Adams vs. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800

Booknotes ^

[Valin]

Sunday on C-SPAN at 8pm/11pm ET

Note for a preview Click on source

[Strategerist]

The low point came when Alexander Hamilton printed a devastating attack on Adams, the head of his own party, in "fifty-four pages of unremitting vilification."

One of the infinite number of reasons I get so tired of people these days bitching and moaning about negative campaigning, "attack ads," "politics of personal destruction." etc. What utter rot.

Campaigns in the 19th century were so vicious they make the worst of this campaign look like a joke.

[Publius]

Could you see Bush challenging Kerry to a duel at the Weehauken Heights? Or Zell Miller challenging Chris Matthews?

"My seconds shall call upon you on the morrow."

[Tribune7]

Or Zell Miller challenging Chris Matthews?

I could see that.

[OhGeorgia]

youre right

[MikefromOhio]

I wonder what Washington would have thought had he still been alive at the time?

[Cornpone]

Ping

[Unam Sanctam]

Not Alexander Hamilton's finest hour.

[MCH]

Hmmmm. Reading about Jefferson being a "Republican" just didn't seem right. I'd always thought he was a Democrat. So, I looked it up and discovered the following interesting tidbit from a book review of "Inventing A Nation: Washington, Adams, Jefferson" by Gore Vidal, reviewed by Thom Hartmann. It's not the same book as this, but they both refer to Jefferson as a Republican, which is misleading...

My only complaint with the book -- a minor point, really -- is that Vidal refers to Jefferson’s Democratic-Republican Party (today the longest surviving political party in world history, the Democratic Party, having dropped the "Republican" part of their name in the 1830s) by the then-common shorthand "Republican Party," which may cause confusion among readers not knowledgeable about the history of American political parties. (Vidal assumes his readers know that the modern-day Republican Party didn’t come along until decades after most of the Founders were dead, being a semi-resurrection of the Whigs, who, in turn were a semi-resurrection of the Federalists).

[Publius]

WEEHAUKEN HEIGHTS, NJ (AP) -- Noted TV commentator Chris Matthews was killed today in a duel with Sen. Zell Miller (D-GA). Miller had called Matthews "a coward, a cad and a cur" for his browbeating of noted authoress Michelle Malkin on Matthews' cable TV show last month.

A crowd of over 500 watched as Miller place a ball in Matthews' heart with his 1837 McAvoy dueling pistol.

The seconds awarded Miller both ears and the tail.

[Publius]

Jefferson called his party the Republican Party. The Federalists referred to it as the Democratic-Republican Party because in those days the word "democrat" was an epithet. It's insult value was very close to the word "communist" in the 1950's.

It was Jackson who embraced the "Democratic-" part of the name, and after the splintering of Jefferson's Republican Party, Jackson, Van Buren and Crawford dropped the Republican part altogether when the created the Democratic Party.

[chudogg]

Gore Vidal is a leftist. I'm sure he wasn't trying to hide the fact that Jefferson et al were the Party of Democrats.

[Valin]

Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle is reported to be "deeply saddened".

[hyperpoly8]

It could never happen today. The dead could not vote back then. And it would have been tough to work a deal to change their vote.

[Valin]

You and me both.

[yankeedame]

Jefferson called his party the Republican Party. The Federalists referred to it as the Democratic-Republican Party because in those days the word "democrat" was an epithet. It's insult value was very close to the word "communist" in the 1950's.

Right you are, my friend. Back in the late 1700's the word "democrat" and "democratic" was another word of Jacobin; as in French revolution Jacobin, the Reign of Terror and other assorted spin-offs from the European "Rights-of-Man" crowd.

[Tribune7]

LOL

The serious soiling of Matthews pants is believed to have occured before the shooting but just after he said "You're just kidding, Zell, right?"

[goodnesswins]

Yep....and we're still dealing with the Islamic extremists, too!

[mentor2k]

Ping