeah, it's just like
the road that you take to get from like one
side of town to downtown. So I would say no
longer than maybe two miles, three miles. It's the John C.
Calhoun Expressway.
Speaker 4 (24:48):
It's Calhoun is one of these guys that, for like
a large swath of this part of history, is just
always president, like him and Henry Clay are always president,
and oddly enough, John Quincy Adams is always around two.
He did a lot after being president. He was around
for a while to being president.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
We need to talk about Millard Fillmore, vice president two
days after infamous cold eggs and later expressway namesake. John C.
Calhoun dies March thirty first, eighteen fifty. There's this guy,
his name's Millard. He's vice president. He also kind of stinks,
(25:24):
and he does the funeral for Thank you for the
thumbs down, Max, I agree with you. He does the
funeral for Calhoun in the chambers of the Senate, and
everybody is kind of on edge, right, what's going to happen.
The leader is dead. This guy who is ostensibly in
charge now his name's Millard? Are you kidding me? And
(25:46):
so amid this chaos, Vice President Pillmore addresses the Senate.
He does a live show and he says, look, when
I first became the presiding Officer of the Senate last year,
I didn't think I would have to maintain order in
a group of adults. He looked around and he was like, guys,
(26:08):
you're supposed to be grown ups. You're supposed to be
courteous to each other, you're supposed to be collegiate. You know,
order must prevail.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
Well, it's one of these things where, like you know,
with the recent presidential situations, let's just say, in this country,
where you know it's easy to take for granted, how
much just decorum and tradition is literally all. It's holding
the whole thing together. And when people decide to ask
out and just totally ignore that stuff, there's not much
(26:41):
you could do about it.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
It's so weird, man. I remember several years back, someone
got trapped up in parliamentary procedure. They stood up and
they were like, the honorable member of so and so
apologizes for offending the honor of the gentleman from so
and so, and I thought you guys hate each other.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
It's pretty obvious question, but.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Like, can you imagine being in a situation where someone
says you have offended my honor and then there's a vote,
and then the other person has to stand up and
be like, I apologize for offending your honor.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
Well, even just the idea of getting censured, you know
what I mean, it's sort of like a public pillarying,
you know, a slap on the wrists be it's basically
officially embarrassing you in front of your friends.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
So, in its earliest years, the US Senate had given
the presiding officer the superpower. If you are in charge
of the Senate, you can call these other senators out.
You can be like, M, that's a no, no, that
is inappropriate language or behavior. And the full Senate didn't
(27:57):
have to vote. There was just this one guy who
was like, your ViBe's off. And because of John C. Calhoun,
this practice changes in eighteen twenty eight.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
You have to stay in my line, all right?
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Well, Max, how would you describe John C.
Speaker 4 (28:13):
Calhoun real life Emperor Palpatine? And side note, if you
guys want to get a laugh. Every single time Calhoun
is mentioned in this brief, there's a different photo of him,
and they all have a theme.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
Is he wearing an ominous hood and clothes?
Speaker 4 (28:29):
He just looks like the most evil dude in every
photo and every painting of this man. I guess there's
no photos of it, but every painting of this man,
he looks like the most evil dude ever.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
He looks like he's.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Look so racist.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
Yeah, he looks like he doesn't blink. He looks like
he's always mad at someone to the left or the
right of the portrait.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
I bet he used to beat people with sticks.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
This is the guy who was so mean, so racist,
and so crazy that Andrew Jackson was freaked out by the.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
He kind of has a bizarro Andrew Jackson look about him.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
He was He was Jackson's first VP and then quit
and formed his own party to a post Jackson. He's
one of the guys that started the Whig Party.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
I always think when I see these portraits of guys
who are not looking directly at the at the audience,
I always think maybe they had wonky eyes like Calhoun
looks like he might have.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
He might have some Walleye And honestly, in this painting
that I'm looking at, he basically is wearing a spooky cloak. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Well it was a different time. Yeah, for sure, they
didn't have central heating. But the so because of Calhoun,
who was a little bit too active for the rest
of the Senate. Because of him, the Senate changed this
rule and they said, look, everybody should be able to
call someone out if they're behaving offensively. And I think
(29:53):
we can all agree that kind of accountability is key.
