our Founding Civility Director

These days when it feels like our nation has hit an all-time low in civil discourse, it may be reassuring (but at the same time disillusioning) to remind ourselves that our Founding Fathers were far from averse to mud-slinging, character assassination and rabble-rousing rhetoric.

The lonely exception was George Washington who, although savvy enough to know that "faction" was in our human nature, spent a good deal of ink exhorting his fellow Americans and cabinet members to drop the vitriol and engage in civil discussion.

His words largely fell on deaf ears, as they would probably do today, but they're still worth a re-print:

Differences in political opinions are as unavoidable as, to a certain point, they may, perhaps, be necessary; but it is exceedingly to be regretted that subjects cannot be discussed with temper on the one hand, or decisions submitted to without having the motives which led to them improperly implicated on the other: and this regret borders on chagrin when we find that men of abilities, zealous patriots, having the same general objects in view, and the same upright intentions to prosecute them, will not exercise more charity in deciding on the opinions and actions of one another. - Letter to Alexander Hamilton, 1792

My earnest wish, and my fondest hope therefore is, that instead of wounding suspicions, and irritable charges, there may be liberal allowances, mutual forbearances, and temporising yieldings on all sides. Under the exercise of these, matters will go on smoothly, and, if possible, more prosperously. Without them every thing must rub; the Wheels of Government will clog; our enemies will triumph, and by throwing their weight into the disaffected Scale, may accomplish the ruin of the goodly fabric we have been erecting. - Letter to Thomas Jefferson, 1792

I am sure the mass of citizens in these United States mean well, and I firmly believe they will always act well whenever they can obtain a right understanding of matters; but in some parts of the Union, where the sentiments of their delegates and leaders are adverse to the government, and great pains are taken to inculcate a belief that their rights are assailed and their liberties endangered, it is not easy to accomplish this; especially, as is the case invariably, when the inventors and abettors of pernicious measures use infinite more industry in disseminating the poison than the well disposed part of the community to furnish the antidote. - Letter to John Jay, 1796