[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.

[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).

[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.

[nicollo]

The greater legacy of the 1800 election is how it led to the ascendency of the Supreme Court in Marbury v. Madison.

Marbury was among the last-minute Adams' administration appointments that was not executed fully, and thus left on the incoming Sec. State's desk, Madison. Madison, of course, refused, and Marbury sued.

Marshall, who was Adams' Sec. State, who was the very one who was to have delivered Marbury's commission, and who was now Chief Justice -- appointed by Adams -- ruled that Madison was right not to deliver Marbury's appointment, but not because Madison had any right to deny Marbury, but because Marbury's case was built upon a law that was unconstitutional. It was an entirely counter-intuitive move and politically brilliant: Marshall conceded the battle to Madison and Jefferson, as regards the appointments, and stomped them silly in the war, having created the supremacy of judicial review.

[hershey]

Oh, boy! I'll be there with bells on! Thanks for the tip. Really great viewing.

[NTNgod]

Jefferson's election, John Ferling concludes, consummated the American Revolution, assuring the democratization of the United States and its true separation from Britain.

So this new book is basically a full-length treatment of the last few chapters of Ferling's A Leap In The Dark?

I just finished reading A Leap In The Dark a week or so ago....