Gil Troy: The Mudslingers
[Gil Troy is a professor of history at McGill University. His next book, “Leading From the Center: Why Moderates Make the Best Presidents,” will be published in the spring.]
"Politics are such a torment that I would advise every one I love not to mix with them.” That’s what Thomas Jefferson wrote to his daughter Martha during the 1800 presidential campaign. Jefferson’s warning captures the delicious anguish of both professional politicians and the American electorate with regard to politicking. A presidential campaign may be American democracy’s most defining yet most controversial proceeding.
A look at how the framers acted should calm today’s grumbling about the 2008 campaign’s excessive length and bruising partisanship. Examining Jefferson, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr during the critical 1800 election, the historian Edward Larson, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his book on the Scopes trial, both deifies and debunks the founders in “A Magnificent Catastrophe.” As he shows, they pummeled one another, inventing many of the dirty tactics that are all too familiar to modern voters. Admiring their talents, if not their morals, Larson declares: “They could write like angels and scheme like demons.”
Larson considers the 1800 election “America’s first presidential campaign” — the first hard-fought two-party contest. Washington wafted into the presidency twice and nurtured an elite-oriented consensus politics. When he retired, this approach yielded the odd coupling of Adams as president and Jefferson as vice president....
Read entire article at NYT Book Review
"Politics are such a torment that I would advise every one I love not to mix with them.” That’s what Thomas Jefferson wrote to his daughter Martha during the 1800 presidential campaign. Jefferson’s warning captures the delicious anguish of both professional politicians and the American electorate with regard to politicking. A presidential campaign may be American democracy’s most defining yet most controversial proceeding.
A look at how the framers acted should calm today’s grumbling about the 2008 campaign’s excessive length and bruising partisanship. Examining Jefferson, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr during the critical 1800 election, the historian Edward Larson, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his book on the Scopes trial, both deifies and debunks the founders in “A Magnificent Catastrophe.” As he shows, they pummeled one another, inventing many of the dirty tactics that are all too familiar to modern voters. Admiring their talents, if not their morals, Larson declares: “They could write like angels and scheme like demons.”
Larson considers the 1800 election “America’s first presidential campaign” — the first hard-fought two-party contest. Washington wafted into the presidency twice and nurtured an elite-oriented consensus politics. When he retired, this approach yielded the odd coupling of Adams as president and Jefferson as vice president....