WASHINGTON — Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said that one of his colleagues has argued that lawmakers should be allowed to “exercise their Second Amendment rights” on the House floor.
After explaining why he supports the impeachment inquiry against President Trump, Raskin, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, said that the level of partisanship in the country has been worse in the past. He encouraged the public to read volume III of Sidney Blumenthal’s book series on Abraham Lincoln called All the Powers of the Earth.
“Sometimes people say, ‘things have never been this bad. It has never been this partisan’ and so on and just check out this book which is about 120 pages on Congressman Preston Brooks from South Carolina, Preston Brooks’ beating of Senator Charles Sumner from Massachusetts — basically beat him nearly to his death on the floor of the Senate,” Raskin said during an Axios News Shapers event in Washington on Friday.
“People were coming to work armed and it hasn’t gotten that bad for us yet and I know one of my colleagues has been arguing that people should be allowed to exercise their Second Amendment rights on the floor of the House, but so far it has been non-violent. We’re going to make it through this period. I want everybody to know the Constitution is going to prevail and Democracy is going to survive,” he added.
Brooks, a southern Democrat who supported slavery, beat Sumner, an abolitionist from the Republican Party, with a cane after he delivered a long speech against slave owners.
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