Here is an instance. On the 13th of February, 1837, R. M. Whitney was arraigned before the House of Representatives for contempt, in refusing to attend, when required, before a committee investigating the administration of the Executive office. His excuse was, that “he could not attend without exposing himself thereby to outrage and violence” in the committee-room; and on examination at the bar of the House, Mr. Fairfield, a member of the Committee, afterward a member of this body, and Governor of Maine, testified to the actual facts. It appeared that Mr. Peyton, a Slave-Master from Tennessee, and a member of the Committee, regarding a certain answer in writing by Mr. Whitney to an interrogatory propounded by him as offensive, broke out in these words: “Mr. Chairman, I wish you to inform this witness that he is not to insult me in his answers; if he does, God damn him, I will take his life upon the spot!” Mr. Wise, another Slave-Master, from Virginia, Chairman of the Committee, and latterly Governor of Virginia, then intervened, saying, “Yes, this damned insolence is insufferable.” The witness, thereupon rising, claimed the protection of the Committee; on which Mr. Peyton exclaimed: “God damn you, you shan’t speak; you shan’t say a word while you are in this room; if you do, I will put you to death!” Soon after, Mr. Peyton, observing that the witness was looking at him, cried out: “Damn him, his eyes are on me; God damn him, he is looking at me; he shan’t do it; damn him, he shan’t look at me!” These things, and much more, disclosed by Mr. Fairfield, in reply to interrogatories in the House, were confirmed by other witnesses; and Mr. Wise himself, in a speech, made the admission that he was armed with deadly weapons, saying: “I watched the motion of that right arm [of the witness], the elbow of which could be seen by me; and had it moved one inch, he had died on the spot. That was my determination.” All this will be found in the thirteenth volume of the “Congressional Debates,” with the evidence in detail, and the discussion thereupon.