Posted by Eugene Volokh:
Invective:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_01_18-2009_01_24.shtml#1232578120
A recent glance at Alexander Hamilton's denunciation of John Adams
leads me to revise the comments policy. The passage I have in mind is
this:
This scrutiny [of some of Adams's writings] enhanced my esteem in
the main for his [Adams's] moral qualifications, but lessened my
respect for his intellectual endowments. I then adopted an opinion,
which all my subsequent experience has confirmed, that he is a man
of an imagination sublimated and eccentric; propitious neither to
the regular display of sound judgment, nor to steady perseverance
in a systematic plan of conduct; and I began to perceive what has
been since too manifest, that to this defect are added the
unfortunate foibles of a vanity without bounds, and a jealousy
capable of discoloring every object.
Ah, they don't make insults like that any more, or at least enough of
them. Hence my compromise: I continue to ask that "[c]omments ... be
... civil (and, especially, free of name-calling)." But if you
absolutely must insult people, I want to set Hamilton's work as the
bar you must clear for that privilege.
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