The Capitol Police are fairly jaded about protests, but they get a bit more careful when it comes to pretending to hang a member of Congress.

As anti-abortion protesters gathered outside the Senate Thursday, a dozen police officers stood poised to make arrests if the activists went too far.

Pasting a photograph of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) onto a human-looking figure and putting a noose around its neck was OK, police told protesters. But beating it with a stick they had brought with them was not.

For Randall Terry, the longtime anti-abortion activist who led the protest, the goal was to go as far as he possibly could. 

"We are trying to be incendiary," he said. "This country was started by people who did things like this."

Terry, who has been protesting the lawmaker's vote in favor of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, has some history on his side.

Effigies have been used in political protests for centuries. In one English town , burning the images of unpopular politicians and religious leaders has become an annual ritual.

In the U.S., the first Fourth of July celebrations included effigies, and Secretary of State John Jay once said he could walk the length of the country by the light of his effigies during protests over a treaty with Britain.

Terry burned images of Democratic leaders during the health care debate, too, earning him national coverage .

But the attention-getting tactic can backfire. Hanging and burning effigies can turn away potential supporters, lead to legal action, and prompt concerns about mob violence.

Many of the people who walked by Terry's display outside a Senate building Thursday morning turned away. Media reports of similar actions earlier this week in South Carolina mentioned similar reactions there.

That's why many advocacy groups stay away from the tactic.

During the health care debate last summer, members of Americans for Prosperity attended an unaffiliated protest where a man hung an effigy of Rep. Frank Kratovil (D-Md.). The AFP activists quickly left to ensure their group would not be tied with the act.

The incident has become a legendary example among the group's activists of what not to do at a protest.

"When something like that happens, the media doesn't pick up on the message," Dave Schwartz, the group's state director, said. "They pick up on someone crazy doing something stupid."

Schwartz noted that his group wanted to work with Kravotil and convince him to vote against the health care overhaul. Hanging an effigy seemed like the wrong way of beginning that dialog.

"It's just a stupid tactic," he said. "It's an attention grabber, but it grabs negative attention."

Activists can also run into legal trouble if police officers perceive their actions to be violent.

At Terry's Capitol Hill protest, officers prevented him from using a stick he brought to beat the image of Graham. Instead, the activists slapped the image.

Six years ago, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that activists who burned effigies did not have First Amendment protections because the fire presented a hazard.

"Their claim was that there was a criminal act associated with the burning," defense attorney Terry Gilbert, who represented the activists, said.

Gilbert said he dug up information on the long history of effigy and flag burning in this country as defense for his client's actions. He came close to convincing the judges, who ruled against him 4-3.

But for the activists, who have long protested the Cleveland Indians' use of the Chief Wahoo logo , the action was a way to catch the attention of baseball fans and alert them to the cause.

"Burning an effigy was a powerful symbolic image to demonstrate their displeasure of the Wahoo and what it means," Gilbert said. "They want to destroy the image."

There's an added layer of legal peril when the effigies are of actual people.

During the 2008 presidential campaign , several people hung effigies of Barack Obama and Sarah Palin that prompted FBI investigations.

The effigies sparked a debate over whether free speech protected what could be perceived as a violent threat against the candidates. In Obama's case, the tactic also prompted concerns about racial violence by evoking Jim-Crow-era lynching.

Outside the Senate building, Terry was careful to say that it was the senator's political career — and not the man himself – that he wanted to see hung.

"We don't want Senator Graham to fear for his safety," he said. "We want him to fear for his political career."

Ambreen Ali writes for Congress.org.

Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.