![Cartoon drawing of fight between Senators Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri and Henry Foote of Mississippi on the Senate floor.](/artandhistory/history/resources/graphic/xlarge/BentonFight.jpg)
A somewhat tongue-in-cheek dramatization of the moment during the heated debate in the Senate over the admission of California as a free state when Mississippi senator Henry S. Foote drew a pistol on Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri.
credit: Library of Congress