From every direction rose the shouts and cries of the excited House.
"Stop him!"
"Hold him!"
"Great God!"
"Judge--Judge!"
The wildest uproar followed. Half a dozen members threw themselves on
the old man, dragged him to the floor, pinned him down and wrested the
knife from his grasp.
When the eloquent gentleman from Tennessee saw that his assailant was
disarmed and safely guarded by six stalwart men he struck an attitude,
expanded his chest, smote it with both hands and exclaimed with
melodramatic gusto:
"I defy the steel of the assassin!"
The House burst into shouts of uncontrollable laughter, and adjourned
for the night.
Another scene of more tragic violence occurred in the Senate--a hand to
hand fight between William L. Yancey and Ben Hill. The Senator from
Georgia threw his antagonist across a desk, held him there in a grip of
steel and pounded his face until dragged away by friends. Yancey's spine
was wrenched in the struggle, and it was rumored that this injury caused
his death. It possibly hastened the end already sure from age, disease
and careless living.
Committees from this assembly of law makers who attempted to instruct
the conscientious, hard-working man of genius the Southern people had
made their President found little comfort in their efforts.
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