When did a congressman nearly cane another one to death on the floor of the House?
The only difference between now and past political eras is technology makes it easier for more people to vent their spleen publicly.
Mr. Lincoln was often treated as badly as Mr. Trump, called a backwoods, ignorant savage who did not understand how things worked in Washington.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/06/abraham-lincoln-is-an-idiot/309304/
I agree that we are probably no QUITE to that level of hatred BUT it is closing in on us. The current incivility is becoming very blatant, with most coming from the LEFT.
The incident you are referring to is the premeditated attack on Senator Charles Sumner (R-MA) on a close to empty US Senate chamber, by a trio of intruding Southern Democrat Representatives, the attacker, Rep. Preston Brooks (D-SC), and his colleagues, Rep. Laurence Keitt (D-SC) & Rep. Henry Edmundson (D-VA). Brooks' weapon was a thick gutta-percha cane and he attacked a sitting Sumner without any declaration or chance for defense. His fellow thugs threatened others who responded to the noisy attack with their own canes and a pistol.
This all occurred on 22 May 1856 during the "Bleeding Kansas" crisis following the 1854 Kansas–Nebraska Act. The South was determined to maintain power by having Kansas come in as a slave state if at all possible. Senator Smner was a leader of the opposition to that effort.
Uh yeah, he’s skipping over, at the very least, the Civil War and Vietnam.