If the Senate objected to the Vice president's ruling on
a certain call, right, if he was being too tyrannical
or so on, then they could vote and they could
overrule him, and they could say, actually, the guy you're
mad at isn't being a dick. He raised a really
(30:13):
good point. You're outvoted. Let's move on to other business.
Order will prevail. Vice President Fillmore didn't quite vibe with this.
In eighteen fifty he says, look, a lot of our fellows, senators,
a lot of these honorable gentlemen, seem reluctant to hold
(30:37):
each other to order. So what I'm going to do
is quellvis I'm going to contain the first sparks of
disorder before they blossom into a fire.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
Right, and so.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
So he said the following quote, which seems a little hardcore.
I'm interested. I'm interested in your thoughts here.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
Might attack or even insinuation of a personal character often
provokes a more severe retort, which brit retort. Sorry, it's
gonna make sure you those clear, which brings out a
more disorderly reply, each senator feeling a justification in the
previous aggression. Okay, this is an unpacker, guys, a slight
(31:22):
attack or even insinuation, okay of a personal character to
don't talk trash. If you do, it may provoke a
serious reaction. Someone's gonna come at you, right, which may
bring out and even more distant sort of chain reaction,
which may even bring out a more disorderly reply, each
senator feeling justification in the previous So this is basically
(31:45):
a chain of aggression.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
That's what you're saying, chain, chain, chain. So the idea
is that the idea is that there would be this
sort of arms race, for lack of a better word,
of insults leading to chaos in the Senate, which could
very well lead to instability in the nation. The question
is what is insinuation? Right? So and so said such
(32:11):
and such, and I took that personally. But it turns
out old Old Millies, shout out to hip hop fans
in the audience, Old Millies was correct. Two weeks after
he makes this statement, the things he predicted happened. He
said to a Missouri Senator, Thomas Hart Benton, he said,
(32:31):
you're out of order. And then a guy from Kentucky
named Henry Clay you may recognize from earlier stories, he says,
the vice president is out of pocket. He's making an
attack on the power and dignity of this noble institution,
the Senate. And then everybody else is like.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
So in this ensuing debate, there is quite a nasty exchange.
It takes place between Benton and Henry Foot. Foot Foot,
I'm gonna go with Foot. It just sounds good. Yeah whatever. Benton,
who's a bit of a bullish fellow, likes to throw
his weight around, literally and figuratively. Uh. He pushes aside
(33:18):
his chair and begins to approach mister Foot, who, if
the name of is an indication, is a bit of
a slight fellow. Uh. At this point, at this you know,
the sight of this you know, steam locomotive of a
man coming at him full bore foot, decides he needs
(33:39):
to defend himself with not his brawn, but with you know,
this concealed pistol that he's got. He strapped. He is strapped. Uh.
We can't coaching a biscuit right right there.
Speaker 4 (33:51):
It is.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
We can't get away with late books at the library.
But this guy's rolling up into the Senate with a
they did not and uh, and so everybody's losing their mind.
An old old steam truck. Benton is bellowing, I have
no pistols. Let them fast out of the way.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
Let the assassin fa yeah, becausin of steamboat Willie, no doubt. Uh,
that's amazing. So these boy, this guy is a is.
He's got h you know what I'm doing, the hand
thing he got, he's got the hutsbah, he's got the cajones. Uh.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
And he is not.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
He will not be stopped. He continues on towards him. Uh.
And then at this point I guess the funnies enough
for the for the presiding officer pillmore to to adjourn.
It's like, okay, I.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Love how Max puts it to Uh, quickly entertained emotion
to a journy. So like this one guy's this huge
dude's running at this other guy. He's like, shoot me,
then shoot me do it, and this guy is I.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Got a first a little bit of a bubble making it.
