The Backstory: Politics meets The Purge

We think the political scene these days is intense...let’s go back to the 19th century and see how political passion led to legal murder!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I know it's election time and the anger, furious disagreement
over policy, and threats of violence are pretty upsetting to
stay the least, But nothing we're experiencing now even comes
close to what went on in the US in the
eighteen hundreds. I'm Patty Steele. Legal murder in the world
of politics. That's next on the backstory. We're back with

(00:25):
the backstory. You think we've got it rough right now.
When it comes to politics, there were a slew of
political parties in the early eighteen hundreds, but by eighteen
sixty it was pretty much Republicans and Democrats doing battle.
They fought over race, class, religion, immigration, inequality, and whatever
else they could think of. Sound kind of familiar, Well

(00:47):
it got really crazy. Take a look at Andrew Jackson,
the seventh US President. I believe it or not, this
guy during his political career was super thin skinned and
quick tempered, and that danger combo resulted in Jackson constantly
challenging people he didn't like to duel him. I get this.

(01:07):
He may have been involved in as many as one
hundred duels. Most of them were just a couple of
hotheads firing their guns into the air trying to show
their brilliant courage by not turning down the challenge, but
in at least one case, it took a deadly turn.
It all started when Jackson's fellow horse breeder and longtime
political rival, Charles Dickinson, publicly insulted Jackson, calling him a

(01:32):
worthless scoundrel and a coward wow harsh words. He also
twisted the knife by calling Jackson's wife a bigamist, among
other things. The pair had married before Rachel Jackson was
granted a divorce from her first husband. So it's May thirtieth,
eighteen oh six. Jackson and Dickinson meet up at a
farm in a Dareville, Kentucky. It's pretty intense. Dickinson is

(01:55):
considered to be one of the best shots in the country.
They take aim. Jackson's gun jams and Dickinson gets off
the first shot, wounding Jackson in the chest, breaking some ribs,
and just missing his heart. But Jackson stands tall. He
quickly reloads and shoots. He hits Dickinson's square on. Witnesses

(02:17):
rushed to his side, but Dickinson begins bleeding out. He
asks those around him why the lights are being turned off.
Charles Dickinson is dead within five minutes. Jackson, on the
other hand, barely escapes with his own life. The bullet,
again lodged near his heart, was never removed, and he

(02:39):
carried it with him for the rest of his life,
though he did have constant pain from it until he
died almost forty years later. Duels were not really all
that uncommon. Everybody knows about the Aaron Burr Alexander Hamilton duel, right,
but that duel cost Burr his political career, even though
he was never prosecuted for killing somebody. As for Jackson,

(03:01):
his political career thrived in the aftermath, despite the continued
attacks on his wife and some of his military exploits.
He was elected president in eighteen twenty nine, and he
served two terms. The courts just didn't go after folks
that took part and mutually agreed upon duels. Yes, it
was considered a manly response to having your honored question.

(03:24):
But believe it or not, women dueled as well. In
one case, they used guns first and then switched to swords.
But things got even more violent later in the nineteenth century.
In fact, in the years between the Civil War and
the turn of the twentieth century, US politics was more
violent and corrupt than ever was before or has been since.

(03:45):
The violence wasn't just between politicians, but among everyday Americans too,
because they deeply cared about the direction the country was taking.
It was unlike anything we've experienced in our lifetime. There
were regular fistfights, murders, threats, and proven claims of stolen elections.
Visiting Europeans were shocked and fascinated at the same time.

(04:07):
I keep in mind, for the most part, none of
them got to choose their leaders, so watching this was
pretty interesting. They wrote about American elections, watching people living
as far apart as folks in Paris were from Saint Petersburg, Russia,
all involved in the same political debate. It's a big country.
One reporter from London talked about what he called the

(04:27):
Festival of Diversity, with working class, young white marchers alongside
groups of African Americans, Cubans, Italians, Irish, Mexican and Chinese.
Others wrote about American women who weren't legally allowed to vote,
but who marched for what they believed in and were
fiercely opinionated. They were amazed to even watch schoolgirls argue

(04:49):
politics on street cars, so imagine this. It was very
much like our twenty twenty election, but on steroids, and
it happened every four years for over forty years. Literally
thousands of people died in political warfare in that period,
after all, three of the four presidential assassinations in American
history happened between eighteen sixty five and nineteen oh one.

(05:14):
On the upside, the passion people felt about politics meant
there were record turnouts on election day. As America finally
calmed down and there was some political reform, we eventually
lost the fire and passion that saw every citizen wrapped
up in politics. Political participation and enthusiasm crashed once we

(05:35):
got into the twentieth century, So while it was much
more civil, we lost something in the process. How great
would it be if we could embrace the passion of
participating and running this beautiful country, but also allow other
people to have their own point of view without resorting
to nastiness and violence. I hope you're enjoying the Backstory

(06:07):
with Patty Steele. Follow or subscribe for free to get
new episodes delivered automatically, and by the way, feel free
to DM me if you have a story you'd like
me to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty Steele and on
Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele. The Backstories a
production of iHeartMedia, Premier Networks, the Elvis Duran Group, and

(06:29):
Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our writer
Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday and Friday.
Feel free to reach out to me with comments and
even story suggestions on Instagram at Real Patty Steele and
on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening to the
Backstory with Patty Steele, the pieces of history you didn't

(06:51):
know you needed to know.