National Unity
With the election this week, I want to address an issue I have heard from both sides but which has been much more prominent with Joe Biden. Biden claims that if elected he can unite Americans whereas Trump is dividing us. What Biden and all politicians do not understand is that they can only unite their side. As much as Democrats hate Trump, Republicans disliked Obama and very much dislike Biden. Justified or not, the fear of a Biden presidency is as strong for the right as a second term for Trump is for the left. Historically speaking, there have been attempts to unite the nation politically, but even when presidents have claimed success, we were still divided.
A good attempt at national unity came from Jefferson. After twelve years of basically Federalist control and constant political bickering, Jefferson believed his victory would finally unify us. Fighting had gotten so bad under Washington, and even worse under Adams, that the nation had split into political parties, the Jeffersonian Republicans and the Federalists. Even while claiming that parties were bad, people were saying it from their party meetings. What they really meant was your party is bad, ours is necessary to protect us.
Jefferson, believing he was a man of the people, thought that now the feuding could be over: right had prevailed. In his inaugural address he said, “Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists.”
Possibly to his surprise, Jefferson found that political fighting had not passed. For the eight years of his presidency, he had to battle it out with his Federalist opponents. After the passage of the Embargo Act, where trade was cut off from all foreign ports, he especially had to deal with hatred from New Englanders who made much of their living from trade. So even the great Thomas Jefferson could not bring unity to the nation. Federalists hated Jefferson as much as he had hated Adams. If there was a president who had what seemed a real chance to
If there was a president who had what seemed a real chance to unite ...
