I've been reading Jon Meacham's terrific biography of Andrew Jackson and came upon a speech that seems precisely relevant to the current state of political discourse. It was made by Edward Livingston of New York, during a particularly vitriolic period of debate.
"The spirit of which I speak creates imaginary and magnifies real causes of complaint; arrogates to itself every virtue - denies every merit to its opponents; secretly entertains the worst designs...mounts the pulpit, and, in the name of a God of mercy and peace, preaches discord and vengeance; invokes the worst scourges of heaven, war, pestilence, and famine, as preferable alternatives to party defeat; blind, vindictive, cruel, remorseless, unprincipled, and at last frantic, it communicates its madness to friends as well as foes; respects nothing, fears nothing."
What I can't figure out is how Livingston was able to access blogs in 1830.
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