Image from Flickr via mr_mayer

B
orn in Virginia, Henry was an ideal Renaissance man of the antebellum South: a student of the classics, lawyer, author of books on military history, founder of one of the Territory of Alabama’s first colleges, and head of the U.S. Mint in New Orleans, he also served terms as both a US senator and governor of the state of Mississippi. A strident believer in keeping the country together, Henry was an integral part of the Compromise of 1850 that delayed the Civil War. This is the quaint classroom biography of Senator Henry found in history books—but Henry also happens to be my last name, and what those books fail to mention is that my ancient relative was also the only senator in American history to draw a pistol on the Senate floor and attempt to shoot another politician.

A few historians have mentioned the incident, but like many Southern stories, this tale is best told at dinner after trickling through generations of hyperbolic—and often alcoholic—relatives until fact and fiction have been distilled down beyond separation. The version recounted at my family’s table claims that during a heated debate over the Compromise of 1850, Henry Foote directed a tirade of personal insults at Missouri Senator Thomas Benton until Benton physically charged him, and Foote drew his pistol and aimed. Before he could squeeze a round off, fellow senators wrestled him to the floor, disarmed him, and locked away the gun in the vice president’s drawer. Dusting themselves off, the two senators from Missouri and Mississippi carried on the debate as before.

My predecessor’s behavior was rash, violent, and clearly unbefitting of an elected official, but when I turn on CNN and find another congressman denying immigrant or gay communities basic human rights in order to solicit votes, I can’t help but feel familial pride at Henry. Today’s elected officials care far more about being on the popular side of decisions and how their carefully constructed personas are polling than about how their actions are irrevocably impacting our nation’s future. Capitol Hill could learn a lesson from these two old senators. Thomas Benton was willing to risk his life and my forefather his distinguished career to keep the country they loved and served from descending into civil war. Since its inception, our country has been one of complicated dualities and polarizing divisions, but the true American spirit has never been about choosing sides; it’s about preserving the possibility of them.

John Biguenet

John Biguenet has published nine books, including Oyster, a novel, and The Torturer's Apprentice: Stories, released in the U.S. by Ecco/HarperCollins and widely translated, as well as Silence and The Rising Water Trilogy most recently; six of his plays have been produced nationally. His work has received an O. Henry Award for short fiction and a Harper's Magazine Writing Award among other distinctions, and his poems, stories, plays, and essays have been reprinted or cited in The Best American Mystery Stories, Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, The Best American Short Stories, Best Music Writing, The Best of the Best, Contemporary Poetry in America, Katrina on Stage, and various other anthologies. His work has appeared in such magazines as The Atlantic, Esquire, Granta, Guernica, Image, Lit Hub, The New Republic, North American Review, One Story, Oxford American, Playboy, Southern Review, Spolia (Berlin), Storie (Rome), Story, The Sun, Tin House, TriQuarterly, and Zoetrope.

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