1. A War of Words
When we think of divisive and dramatic elections, it would be easy to think of the 2016 presidential election, where it could be argued that it was contested by two of the most unpopular candidates in U.S. history. Candidates that clearly did NOT like one another. However, when it comes to vitriolic rhetoric, the election of 1800 really takes some beating.
The election was contested between John Adams who wanted a strong and centralized federal government and Thomas Jefferson who wanted, you guessed it, the complete opposite with a weak federal government and more power being vested at the local level. And boy oh boy, they did not mince their words when describing their opponent, with Jefferson calling Adams “a blind, bald, crippled, toothless man who is a hideous hermaphroditic character with neither the force and fitness of a man nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.” And Adams called Jefferson “a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father.”
