Ally Odom and Haley Rosetta
26 February, 2015
HY 103
The Democratic-Republican Party. Election of 1816.
Characters: James Monroe and Mercy Otis Warren
Setting: An 1816 campaign rally for President James Monroe.
James Monroe:
Hi I’m James Monroe. I am running as the Democratic-Republican candidate in this 1816 election. I’m encouraging all voters to support me and my ideas towards National unities and Liberal sentiment. I want to dissolve political partisanship and restore our country’s unity. “An entire union of sentiment upon political subjects is not to be expected among a people who think for themselves, read for themselves, and act for themselves” (Zagarri, p. 124). I want to see formations of divergent political parties in our countries future. I believe that the mind has no gender and that women, despite their lack of formal political power, can exert significant influence over society and politics. I encourage all of my women supporters to wear your Phrygian caps proud to the voting polls on Election Day and vote for the change you all want to see in this New America.
Mercy Otis Warren:
My name is Mercy Otis Warren, and I am here to speak on the behalf of James Monroe and the Democratic-Republican party. In 1788, I wrote a tract, under the pseudonym, “A Columbian Patriot”, opposing the ratification of the U.S. constitution. “Fearful of a concentration of power and the lack of a Bill of Rights, I worry that the new government displayed many of the aristocratic tendencies of the rejected British regime” (Zagarri p. 87). I have recently published my three-volume, History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution which are narratives of events from 1760-1800 that are told from a Republican point of view. As I see it. Jefferson’s election in 1800 represented a true legacy for revolution-“a legacy that included the natural equality of man, their right of adopting their own modes of government, the dignity of people, and that sovereignty which cannot be ceded either to representatives or to kings.” I believe that electing James Monroe, will be electing this very legacy as well.