James Parton Quotes
A falsehood, to have its full and lasting effect, must contain a fraction of a grain of truth.
One classic example was the fact that in 2012 about one third of Republicans believed that President Obama was a Muslim when he was a devout Christian. The infamous lie had 3 grains of truth: Obama’s father was a Muslim. his middle name was an Islamic name. and he had lived and gone to school as a young boy in Indonesia, the largest Islamic country.
James Parton, 1822–1891, Historian & Biographer, Analysis of The Campaign Attack Lie, “The Presidential Election of 1800”, The Atlantic Monthly, July 1873
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by stopping all interest payments on Federal Debts. because Jefferson would dismantle the Navy. Hamilton, a Federalist was supporting John Adams for a second term, and created lies that made the 2012 Republican prevarications against Barack Obama seem like innocent fibs. These 3 lies covered the areas which candidates ever since have gotten mileage out of attacking the opposition. 1) He is fiscally irresponsible and would ruin the economy. 2) He does not support the Constitution. 3) He is unpatriotic and would weaken the military. These have been the 3 favorite areas for lying about an opponent ever since. As in {629237} each of the lies has a grain of truth in it to make it more believable. Jefferson had been an opponent of the Federal Government assuming the States’ Revolutionary War debts, but he never favored defaulting on the interest after the debt was assumed and when elected always paid the interest. Jefferson was representing the United States in France when the Constitutional Convention was held and was not a part of its creation. He was critical of parts of the Constitution and was one of the many who demanded that a Bill of Rights be added. Therefore Hamilton claimed he was against the Constitution. Jefferson was opposed to a standing professional army. It turned out that when he was President. he not only built up the Navy but used it to attack the Barbary States who were assaulting our ships. These were just the biggest lies; the Federalists had many more, and Hamilton enumerated several in this article.
The Presidential Campaigns of 2008 and 2012 shocked many Americans for the blatant lies that opponents of President Obama wrote and broadcast and then some of the retaliatory lies that Obama defenders responded with. However, this quotation from a 19th century political historian shows us that blatant lying in American politics is not at all new.
See Ben Franklin for an earlier similar sentiment {465143}.
See {115604} for a similar sentiment from England.
Cicely Isabel Fairfield
Sinclair was running for the governorship of California and initial polls showed that he was way ahead. Major Conservatives from the country over contributed money to defeat him—more money at the time than had ever been raised even for a Presidential campaign. The Conservatives hired the first political consultants who would advise on an American Campaign throughs a corporation they established Campaigns Inc. The consultants began creating posters and pamphlets many of which were total fabrications attacking Sinclair and then went through his novels that he had written and took quotes from character dialogues in his novels including some of the villain characters who said vile things. They attributed all these terrible quotation to Sinclair, put them into printed pamphlets and distributed them all over the state. Sinclair lost making the assumption that few people would believe the lies that were being issued from Campaign Inc. After that race, political consultants began to work in many campaigns, and with that came more negative campaigning, attacks and more falsehood and lies entered the American political scene.
- Born: February 9, 1822
- Died: October 17, 1891
- Nationality:
- Profession:
James Parton was an English-born American biographer who wrote books on the lives of Horace Greeley, Aaron Burr, Andrew Jackson, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Voltaire, and the "Eminent Women of the Age".