I didn't put that. The US Senate put that.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
That's even better.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Oh my gosh, we paid for that beautiful line. Taxpayers
quickly entertained a motion to adjourn, which literally means while
this chaos was happening, Vice President Millard Fillmore was like, hey,
should we get lunch or we done? Clap clap clap,
lap clip clap with a gavel, and everybody else who wasn't,
(35:28):
you know, shooting or being shot at, was like, yeah,
things took.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
A turn, and that man became president and that.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Man became president. No, there is another example we have,
and I love the way you set this up. Earlier
you talked about beating people with sticks.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
Oh yeah, I just you know, I thought that Calhoun
had that look about him, some of the eyes right
in the eyes, a bit of a wildness, and also
that cloak man like Harlem globetrotter style. You can probably
can seal quite a large stick in there you would
just carry around sort of a chalelee of sorts, you know. Oh,
there we go.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Nice reference. Yeah, and so probably the one of the
most infamous physical altercations in US congressional history occurs on
May twenty second, eighteen fifty six.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
Yeah, And as it turns out, there's an official name
for beating someone with sticks. It is often referred to
as caning. The brutal and barbaric practice, of course, holdover
from slave times as well. Like I mean, people were
beaten on their backs until they were had bloody stripes
and stuff like that. I believe it's a it's a
tactic that still happens in some countries more mistaken.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Singapore, multiple actually multiple other countries. And when you specifically
beat people on the soles of their feet such that
they cannot walk or run away, that torture is bastinado.
None of these are allowed technically in political discourse in
the halls of Congress. The US doesn't cane people. But
(37:08):
it turns out some of the king makers of the
US government did get into a caine altercation. This would
be I believe aggravated assault technically because there was a
use of a weapon.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
Yeah, that's right in the halls of governments. No less,
I guess what led to this beef. The thing. The
inciting event occurred three days prior when Senator by the
name of Charles Sumner from Massachusetts, who was an anti
(37:42):
slavery Republican exactly addressed the Senate spoke to the Senate
on the issue of whether Kansas should be allowed to
enter the Union as a slave state or as a
free state. Man, can you believe this was stuff that
had to be discussed. I'm sorry, I know it's it's
(38:03):
it's just bonkers to me sometimes, how relatively recent some
of these barbaric parts of.
Speaker 4 (38:10):
History, you know, right, I mean, dad, do this wild
dance anytime they want it at a state in because
they had to have just many slave states as free states.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
So three fifths compromise. It was really nasty stuff.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
And to your point, it's right there in history, not
that long ago.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Now, history is always closer than it looks in the.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
Rear view mirror. I mean, think about it. There is
a living man.
Speaker 4 (38:35):
Father was born around then, as we learned the John
Tyler episodes.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
And there are people listening today who were alive during
state supported segregation. Right, Uh, this is this stuff matters.
So as you were saying, all this guy Sunder, he
makes a speech it's called or it's titled Crime against Kansas,
and in his beach Sumner name checks two Democratic senators.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
And also out its last.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
Yeah, he calls for them. He sends for them, you
would say in UK hip hop. They're Stephen Douglas of
Illinois and Andrew Butler of South Carolina. And while these
guys are in the room, Sumner is talking trash and
it's not friendly. It's not like a Friar's Club roast.
(39:27):
Or if it is like a Friar's Club roast, it's
like the Chevy Chase roast where you can tell no
one likes him, no one likes it. Yea.
Speaker 3 (39:34):
To this day, I don't think he's a very popular guy. Beg,
can I can I say this trash talk? At least?
Please please get to do it? What does he say
to Douglas serious, dis is man? Holy cow, these are
like beast level cutdowns. He calls him a noisome, squat
and nameless animal, not a proper model for an American senator.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
And people are people, Yeah, people are like, oh snap
and then he has this moment in his speech.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
Where he's like, and I'm not done. I do not
field my time.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
Andrew Butler, South Carolina. You know, gosh, he says, He says,
you have taken a mistress who ugly to others, is
always lovely to him, though polluted in the sight of
the world, is chased in his sight. I mean the
Harlot slavery.
