CURRENT AMERICAN POLITICS AREN'T THE MOST VIOLENT AND UGLY IN U.S. HISTORY

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

 

Think American politics are nasty today? That’s nothing compared to the violent 1800s | Opinion

BY PATRICK TUOHEY REGULAR OPINION CORRESPONDENT

UPDATED MAY 30, 2024 4:41 PM

 

The 2024 presidential campaign is full of drama, and pundits left and right say this is the worst we’ve ever seen — either in action, tone or pettiness.

 

It isn’t, by far.

 

Since our founding, American politics has been rough and tumble — even downright nasty. Voters were told in 1800 that Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, would destroy the country and openly promote prostitution, incest and adultery. Jefferson’s opponent, John Adams? Dubbed, “His Rotundity” and accused of wanting to start a kingly dynasty.

 

Things weren’t any gentler in Congress, where verbal altercations between Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Marjorie Taylor Greene seem almost quaint compared to the legislature’s violent history.

 

A duel claimed Alexander Hamilton in 1804, but that didn’t stop the practice among legislators. Representatives often carried guns and knives onto the House floor, and in 1838, Rep. William Graves of Kentucky shot Maine Rep. Jonathan Cilley to death in a duel.

 

Congress banned dueling in 1839, but the violence didn’t end.

 

In 1856, Preston “Bully” Brooks, a representative from South Carolina, attacked Massachusetts Sen. Charles Sumner with a gold-tipped walking cane. The attack, in response to Sumner’s speeches against South Carolina’s senator during debates over whether Kansas should be admitted a slave state or free, was brutal. It took Sumner three years to recover.

 

Accusations of election cheating, also a near-daily occurrence in the current cycle, have a rich history as well. In 1824, Andrew Jackson won the popular vote but none of the four candidates had a majority of the Electoral College, so the election went to the House of Representatives. There, Speaker Henry Clay, who had been a candidate for president as well, had his electors pledge themselves to John Quincy Adams. Upon Adams’ swearing in, he appointed Clay to be secretary of state. You can imagine the howls over the “corrupt bargain” from Jackson’s supporters.

 

Our forefathers couldn’t be counted on to take the high road, either.

 

John C. Calhoun, a senator from South Carolina, is the only man to serve as vice president to two presidents back when the position was given to whoever got the second-most votes. As vice president to Andrew Jackson, Calhoun battled with Secretary of State Martin Van Buren for the president’s favor. When Jackson appointed Van Buren as ambassador to England in 1831, Calhoun’s supporters lobbied both for and against Van Buren to engineer a tie — the only way Calhoun could cast his vote against “Old Kinderhook.”

 

According to “Hero Of Two Worlds,” Mike Duncan’s biography of Gilbert du Motier the Marquis de Lafayette, a bit earlier in 1824, some of Lafayette’s entourage encountered “hard-core Jacksonian partisans in the Pennsylvania militia who threatened to take up arms if their man lost.” After Jackson was defeated, those same Pennsylvania partisans demurred when asked if they were prepared to make good on their threat of violence. They responded, “we went, in truth, to great lengths, but our opponents disregarded it and acted properly. Now that it is settled, all we have to do is obey. We will support Adams as zealously as if he were our candidate, but at the same time keep a close watch on his administration. … Four years is soon past, and the consequences of a bad election are easily obviated.”

 

Violence erupted a few decades later when Abraham Lincoln was elected as a Republican, the party that replaced the Whigs. Democratic states in the South, fearing Lincoln would abolish slavery, seceded and took up arms. More than 600,000 Americans died.

 

Despite hand-wringing about a civil war on Fox News and MSNBC, we are nowhere near where we were in the 1860s. The 2024 election will likely be filled with as much pettiness, name-calling and threats of violence as any prior. That’s politics. The rest of us should act as honorably as those Pennsylvania Jacksonians did in 1824: Fight for our candidates, respect results and vow to do it all over again in 2028.

 

Patrick Tuohey is co-founder of Better Cities Project, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit focused on municipal policy solutions, and a senior fellow at the Show-Me Institute, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to Missouri state policy work.

 

This story was originally published May 30, 2024, 9:57 AM.