Jim Goldsworthy, Columnist
Cumberland Times-News
November 13, 2008 11:38 pm
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A friend of mine asked me if I am glad the election is over.
That may seem a cynical question, but we’re fortunate that we can ask it. We have elections. Other people don’t, and many of them wish they did.
Collectively, Americans can have a short memory. We perceive each election as being the dirtiest and most dishonest in history, even though it probably wasn’t.
Whether our candidate won or lost has a lot to do with it. Many Democrats will go to their graves swearing that George W. Bush stole the 2000 presidential election from Al Gore, but it’s doubtful that most Republicans would agree. Their feeling is that the system worked the way it was supposed to.
On the other hand, if Barack Obama had defeated John McCain by just a slim margin, we’d presently be arguing about ACORN instead of hanging chads — and how well the system worked this time.
If you can find an unsanitized, politically incorrect history book or Internet site (which is what I did), look up some of the shenanigans that highlighted our earlier elections — particularly those involving Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams.
In 1828, Jackson’s supporters alleged that Adams’ wife was born out of wedlock (back then, such things mattered). Adams’ backers countered that Jackson began living with his wife before she was divorced from her first husband (which was true, but they both believed the man was dead) and that she and Jackson’s mother were prostitutes.
Jackson’s people said Adams was a pimp who installed gambling tables in the White House after he was elected president in 1824. Adams’ people said Jackson was a virtually illiterate slave trader who had murdered a dozen men in duels.
In 1800, Thomas Jefferson’s supporters spread the word that John Adams was a hermaphrodite. Adams’ people accused Jefferson of sleeping with slaves. This election by itself is worth studying because libel and slander were bought and paid for on both sides, people went to jail because of it, and Jefferson and Adams eventually became friends anyway.
Rutherford B. Hayes, a Republican, defeated Democrat Samuel Tilden in 1876 by taking 2 percent of federal workers’ salaries to pay for his campaign and by counting Tilden’s votes in three southern states as votes for himself. Hayes’ followers said Tilden had a venereal disease, and Tilden’s camp said Hayes had shot his own mother and robbed dead people.
And so on, down to the 1964 election in which incumbent President Lyndon Johnson’s people circulated children’s coloring books that showed Barry Goldwater as a member of the Ku Klux Klan and apparently convinced voters there would be a nuclear war if Goldwater was elected.
Johnson’s people also were alleged to have used both the CIA and the FBI against Goldwater — which may have inspired the events of 1972, when Nixon’s legions brought the Enemies List, the Watergate burglary and a host of other dirty tricks to bear against George McGovern (who probably would have lost, anyway).
Election-related treachery may not have grown worse over the years, but it certainly has become more subtle and sophisticated.
In 1860, a Louisiana citizen named Pete Muggins sent a letter to Abraham Lincoln that may have reflected their differing stances on slavery and states’ rights. It is a textbook example of ranting and raving carried to the highest level.
Part of it read:
“(Expletive deleted) your (expletive deleted) old hellfired (expletive deleted) soul to hell. (Expletive deleted) you and your (expletive deleted) family’s (expletive deleted) hellfired (expletive deleted) souls to hell and good damnation (expletive deleted) them and (expletive deleted) your (expletive deleted) friends to hell. (Expletive deleted) their (expletive deleted) souls to damnation.”
The most notable reaction to Lincoln’s election in 1860 was the secession of 11 southern states from the Union. That’s about as extreme as it can get.
As to my friend’s question about our latest election, I told her this:
The election wasn’t the problem. The campaign, with all of its lies, distortions and other assorted nastiness, was the problem. Fortunately, a certain element of genuine humor also was involved (including the hilarious Sarah and Hillary skit on Saturday Night Live).
Now, we’re going through the inevitable period of gloating, sour grapes and finger-pointing, and the offering of excuses and explanations.
Except for a few footnotes here and there, history will simply record that Obama won because he received a majority of votes in the Electoral College.
Nothing else matters ... except for the fact that for the first time, America elected someone of African-American descent to be president. (We who are older remember another milestone, in 1960, when John F. Kennedy was elected America’s first Irish-American Roman Catholic president.)
How many people know why Jackson lost to Adams during the election of 1824? If you do, good for you. (Hint: It’s not because Adams won a majority in the Electoral College.) If you don’t, look it up and find out. The answer is relatively simple.
The 1824 election provides a perfect example of how the Founding Fathers left us a system that works, even though it may not produce the best results, or results we agree with — maybe not even results we think we can live with.
It just guarantees that , among other things, there will be an orderly and unquestionable transition of power that many countries would envy.
Despite our best efforts to subvert it, it has worked for more than 230 years, and it is one reason the Republic continues to survive.
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