Speaker 3 (40:31):
Oh snap, okay, I thought he was really like putting
his bearing his dirty laundry. He got there too.
Speaker 4 (40:38):
That's what Hamilton did. Hamilton one time too, an article.
Out these ten sex workers that I talked to, they
all say that Aaron Burr is, you know, their favorite client.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
Yeah, Hamilton, the creator of the listical I believe absolutely.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
Oh man, the Harlot slavery. That's that's good, although I
will say not very sex positive, a little bit misogynistic,
but it kind of works well.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
The time, well they were you know, they were all gas,
no breaks, and they were all still, of course, very prejudiced.
There's another guy in the crowd, you know. That's why
I have to be careful with roast and stand up comedy.
There's a guy named Preston Brooks. He's important to this
story because he is boys with Butler. He's from South
(41:24):
Carolina as well, and if he if he did things
the quote unquote right way for the time, he would
have challenged Sumner to a duel and they would have
met with you know, pistols or rape year zadan or
something like that. Instead, he picked up the kind of
cane that people like him use to beat dogs and
(41:48):
also probably other people. So he waits until Senate has
rapped for the day, rapped for the day, and he
walks into the chamber and he finds some there. Picture
it like walking into a lecture hall after class and
(42:10):
Sumner is Sumner is putting his stamp on various copies
of his speech where he dissed these guys, and then Brooks,
catching him unaware, slams his cane onto Sumner's head. He
doesn't even waste like nothing cinematic like hitting a hand
or something like, you're not gonna stamp that way.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
Yeah. Have you guys seen most or any of the Sopranos. Yeah,
there's a really incredible scene where Tony he's got this
like I think he's a lawyer or no, he's a
politician actually, and he finds out that he's sleeping with
Tony's ex gar or whatever, remember, and he just walks
into the dude's house while he's his underwear and just
(42:52):
takes his belt off and just starts like slamming him,
you know, while the guy's like whippering in the corner.
That is how I picture this guy. That is an
excellent scene.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
It's wallop after wallap headshots and Brooks is like Bam,
South Carolina, Bam, I'm a jerk, Bam, bam bam. And
Sumner is recovering from this head wound and he's running
about trying to protect himself. It doesn't it does these
kinds of If you've ever been in a fight like this,
(43:23):
you know, they typically don't last very long. This guy's bleeding,
he's likely concussed. Head wounds are just super gushers. He
has to be carried away. He can't walk on his
own power. And Brooks when he's done with this, he
walks calmly out of the chamber. It's like if since
(43:43):
we're doing anachronistic music, probably in his head there's something
like easy, like a Sunday morning play like that. Yeah,
he's like and amasic, right, and.
Speaker 3 (43:56):
It's interesting because both of these guys, to their respective crony,
He's kind of become like the symbolic kind of hero,
so weird, oh regard super weird, and I believe doesn't.
The dispenser of the beating resign and he gets yeah,
and what happens next He gets reelected, but then he dies, Yeah,
(44:24):
at the age of thirty seven. So it's not all bad.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
And that's what he's most famous for. And Sumner does live.
Sumner takes some time recovering. He eventually returns to the
Senate and he serves there for another eighteen years. This
turns out to be somewhat prescient, somewhat of an omen
for the future of the United States, which is hurtling
(44:51):
headlong toward an actual civil war.
Speaker 3 (44:54):
Yeah, oh, it was bound to happen sooner or later.
I think we've got one more, really juicy one involving
fisticuffs to take us home with. Yeah, let's take it
homes one.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
It's fast.
Speaker 3 (45:09):
We saved it.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
So the most infamous floor brawl in the history of
the US House of Representatives. This is, by the way,
from the US House of Rep's website. This thing happened
when members of the House debated the Kansas Territories pro
Slavery Constitution late into the night of February fifth through sixth,
(45:34):
eighteen fifty eight, and right right before two am, Pennsylvania
Republican named Galusha grow real.
