[blaser-waffle]

> Yes but in the 1880's punching someone wasn't that big of a deal. They could have gone to the bar later and got drunk together and made legislation the next day.

Bollocks. Charles Sumner gettin whupped with a cane WAS a big deal and made national and international headlines.

It was a direct response to Sumner criticizing slavery, and helped cement opinions in the South that they'd need to take drastic action to preserve that institution.

[jollybean]

There was tons of physical fighting in that era [1], that some newspapers wanted to make a big deal of a specific fight isn't evidence of that much.

That said, that was probably a very divisive era.

[1] https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374154776