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In reply to the discussion: DU was for change, not progressivism... [View all]Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)Unfortunately, politics is not a gave of gentlemanly discourse. It never has been.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/08/22/mf.campaign.slurs.slogans/
Things got ugly fast. Jefferson's camp accused President Adams of having a "hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman."
In return, Adams' men called Vice President Jefferson "a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father."
As the slurs piled on, Adams was labeled a fool, a hypocrite, a criminal, and a tyrant, while Jefferson was branded a weakling, an atheist, a libertine, and a coward. See 8 great campaign slogans »
Even Martha Washington succumbed to the propaganda, telling a clergyman that Jefferson was "one of the most detestable of mankind."