Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Abusive (Founding) Fathers

John Adams on Benjamin Franklin:

"His whole life has been one continued insult to good manners and to decency."

Benjamin Franklin on John Adams:

"He means well for his country, is always and honest man, often a wise one, but sometimes, and in some things, absolutely out of his senses."

Thomas Jefferson on John Adams:

"He hates Franklin, he hates [John] Jay, he hates the French, he hates the English. To whom will he adhere?"

Open letter to George Washington from Thomas Paine:

"...the world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an impostor, whether you have abandoned good principles or whether you ever had any."

John Adams on Thomas Paine:

" [He is] the satyr of the age...a mongrel between pig and puppy, begotten by a wild board on a butch wolf..."

John Adams on Alexander Hamilton:

"That bastard brat of a Scotch pedlar [sic]"

Adams later stated in regards to Hamilton:

"I shall pay no regard to his puppyhood."

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