Archives for October 2016

In continuation of our scandal series:

Did you know that Vice President Aaron Burr plotted to create a new and independent nation in the middle of North America? Yep, he devised a conspiracy that would involve land from the Louisiana Purchase: Lease out Texas, start a war between Mexico & Spain, then seize the land from them all. President Thomas Jefferson had his own VP arrested and charged with treason.

Acquitted? You bet. Some things never change. (sigh)

Any other candidates that should be tried for treason?

Back to our scandal series…

 

Nastiest of all Campaigns

In our scandal series, we’ve discusses some interesting political scandals, but where did modern politics start?

The election of 1824 was pretty ugly. John Quincy Adams attacked Andrew Jackson for being a cuckold, which wasn’t quite true. Jackson had married his wife, Rachel Robards, thinking she finalized her divorce from her ex-husband, but the paperwork hadn’t been totally done yet. (Before computers, those things took even longer.) Jackson retaliated with claims that Adams had sold an American girl into sex slavery to get Imperial Russia to make diplomatic concessions. It turns out that the people thought Adams’ alleged offense was worse, and Jackson won the election.

Which political match-up do you find the nastiest?

Back to our scandal series…

Electoral Debacle, ergo Congress Elects John Quincy Adams

Next in our scandal series: Wait… John Quincy Adams didn’t get the most votes, but still became the president of the USA?

In the election of 1824, Andrew Jackson easily won the popular vote but failed to gain enough electoral votes. In backroom deals that were considered corrupt then and now, the House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams to the office of president. Jackson railed against the election results for the next four years, when he ran again and won.

Do you remember any other presidents who didn’t win the popular vote?

Back to our scandals series…

THE COFFIN HANDBILLS – slander and libel intended to defame

To continue our scandal series, we want to talk about one of the first accusations of murder!

Andrew Jackson’s opponents wrote and distributed a series of handbills/posters adorned with coffins. Each coffin was labeled for supposed war crimes and other misdeeds attributed to Jackson:

•       Slave trader
•       Adulterer
•       Killer of deserters
•       Leader of massacres on Indian villages
•       Cannibal*

The term “Coffin Handbill” became synonymous with a smear attack on political candidates.

*Congressman John Taliaferro (Virginia) wrote a pamphlet, A Supplemental account of some of the bloody deeds of General Jackson, in which he accused Andrew Jackson of “atrocious and unnatural acts”—slaughtering 1,000 unarmed Native Americans, taking a nap amidst their corpses, and eating a dozen [of them] for breakfast. The congressman went on to suggest that Jackson might do the same with his political opponents once elected President. Oy vey!

Do you think he did it?

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Did Rachel Jackson Deserve to Die for Bigamy?

Forward with our scandal series…

The campaign of 1828 was marked by large amounts of nasty mudslinging that left no stone unturned. When Jackson married his wife Rachel in 1791, the couple believed that she was divorced; however, the divorce had not yet been finalized. In 1794 Jackson remarried Rachel to remedy the situation. But it would resurface 35 years later when Jackson ran for President in 1828. One newspaperman asked, “Ought a convicted adulteress and her paramour husband be placed in the highest offices of this free and Christian land?” Jackson’s wife Rachel suffered a heart attack and died before Jackson’s inauguration. He blamed his political enemies for her death.

Back to our Scandal Series…