Ribs Turned into a Gridiron in Hell

It’s that time of year.  Not Fall, not the turning of the seasons.  Election season.

Every four years, the talking heads claim that this election is the dirtiest ever, that the language used is harsher than in years past.  That got me to thinking.  Is that true?

I’ve been reading old newspapers at GenealogyBank.com, concentrating on the Texas Revolution and Davy Crockett.  Davy was quite a character.  He had huge numbers of admirers, but also some detractors.  I’ll discuss him more in depth in later posts. Today I want to highlight this March 25, 1835 column in a Nashville newspaper.  The original thoughts were published in the Washington City Globe, under the Union section.

Davy and Andrew Jackson fought Indians together in younger days, but parted ways by 1835.  Jackson served as president 1829-1837.  Below is a transcription of the newspaper article, as I can’t post an actual picture of the copyrighted column.

“But as Davy Crockett has now become the favorite with those Nashville journals, we must expect them to repay the northern supporters of the President with insult.  They republish the letters of the Tennessee clown, who is made to father all the silly conceits which the Jack Downing letter writers of the Bank prepare, to throw ridicule and contempt on the President and the northern Republicans.  When the Nashville prints thus openly take such a person as Crockett into alliance, – a tool of the Bank who is taught to pronounce the President a tyrant and to wish his ribs turned into a gridiron in hell, &c, &c – we think that not much confidence is to be placed on their professions of friendship to the President.  And he would certainly be unwilling that those should give tone to public opinion in Tennessee, in regard to himself, who take their key note from Davy Crockett.”

Wish his ribs into a gridiron in hell.   Today these words would probably be interpreted as a death threat and Davy would already be deep in the bowels of the Secret Service.  Also see some North and South separation creeping in, and name calling on both sides.:Tennessee Clown. President a tyrant. Tool of the Bank. Such a person as Crockett.

I’ve got some more reading to do.  Talk later.