The Repertory, October 7, 1806 (Collection of Allen Frey)

Negative campaigning against Thomas Jefferson

In the presidential election of 1804, incumbent Thomas Jefferson defeated Federalist Charles Cotesworth Pinckney by a 45 percent victory margin in electoral votes—the highest ever. He attributed the victory to his first-term achievements, which included the Louisiana Purchase and an improvement in foreign relations. Nonetheless, Federalist opposition to Jefferson and his policies never ceased.

One lengthy, vitriolic letter addressed to the president spilled across the front page of the Boston Repertory on October 7, 1806. Jefferson is viciously attacked for "unexampled feebleness and impolicy," for failing to prepare for war with France and Spain, and for enduring "their encroachments, their spurs, their scorn." "You will soon find your supplications for peace," the writer concludes, answered "by a Spanish and French army in Louisiana."