Personal attacks, name-calling, vulgarities, accusations of adultery, gross hypocrisy, bitter fights about the meaning of the Constitution, divisive partisan battles between proponents and opponents of a big federal government, ugly stereotypes about race and class, animosity between rural and urban sections of the country, and the demonization of banks and speculators.

This disgusting behavior is unbecoming of a nation built on democratic values and pluralism.

What is the source of this incivility and partisanship?

Trump?  Cruz?  Clinton?  Sanders?

Actually, the source is what happened after the Constitutional Convention of 1787, when the nation's Founders displayed uncivil behavior towards each other, as did their respective allies and opponents.

In other words, incivility and partisanship are nothing new.  Although the history of rancor has been forgotten or whitewashed, it began with the birth of the nation.

Those who had fought together during the Revolution and then had toiled together to write the Constitution were quickly at each other's throats after the Constitution was adopted, fighting bitterly over the true meaning of the document, especially the power of the new government.  The disputes resulted in the polity splitting into two political parties.

The same arguments and political divides continue to this day, as we shall see momentarily.

It was so bad in those times that one Founder was even called "Tom S**t" (i.e., excrement) in a couple of newspaper articles and was said to be the offspring of a white person and a "quadroon."

No, Thomas Jefferson wasn't the object of that crudity.  Alexander Hamilton was.

Even Donald Trump hasn't referred to Ted Cruz as Ted S**t.

In another example of verbal excess, Thomas Jefferson wrote that anyone who used the central bank established by Hamilton was guilty of treason and should be executed.  Even socialist Bernie Sanders hasn't called for the execution of bankers.

This animus reflected the competing visions for the fledgling nation between Jefferson and Hamilton and their respective allies.

Hamilton envisioned a manufacturing nation built on a market economy, on a strong central government to keep states from beggaring each other, and on a central bank to provide the requisite credit and liquidity for economic growth.  He knew that there would be speculative excesses and greed along the way, but believed that these negatives would be far outweighed by the resultant prosperity for all.

Jefferson saw Hamilton's vision as a nightmare that would shatter his dream of an agrarian nation.  He felt that Hamilton's goals would result in individuals and states being subjugated to a distant government and mercantile interests.   Along with Madison, Jefferson was contemptuous of commerce, finding it vulgar and crass.  He said:  "I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries as long as they are chiefly agricultural . . . . When they get piled on one another in large cities, as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe."

Both Hamilton and Jefferson were influenced by their views of slavery and where they called home.  Hamilton was an abolitionist; Jefferson, the supposed man of the people and champion of individual liberty, was a slave owner.  Hamilton hailed from his adopted home of New York, which was not as dependent economically on agriculture (and slavery) as Jefferson's home of Virginia.

Hamilton was maligned as a crony of bankers and speculators, although he rose from poverty and never forgot what it was like to be poor.  Ironically, by comparison, Jefferson was born into the planter (propertied) class and had aristocratic manners and tastes, which contradicted his denouncements of aristocracy.  For example, when Jefferson was posted to Paris as America's envoy, he lived in an opulent hotel and employed seven or eight domestics, including a valet, footman, coachman, and a housekeeper whose primary job was to keep the floors buffed to a high gleam.  Rivaling the shopping sprees of royalty, he bought 2,000 books and 63 paintings while in Paris, all paid for by the labor of his slaves.

In this regard, Jefferson was as hypocritical as today's William Jefferson Clinton and spouse Hillary Rodham Clinton, who say they care for the little people while accruing riches from their government connections.  They even rail against inherited wealth while using their influence to land a high-paid, non-meritorious media job for daughter Chelsea, who lives in an expensive Manhattan condo with her investment banker husband.   

A middle-class schlemiel can't leave an inheritance or family business to his kids without paying an estate tax from the grave, but the Clintons can bequeath priceless connections to Chelsea without paying a dime.  It's a similar hypocrisy with Democrat billionaire Warren Buffet, who also rails against inherited wealth while anointing his offspring as heads of his foundations.  Dupes in the media fawn over him and are too clueless and biased to point out the hypocrisy.  

Then there is the modern-day battle between those who think that the Constitution should be a living document and the strict constructionists who think it should be read literally.  That battle also goes back to Jefferson and Hamilton, especially in regard to the establishment of a central bank by Hamilton.  Jefferson vehemently opposed the Bank of the United States on the grounds that it was unconstitutional, and, specifically, that Hamilton was perverting the necessary-and-proper clause.  In an argument that continues today, Jefferson said that no powers should be given to the federal government except the specific enumerated ones.  He predicted that "to take a single step beyond the [constitutional] boundaries thus specifically drawn . . . is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition."

So who has been proved right and wrong, Hamilton or Jefferson?

They were both right and wrong, just as today's political parties are both right and wrong.

Jefferson was wrong to believe that the USA could remain an agrarian nation with a weak central government, one without sufficient credit and the means to defend itself.  He also was morally wrong about slavery, the legacy of which still pervades the nation's politics.  On the other hand, he was right about the pernicious nature of government—about its tendency to grow in power and corruption.

Hamilton was right where Jefferson was wrong, and wrong where Jefferson was right.  Hamilton was right to believe that the nation would never be prosperous with an agrarian economy, and his views of slavery where from the moral high ground.  But he couldn't imagine that the government and the central bank would morph into the monstrosities they are today.

In any event, the battles and incivility continue today.  But at least I don't have to resort to insults and get into the sewer with Donald S**t, Ted S**t, Hillary S**t, and Bernie S**t.   I'm proud to say that unlike the Founders, I'm no hypocrite.

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Two references for this commentary are Alexander Hamilton, by Ron Chernow; and The Return of George Washington, by Edward J. Larson.