South Carolinian Civility

Joe Wilson's outburst the other night recalled another instance of Congressional incivility, when Preston Brooks, Representative of South Carolina, confronted Sen. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts on May 22, 1856, during the "Bleeding Kansas" crisis, and beat him nearly to death. Have health care and immigration reforms assumed the passionate intensity of the slavery debates? In both events, it was South Carolina, which boasts of a culture of gentility and chivalrous virtues.

Ooops! Cynthia Tucker beat me to it!