Fighting On The Floor Of Congress In 1798

Before one can write about a political cartoon which greatly depicts two Congressman, Matthew Lyon of Vermont, and Roger Griswold of Connecticut, fighting on the floor of Congress in 1798, one needs to know what a political comic or cartoon is. A brief definition would do: Political cartoons are defined as illustrations or comic strips containing a political or social message that usually relates to current events or personalities. Now with that out of the way, we may proceed. Generally, when it comes to a political cartoon there are a few reasons why one would decide to draw it in the first place. What was the artist trying to portray, what kind of message was he trying to send, what target audience was he trying to reach? With older political cartoons such as “Congressional Pugilist (CP)” we can also ask the question what historical significance does this have, and what are other scholars and historian’s thoughts on CP. With questions like this one can begin with research on CP. …show more content…
The etching is of two men, Matthew Lyon and Roger Griswold, fighting on Congress floor. Now why where they fighting on the floor of congress? Well they were fighting because one of them was in violation of the Alien and Sedition Acts. Enough of that for now, the question that needs to be asked is what was the creator trying to portray with this illustration? Well that was already answered. The creator was trying to portray two men fighting on the floor of congress. One with a bat and another with what appears to fireplace tongs. This fight took place in February 15, 1798. What happened to lead up to this fight was that Griswold, a Federalist, walked up to Lyon’s desk to essentially hit him in the head with a walked stick. Lyon was a republican and he grabbed a pair of nearby fireplace tongs to retaliate. As stated in this short article by Kim