I’m actually a little lost here… I know it’s the pit, so, y’know… But since when is citing a book not a valid SDMB citation? If we were talking about WWI, and I mentioned that Barbara Tuchman had said such-and-so in The Guns of August, why is that “Fuck that with a Pitchfork” dismissable? I thought history books were valid cites in honest discussion.
What’s also vaguely of interest here is that I opened a thread on the subject, in General Questions, some years ago, when I first read Toll’s book (and it’s a best-seller, comparable to Tuchman’s, so you can probably get it in a library, so you don’t have to buy it, but this is the Pit, so…) asking if anyone could give me more context on Hamilton plotting to oust Adams. Didn’t get much help, alas.
Anyway, at least one best-selling history writer has mentioned Hamilton scheming to oust Adams, and I think that’s worse than what we saw happen this year. It’s more comparable to what might have happened if Pence had actually said, “We’re overruling the Electoral College.”
Yes, I wasn’t responding to his later comments about removing Adams by force. That is a bigger claim.
I certainly haven’t read that book, and don’t see evidence of Hamilton proposing an armed removal of Adams.
Books are old fashioned cites. They are often still valid, but they make research much more involved than a quick poke around the internet. Accessibility is a significant factor in having convincing cites for an argument.
More importantly, you now state that your cite is just an offhand passing remark in one history book about a different topic. That you previously were looking for more information to verify it. That seems a bit thin to hang an argument that Hamilton was plotting an armed coup, and thus the situation at that time was a more dire threat to our democracy than Trump is now.
“I read a book that says such-and-such” giving author and title, is a cite, but in the context of an online discussion, it’s not a very useful one, standing alone. Maybe we can eventually look at it, but probably only days later at best.
2a) You didn’t quote the material you’re citing the book for. You could have and should have, and you still could. Especially because that’s the only way we can meaningfully see it.
(2b) And even if we were talking about something accessible online, you still have to quote the relevant part. There’s a reason for this, and I’ve been saying this on the Dope for twenty years, and I’ll keep saying it for another 20 years if the Dope survives that long.
The reason is that if you don’t quote it, my choices are: (a) ignore it, or (b) (i) go digging through your link for the part that supports your argument, (ii) rebut that, (iii) only to be told that wasn’t the part that supported your argument, some other part was. (This happened to me often enough in the Dope’s early days that I remember that song-and-dance all too well.)
So I’m going with ‘ignore it.’ A cite has to include a quote that supports your point, or it’s not really a cite AFAIAC.
It also leaves us in the position of figuring out whether your author is an authority on the subject, or reliable in general for that matter. OK, now that I’ve googled Toll, he’s an award-winning writer on naval history, but does he know shit about Alexander Hamilton and John Adams? The hell if I know.
What I do know is that this would have been a Big Fucking Deal in the story of both the Adams Administration and the life of Alexander Hamilton, who wasn’t exactly small potatoes back when Lin-Manuel Miranda was a gleam in his father’s eye; he’s one of the four or five most influential figures in our nation’s founding, other than the ones that got to be President, and he’s right there on the ten-dollar bill. It’s the sort of thing that would have been the subject of doctoral dissertations and scholarly articles, and would have been mentioned in serious biographies of both men. There would be either a consensus or a debate among historians of the early years of the Republic over whether this had been a serious possibility, or whether A.Ham. was just blowing off steam, or what.
Also missing is all the when and why and in what context Hamilton supposedly considered deposing Adams by force. Again, all we have is your reference to one author’s offhand reference in a book on an entirely different topic, devoid of any details. Did he provide a footnote? Did he cite a particular letter of Hamilton’s? I don’t know enough to say whether this guy’s account of the falling-out between Adams and Hamilton is accurate, but at least he cites his primary sources.
And I come back to (2b) again: I shouldn’t even be in the position of having to research the goings-on of that time myself, other than to satisfy my general curiosity. If you’re the one claiming Hamilton considered removing Adams by force, you should be the one substantiating that claim. I shouldn’t be having to try to see if there are any other references to it.
I came up empty, and in this particular case, for the reasons cited in (3) above, I have to conclude that absence of evidence is evidence of absence. This would have been a Big Fucking Deal. There would be plenty to find.
Yeah. I can see part of Six Frigates in Google Books Preview, but if Trinopus doesn’t cite the specific passage from the book that he thinks supports his claim, I have no way of independently checking what it says.
I own a copy of “Six Frigates,” and it’s on my Kindle so it’s searchable. It does take a while to sort through the many mentions of Hamilton’s name, but the relevant passages appear to be in Chapter 4, regarding the Quasi-War with France, and Hamilton’s appointment as Washington’s second-in-command of the Army. Hamilton became de facto head of the Army due to Washington’s age, and amassed a great deal of power therefrom.
It is undisputed that Adams and Hamilton were bitter rivals. However, everything in this chapter about Hamilton massing the Army and becoming, “a second Bonaparte,” (as Abigail Adams feared) is presented (at least in this book) as being Adams’s own fears and concerns, not as an actual plot to stage a coup. Hamilton would have been delighted to see Adams leave the Presidency, and he engaged in any number of nasty campaigns against Adams. Adams’s own cabinet appears to have been more loyal to Hamilton than to Adams.
But, again, I can see no indication that Hamilton himself actually considered a coup, or military action of any kind, against the Government or Adams. I will grant that I skimmed the chapter, mostly just following along wherever Hamilton’s name appeared, but I can’t find any cites to support even a nascent coup on Hamilton’s part. Again, he seems to have absolutely despised Adams, and would have wept no tears should Adams have died, resigned, or otherwise become former President Adams. He absolutely worked to minimize Adams’s power and influence, and was a prime mover in the growing split amongst the Federalist Party, but I think we’re going to need some very specific cites before I believe Hamilton even considered taking power by force.
Anyone want to watch a totally not a coup political protest disagreement barbeque picnic everything is fine we don’t have coups in America I refuse to stop believing that everything is normal fun time gathering?
While I agree, I think Republicans would take your statement as a challenge.
I actually haven’t talked to my parents since the 6th, well since Christmas, really. I really don’t want to hear them try to make that argument, as I know that they will.
Yes, Lieu, Plaskett and Dean (?) are setting out a compelling case that it wasn’t just one of those things that happened, it was a quite carefully anticipated and planned event.
Well, no one could argue in good faith that it wasn’t a coup. But Congressional Republicans almost never argue in good faith - there’s no profit in it.
Yes, I suspect the outcome of this trial will be influenced by the fact that the defendant is allowed to openly threaten the jury with loss of employment and public harassment, at minimum.
Just a pet peeve of mine, but video from the Jim Jones compound with Jim Jones showing off one warehouse a few months before the massacre in Guyana, shows that both Kool-Aid and Flavor-Aid where present in his compound.
So, it is ok to use Kool-Aid as a “beverage of choice” for cult guys IMHO.
At this point, I would not have been surprised that if things had gotten a little worse, Republican members of Congress would have shoved their Democrat colleagues into the mob in order to save their own skins.
One thing I don’t get and I haven’t seen anybody explain yet: Trump says we’ll be marching down to the Capitol—and I’ll be there with you. And then he doesn’t go. Why not? Did Private Bone Spurs have second thoughts? Did someone advise him not to? Was he planning to “be there in spirit”? What up wit dat? I think it’s kind of key that the “protesters” thought they had the support of the president…who would be there with them.
