Scandal Through the Years

As everyone bemoans the loss of civility in politics, it would do good to remember some great lines from the bad old days. "One Adams partisan described [Jackson] as a 'gambler, a cock fighter, a slave trader', which would have been fine - accurate, even - had the writer not continued with, 'and the husband of a really fat wife'. A Kentucky paper called Jackson's wife a 'dirty, black wench!'. Additionally, one widely distributed handbill claimed that Jackson's mother was a prostitute."