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The Second American Revolution

其他書名	How Two Partisan Virginians Poisoned America's Political System
出版	Commonwealth Books of Virginia, LLC, 2022-10-15
主題	History / United States / GeneralPolitical Science / General
ISBN	19436425839781943642588
URL	http://books.google.com.hk/books?id=URouzwEACAAJ&hl=&source=gbs_api

註釋In The Second American Revolution, author James Thompson provides a long overdue analysis of the ten-year insurgency James Madison managed for his partisan friend, Thomas Jefferson. This revolution began in 1791 and ended in 1801. It differed from the one Sam Adams orchestrated in the 1770s, Mr. Thompson explains, because Jefferson and Madison sought to rid the nation's new republican government of its wrongheaded administrators-and run it themselves, not overthrow and replace it with something new. The author accompanies the two partisans as they divided the American people against themselves with streams of poisonous rhetoric and built an anti-government congressional majority of southerners and westerners by recruiting candidates and managing their elections. The method and mechanisms they developed during their insurgency transformed the nation's enlightened new majoritarian system into a weapon that adversarial parties have used ever since. Mr. Thompson argues that this adversarial party system, fueled by intentionally divisive rhetoric, destroyed the nation's ability to pursue a common good. Beyond this, Jefferson and Madison showed that by being well-organized, a party could perpetuate control of the government and the people. Jefferson won the vice presidency in the election of 1796. Mr. Thompson recounts how he spent his four-year term quietly sabotaging the government of President John Adams and undermining his prospects for re-election. In January 1800, the presidential election looming, the author argues that Jefferson made a deal with New York Republican Aaron Burr. If Burr would deliver New York's all-important electoral votes to the Republicans, Jefferson would reward him by passing his office to Burr when he retired. The deal made, Burr delivered the votes. Jefferson finally became President by defeating Burr the House of Representatives. This killed the deal! Mr. Thompson notes that Jefferson's victory in "the Revolution of 1800" validated his adversarial method. Adversarialism was then adopted by virtually every American office seeker. By 1861, the social divisions and regional animosities had grown so great that Jefferson's agrarian south broke from the Union and ignited a bloody civil war. The author concludes with a reconsideration of Burr's response to Jefferson's treachery.