BY G.C. STOPPEL
Few hold party politics and politicians in high esteem. Campaigns grow longer and more expensive and polarization fiercer. Consensus and compromise are no longer goals; they are dirty words.
The last presidential election was packed with negative ads and brutal. Worse, we know that the cycle will start long before the 2026 elections. I am certain the news and social media will poke all the candidates, the better to stir things up and get stories.
Little wonder we look to the distant past and wish everyone would get along like they did in the good old days.
Next year, in addition to national elections, our country will celebrate its 250th birthday. In the coming months, we’ll devote more time to studying our past to understand better where we are today.
April 19 this year will mark the anniversary of the morning after Paul Revere’s ride and The Shot Heard ‘Round the World rang out that started the battles of Concord and Lexington.
With that in mind, the Sons of the American Revolution have been producing short videos and podcasts about the politicians of this era. Suffice it to note it is not the romantic history of Longfellow’s poem.
There was nothing mythic about the realities of that war.The political climate of colonial America was as toxic as it is today.
Joseph Ellis’s book “Founding Brothers” — which would have us believe that Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton and others got along likr choir boys having tea with their bishop — was malarkey.
The real story is that they argued almost every point in trying to work with the British government. Then, just as now, they let themselves to be distracted.
Some thought compromise with London was a good idea; others that the only way to resolve the differences was to declare war. And when they weren’t opposing the British, they were at each other’s throats over slavery, the economy and who should be leading the military.
Franklin, Adams and Jefferson were assigned the job of writing what became our Declaration of Independence. They focused on the job, but quickly grew to despise each other. Adams hated Jefferson, Jefferson did not like Franklin and Franklin thought Adams was a brilliant but sour old puritan.
Other delegates to the Continental Congress turned on Caesar Romney of Delaware, claiming that his health (he had cancer of the jaw) prohibited him from carrying his share of the workload and that he drank too much. Apparently others did, too, because the biggest expense of the delegates was their bar bill.
Not all were impressed with George Washington, and there were several attempts to demote and replace him. Some of Washington’s own generals attempted to undermine him so they could get the job.
Benedict Arnold was so frustrated he switched sides to join the British. Aaron Burr hated Hamilton and later killed him in a duel. Somehow, they muddled through.
Skip ahead a few years to the Constitutional Convention of 1787. The loose Confederation of States was not working and eventually there was consensus the country needed a strong central government.
Delegates worked at it, but they fought each other all the while they invented a new form of government.
Who we today view as Founding Fathers could be rude and petty. Jefferson had designed and built the magnificent Monticello for his home in Virginia. Just down the hill from him, James Madison owned land and wanted to build his home, Montpelier.
Jefferson had earned a reputation as an architect, so Madison asked for some help with the plans. That must have been a surprise because the two were political rivals.
Jefferson got cheap revenge by designing the doorway in Montpelier facing Jefferson’s unusually low, so that Madison had to bow down to get through without bumping his head. The insult was not lost on James and Dolly.
Once Washington was elected President, he started acquiring enemies. Several members of his cabinet thought he was too stiff, formal and imperialistic. They were horrified when he raised a regiment to march on western New York during the Whiskey Rebellion. By the second term, his detractors were complaining that he was too old and unfocused to hold office.
Washington retired after two terms, John Adams became President, with Thomas Jefferson the VP. The two hated each other, and by the time Jefferson defeated Adams four years later they were not speaking to each other.
Adams was such a sore loser that he and Mrs. A left the White House in the middle of the night to avoid seeing Jefferson take the Oath of Office. Years passed before they exchanged letters.
Nothing has really changed in the 250 years since then. When we go from one President and legislative branch to the next, we see an endless round of squabbles and duplicity. Only the names and topics seem to change.
As for the accusation that a president is usurping too much power, no one gave the Senate. House and Democrats, more anxiety than Theodore Roosevelt. When Congress refused to protect wild life areas all across the country, TR outmaneuvered them by signing one executive order after another to create wildlife preserves from coast to coast.
Fortunately, there have been brief moments where there is compromise. Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn accomplished it when he invited Sens. Everett Dirksen and Lyndon Johnson to stop by his back room, the Board of Education, as he called it, to share a bottle of prime sipping whiskey.
Mr. Sam would get the two senators and a few members House members slightly buzzed, then tell them to quit fighting and do something productive for the good of the nation. Often as not, they compromised and the country moved forward.
There is a take home lesson for all of us in our history of politicians and their wrangling. As long as they were arguing or even raising their voices, there was conversation, keeping the hope alive that our country would survive.
Democracy is based on it, whereas dictatorships are based on fearful silence. Let today’s crop of office holders shout and sputter away, inventing creative insults and more. It is a good thing. There is still hope for the future of our country.
