House Censure: Humbling to Some, but Not All

(New York Times) — One threatened fellow lawmakers with a pistol. Two others assaulted their colleagues with canes, an old weapon of choice on Capitol Hill. In the heat of slavery and secession debates, some raised insults to an art form. A few took bribes or flirted with treason. Two offenders had sex with Congressional pages.  In the genteel parliamentary history of the House of Representatives there lurk rowdy days of rough-and-tumble brawls, beatings, chokings, fistfights, upended hairpieces, stentorian demands for apologies unheeded and a lot of sneaky conduct and foul-mouth talk. Some did nothing bad, or almost nothing.

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