2. Be respectful
Another lesson from Washington comes in the form of what not to do.
Alexander Hamilton once remarked to Gouverneur Morris that Washington was reserved and formal with everyone. Morris insisted he had a chummy relationship with the great man. So Hamilton bet the price of a good dinner that Morris wouldn’t dare give Washington a casual greeting and slap him on the shoulder.
Morris did—and immediately regretted it. Though he soon chose to forget the impertinence, Washington was clearly offended.
He had won his free meal but confessed he “paid dearly for it.”
Family may be even closer to us than Morris thought he was to Washington, but that’s all the more reason to respect age and standing. Like Washington, an older relative might forgive rude behavior. But as Morris discovered, everyone feels worse because of it.
3. Be amiable—bring honey, not vinegar
Benjamin Franklin recognized he was “overbearing, and rather insolent” in conversation as a young man. So he trained himself out of the habit. In his Autobiography he writes that he “made it a rule to forbear all direct contradiction to the sentiments of others.”
He later put the same lesson in Poor Richard's Almanack: “Tart Words make no Friends: a spoonful of honey will catch more flies than a Gallon of Vinegar.”
Before correcting your cousin at the dinner table, consider Franklin's lesson that no matter how clever you might be—and few are as clever as Franklin—it’s not smart to put your opinions above others’ when you’re among friends or family.
4. Let dinner do what debate can’t
In 1790 Congress was at an impasse on Alexander Hamilton’s plan to have the federal government assume the states’ wartime debts. Washington, as well as Hamilton, thought the policy essential for the republic's survival. James Madison disagreed.
Although Thomas Jefferson tended to side with Madison, he invited Hamilton, Madison, and “another friend or two” to dine with him because he “thought it impossible that reasonable men, consulting together coolly, could fail, by some mutual sacrifices of opinion, to form a compromise which was to save the Union.”
That meal prepared the way for the Compromise of 1790, which passed Hamilton’s plan through Congress and also selected the site that would become Washington, D.C., as the nation’s capital.
Arguments had gone as far as they could go—what was needed in the end was the fellow-feeling a good meal provides.
At holiday time, the meal is already there. The important thing is not to lose sight of enjoying it, and the company of family and friends, amid any talk of politics or money.
5. Take a lesson about partisanship from the inventor of party politics
Jefferson built the first political party in American history, even though he, like other Founders, thought parties were inherently bad.
He did it because he came to disagree so strongly with Hamilton’s system and the direction of the John Adams administration that he felt his principles demanded he organize opposition.
The presidential election of 1800, which pitted Jefferson against Adams, was as bitter as any contest this century.
Yet in his 1801 inaugural address, the victorious Jefferson struck a magnanimous note:
“Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have been called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans: we are all Federalists.”
After his presidency Jefferson reconciled with Adams: the correspondence they carried on between 1812 and 1826 notably focused on history, philosophy, personal subjects and books more than the politics that divided them.
There was more to Jefferson than partisanship, and he understood there was more to Adams as well.
That sense of perspective is worthy of a place at the family table during the holidays, and always.
