William Urban: Adams versus Jefferson William Urban Six years ago I listened to John Ferling’s book (getting the Audio-Book from the Warren County Library) with its subtitle “The Tumultuous Election of 1800,” so a while back I listened to it again. One characteristic of a good book is that it bears reading at various points in each person’s life. In this case, the election of 2020 seems to have been even more contentious than what seemed likely in 2015. Moreover, there were strong resemblances to the election of 1800. If anything was different, it was that passions were higher two hundred years ago than today! The survival of the union was at stake, and the nation was still in its infancy.