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A Magnificent Catastrophe (2007)

door Edward J. Larson

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The 1800 presidential election, the last great contest of the founding period, was so convulsive and so momentous for American democracy that Jefferson would later dub it "America's second revolution." America's first true presidential campaign gave birth to our two-party system and etched the lines of partisanship that have shaped American politics ever since. The contest featured two of our most beloved Founding Fathers, once warm friends, facing off as the heads of their two still-forming parties--the hot-tempered but sharp-minded John Adams, and the eloquent yet enigmatic Thomas Jefferson. Blistering accusations flew: Adams and his elitist Federalists would squelch liberty and impose a British-style monarchy; Jefferson and his radically democratizing Republicans would throw the country into chaos and debase the role of religion in American life. Historian Larson vividly re-creates the tension as Congress was forced to meet in closed session to resolve the outcome.--From publisher description.… (meer)
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Toon 5 van 5
Larson's book was published in 2007, but it's never seemed more timely.

An election that bitterly divided the American people? That ended in a disputed fashion? One marked by bitter division among party elites that helped to undermine the candidates? One ticket composed of an experienced, ideologically consistent steady hand and a cipher seen as malleable, ambitious and unreliable? Vitriolic personal attacks? Nasty, sometimes factually iffy partisan news articles being shared around the country? Concern that candidates might be beholden to the interests of foreign countries? Predictions that the wrong outcome could destroy the nation? A campaign that seemed to go on forever, starting well more than a year before the final votes were cast in November?

These are just a few of the parallels that leap to mind between what Larson dubs "America's first presidential campaign" and the bizarre 2016 campaign. The two elections aren't one-to-one comparisons, of course, but understanding history can help put the present into much-needed perspective.

It's also striking how modern much of it FEELS, aside from the specific (and often superficial) parallels to a specific election. Despite the major cultural differences between 2016 and 1800, the candidates and political operatives behave recognizably. There are no polls, but newspapers at the time still engaged in political prognostication: predicting which states will go to which candidate (which map colors for Jefferson and Adams?) and how many electors. Operatives plot and scheme. Aaron Burr single-handedly invents political canvassing. Political junkies earnestly follow the latest developments. Pastors fulminate about the decline of America and godless candidates — who genuinely exist. There are debates about whether one side's maneuver is intended as a deliberate provocation and such whether it should be ignored or responded to in kind. People debate to what degree ends justify the means. Many other books about this time period, for good reason, highlight the different mindsets: the affairs of honor, the Roman Republican ideals, limited views on the role and capabilities of women and blacks. But this book does a good job of highlighting the similarities — human nature may change, but slowly.

The book is well-researched and well-written on top of that, a breezy read I finished in two days. The author is generally sympathetic to Jefferson and Adams and not to Hamilton and Burr; Hamilton's faction of "High Federalists" in particular come as close to villains as any in Larson's book. (His decision to label them as "conservatives" seemed an odd, a-historic choice that at best only partially described the Hamiltonian party — but that's a rare quibble in an otherwise enjoyable book.) Certainly anyone lamenting how politics has degenerated from disinterested debates of yesteryear to today's partisan mudslinging should chapters like "Caucuses and Calumny." ( )
  dhmontgomery | Dec 13, 2020 |
If you believe that we have partisan elections today then you must read this book to see what was happenning at the beginning of this country. It is interesting to read that many issues involved in 1800 are still with us today. There was much more back room dealing than we have today. The partisanship is just as bad and the influence of money and power is similar. This book is a good look at the election and how the electoral college had its flaws and detractors even then. ( )
1 stem foof2you | Apr 5, 2015 |
This book is fascinating but...
1) It is repetitive, probably since the author believes that the reader will have to be reminded of events and people which have already been described. Probably this is true in many cases, but I found the repetition a bit boring.
2) It makes excessive use of cliches.
3) It is depressing because it suggests very strongly that presidential elections then were like presidential elections now, driven more by perception than by actuality.

However, it is also funny and teaches us that the political parties were just as hostile and likely to engage in personal attacks as they are today. The various churches were always eager to get into the political fray, just as they are today. And the way they went about it was just as ludicrous as it is today. ( )
2 stem themulhern | May 28, 2012 |
The Presidential election of 1800 wasn't at all what the framers of the Constitution had anticipated. In place of a judicious selection by the Republic's most prestigious statesmen, it was an intense contest between organized political parties and ended in a rancorous deadlock that could have precipitated civil war. To become President, Thomas Jefferson had to defeat both incumbent John Adams and his own running mate, Aaron Burr, to whose vigorous and imaginative campaigning in New York the Republican slate owed its victory.

The story of our country's first "modern" election is well worth telling. This account by Edward J. Larson, better known for his writings on American religion (particularly an excellent, moderately revisionist book on the Scopes Trial, Summer for the Gods), is quite thorough and does a good job of calling attention to the many points at which the race could have taken a different turn. In retrospect, the outcome was settled by the New York legislative elections, where Burr conceived the brilliant stroke of recruiting well-known candidates to run for obscure Assembly seats. Men like the elderly war hero Horatio Gates had no intention of shouldering the dull task of writing laws. They agreed to run solely so that they could vote for Republican electors, then chosen in New York, as in most other states, by the legislators rather than direct popular vote. The run-of-the-mill Federalist candidates narrowly lost to this all-star ticket, and with their defeat John Adams lost 12 electoral votes that had gone for him in 1796.

