As long as there\u2019s been elections, there\u2019s been divisions. The United States has a rich history of division, from well before the dramatic debates over the Declaration of Independence. But it was particularly virulent during the first seriously contested Presidential election in 1800. John Adams was President, and the Federalist candidate for re-election. Thomas Jefferson was Vice President, the candidate of the Democratic-Republican Party. The two parties were completely at odds over the future of the American Democracy, with both predicting dire consequences if the other won. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the Democratic-Republicans won the Presidency by a tie-breaking vote of the House of Representatives, the US Constitution was tested. But President Adams accepted the results, and turned over the government to his rival, Jefferson. He left the new capital, Washington DC, the morning of the inauguration. That began a tradition of peaceful transition of power, a tradition that continued until January 6th of 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the political division between Federalists and Democratic-Republicans continued. In 1802, a \u201cpoem\u201d was published in Federalist newspapers in Philadelphia and Boston. The newspapers claimed in jest that it was authored by Jefferson himself, the \u201cSage of Monticello\u201d. It ridiculed Jefferson\u2019s long standing \u201caffair\u201d with an enslaved woman he owned, Sally Hemings. Today we would call it rape. That \u201caffair\u201d began after Jefferson\u2019s wife died. Hemings was the half-sister of Jefferson\u2019s deceased wife (they shared the same father), and fourteen years old when their \u201caffair\u201d began (Jefferson was forty-four).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The entire nation was well aware of Jefferson\u2019s ongoing liaison with Hemings. It produced six children, who became the enslaved property of Jefferson. Monticello is the famous home Jefferson built with enslaved laborers on a mountaintop above Charlottesville, Virginia. The poem can be \u201csung\u201d to another political tune, written originally to ridicule the Colonial troops in 1755, but later taken as a song of \u201chonor\u201d by Americans \u2013 Yankee Doodle<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Poem <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Verse<\/strong>\u00a0– When press\u2019d by loads of state affairs, I seek to sport and dally, The sweetest solace of my cares Is in the lap of Sally.<\/em><\/li>Jefferson<\/h3>\n\n\n\n