What are the themes of A Magnificent Catastrophe?

The theme I want to look at is the intensely personal nature of politics set out in the book. All of the main players in the 1800 election knew each other quite well. Many of them, most notably Adams and Jefferson, could even have reasonably been described as having been friends. However, whatever cordiality there may have been on the surface, there was always a deep, underlying tendency to personalize the enveloping political conflict engulfing the...

The theme I want to look at is the intensely personal nature of politics set out in the book. All of the main players in the 1800 election knew each other quite well. Many of them, most notably Adams and Jefferson, could even have reasonably been described as having been friends. However, whatever cordiality there may have been on the surface, there was always a deep, underlying tendency to personalize the enveloping political conflict engulfing the nation.

For Republicans, Adams was not simply a bad president or someone whose policies and ideas were mistaken. He was a would-be tyrant and America's own King George III; he was also a shameless elitist who believed himself part of a natural aristocracy. He was the present-day incarnation of Julius Caesar, hell-bent on subverting a republican system of government for his own selfish ends.

Adams was not just wrong; he was, according to Jefferson, "insane." This was all because he wanted to establish a United States Navy to counter the growing threat of French ships. Additionally, Jefferson secretly authorized a partisan Scottish scribbler called James Callender to smear Adams's already tattered reputation with the most outrageous slander. President Adams was no longer simply "without virtue" and "without ability," he was also now a hermaphrodite. Despite Jefferson's high-minded rhetoric and fulsome denials of any involvement with the whole sordid affair, he was pleased with Callender's efforts on his behalf.

The Federalists, though, gave as good as they got. Jefferson was a "howling atheist." This may not sound like much of an insult today, in our more secular times, but in 1800, it was political poison. Jefferson was also a traitor who would not countenance appropriately strong measures against French ships because he was a "Jacobin" and a French revolutionary radical whose abstract ideals would lead to a bloody tyranny, a situation far worse than anything the British ever established.