The Capitol Takeover That Wasn’t

[David Lockmiller]

The Capitol Takeover That Wasn’t
New York Times -- January 9, 2021

In 1861, a pro-Southern mob wanted to block the tallying of electoral votes for Lincoln. So did some congressmen.

In the confusion that followed Wednesday’s desecration of the Capitol, it was widely reported that the last time the building was stormed was in 1814. That overlooked a desperate day in 1861, nearly as lethal to democracy. On Feb. 13, a mob gathered outside the Capitol and tried to force its way in to disrupt the counting of the electoral certificates that would confirm Abraham Lincoln’s election three months earlier.

General Winfield Scott had served his country since the presidency of Thomas Jefferson, who personally interviewed him for his first commission, and even if infirm (he could no longer ride a horse), he knew treason when he saw it. With military dispatch, he stationed soldiers around the Capitol and left no doubt what he would do to any violent miscreant who tried to come into the building to spoil the electoral count.

Colorfully, Scott warned that any such intruder would “be lashed to the muzzle of a twelve-pounder and fired out the window of the Capitol.” He added, “I would manure the hills of Arlington with the fragments of his body.”

When a secessionist senator from Texas, Louis Wigfall, asked Scott if he would dare to arrest a senator for treason, Scott exploded: “No! I will blow him to hell!”