History The Original Bloggers
posted by on November 2 at 14:28 PM
Between the fall of 1787 and the spring of 1788, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay published 85 “posts” under the pseudonym “Publius” (as opposed to, say, “Will in Seattle”) in New York newspapers arguing that the states should ratify the Constitution. (It was a hell of a cat fight and there’s a great recent book about the the internecine political battle that went down to ratify the thing.)
For those who complain that blogging has degraded public debate into recriminations, counter recriminations, and histrionics—please enjoy Alexander Hamilton’s 67th post:
No.67: Hamilton
The constitution of the executive department of the proposed government claims next our attention.
There is hardly any part of the system which could have been attended with greater difficulty in the arrangement of it than this; and there is, perhaps, none which has been inveighed against with less candor or criticized with less judgment.
Here the writers against the Constitution seem to have taken pains to signalize their talent of misrepresentation. Calculating upon the aversion of people to monarchy, they have endeavored to enlist all their jealousies and apprehensions in opposition to the intended President of the United States; not merely as the embryo, but as the full-grown progeny of that detested parent. To establish the pretended affinity, they have not scrupled to draw resources even from the regions of fiction. The authorities of a magistrate, in a few instances greater, in some instances less, than those of a governor of New York, have been magnified into more than royal prerogatives. He has been decorated with attributes superior in dignity and splendor to those of a king of Great Britain. He has been shown to us with the diadem sparkling on his brow and the imperial purple flowing in his train. He has been seated on a throne surrounded with minions and mistresses, giving audience to the envoys of foreign potentates in all the supercilious pomp of majesty. The images of Asiatic despotism and voluptuousness have scarcely been wanting to crown the exaggerated scene. We have been almost taught to tremble at the terrific visages of murdering janizaries, and blush at the unveiled mysteries of a future seraglio.
Great--now I can't shake the vision of Condolezza Rice as Bush's harem concubine.
But from the looks of things, Hamilton was wrong, and his opponents quite visionary.
Yeah, I could have done without having the mysteries of Bill Clinton's seraglio unveiled. That was icky.
I for one would be supremely happy if internet bickering used such erudite language. Hamilton's sarcasm is certainly consistent with the conventions of the blog commenter, but hesounds wonderfully high-falutin' and Founding Father-y while he's doing it.
Maybe you should declare a special day where all commenting must be conducted in this sort of proper eighteenth-century invective.
I think that "unveiled mysteries of a future seraglio" refers to a handjob in a 100-story tower built near a transit node.
Face it, most straight guys want to do Condi Rice.
Um, no. I like my women with bush, but not Bush.
For those who complain that blogging has degraded public debate into recriminations, counter recriminations, and histrionics
Even more generally, the idea that politics and discourse is "less civil" now than in the past is nonsense. Politics used to be much more vicious and vibrant.
Paul Boller's Presidential Campaigns is just one of the good books that illustrates this.
Ben Franklin was the original blogger. He even has his own "web site".
Will-
I can only speak for myself -"as a straight white guy"- but the whole Waterboarding thing is a major turn off.
God only knows what she is really into.
What, you're not up for a little watersports?
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