Mark Warner Botches American History

During his not ready for prime-time "keynote" address to the Dem convo last night, Marky Mark made the following remark:

Towards the end of his life, Thomas Jefferson - the founder of our party - wrote one of his frequent letters to his old rival, John Adams.

This fallacy that Thomas Jefferson founded the Democrat-ick Party, first perpetuated by FDR and continued by Democrat con-men and ignoramuses to this day (I'm still divided on which category Marky Mark falls into), needs to be corrected.

Here is a history lesson for you, Marky Mark. I can also suggest some excellent books that you can read that will clear up this confusion you suffer from on this subject -- American Creation by Joseph J. Ellis is but one of them.

Here is what I have previously written on the topic. And, while I approach any Wikipedia entry with skepticism, having actually studied the topic, researched it and read about it for enjoyment as well, I am comfortable with the portions that I excerpted below.

Wikipedia has a very interesting entry on this topic:

The Democratic-Republican Party evolved from the political factions that opposed Alexander Hamilton’s fiscal policies in the early 1790s; these factions are known variously as the Anti-Administration “Party” or the Anti-Federalists. In the mid-1790s, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison organized these factions into a party and helped define its ideology in favor of yeomen farmers, strict construction of the Constitution, and a weaker federal government. They named it the “Republican Party.” (The term “Democratic-Republican” was rarely used for the party before 1820.)

(Emphasis added.)

The modern-day Democrat Party doesn’t come into the picture until after Jefferson passed away. (Ironically, Jefferson died on July 4, 1826 — the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the same day that President John Adams died. John Adams’ last words were, “Jefferson lives,” however, Jefferson had passed away just hours before that.)

In the late 1820s, the party split into factions and dissolved. Along with some ex-Federalists, supporters of Andrew Jackson, led by Martin Van Buren, organized themselves into an off-shoot of the Democratic-Republican Party called the Democratic Party. This was the beginning of the modern-day Democratic Party. The link between today’s Democratic Party and the party founded by Jefferson was a theme emphasized by Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s and other Democratic politicans throughout the years.

Well, based upon the ideology that Jefferson espoused, he wouldn’t be too keen on associating with the party that now claims him as its founder. Let the Democrats hold Jackson-Van Buren-FDR Day Dinners while the GOP honors its ideological father as well as its party founder in addition to its greatest modern president with Jefferson-Lincoln-Reagan Day Dinners.

U2 frontman Bono said of the song “Helter Skelter,” “This is a song Charles Manson stole from the Beatles. We’re stealing it back.” It’s time for us to do the same thing. “This is a great political philospher the Democrats stole from American history. We’re stealing him back.”