Column: ‘Unprecedented’ Times Have Plenty of Precedent | Opinion | thepilot.com – Southern Pines Pilot

How many times over the past year have we heard some commentator talking about unprecedented times and the fragility of our republic? To which Alexander Hamilton, John Adams or Thomas Jefferson would say, Hold my mead.

Those of us who believe we live in apocalyptic and apocryphal times would do well to take some time and read a history regarding our transition from colonies to country. That is precisely what I am doing now.

In this case, Ive chosen The Patriots: Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and the Making of America, by Winston Groom. Groom is a prolific author, having written 12 nonfiction books regarding key historical events and times, along with eight novels. You might not have read one of those novels, but youve probably seen its movie version: Forrest Gump.

Groom is not among the most detailed of biographers. Bookshelves include far better holdings about these three founders individually. But Groom has an eye for the right details and the context that makes them important in the telling.

And there are some great cameos from figures like Benjamin Franklin, whom you cant help admiring not only for his brilliance but also his dude, lets party mentality. When both he and Adams were based in Paris, the dour and prudish New Englander had little use for Franklin, who sometimes partied so hard the night before with the ladies, he forgot to come to work the next day. Benjamin Franklin: the original Jeff Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

Groom signals early in the book his point of bringing together Hamilton, Adams and Jefferson and giving everyone else just a walk-on role. He talks of how the three, over time, developed an abiding hatred of each other so intense that at times it threatened to bring down the fragile young republic.

Edit out fragile young and you have something for us as modern as a Tesla.

Groom recounts in quick order George Washingtons admonishment against political parties, which was surely bumped off the front page of every paper for the latest thrashing between Federalists and Republicans. As the tempest brewed, Groom writes, the press entered the fray. Sounding familiar yet? You could see MSNBC backing Hamilton and the Federalists, while Fox News was in the tank with Jefferson.

Newspapers not only informed but deliberately inflamed political opinion, inspiring fistfights and duels and sometimes tearing family and friends apart, the author says. Sounds like virtually everyones Thanksgiving between 2017 and, uh, now.

Into this toxic climate the three founders plunged themselves, each believing that the political notions of the others would lead the country into dangerous chaos and ruin, Groom writes. They were, after all, floundering in the unknown: nothing like the American experiment had ever been tried on such a scale and with such a diverse population, both ethnically and regionally.

Keep in mind, diverse back then was more about political belief structure and religious background than race and what your pronouns are. Although our Founding Fathers spoke and wrote of an egalitarian approach to life, that didnt extend beyond land-owning white men at the time.

Groom reminds us that, in these chaotic times, we are not really without precedent. Countless times, this country and its people could have gone sideways and it pretty much did in the Civil War but the arc of progress is linear.

This moment feels existential to us because we exist in it. Duh. In the bigger picture, we are experiencing another page in history. No, we dont know how itll all work out. Will it be Reconstruction? Reconciliation? Or merely just a wreck?

I never expect to see a perfect work, Alexander Hamilton wrote in the Federalist Papers, from imperfect man. The result of the deliberations of all collective bodies must necessarily be a compound, as well of the errors and prejudices, as of the good sense and wisdom, of the individuals of whom they are composed.

In other words, whatever were doing now, its gonna take all of us not just some of us to resolve. And thats all I have to say about that.

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Column: 'Unprecedented' Times Have Plenty of Precedent | Opinion | thepilot.com - Southern Pines Pilot