Party Poopers

What one person perceives as thinking independently, another may perceive as intellectually non-commital. For example, this often happens in religious contexts when someone holds views that diverge from traditionally accepted doctrines or official church teachings. It can also happen in the context of politics when someone doesn't think along the lines of a particular party or political philosophy. Typically, the "heretics" may characterize themselves as some sort of Socratic figures, while those that prefer to plant their feet on one side or another may see self-professed "independents" as wishy-washy, lovers of controversy and argument, or even intellectually dishonest. In her novel Middlemarch, George Eliot puts the sentiment quite elegantly in the mouth of Mrs. Cadwallader, who characterizes Mr. Brooke as "leading a roving life, and never letting his friends know his address." Mr. Brooke defends himself as simply "caring for nothing but the truth."

There are good arguments on both sides of this issue. Personally, I'll just say that I don't hide the fact that I admire and emulate Socrates. However, my point at the moment is not an all-out defense of that method. As we approach another election season, I merely want to point out that there are good reasons to disassociate oneself from the kinds of rhetoric that often characterize the conversations that people have in coffee shops, front porches, classrooms, and online communities during this time. And the thing is, I don't just believe, a priori, that if there are two or more sides to an issue, then there must be some middle ground that is better than any one side.  It is entirely possible for one side to be right.  However, in the case of conservative vs. liberal politics in the U. S., I believe that there are good reasons from history that demonstrate that, much like a see-saw, the middle ground is firmest in this particular context.

I've been reading Edward Larson's A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, America's First Presidential Campaign. This book, just like any other book that covers early American presidential politics, handily dispels the commonly-believed myth that the Founding Fathers speak with one voice to the current woes of government. We often assume that all of our problems are, at their roots, manifestations of the fact that we have veered from the path that the Founding Fathers and the Constitution set out for us. There are innumerable problems with that assumption, foremost among them the simple fact that the Constitution itself was born of vicious argument and strife, and its ratification only happened because of compromise among people who vehemently disagreed with one another at many central points. Of course, these disagreements would be the seeds of what we now call partisan politics, which many of the founders, especially Washington, believed was a corruption of government and should be avoided if it all possible.

Larson's book chronicles the 1800 presidential race between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, which gave our young nation its first taste of party ticket voting, presidential campaigning, and partisan rhetoric. One of the things I love about Larson's approach is the abundance of original quotes from the politicians involved, as well as the newspapers of the day, which I was surprised to find out were usually partisan as well. I want to provide here a select sample of these quotes that I believe demonstrate my point well enough:

“I much fear that this country is doomed to great convulsions, changes, and calamities,” Maryland Senator Charles Carroll of Carrollton, an extreme High Federalist, wrote to Hamilton in 1800. “The turbulent and disorganizing spirit of Jacobinism, under the worn out disguise of equal liberty, and rights and division of property held out as a lure to the indolent and needy, but not really intended to be executed, will introduce anarchy which will terminate here, as in France, in a military despotism.”

In private letters and conversations, Republicans began referring to Hamilton as “our Bonaparte.” “The enemies of our Constitution are preparing a fearful operation,” Jefferson warned a fellow Virginian in February 1800. “Our Bonaparte, surrounded by his comrades in arms, may step in to give us political salvation in his way.”

"It is asserted with confidence by the anti-federal party here that all your electors will vote for Mr. Jefferson as president; if such an event shall really happen, it is probable he will be chosen; of such a choice the consequences to this country may be dreadful."

“You who are for French notions of government; for the tempestuous sea of anarchy and misrule; for arming the poor against the rich; for fraternizing with the foes of God and man; go to the left and support the leaders, or the dupes, of the anti-federal junto. But you that are sober, industrious, thriving, and happy, give your votes for those men who mean to preserve the union of the states, the purity and vigor of our excellent Constitution, the sacred majesty of the laws, and the holy ordinances of religion.” Christianity means nothing to Jefferson and his friends, many articles charged: “The devil is in their hearts,” one declared.

“Merchants, your ships will be condemned to rot in your harbors for the navy which is their protection Jefferson will destroy,” a typical Federalist editorial charged. “The temples of the most high will be profaned by the impious orgies of the Goddess of Reason, personated as in France by some common prostitute.”

“Peace or war, happiness or misery, opulence or ruin! These depend on the results of the approaching election. If the friends of liberty are zealous, the system of EQUAL RIGHTS will yet flourish,” one Republican writer exclaimed. “The political happiness of America hangs suspended upon the fruit of your activity upon the present occasion,” another added. “Rise then with Republican firmness, with energy and patriotic activity, in defense of those invaluable rights for which during the Revolution you fought and bled.”

These are just a few of the ways in which Federalists and Republicans demonized one another in the years leading up to the 1800 election. Incidentally, Jefferson won the election and served two terms as our nation's third president. And yet, [shocked face], none of the Federalist-predicted consequences, such as anarchy or military despotism, actually occurred! If I may be permitted to venture a guess, I might say that had Adams been elected, we likely would not have experienced the Republican-predicted consequences of war, misery, ruin, and the trampling of individual liberties. But that's only a guess.

Here we are 212 years later, history having repeated itself every four years since, monotonously and predictably. And I don't see any reason why it won't continue to do so, but I at least want to say that you have a choice. You can choose to participate in it, or to rise above it.