We all saw the national news coverage of Senator Markwayne Mullin jumping up and wanting to fight the president of the Teamsters Union during a Senate Hearing. The Chairperson of that committee, Senator Bernie Sanders, repeatedly admonished Mullin to remember that he was a U. S. Senator and told him to sit down (Oklahoma.com/ story/news/2023/11/15/sen-markwayne- mullin-oklahoma-defendsfight- as-showing-oklahoma-valuessean- hannity-fox-news/).
Mullin’s behavior reminded me of the many times I sent elementary and middle-school boys to the principal’s office for their behaving the exact same way.
Markwayne attempted to justify his behavior on the Sean Hannity Fox program. “If I didn’t do that [offer to fight] people in Oklahoma would be pretty upset at me. I represent Oklahoma values” (Oklahoma. com/story/news/2023/11/15).
Many Oklahomans would refute his claim that his challenge to fistfight exemplifies their own values.
He then referred to Andrew Jackson’s dueling several times. Mullin could not have picked a worse example. Jackson challenged Charles Dickenson to duel with pistols on May 30, 1806.
Andrew’s pistol misfired (common with single shot flintlock guns). Dickenson’s shot wounded Jackson, who then cocked his pistol again and fired at Dickenson, killing him.
According to the accepted rules of dueling at that time, code duello, Jackson should not have been allowed to fire again. By so doing, he killed a defenseless man (Constitutioncenter. org/blog/settling-scoresthe- duels-of-our-forefathers).
Senator Mullin said, “There have been canings before, too.” He explained his feelings about physical violence by concluding, “Maybe we should bring some of that back, you know, keep people from thinking they’re so tough” (Oklahoma.com/ story).
The caning of Senator Charles Sumner by Representative Preston Brooks in 1856 stands as a black mark in Congressional history. Sumner was an outspoken abolitionist in the pre-Civil-War days. Brooks was an ardent proponent of slavery. While Senator Sumner was writing at his desk in the Capitol, Brooks came up behind him and started beating him on the head with a heavy cane that had a gold knob (Gene Smith, High Crimes and Misdemeanors, New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1977, pp. 18-22).
Brooks kept beating Sumner even after he became unconscious, gripping his lapel. He continued after the cane had shattered. It was more than three years before Senator Sumner could return to work.
Women from the South sent canes to Representative Brooks. Rings were made from the splintered pieces of Brook’s cane and worn by Southern proslavery congresspeople (Stephen Puelo, The Caning: The Assault That Drove America to Civil War, Yardley, PA: Westholme Publishing, 2013, pp 102,114-115).
Further, Mullin’s choice of Andrew Jackson as an example for us to follow was inappropriate, in my view, because of his treatment of Indigenous Americans and his Black slaves. Andrew Jackson owned more than 100 slaves. These made Jackson’s Hermitage Plantation very prosperous.
The way Andrew Jackson treated those poor slaves reveals a brutal character trait nobody should emulate. For example, he placed the following ad in a Nashville, Tennessee, newspaper: “FIFTY DOLLARS REWARD. Eloped from the subscriber, living near Nashville, on the 25th of June last, a Mulatto Man Slave, about thirty years old, six feet and an inch high, stout made and active, talks sensible, stoops in his walk, and has a remarkable large foot, broad across the root of the toes….”
The advertisement continued, “And Ten Dollars Extra, for Every Hundred Lashes Any Person Will Give Him, to the Amount of Three Hundred” (jstor.org).
A ruthless public whipping of a Black woman who “behaved uppity” is also part of Andrew Jackson’s legacy.
Senator Mullin is a member of the Cherokee tribe and should know about Andrew Jackson’s brutal actions against Native Americans. His battles resulted in the Creeks having to cede 1.9 million acres of their traditional homeland in Alabama and Georgia. This region was also shared as hunting grounds of the Cherokee. Another part of Jackson’s unconscionable treatment of Native Americans was the Indian Removal Act, signed by him. That law authorized the Trail of Tears, which uprooted members of several Indigenous tribes and moved them by enforced march from their homes to other “assigned” lands (Britannica, History and Society, Creek War, United States History).
Has Senator Mullin forgotten all that?
Does he truly stand for the best of Oklahoma values? He claims to be a Christian.
But true followers of Christ Jesus attempt to pattern their lives after His examples and teachings. The Sermon on the Mount is the bedrock of Christian living. Jesus tells us how to react to a violent person: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matt. 5:38-39, Revised Standard Version).
The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 12:14-19 about how we should live peaceful, compassionate lives: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay, says the Lord” (V. 19).
When reading the Sermon on the Mount, can we see Markwayne Mullin there? Or should we see him as an unruly child who needs to be put in “time out”?