Speaker's Entry: Ghosts of the Republic

Edgar Allan Poe wrote that the most terrifying monsters are those that live in our souls.

But what about the souls hiding in the halls of Congress?

The US Capitol is over 200 years old. And any building that has been around for two centuries, is full of legends and ghosts. This time of year, people flock to the pop-up houses “on the hill.” But when it comes to Washington, DC, there is only one House (and Senate) “in the House.” So let me scare you with tales of the Capitol macabre as we descend into the bowels of Congress.

Four grand staircases occupy each quadrant of the Capitol. But the steps on the southwest side of the building on the House side tell perhaps one of the worst stories in Congress.

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And we are not talking about one of the biggest costs of the omnibus.

Rep. William Taulbee, D-Ky., served in Congress in the late 19th Century. And just like today, Capitol teams have reporters, chasing lawmakers for a quote or information about legislation. But Taulbee had a problem. Journalist Charles Kincaid wrote for the Louisville Times. Kincaid wrote an article about Taulbee's game titled “Kentucky's Silver-Tongued Taulbee Caught in Flagrante or Thereabouts.”

After this article, Taulbee did not seek re-election but stuck to Washington, pushing various causes – long before “K Street” was a thing. But Taulbee and Kincaid often met at the Capitol. Taulbee was much taller than the diminutive Kincaid and sometimes physically abused the writer.

The pen may be mightier than the sword. But it's certainly not as powerful as a gun.

In February, 1890, the two men met near the House chamber. Kincaid pulled out his gun and shot the former Congressman in the face. Taulbee was bleeding profusely as he descended the marble steps.

Many lawmakers come to Washington, with the goal of leaving a mark on politics. But as it turns out, it was Taulbee's the body which left an indelible mark on the US Capitol.

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You see, the texture of human blood and the Georgian, white marble used to make the building's stairs don't mix well. Spots of Taulbee's blood covered the stairs every few feet from the second floor to the first. Some symptoms look like conditions on a Rorschach test. Taulbee died the next day from his wounds. But his plasma remains a part of the US Capitol, staining the steps forever.

Because of his fate, Taulbee doesn't think much of journalists. Even today. And it is believed that Taulbee sometimes makes himself known by tripping up members of the Congressional press corps.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited the Capitol in the summer of 2019. He had recently met with then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. However, word got out that day that the hungry Tampa Bay Rays might try to make a deal to play some of their home games in Montreal. The Montreal Expos left Canada in 2005 to become the Washington Nationals.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is a known Expos fan — there's even a photo of him and his late father, Pierre, watching them play at Montreal's Olympic Stadium in his youth. (Bettmann / Contributor via Getty Images)

Trudeau was an Expos fan. There is even a picture of Trudeau as a boy in the stands at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal with his father, the late Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.

It would be a scoop if the younger Trudeau weighed in on Major League Baseball prospects back in Montreal.

Trudeau walked down the curved stairs near where Kincaid killed Taulbee. I tried to get a comment from Trudeau. But for no apparent reason, I tripped over the lip of the step and landed in front of the Canadian leader. I didn't drop the microphone. I also knew I could break my arm or hand if I tried to hold back.

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Fortunately, I studied martial arts for years. One of the things they teach you is how to fall. I quickly adjusted my weight so I landed on my right shoulder and rolled over. My feet flew up into the air. All this was caught on tape by my photographer Robert Fetzer.

“Oh Chad! Chad! Chad! Chad,” Fetzer yelled, as I jumped right in front of Trudeau.

I was unhurt and Trudeau reached out to help me. But I just got up and stood up. Alas, Trudeau did not answer my question about the Rays and Montreal and continued on his way.

I may have had my run in with the ghost of William Taulbee when I tried to negotiate with the younger Trudeau. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP)

But there was no logical reason why I stumbled there. I have stood by those stairs hundreds of times. I have never been caught on the lip of the stairs below.

A possible explanation?

Perhaps the ghost of William Taulbee saw that I ate a teakettle in front of the Prime Minister of Canada.

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However, there is only one Capitol story that surpasses the Taulbee tripping story.

But only with a whisk.

It is a tale of a demonic cat.

Immortal cat pawprints on the Capitol floor are rumored to belong to the so-called “demon cat,” which occasionally appears in Washington to coincide with wars and assassinations. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Capitol Police and 19th-century watchmen claim to have seen a strange creature roaming the streets of the Capitol before national emergencies. Especially war and killing.

Purr-portedly.

That said, no one saw a demon cat before 9/11 or the 2021 Capitol protest.

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Perhaps a demon cat – like all cats – only has nine lives.

But I can take you to the place where the demon cat is said to have visited.

Go to the first floor of the “mini” Rotunda on the Senate side of the Capitol near the Old Supreme Court chamber. If you read against one of the columns near that room and look down, you might see a few paw prints permanently embedded in the floor. However, the light must hold the prints correctly. You can stand on the prints and never check them.

Sometimes, the most beautiful phantasms one can imagine in our nation's capital exist in the imagination – displays of great men long gone, leaving nothing but their indelible marks on American history. (Photos by Tom Williams/Roll Call/Getty Images)

A demonic cat is said to have signed his initials on the obscure Senate steps in the basement. The initials “DC” are etched into the concrete.

However, this evidence is in the interpretation. Does DC stand for “District of Columbia?” What about “direct current?” Maybe even, “Detective Jokes.”

I warned you that we would land you in the Congressional cat-acombs.

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The Capitol features a cornucopia of stories about shrill voices, late-night workers singing and even one tale of a congressman rocking in his chair, reading the law. The Capitol Rotunda and the Statuary Hall (the old House room) are full of life renderings of people, inventors, heroes and scientists. It is said that at midnight these images sometimes come alive to argue with each other.

In the House of Representatives, that is not the phrase “Special Order” but “Spectral Order.”

But sometimes the best ghosts in the Capitol are the ones you imagine. Abraham Lincoln sits at a desk in the backyard of an old house. Lyndon Johnson is pacing the Senate floor. Presidential inauguration scenes from past years at the Capitol.

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The ghosts of republicanism actually haunt the halls of Congress.

And in most cases, those phantasms are not ghosts.

They are American history.