When Abraham Lincoln,Thomas Jefferson, Gerald Ford, Ulysses S.Grant and John Quincy Adams – to name just a few of our past presidents, got down and dirty they didn’t throw any lame ‘yo mama’ insults.There was substance behind their words. While some might have issued a challenge to a duel, but with such eloquence on the tip of one’s tongue – why bother with bloodshed? Words can wound more deeply and last longer…After all, we’re reading them now!
If they didn’t teach these presidential quotes in high school, it’s a pity. These sniping snippets reveal much more about the men who spoke them, and those they spoke of – than any list of memorized dates – so popular in History classes, ever could!
Spoiler Alert! Here’s fair warning that I couldn’t help but share at least one comment concerning two well-known figures. Here is a quote by John Adams expressing displeasure with Alexander Hamilton. Both men are claimed as near personal acquaintances by Tea Party folk.
“That bastard brat of a Scottish peddler! His ambition, his restlessness, and all his grandiose schemes come,I’m convinced, from a superabundance of secretions, which he couldn’t find enough whores to absorb!”
I sense a wee back-story here.
If you notice the photo of Lincoln looks ‘different’ it is because he is in the process of growing in his famous beard. Many will know the story behind his decision to grow facial hair, but in honor of President’s Day I include it here, with my speculation that Grace Bedell may have been 11 going on 29, such a knowledgeable Presidential adviser she was at a very tender age.
When Lincoln won the election, an 11-year-old girl named Grace Bedell wrote the President-elect a letter: “You would look a great deal better [if you grew a beard] for your face is so thin. All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you and then you would be President.” Lincoln took her advice, and his beard was born. In this early 1861 photograph, you can see Lincoln growing out his famous stubble. Lincoln later visited the little girl and told her, “Gracie, look at my whiskers. I have been growing them for you.”