Extreme partisan politics is nothing new

I hear it all the time: "The country is more divided now than it's ever been."

The good people on the left insist that the voices of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and the vicious bloggers of the 'Tea Party fringe' are plunging our national political discourse to new lows of nastiness with their personal attacks and backward thinking.

The good folks on the right try to convince me that it is the popular opinions aired by MSNBC, the snobs in Hollywood and the vicious bloggers of the 'Left Wing fringe' that are dragging us down with their personal attacks as they lead us toward socialism and ruin.

The truth is, the political gamesmanship and battles of today always sting more than the attacks of the past. Political outrage has a very short shelf life. We so easily forget about the viciousness of last week's sound-bites.

As noisy and annoying as the bloggers and pundits are today, we're not approaching some record low. Extreme partisanship is as old as our democracy itself.

I recently came across some historical documents attributed to a once-prominent and respected Georgia politician.

He was a University of Georgia graduate, an intellectual, a longtime state representative and a two-term U.S. Congressman.

This noteworthy Georgian was a master of the political battlefield. He slung mud with a nefarious ill- will that would make folks like Glenn Beck or Keith Olbermann blush and run for cover.

When this Georgia Congressman confronted a particular presidential candidate he did not like, he didn't attack him with a 30 second t.v. spot or a half hour radio program. Our former statesman took things much further, writing a complete unauthorized biography of the candidate, filled with unbiased character assassinations.

"Now the people ought to rise in the strengths of their minds and exert some thinking power of their own," he wrote.

"Do not let [the presidential candidate] play upon your ignorance and then laugh at your weakness...

"May God in his infinite mercy save our country from this man."

Our one-time Georgia Congressman filled 200 pages of this widely circulated 'biography' with political vitriol, calling the subject of his work "an evil genius" who "cherishes his slyness and cold calculation as virtues."

While the Georgia author was popular in his home state, he was less known nationally. When it came time to go to the presses, he decided to publish the work under the assumed name of one of his much more well known political friends: A gentleman who had recently quit the cut-throat realm of Washington politics to retire out west.

Like thousands of pundits after him, our former Congressman liberally quoted Patrick Henry in his tirades. He used Henry's sayings to introduce a series of newspaper columns signed 'Atticus' -- wherein he embraced the blogger-cherished cloak of anonymity long before the internet was invented.

In these 'Atticus' columns, our statesman railed against the over-reaching federal government. He was especially hostile toward Georgia's federally protected non-citizen communities, calling them, "sanctuaries for villainy and harbors for outlaws in the heart of this very state."

It was his contention that these non-citizens be driven from the borders and resettled elsewhere. Using violence to do so was most certainly an option.

Who was this once famed politician? His name was Augustin Smith Clayton. The book he penned during the lead up to the 1836 presidential election was titled, "The Life of Martin Van Buren."

The popular friend who Clayton used as his pseudonym / front-man for the project? One David "Davy" Crockett.

And those non-citizens Clayton had such harsh words for weren't of Latino descent. They were Native Americans.

For all his partisan gamesmanship, Clayton enjoyed popularity, but he failed to achieve the real political gains he sought. His nemesis, Van Buren, was indeed elected president.

However, Clayton did leave enough of a mark on history to get some places named after him, including the county that rests along Fayette's eastern border.

Clayton was right about at least one thing, "Statesmen and their demagogues are gamesters," he wrote. "And the people are the cards they play with."

Next time Rush Limbaugh or Bill Maher stirs you up, just remember that they're playing one of the oldest tricks in the book.