Presidents By The Book

Politicians, Catholics and "Religious Freedom"

2012-02-12T19:49:00.005-05:00

The recent debate over religious freedom regarding Catholic institutions and providing birth control is interesting. Normally, religious freedom means that the government cannot dictate a state religion or make religious beliefs illegal. It can deem the carrying out of those beliefs illegal such as human sacrifice or polygamy, but it cannot tell people what they can and cannot believe.

As such, it seems like a leap of faith (no pun intended) to declare that the idea that the government can pass a mandate that requires insurance companies to cover birth control for women an assault on the church. Just think, the Catholic Church went from having it's member's discriminated against and being barred from politics for their obedience to the foreign pope in the 1800's to playing the martyr in the 21st century because their for-profit self insured hospital networks and universities are forced to provide insurance coverage that includes birth control.

Putting aside the fact that:
1) Catholic Hospitals and Universities are not churches and live in the secular world
2) Many of the employees at these institutions are not Catholic and thus not bound by management's moral convictions
3) No devout Catholic will be forced to wear condoms or take the pill as a result of this legislation
4) Most Catholics are on birth control until they decide to have children.

It seems a far cry that suggesting that the Catholic affiliated hospitals and universities having to abide by the same laws as everyone else is the same as religious persecution. It also leads to a great debate on who is the Catholic Church anyway?

Judging on the lack of families with 10 kids in Mass every week (I'm Catholic) I'd say that maybe two percent of the attending members actually believe in the fiction that God and not the parents should decide when they have kids. In addition, the Church TEACHES the rythm method, which was the highly imperfect birth control method of the medieval ages. Aren't the pill and condoms just more technologically advanced alternatives?

Based on all these points, I'm very upset at the church's continued search for irrelevance in modern times and at the politicians providing coverage for the out dated beliefs for the child less old men that run the Church.

There are real issues of religious persecution and intolerance in the United States, but this is not one of them and is not healthy for anyone other than the politicians who will continue fighting the culture wars of the 1960's at any cost.

Benjamin Harrison: The Start of the Welfare State

2012-02-12T17:05:00.000-05:00

Referring to politicians trying to create a "welfare state" are charged words these days and were in the late 1880's as well. The reason that these are controversial words today though have much less to do with why they were in Benjamin Harrison's time during the late 1800's.

Today, most Democrats and Republicans accept that free trade or something close to it should be an aspiration of public policy. That is why "welfare state" is code for one politician accusing another of not following the universal truth that free trade is gospel.

In reality, we don't have anything close to free trade due to millions and millions in lobbying money that flow to politicians pockets, misguided government incentives and the revolving door between corporate board rooms and government political positions, that's a post for another time.

In the late 1800's, the great debate on whether competition and international free trade were good or not was still being decided. Some politicians were in favor of tariffs to limit competition to America's young manufacturing industries, while others were against protectionist measures because they wanted to keep the prices of imported goods as low as possible.

The reason that the "welfare state" was something to be avoided had more to do with many of the founding fathers and the philosophers that inspired them preaching that a good citizen should be self sufficient and that dependency on government was just another form of tyranny. Socialism was not considered a pariah because of what it would do to people's wallets, but because dependency on government largesses would lead to a natural erosion of rights.

That is why it took over 100 years after the founding of the United States to start introducing many of the types of social programs we now consider commonplace. Grover Cleveland's opposition to Benjamin Harrison's support of pensions for Civil War Veterans might seem over the top now, but then played on people's deeply held fear of government dependency.

While free trade is almost a religious imperative in today's America, independence from the government dole was the religion of Harrison's day.

#23: Benjamin Harrison: The Great Tariff Debate

2012-02-05T16:22:00.002-05:00

Today free trade is an almost universal value among our politicians, however; in the late 1800's it was not. Free trade has become such and aspiration and accepted goal that in this modern age, stuff seems to be made and imported to America while jobs seem to be exported.

I'm not writing this blog to take a view on free trade as a goal, but it's just interesting to look back at our own country's history when views that are now commonplace and largely bipartisan were still competing with alternate ideas.

Benjamin Harrison came down firmly on the side of protectionism. While "protectionist" might now be considered a slur to a political view, whether it be on the importing of goods or foreign policy, it was not considered an insult then.

Harrison's support of the McKinley Tariff Act of 1890 was one of the defining elements of his presidency. This act seems extreme by today's or even recent history's standards. Duties on imported goods, including raw materials were increased by up to 50%. The goal of this of course was to raise revenue for the government and decrease the amount of competition to America's developing manufacturing sector.

