tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post8500492194009515305..comments2024-03-28T10:44:30.518-06:00Comments on American Creation: Thomas Jefferson and the Election of 1800Brad Harthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17669677047039491864noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post-64334041300825787142008-08-24T02:26:00.000-06:002008-08-24T02:26:00.000-06:00Hi Ben, I don't believe religion was an issue in t...Hi Ben, <BR/><BR/>I don't believe religion was an issue in the election of George Washington in 1789 and 1792. <BR/><BR/>Vice President John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were opponents in the election of 1796, then faced one another again in 1800. I believe the Adams camp made an issue of Jefferson's religious unorthodoxy in both races -- but am by no means an expert on such things. <BR/><BR/>In presidential race of 1908 William Jennings Bryan and his Demcratic Party supporters charged that the Republican candidate, William Howard Taft, was not a real Christian - - because he was a prominent Unitarian. Edgar Albert Hornig produced an excellent study on that contest, titled "The Religious Issue in the Taft-Bryan Duel of 1908," and published in Volume 105, No. 6, pp. 530-37 of the <I>Proceedings of the American Philsophical Society</I> (Dec. 15, 1961). Hornig quotes a Pentecostal paper, for example, that reported Taft as a Unitarian "does not believe that Jesus Christ was the son of God, but looks upon our immaculate Savior as a common bastard." <BR/><BR/>American voters responded by putting Taft in the White House. <BR/><BR/>I don't recall Adlai Stevenson's Unitarianism becoming a issue in the presidential election of 1956, in which Stevenson lost to Eisenhower, a Presbyterian. <BR/><BR/>Religion was an issue in the presidential election of 1928, when evangelicals attacked Al Smith for being a Roman Catholic. Smith, of course, lost to Herbert Hoover. <BR/><BR/>John F. Kennedy's Catholicism was an issue in the race of 1960 -- one that he obviously managed to overcome. <BR/><BR/>The Adams-Jefferson, Taft-Bryan, Hoover-Smith, and Kennedy-Nixon races come to mind as the most prominent instances in which candidates were attacked on the basis of their religion. <BR/><BR/>Of course, religious issues have been a factor in many other races. Consider how Mitt Romney's Mormonism became an issue for some evangelicals in the Republican Party's recent primaries. And, I dare say, some liberal Jews and Unitarian Universalists were offended that Romney openly sought to impose his own church's views on "the sanctity of marriage" by outlawing the weddings of same-sex couples performed by Reform rabbis and Unitarian Universalist ministers. I'll bet some Trinitarian Congregationalists were offended too.Eric Alan Isaacsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14144268111747323445noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post-58831153750626317102008-08-23T14:41:00.000-06:002008-08-23T14:41:00.000-06:00Eric/Jon/others,I'm no expert on history respectin...Eric/Jon/others,<BR/><BR/>I'm no expert on history respecting Presidential elections and the importance of religion.<BR/><BR/>Would the election of 1800 have been the first where religious sentiments were manipulated in the hopes of garnering votes?<BR/><BR/>Today manipulation of religious sentiments appears to be a normal part of the political process. The level of importance religion presently plays in Presidential politics seems to be a rather recent event, but such things have ebbed and and flowed over the last 200 yrs?bpabbotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17047791198702983998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post-38936640132302140652008-08-23T11:32:00.000-06:002008-08-23T11:32:00.000-06:00Why was religion an issue in the 1800 presidential...Why was religion an issue in the 1800 presidential race? <BR/><BR/>Because John Adams's handlers thought making an issue of Jefferson's unorthodoxy would pick up the incremental votes needed to give Adams another term in the White House. <BR/><BR/>The attack was fundamentally disingenuous, for John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were remarkably similar in their personal theology -- both were Unitarian Christians. If anything, Jefferson was more orthodox in formal affiliation than Adams, for Jefferson was a member of an Episcopal church, while Adams was a committed member of a theologically liberal congregation in Massachusetts. <BR/><BR/>John Adams's spin masters nonetheless decided to attack Jefferson -- because they figured that doing so would pick up votes for Adams. <BR/><BR/>Were they right to think religious orthodoxy mattered to America's voters? I think the American people sent a clear message -- by electing Jefferson. <BR/><BR/>The election results of 1800 tell us that religion wasn't such a pivotal issue after all.Eric Alan Isaacsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14144268111747323445noreply@blogger.com