If you think America...

...is polarized today, you should read Those Angry Days, by Lynne Olson, about the run-up to World War II and the division in the country between the isolationists and the interventionists.

From a chapter on America's first peacetime draft (my emphasis):

In the House, the fight turned physical; once again, it involved two Democrats. After Rep. Martin Sweeney of Ohio delivered a scathing attack on the Roosevelt administration for allegedly using conscription as a way to get the United States into the war, Rep. Beverly Vincent of Kentucky, who was next to Sweeney, loudly muttered that he refused "to sit by a traitor." Sweeney swung at Vincent, who responded with a sharp right to the jaw that sent Sweeney staggering. It was, said the House doorkeeper, the best punch thrown by a member of Congress in fifty years.

At least no one in the tea party has taken a swing at anyone -- yet.

P. S. How would you like to have to tell everyone that the guy who sucker-punched you was named "Beverly"?