Journalists and commentators have invoked historic precedents to contextualize the January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. While unprecedented in many ways, those events are also part of a long history of bitter partisanship and political violence in the United States. Thomas Jefferson’s election in 1800 offers an example: the peaceful transfer of power was anything but a foregone conclusion.
Watch the conversation with early America historian Lindsay M. Chervinsky. Dr. Chervinsky discussed historic examples of sedition, violence, and mob action in the early decades of American history.
