In his book The Last Founding Father, author Harlow Giles Unger writes (Chapter 8):
America had changed dramatically when James Monroe and his family landed in Philadelphia on June 27, 1797, three years and nine days after they had left. [In 1794 Monroe left for Paris to serve as America's emissary to France. During his time there he negotiated the Louisiana Purchase.] Former Vice President John Adams had defeated Thomas Jefferson in a vicious election campaign and assumed the presidency. French minister Pierre August Adet provoked widespread revulsion against his native land by trying to influence the outcome with pamphlets urging Americans to vote for Jefferson. But his scheme had the opposite effect: Federalists demonized Adet and warned that a Jefferson presidency would be "fatal to our independence now that the interference of a foreign nation in our affairs is no longer disguised." . . . Even Jefferson's partisans, the newly organized Republicans, were offended by Adet's meddling in American elections. One Republican railed that Adet had destroyed Jefferson's chances for election and "irretrievably diminished the good will felt for his government and the people of France."
What lessons can your organization learn from its own history?