Historically, the northern part of the United States supported tariffs and the southern part deplored them since it was an economy based on agriculture that imported most of it's manufactured goods. The "Tariff of Abominations" in 1828 is considered one of the major events that led to the South looking to break away from the North (in addition to slavery obviously).

As anyone would expect, this tariff was loved by northern manufacturing interests but hated almost universally in the South as well by regular consumers in the North that relied on imported goods or raw materials. Most economists agree that it was a cause leading to the depression of the 1890's since it was essentially a 40-50% tax on any imported goods.

The unpopularity of this issue and Harrison's support of the Sherman Silver Act were what ultimately led to Grover Cleveland defeating him to serve his second, non consecutive term.

While it's interesting to think about the tariff and how views on free trade have changed over time, it's even more interesting to ponder the second debate the tariff led to. What to do with all that money in the surplus of the U.S. Treasury from the protective tariffs? Can you even imagine the country with huge cash reserves rather than a crushing debt in this day and age?

Maybe Harrison's policy of protectionism went way too far in trying to drastically reduce imports, but maybe our own policy of giving Americans incentives to buy imported goods and American corporations to export jobs goes too far in the other direction. If we weren't beholden to the World Trade Organization and slightly increased our tariffs, maybe we'd be having a debate not on which government programs to cut, but which ones to add with all that money in the U.S. government's coffers like they did in Ben Harrison's day.

Haley's Barbour-ism

2012-01-29T16:48:00.003-05:00

At a time when we've become so desensitized to the high level corruption and bribery through super Pacs and lobbyists, it's refreshing to see local level corruption get some national attention.

The New York Times on Friday ran an article about pardons that Haley Barbour, the former governor of Mississippi had given out in his last days in office.

The governor pardoned over 200 people, with roughly 40 of the pardons for people convicted of violent crimes that included murder, rape and assault. The common element most of these pardons had in common were that the convict had a connection, familial or otherwise, to the powerful Republican political class or Haley Barbour himself.

One of those pardoned was a man convicted of a DUI related death of an 8 year old boy who happened to be a member of the Hill Brothers Construction Company, big campaign donors for conservative causes. The article also mentioned that another member of that same family was pardoned for Federal Tax Evasion by George W. Bush.

It's amazing what money can buy you. To think that you can refuse to pay your taxes and LITERALLY get away with murder. All this time, I was thinking that political contributions could only get you financial gain and the ability to write laws. The fact that lobbyists not only tell politicians what laws they want but also actually write the verbiage that the politicians then cut and paste into their bills was as far as I thought the culture of corruption would ever go.

It's not like Southern politics have ever been clean, but this should raise the eyebrows of anyone that thinks no one is above the law. At a time when we have unlimited money and corporations are people, this seems only like the logical outgrown. After all, corporations are people and can only be expected to ask for favors for their no good nephew.

#23: Benjamin Harrison

2012-01-21T16:01:00.003-05:00

Benjamin Harrison defeated Grover Cleveland in 1888, after he served one presidential term. Cleveland then defeated him in 1892 when he ran again on the Democratic ticket. This makes him the only presidential candidate I know of to both win and lose a presidential election to the same person.

Presidential power at this time was not quite as concentrated as it is today, so it wasn't unusual to see ex- presidents jump back and forth between private life and politics. Today, it seems that if you've served as president, you can only go on speaking tours or make ceremonial appearances at public events as though you're American royalty.

Cleveland largely disappeared from the limelight after Harrison defeated him during the term that Harrison served and took a regular job at a law firm in New York for a couple years until he played the old "I have no choice but to run again" card when he saw what he felt were the ruinous effects on the economy of Harrison's policies. Harrison worked for a law firm as well after he was defeated by Cleveland. Today they would have certainly made a good living as professional pundits on Fox News or MSNBC, but at this time it seems they had to support themselves like regular people.

Politics at the upper levels didn't pay quite as well in the late 1800's as it does today. There was probably more graft and money changing hands at the lower/local levels, but the higher offices of president, senators and congressmen were expected to take a pay cut to serve in politics.

The millions of dollars that presidential candidates now have funneled to them both before and after presidential elections from super pacs and lobbyists make me almost nostalgic for the days when you had to buy your way into city council.

