Free Republic

In the American imagination, the founding era shimmers as the golden age of political discourse, a time when philosopher-kings strode the public stage, dispensing wisdom with gentle civility. We prefer to believe that these courtly figures, with their powdered hair and buckled shoes, showed impeccable manners in their political dealings. The appeal of this image seems obvious at a time when many Americans lament the partisan venom and character assassination that have permeated the political process. Unfortunately, this anodyne image of the early republic can be quite misleading. However hard it may be to picture the founders resorting to rough-and-tumble...

You could say politics has reached a new low with the ‘‘small hands’’ remarks from the Republican debate. But the exchange over the size of Donald Trump’s, um, hands is merely the most recent vulgarity in American politics. The history of crude remarks goes back to the Founding Fathers. In the 18th century, John Adams called Alexander Hamilton a ‘‘bastard brat’’ and wrote that Hamilton had ‘‘a superabundance of secretions which he could not find whores enough to draw off,’’ according to historian Ron Chernow. One difference between then and now: ‘‘These were words written or spoken in private, not...