Dirtiest Election Ever: July 4th Battle of the Titans

Thomas Jefferson. John Adams. Comrades in the revolutionary struggle. Friends. Allies. Not in 1800.

In 1800 they squared off against one another in what many historians rate as the dirtiest election ever. They were the public face of the newly minted political parties; Adams for the Federalists and Jefferson for the Republicans. They were locked in a battle with few rules and fewer scruples.

But that wasn't always the case. In 1776 they were members of the historic Continental Congress. They were ahead of many of their contemporaries in realizing the need to break from Britain. Although Jefferson was relatively new to the Congress and Adams was a seasoned veteran, Adams recognized the talents of Jefferson immediately. They were designated a committee along with Ben Franklin to draft a document for the Congress to declare independence. Adams immediately suggested Jefferson pen the draft for them to review.


The rest, as they say, is history. Jefferson penned the document, the Congress did a little editing, and then they members signed. The official signing date was set for July 4, 1776 and has been celebrated ever since. Adams believed the day should be marked with fireworks and celebrations and tonight I'll be off to watch some locally and listen to my husband play in the Greater Miami Symphonic Band. It will be a joyous celebration.

But there is another anniversary to notice today. After many years of close friendship and public service, Jefferson and Adams entered our first federal government in 1788. Adams became George Washington's Vice President and Jefferson Secretary of State. The slow unraveling of a long relationship began as they drifted to different ends of the political spectrum. By the third national election in 1796, the proto-parties had emerged and with some maneuvering behind the scenes by Alexander Hamilton, Adams, the Federalist, became president while Jefferson, the Republican, became Vice President. The split became complete and set the stage for the battle of titans in 1800.

With Jefferson's victory, Adams infamously lit out of town early on inauguration day to avoid formally passing the reigns of government to his bitter foe. And so the animosity festered below the surface for years. Almost a decade later, their mutual friend Benjamin Rush began a quiet campaign to reunite the former friends. For the last years of their lives they renewed that relationship forged in the crucible of the Revolution and wrote a series of letters not just for one another but for us. In the process, the terrible memories of the 1790s and early 1800s fell away, and a remarkable friendship emerged again. They talked history, politics, farming, and aging. These letters should be required reading for every citizen. There is no better insight into the minds of two of the revolutionary brotherhood.

But here's where truth is stranger than fiction. In 1826 both titans turned down requests to speak at the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence celebrations. Both replied they were ill and not feeling well. As the day drew near, both men took to their beds, terminally ill. Jefferson drifted in and out of consciousness. Sometime in the early hours of July 4th he seemed to rally and asked, "Is it the 4th yet?" Adams woke briefly in the afternoon and said, "Jefferson still lives." But Jefferson was already gone and Adams joined him.

After an almost life-long relationship with its depths and heights, these two extraordinary founders of the republic died exactly 50 years after bringing the founding document into existence and more importantly dedicating themselves to founding our country. You cannot make this stuff up.

So are there any lessons for leaders, for politician, for individuals? Perhaps only one: Do not allow politics or other such foolishness to separate you from other people. Friendship - true relationships - are more important than ideology and other inanities. If Jefferson and Adams could survive the dirtiest election ever and reconnect, there is some hope for our own fractured country.

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What's your idea: Do you have friends and do you maintain relationships with people you disagree with in politics? Please post your comments.
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©Rebecca Staton-Reinstein,  http://advantageleadership.com/section/Our_Team/3/ president, Advantage Leadership, Inc.  Http://www.AdvantageLeaership.com
Want to know more about the tumultuous fights at the Constitutional Convention and the election of 1800? Check out Conventional Wisdom: How Today's Leaders Plan, Perform, and Progress Like the Founding Fathers http://advantageleadership.com/section/Conventional_Wisdom/17/

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Don't know much about historeeee...

You may not remember the old pop song with that refrain but it could be the theme song of way too many people. My sister called the other night and told me about a meeting she went to in her town. The discussion got pretty hot and heavy and one woman pulled out her pocket-sized copy of the Constitution and waved it around as she made her points, disagreeing with whatever was being said.

Now my sister is not the shy retiring type that I am -  ;-)  - and so she asked her, "Did you actually read the Constitution?" "Well, no...but I know what it says..." and went on with her harangue, misquoting and mangling the document -- rhetorically not physically.