Speaker 3 (45:43):
Name, Galusha, grow your big Galot.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
Right, they're perfect. Yeah, it gets into a tangle with
a Democrat from South Carolina named Lawrence Kiett.
Speaker 3 (45:55):
Well, it's interesting too because, like several of these stories,
or at least this one in the last one, really
show you the tension that was building around, you know,
slavery and the issue, the political divide that was coming
very very clear, and it was going to just come
to a boiling point. And I think that's largely why
he can so many of these, like actual brawls taking
(46:18):
place during this time really sensitive. You know, a little
spark could just set off a whole forest fire. And
that's exactly what happens here. On February sixth, eighteen fifty eight,
in an odd precursor to the Civil War, rights Will
Fermia for MSNBC, the House of Representatives dissolved into a
bench clearing brawl. Is that like where so I guess
(46:41):
a bench clearing brawl is in a sport where like
all your buddies come to your aid because like you're
getting all kicked out on the basketball court almost a
basketball field. Because I'm totally a sportsman.
Speaker 4 (46:52):
It's very common in baseball. So in vice breakout in
baseball is that the bench wall come out. But when
it gets really serious, people from the bullpen, which is
out on the outfit will run in and get in the.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
Fight as well.
Speaker 1 (47:01):
Got shout out of Philadelphia exactly almost at yeah, famous
famously chill City.
Speaker 4 (47:10):
Side note, I'm writing an episode you guys don't even
know about this one yet where I uh it talks
about how Pennsylvania is just extra I've got.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
This discontinued soda stuff too. I know all of us
are excited about that.
Speaker 3 (47:23):
Oh you doing that one? Cool? Yeah yeah yeah, I
am gonna do karaoke, yeah yeah yeah. It was reported
at the time by the Congressional Globe that in an
instant the House was in the greatest possible confusion, with
more than thirty of its members uh joining in to
this brawl. You know, like literally picture the cartoon fight
(47:46):
with the giant cloud of dust and like people are
jumping in and coming out, crawling out, being dragged back
in you know. M yeah, it giant on a monopoia.
Texts on screen, you.
Speaker 1 (47:57):
Know, raining cats and dogs, of punches, fisticuffs, uppercuts, you know,
hooks and jabs, probably you know, maybe a couple of roundhouses.
I like the idea of one dude launching himself and
doing that full like two person or two foot kick,
you know, or why not a lu king bicycle kick.
(48:17):
At this point, it's those linings, right, you know, inventing
moves that the WWE will make billions off of in
the future.
Speaker 3 (48:27):
Nor the.
Speaker 1 (48:29):
Northern Republicans of Free Soilers team up against Southern Democrats,
and I got to tell you there are probably a
lot of grudges getting settled here. There are probably a
lot of sneak shots at people who didn't like each
other from the jump, and some of those examples are
lost to history. But it was absolutely a brawl. The
speaker of South Carolina Democrat named James Orr was just
(48:52):
uselessly hitting the gavel. It was like order order, and.
Speaker 3 (48:58):
It wasn't the menu today, buddy.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
They weren't listening because they were busy beating the snot
out of each other. So eventually he leans to the
sergeant at arms, a guy named Adam J. Glossbrenner, and
he says, you know, look, if people aren't listening, arrest them.
Speaker 3 (49:13):
Yeah, get them out of it. Have you guys ever
been to like a I guess, for lack of a
better term, minor league wrestling events, Yes, like, yeah, a
lot of times. There are some very interesting and problematic
political kind of like they'll be like the Luca Libre
guy fighting like a mister America, you know, and it's
clearly a kind of creepy commentary on you know, border protection.
(49:35):
I picture this, This whole scenario should be made into
a wrestling event with all of these you know, government
reps just having at each other, you know, pulling off
their powdered wigs. Yeah, yeah, with that. I don't know
if they wore powdered wigs, but I'm just you know,
it's a good they were.
