The year was 1880, and James Garfield was running for president against Winfield Hancock. Both candidates talked about restricting immigration from China, and when a phony letter from Garfield was published in newspapers calling for an open border an angry mob set fire to the homes of Chinese immigrants.
Joseph Rizzo, a historian and executive director of the colonial Wilton House Museum in Richmond, says election misinformation was also common from this country’s earliest days.
“Rumors not based on any sort of actual evidence have been out there. The ability to mass communicate wasn’t there, but they were reading unabashedly partisan newspapers. The 1790’s were incredibly partisan. Late 1700’s, early 1800’s you do get mobs and violence in the streets.”
Echo chambers were a thing – even before the Internet.
“You’re reading pamphlets from those who are like-minded. Especially with the explosion of newspapers in the 1820’s!”
John Adams was accused of sending a supporter to hire a couple of hookers to hang out and plotting to re-unite with Britain by marrying his sons to King George’s daughters.
Thomas Jefferson was called a dangerous atheist. His mother, opponents said, was Native American and his father a mulatto.
Andrew Jackson never forgave those who said mean things about his wife. She died, shortly before he was inaugurated.
“He blames his political enemies for essentially killing her because of the vicious rumors about her decency and who she was from a character and personal standpoint. He’ll hold those grudges for the rest of his life.”
And in past elections voters have wondered about the age and sanity of candidates.
“Rutherford B. Hayes, for example, gets accused of shooting his mother in a fit of insanity. Samuel Tilden they argue had syphilis that affected his brain and his thoughts.”
Things were especially bad in 1860 – before the start of the Civil War.
“The Whig party dissolves. The Democratic party splits. You had four regional candidates in 1860, and when Abraham Lincoln wins the electoral votes to win the presidency, Southern states view it – he wasn’t on the ballot in the South – and they’d already, in a lot of ways, made up their minds that if Abraham Lincoln was elected that they were going to leave the country.”
Lincoln’s opponents warned of a coming race war. So what lessons can we learn in 2024?
“We have been more divided at times, and the country has come back together, and it is sometimes cyclical, but each election has to be taken on a case by case basis, and I always urge people that you can’t look at how an election plays out and assume that that will then give you the code for how things are going to play out in the present or the future.”
The fact that this country has survived political chaos in the past may be a source of comfort, but looking at what has happened around the world Rizzo warns we cannot assume our democracy will last.
