Read on Twitter
two accounts of the inauguration of Andrew Jackson (the first held at the US Capitol) and subsequent revelries
I like the line in the second passage (from an 1829 letter of Margaret Bayard) saying Jackson was the only one without a hat because he was a "servant in the present of his sovereign, the people"
And of course one contemporary source calling the attendees a rabble and a mob, one disputing the same phrase: Fake News, it’s always been here
and here’s Lincoln’s 1865 inaugural, when the newly expanded Capitol is crammed with 10,000 “strangers and loiterers”
In 1932, a “Bonus Army” of WW1 veterans disappointed by missing payments, camped out next to the Capitol building and a baby died after being tear gassed
1901, during the funeral of McKinley, Capitol police announced the doors were open too soon-& crowd of mourners pressed at the gates,&100 people were injured.
“In a city which has had as much experience with crowds as this one, such a thing could have beeen prevented” Indeed!
“In a city which has had as much experience with crowds as this one, such a thing could have beeen prevented” Indeed!
Here’s Woodrow Wilson on the Jackson inaugural “the people had come into possession of the government” and were not to be denied “the committee rooms and chambers of the Capitol.
In the late 60s it appears there were ongoing debates about the extent of legitimate protest in the Capitol building itself, both in Congress ( https://www.google.com/books/edition/Congressional_Record/xENyPW7q2QkC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=mob++capitol+building&pg=PA27981&printsec=frontcover )and in the press, with the press pushing for looser limits to protests(which had evidently become more common.)
In 1930, hundreds of Communists were tear gassed by Capitol police
https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/hec.36099/
https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/hec.36099/
As others have noted, there is also even more substantial precedent in state capitols, from Michigan and California in the 60s to Wisconsin in 2011. Mostly left-aligned groups of course. https://mobile.twitter.com/jiggs_dinner/status/1347245057502556161