Speaker 1 (49:51):
Fancy they wore powdered wigs, otherwise everyone would know they
had lice. Please check out the very first episode of
our show. Why do Bidish lawyers wear those wigs? They're
called perukes. So okay, if you are James Orr at
this point then you're doing the right thing. You have
followed your order of order of operations. And if you
(50:15):
are Adam Glossbredder, now the onus is on you. Now
the ball is in your court. What are you gonna do?
He's got the house mace. What you guys know about
it's symbolic, it's kind of ridiculous. It's a fancy or kine.
And so he according to this MSNBC article we quoted earlier,
he walks into the fray and he is getting in fights.
(50:40):
These people, by the way, to the point about hair pieces,
they are literally snatching wigs. John Bowie, Knife Potter and
Cad Walader Washburn riped the way they snatched the wig
off a democrat from Mississippi named William Barksdale. And then
Potter like holds it up and he goes scout, super classy,
(51:02):
super classy. This like a world Star moment. You know,
if this were filmed on a cell phone, you would
hear the person filming it just yelling world star. That's
an Internet reference that might do.
Speaker 3 (51:14):
And I think you know, Barksdale was kind of getting
clowned already because he was wearing a wig or it
was like more of a two paves. Was not a
ceremonial peruke or or you know, hair piece. It was
definitely a cosmetic thing to hide a lack of actual hair.
But apparently when he put it back off, he put
it on backwards, getting it kind of caught up in
(51:35):
the melee of it all.
Speaker 2 (51:36):
What's even worse is no one knew he was wearing
a wig, and tis what I mean.
Speaker 3 (51:41):
Yeah, they were totally like, you know, mocking him.
Speaker 1 (51:45):
It was.
Speaker 3 (51:45):
This is actually a moment that's often played for laughs
in a kind of physical comedy, you know, where a
character you know, will get.
Speaker 1 (51:52):
This where the humor kind of quells the tension.
Speaker 3 (51:56):
That's what happens, right, It becomes more of like a
ah like that think of this dummy, and you know
they have.
Speaker 1 (52:04):
That pause and the music stops and they pointing each
other like and then the other guy was about to
kill him, is like, I guess that is funny, and
then everybody starts laughing, and then it goes to a
freeze frame roll credits.
Speaker 3 (52:19):
The mid air jump, you know, right, high fives. Look
what are we doing? Guys love each other, you know,
the business of running the country.
Speaker 1 (52:29):
So we are going to call it a rap, thanks
of course our recurring guest Alex Circa.
Speaker 3 (52:36):
And it's also just ninety something.
Speaker 1 (52:40):
Yes, a fan of circumstance, we are. We also want
to point out that, of course we're dunking on the
United States here with the help of our research associate
mister Max Williams. However, it is very important for us
all to know this is not a glasshouse situation. It
is a glass planet. There are tons and tons of
(53:00):
parliamentary fisticuffs and fights and brawls. I want to give
a shout out to South Korea in twenty twenty where yeah,
when more the almost forty people got got up in
a tangle like a massive fight. It happens more often
than you think, folks.
Speaker 3 (53:17):
Indeed, I mean, after all, you know, these people aren't
somehow superior supreme beings. They have just as many foibles
and failings as the rest of us, in some cases
way more so. You know, always important to remember not
to put anybody up on a pedestal. Least of all,
are our humble politicians humbule public sent not very humble,
(53:39):
are very humble modest public servants.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
Also good not to put canes to people's heads, as
everybody's grade school teacher once said use your words, so
I think it was always to a super producer, mister
Max Williams. Thanks to our own King over the Head,
Jonathan Strickland aka the Wizard. Shout out to Alex Williams,
(54:02):
composed this slap and pop.
Speaker 3 (54:04):
Indeed, thanks to Eaves, Jeff Coates, and Christopher frasiotis here
in spirit. Ben, Thanks to you for not coming at
me with a cane, even though I see it in
your eyes sometimes that you really want to.
Speaker 1 (54:16):
I don't look at you as often as you think.
Speaker 3 (54:18):
Man, WHOA careful We'll see you next. Type Books. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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