From incidents of violence among state and national legislators in the United States, compiled by Joanne B. Freeman in The Field of Blood. Freeman is a professor of history and American studies at Yale University. The book will be published this month by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Democrats got drunk and refused to vote on a military spending bill
A Republican, a Democrat, and a Whig went to the theater, got drunk, and started a fistfight
Democrats, Republicans, and Whigs knocked over chairs, desks, and inkstands and began to wrestle
A Republican ripped off a Democrat’s…