To my sister and me, it was a reminder us of being dragged off to tent revivals by our grammaw where various lay preachers would thump the good book, tell us what it said, and threaten us if we doubted them.

The problem with the thumpers is that in the words of the founding fathers, the constitution, or the bible or other holy books, you can cherry pick phrases that agree with your beliefs and ignore those that don't. If your audience doesn't know any better and hasn't studied the details themselves, you can say just about anything. Psychologist know that if the idea is repeated often enough, you will come to believe if, even when faced with hard facts to the contrary.

Here's an example from a letter to USA Today (7/1/10) from a writer commenting on the passing of Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia.

Our Founding Fathers did not intend congressional positions to be life-long ones. They felt that it was the duty of our leaders to give of their time and manage their states temporarily, and that this was in the best interests of their constituents...

We have senators...[who] have become professional politicians.

He goes on to support term limits AND age limits.

There are many good arguments for and against term limits...but how the founding fathers "felt" is not among them. There were among the founders those who saw it as their duty (or privilege) to serve in government for a while and then return to private life. George Washington is a good example.

But not all the "fathers" followed that path nor believed it was the best path. Three examples from three different political philosophies come to mind. Patrick Henry was one of the most powerful professional politicians in Virginia and served in a variety of positions in the state including the governorship. He was a strong "states rights" defender and foe of the new federal Constitution because it removed the absolute power of the states.

John Adams started out as a lawyer but was soon drawn into the Continental Congress and became a professional politician, serving as a representative in the Continental Congress, and as a diplomat in France and England. With the establishment of the new federal government he became Vice President and then President. He was a Federalist and only left office when defeated by Jefferson in the election of 1800.

James Madison beginning in his mid-twenties was only out of public office for a couple of years. He served in county and state legislatures, the Continental Congress, worked with Alexander Hamilton and Ben Franklin to engineer the Constitutional Convention, served in the new Congress, was Secretary of State under Jefferson, and finally served as a two-term president. Although starting out with a strong nationalist/federalist bent, he moved away from this by Washington's second term and worked along side Jefferson to found the Republican Party (which later morphed into the Democratic Party.)

My point is that the letter writer didn't know some basic history, which he could have discovered in a  history book, on the web, or (in the olden days) in school. But that seems too hard. I recently set my Google Alerts to look for references to the Founding Fathers -- everybody adopts them to prove their points. I'm on a quest to confront ignorance with facts.

The founding fathers were as complex, complicated, and conniving as any modern politician or leader. They were humans. They had their points of greatness and their follies. We should admire them, not because we can find some words they uttered that fit our political views but because of what they did, sometimes in spite of themselves, to create a system of government that works and is self-correcting through the will of the people.

Before you adopt their words to prove yourself right, read the entire body of their work. Learn what books they were reading and what philosophers influenced their thinking. Know what was going on in the wider world and in their world.

Learn a little more about historeeeee....

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(c) Rebecca Staton-Reinstein, President , Advantage Leadership, Inc.

Want to know a little more about historeee and contemporary leaders? Check out Conventional Wisdom: How Today's Leaders Plan, Perform, and Progress Like the Founding Fathers. Available on Amazon.

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Feudin', Fightin' & Fussin' on the Fourth

I'm sick of it! Right Wingers, Left Wingers, and No Wingers...Get your facts straight...or I'll call down the wrath of Founding Fathers Past!

Got your attention? Here's what set me off on this beautiful 4th of July holiday...everybody trying to appropriate our founding fathers and mothers for their own purposes...Prove your point with logic, facts, and reason or get off the stage. (See my special offer at the end.)

What folks say: Politics are more divisive than ever...there was a time when we used to disagree without being disagreeable...viciousness in opposing parties is something new...let's bring back civility...

Folks, here's the fact...we have never been a country of sedate, soothing debate. Our founding fathers and mothers were brilliant and courageous but when it came to politics, it was no holds barred. The point was (as it still is) to prevail. They didn't cuss as much, but they were not above sexual innuendo, lying, or character assassination when it came to political opponents.

Ron Chernow (author of the excellent biography, Alexander Hamilton) wrote a delightful article in the Wall Street Journal. It starts,

Americans lament the partisan venom of today's politics, but for sheer verbal savagery, the country's founders were in a league of their own.

