Patriotism and Partisanship
“ I tolerate with the utmost latitude the right of others to differ from me in opinion without imputing to them criminality. Both of our political parties, at least the honest portion of them, agree conscientiously in the same object—the public good; but they differ essentially in what they deem the means of promoting that good.”
The Idea
“There is a debt of service due from every man to his country, proportioned to the bounties which nature and fortune have measured to him ... I love to see honest men and honorable men at the helm, men who will not bend their politics to their purses, nor pursue measures by which they may profit, and then profit by their measures.”
-Thomas Jefferson, 1796
As a realist, Thomas Jefferson recognized partisan politics were inevitable under a representative government; but as an idealist, he firmly believed that the vast majority of Americans shared common goals even when differing in means to achieving them.
Patriots would put country before party, ensuring the success of the American experiment in self-governance. This is what Jefferson meant when he declared in his first inaugural address that “we are all republicans: we are all federalists."
George Washington Steps Aside
George Washington could have been President for life yet chose not to run beyond two terms in office, helping to ensure a regular and orderly transfer of executive power. This set a precedent until Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to a third term in 1940 and a fourth term in 1944.
Washington’s farewell address, written with the help of Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, encouraged his fellow citizens to "properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness," reminded them that “the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it,” admonished them to “cherish public credit” while “avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt” and asked them to “observe good faith and justice towards all nations.” Over two centuries later, Washington’s remarks remain a landmark lesson in patriotic civic responsibility.
The "Revolution of 1800"
History has remembered the Election of 1800, pitting John Adams against Thomas Jefferson, as a bitterly contested—some might say nasty—affair featuring an unprecedented campaign, surprising results that nearly tore our young nation apart, and the behind-the-scenes maneuvering that ultimately led to the first peaceful transfer of power in American history. Jefferson viewed the assumption of the Presidency by the Democratic-Republican Party from the Federalist Party as a second American Revolution.
The Louisiana Purchase
Massachusetts Senator John Quincy Adams rejected his Federalist Party's opposition to the Louisiana Purchase as a wasteful expenditure, supporting the measure as a means to peacefully double the size of the nation and ensure its future growth and prosperity.
“ It is high time that we stopped thinking politically as Republicans and Democrats about elections and started thinking patriotically as Americans about national security based on individual freedom. It is high time that we all stopped being tools and victims of totalitarian techniques -- techniques that, if continued here unchecked, will surely end what we have come to cherish as the American way of life.”
A Civic Engagement Initiative sponsored by and in collaboration with The New York Community Trust – The Peter G. Peterson Fund.
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