Adams' cause was still far from hopeless. He wound up only five votes short of a majority in the Electoral College. The shortfall could have been made up in Maryland, for instance. There state law provided for choosing electors by Congressional districts. The Federalist-dominated legislature proposed to change to legislative selection, which would have given all of the state's ten votes to Adams. A voter backlash, however, brought in a Republican majority to power before the system could be altered; the district elections then yielded a five-to-five split. Had the Federalists instead imitated Republican Virginia, which switched from voting by district to a winner-take-all popular vote, they would almost certainly have retained legislative control, been able to enact the reform and secured ten Federalist electors.

The great Federalist disappointment was South Carolina, whose legislature was the last to vote. The Federalists had selected Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, one of the state's most illustrious figures, to run with Adams. Some hoped, in fact, that he would outpoll the President and take over the office himself. (Before the Twelfth Amendment, enacted in response to this election, each elector cast two votes, without distinguishing between Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates.) Unluckily for Pinckney, South Carolina's other political grandee was his cousin Charles, a Republican Senator who put aside his Congressional duties to lobby furiously in Charleston. Pinckney the candidate honorably refused to countenance the compromise of Jefferson-Pinckney electors, which would have sunk Adams but kept his own prospects for the Presidency alive. Jefferson and Burr gained all eight South Carolina votes.

After the electors met in their respective state capitals on December 3, 1800, the news slowly spread of the result: Jefferson 73, Burr 73, Adams 65, Pinckney 64, John Jay 1. An Adams elector in Rhode Island had strategically withheld his second vote from Pinckney, so that the two Federalists would finish in the intended order. The Republicans neglected that precaution, leaving Jefferson and Burr tied and the choice between them in the hands of the House of Representatives, voting by state. This was the House elected in 1798, a triumphant year for the Federalists, and its term would not end until the following March. Hence, it would decide who would become President. Given the unpalatable alternatives of Jefferson and Burr, most Federalist Congressmen preferred the latter. With hindsight, we know that they were being foolish, but they couldn't foresee the future. Only with reluctance, after backing Burr for 34 indecisive ballots (eight states for Jefferson, six for Burr, two split evenly) did enough Federalists abstain to hand Jefferson the Presidency.

The natural sequel to these events would have been partisan bitterness of the kind that afflicts contemporary American politics. What actually happened was more hopeful. During the deadlock in the House, Alexander Hamilton (who fervently preferred Pinckney to Adams and may have damaged his party's cause fatally with a last minute pamphlet denouncing the President's fitness for office) urged that Jefferson be offered a deal: The Federalists would put him in office if he pledged not to repudiate the national debt, to remain neutral in the war between England and France, to maintain the Navy and not to dismiss Federalist officeholders without cause. No deal was ever struck, yet Jefferson largely did what Hamilton had hoped for. His term of office set the nation on a course of Federalist measures carried out by Republican men.

The virtue of A Magnificent Catastrophe is that is relates these events clearly, with close attention to the ways in which the candidates campaigned for office, the challenges that they faced, the role of religion (a natural subject for this author, though his treatment seems somewhat superficial) and the changes that their fierce contention wrought in America's political life. The weakness is that Mr. Larson, despite an occasional attempt at balance, is strongly and naively pro-Jefferson. He takes seriously, for instance, the Republicans' claims that President Adams secretly desired to establish a monarchy, while brushing aside Federalist fears that a Republican ascendancy would follow the path forged by revolutionary France. For the Republican paranoia, there was no basis at all; the Federalists had neither the means nor the will to overturn the form of government created by the Constitution. Many Republicans, on the other hand, had been noisy admirers of the French Revolution. It was rational to think that their enthusiasm might lead them to import revolutionary excesses. Larson notes that George Washington, on his deathbed, was displeased to learn that James Monroe had been elected governor of Virginia. He omits to mention that Washington had sacked Monroe as ambassador to Paris after a series of pro-revolutionary (in some cases, arguably disloyal) indiscretions. Monroe's later career redeemed his reputation, but a patriotic American could well wonder in 1800 how attached to Constitutional principles the Republicans were if they elevated such a man.

For readers who are not well-versed in the history of the Founding Period, this book is an unreliable guide. For those who know enough to correct for the pervasive bias, it furnishes an exciting record of one of the strangest and most important of our elections. ( )
2 stem TomVeal | Aug 14, 2009 |
The first true presidential campaign took place in 1800 when President John Adams running for re-election was opposed by his former friend, and Vice President, Thomas Jefferson. The difficulty of the era was that many of the states still had not determined a permanent method of electing their electoral college members making for tremendous battles behind the scenes.
The death of George Washington created additional problems for the Federalist party since many members at the tie were try to draft Washington back into public office.
Many future occupants of the White House were drawn into the controversy. (James Madison, James Monroe, as well as Supreme Court Justices John Marshall and John Jay.)
The book went to great detail explaining all the issues of the day and how the temporary governmental provisions for the election could result in different results. ( )
1 stem cyderry | Jan 22, 2009 |
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The 1800 presidential election, the last great contest of the founding period, was so convulsive and so momentous for American democracy that Jefferson would later dub it "America's second revolution." America's first true presidential campaign gave birth to our two-party system and etched the lines of partisanship that have shaped American politics ever since. The contest featured two of our most beloved Founding Fathers, once warm friends, facing off as the heads of their two still-forming parties--the hot-tempered but sharp-minded John Adams, and the eloquent yet enigmatic Thomas Jefferson. Blistering accusations flew: Adams and his elitist Federalists would squelch liberty and impose a British-style monarchy; Jefferson and his radically democratizing Republicans would throw the country into chaos and debase the role of religion in American life. Historian Larson vividly re-creates the tension as Congress was forced to meet in closed session to resolve the outcome.--From publisher description.

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