Chernow points out, "Despite their erudition, integrity, and philosophical genius, the founders were fiery men who expressed their beliefs with unusual vehemence." They didn't stop at criticizing one another’s politics; their barbs were often personal.

John Adams called Hamilton the "bastard son of a Scotch peddler," while James Callender exposed Hamilton's affair with his friend’s wife. Newspaper man Samuel Adams, seen as a great patriot in his own day and ours, was not above the fray. "Truth was his first victim...To radicalize the populace Adams had adopted a total disregard for it. In his writings he employed slanderous lies, unvarnished propaganda, and rabble-rousing rhetoric. He whipped the people of Massachusetts and many other colonies into an anti-British fury."

The favored form of political trash talk was the pamphlet and newspaper column, written under classical Roman pseudonyms or derived from clever puns. They hammered away at one another with great relish and no restraints. They would have embraced Tweeting and Blogging as great inventions and set out with glee to rip one another apart.

Thomas Jefferson, whose stirring prose in the Declaration of Independence animates this 4th of July and embodies our most noble ideals, shrunk from doing his own dirty work. As the formation of our first parties heated up, (Hamilton headed the Federalists and Jefferson, the Republicans) he called on his buddy, Jemmy Madison, "'For God's sake, my dear Sir, take up your pen, select the most striking heresies, and cut him (Hamilton) to pieces in the face of the public.' When Madison rose to the challenge, he sneered in print that the only people who could read Hamilton's essays with pleasure were 'foreigners and degenerate citizens among us.'" Jefferson who applauded Callender's attacks on Hamilton was not so enthusiastic when Callender turned on him exposing his affair with "dusky Sally," his slave and half-sister of his deceased wife. (quote from Chernow)

In the records of debates in the Constitutional Convention and state ratifying conventions, the rhetoric escalates, with wild accusations flying that might make some of our media mavens of mayhem blush. Remember, this was an era when people would be called to the "field of honor" (challenged to a duel) for an implied slight. Calling someone a liar to his face was such a justification. Listen to this exchange during the debate over the power of large states and small. Gunning Bedford, a "fat, tempestuous delegated from Delaware" drags his bulk in front of the delegates and in a frenzied harangue spits out, "I do not, gentlemen, trust you. If you possess the power, the abuse of it could not be checked; and what then would prevent you from exercising it to our destruction?...Is it come to this, then, that the sword must decide this controversy, and the horrors of war must be added to the rest of our misfortunes?..Sooner than be ruined, there are foreign powers who will take us by the hand."

Madison, one of the most brilliant debaters and politicians of the era, summed it up, "If men were angles, no government would be necessary." The debates roiling the late 18th and early 19th century were fierce. Federalists and Republicans accused one another of treason. They could turn on former allies over night. Madison and Hamilton engineered the Constitution Convention and co-authored the Federalist Papers (with contributions from John Jay) in its defense. Madison pushed Hamilton's financial reforms through Congress. (He twisted enough arms behind the scenes to secure passage so he could argue and vote against it in public to maintain his constituents back home. Sound familiar yet?) After the new parties formed, Madison assailed his former ally, never missing a chance to paint him in ignoble terms.

I don't like the partisan bickering, shouting, and backbiting. AND I admire Hamilton, Jefferson, Adam, Madison, and the framers and founders. My gripe is about our lack of historical knowledge, our tendency to make stuff up, and the habit of partisans of every stripe to lie to defend their cause. Let's face the brutal facts -- ones we like and ones we don't -- and debate with a goal of coming to consensus or close to it.

That was Washington's great desire. He truly hated the partisan wrangling, the unbridled press, and the inability of people to rise above their passions. Though he occasionally fell victim to his own monumental temper, mostly he was that wise, impartial leader we all admire. So on this wonderful 4th of July, while we're barbecuing, watching fireworks, or hitting the mall, let’s ask ourselves this: Am I following along in our country's long tradition of bashing and demonizing those with whom I disagree, or am I trying to follow Washington's advice and have "restraint in tongue and pen?" If you are going to evoke the founders and framers, read some real history and get it right!

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® Rebecca Staton-Reinstein (all quotes fully cited in Conventional Wisdom except one about Sam Adams from Eric Burn’s Infamous Scribblers.