As the Senate on Wednesday rejected a series of gun control plans by President Obama, the votes took place 163 years to the day that a real gun was pulled out during a debate related to slavery, throwing the floor of the Senate into disarray and making headlines around the nation.
"I have no pistols! Let him assassinate me!" shouted Sen. Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, after Mississippi Senator Henry Foote pulled out a gun during debate and took aim at Benton.
This is how it was described by the Congressional Globe, the forerunner to today's Congressional Record:
"In a moment almost every Senator was on his feet, and calls to order;" demands for the Sergeant-at-Arms; requests that Senators would take their seats, from the Chair and from Individual Senators were repeatedly made. Mr. Benton was followed and arrested by Mr. Dodge of Wisconsin, and, in the confusion and excitement which prevailed, he was heard to exclaim, from time to time: "I have no pistols!" "Let him fire!" "Stand out of the way!" "I have no pistols" "I disdain to carry arms!" "Stand out of the way, and let the assassin fire!"
"While making these exclamations, Mr. Benton was brought back to his seat; but breaking away from Mr. Dodge, of Wisconsin, who sought forcibly to detain him, advanced again towards Mr. Foote, who stood near the Vice President's chair, on the right-hand side, surrounded by a number of Senators, and others not members of the Senate. Mr. Dickinson took the pistol from the hand of Mr. Foote and locked it up in his desk, and Mr. Foote, on the advice of Mr. Butler, returned to his seat.
"A pistol has been brought here to assassinate me," Sen. Benton said as order was restored on the Senate floor. "The scoundrel had no reason to think I was armed, for I carry nothing of the kind, sir."
"No assassin has a right to draw a pistol on me," Benton added, as Senators yelled "Order, order."
But Sen. Foote made the argument that he thought Benton was a threat, using a line that echoed into modern debates on the Second Amendment.
"Having a constitutional right to bear arms for my own defense, I have merely exercised that right," Foote said.
"I am a Constitution-loving man, and I know my constitutional rights, both in my place in the Senate and elsewhere," Foote argued.
In a classic Senate maneuver, Senators moved to set up a seven member investigative committee to review what had happened, as Senators rebuked their colleagues' behavior.
"The Senate is not the proper place to settle difficulties of this character," Sen. Henry Dodge of Wisconsin said.
"If gentlemen choose to fight, they will find plenty of room out of the Senate chamber; the streets are large, the neighboring grounds are spacious," Dodge intoned.
Sen. Henry Clay of Kentucky - known as the "Great Compromiser" - urged the two Senators to take their fight "before some magistrate of the city," while others said a review by the Senate was more than necessary.
"This thing cannot be smothered," said Sen. John Hale of New Hampshire, who would run for President in 1852 on the Free Soil ticket.
"We cannot, like the ostrich, imagine that by shutting our eyes we are concealed from the whole world. The galleries were filled with spectators; everybody saw what transpired, and the news of this transaction is already traveling with lighning speed over the telegraph wires to the remotest borders of the Republic."
After the Senate approved the creation of a committee to review the incident, Senators then returned to the matter at hand, legislation that would ultimately be known as the Compromise of 1850.
"The Senator from Maine moves to except California; the Senator from Missouri offers fourteen instructions as an amendment to that motion; and I now move as an amendment to the instructions proposed by the Senator from Missouri, precisely the same amendment which I before offered to-day, and which was adopted," said Clay.
Now, that sounds like the Senate.
