Here's what I thought was interesting in the book so far. The Republican Party of that time (way different than repub. party of today) was for the war, the Federalists were for the most part against it. There were some nasty riots in Baltimore when war was declared. A bunch of Republicans stormed a building that housed a pro-Federalist/anti-war newspaper. Violence ensued. When the following things happen:
1. The editor of a rival paper bringing a cannon into the street to threaten the other paper.
2. The militia being called out and then joining the mob.
3. Afterward, Thomas Jefferson writing things like "The Federalists . . . are poor devils here, not worthy of notice. [A] barrel of tar to each state South of the Potomac will keep all in order . . . To the North they will give you more trouble. You may there have to apply the rougher drastics of Govr. Wright, hemp [hanging!] and confiscation."
American History doesn't get much better than that.
So that was it, a typical history geek post from Tom. Looking for links for this post, I wandered over to the Thomas Jefferson Papers at the Library of Congress website. I found the letter I quoted above here. You can see the lines I quoted starting on the fifth line down from the top of the page.
It got interesting when I clicked on the transcription of the letter. Notice the three discrete (ahem) asteriks in the second line of the transcription. They replace the lines where Jefferson (perhaps in jest) suggesting hanging people who disagreed with the war.
Its nice to see where the Library of Congress stands on leaving out the naughty or questionable bits of history.