Grover Cleveland: The Rise of The Labor and Progressive Movement

2011-12-04T18:18:00.000-05:00

Many people don't understand that the founders and their successors valued liberty over equality. Various presidents from George Washington all the way up to Cleveland generally adopted this view and the government was looked upon as something to protect people from more than something to help people.

The landscape however had been changing for a while. By the 1880's, people had been leaving their farms and small businesses for factory jobs in the city for decades. While citizens would not generally petition the government to increase their wages or maximize the hours they're required to put in on the job when they actually own the business they're working at, all that changed when the majority of Americans started to work for other people.

For some time, movements had been popping up that favored the interests of labor over capital. 'Free Silver' or the devaluation of U.S. currency had been pushed for a while as a means for the government to bail people out of debt and the movement to give pensions to Civil War veterans had been going on since before Cleveland took office.

In addition, there were immigrants pouring into the country from less stable places in Europe that advocated new and liberal ideas like socialism and anarchism.

Cleveland however continued to hold the view that the government did not exist to provide a safety net for people or create a more equal society. In his first term in 1885, his opposition to new social programs and refusal to have the government intervene in the private economy was not seen as major issue. Although he lost his bid for re-election, it was not because of popular anger at his economic policies.

However, when he was re-elected for a non-consecutive term in 1893, the country was in an economic crisis. Although this crisis was brought on by the 'free silver' policies that he had always been opposed to, he still took the blame for the crisis, or at least for not doing more to fix it. With many Americans out of work, his insistence on restricting government jobs and political appointments stood in direct opposition to the labor forces that were becoming stronger with every passing year.

As the depression continued, Cleveland's refusal to implement some kind of FDR type 'job creation' policy makes him seem out of touch to modern day historians. I think that this is unfair though since he was simply carrying out the widely held view of what government should and should not do that had been in place for more than one hundred years.

Grover Cleveland: "Waving the bloody shirt"

2011-11-20T17:26:00.003-05:00

Grover Cleveland was the sixth president to serve since Abraham Lincoln won the civil war and was shot to death in 1865. At this point, the nation was a little over twenty years removed from the end of the war, had been through the reconstruction period and was well into the gilded age. The reason he got elected was as much about his republican opponents failed strategy as it was about his own grasp of politics.

Since the north had won the civil war, the republicans who were predominately from the northeast and midwest had made blaming the democrats for the war an integral part of their campaign strategy.

The strategy made a lot of sense at first, southern politicians were mostly democrats and many northern democrats harbored some sense of loyalty or at least sympathy to the confederacy in the 1860's. It continued to work well when after the war, southern politicians who had served in the confederate government once again became the congressmen and senators of the reunited country.

The problem was that it worked so well to stir up the republican base that some politicians never stopped using it as a way to scare the voters into electing them. In many ways, even twenty years on in the 1880's, the civil war was like the 9-11 of its day. Just like republicans of today continue to brand Barack Obama (the man that killed Bin-Laden and scores of other Al-Qaeda terrorists) and all other democrats as 'weak on terrorism', the republicans of the 1880's continued to imply that voters who elected democrats were somehow disloyal to their country.

Voters got tired of this strategy for several understandable reasons. The foreign born population had exploded since the 1860's due to war and famine in Europe and that constituency was much less swayed by anger at the South than the older native born population that had actually lived through the civil war. In addition, twenty years after the civil war, a fair amount of the war population had passed on and the younger generation were either too young to remember the war or were not even born when it took place.

The Republicans realized that immigrants were much less likely to vote for them and sought to tar them as also being disloyal to the United States due to their 'Romanism'. The anti-Catholic and foreigner rhetoric was ironic, coming from the party of emancipation of slaves. Eventually, voters tired of this fear driven agenda and the republican party lost influence even in its stronghold of the northeast.

Grover Cleveland: "Ma, ma, where's my Pa?"

2011-11-12T15:10:00.001-05:00

The campaign of 1884 got ugly, even by presidential election standards. Blaine was chosen to run over the incumbent President, Chester Arthur. This choice greatly divided the party in to factions and even drove some Republicans who declared themselves part of the 'mugwump' faction to break away from the party and vote for the Democratic candidate, Grover Cleveland.

Blaine was known as the "Plumed Knight" and served in the cabinet of many administrations from the time of Lincoln all the way up to the turn of the century. He had an uncanny knack for crisis management and survival evidenced by the fact that he somehow stuck around after letters were brought to light that he had taken over the equivalent of over $1.5 MILLION dollars in bribes from various industrial and rail road interests. And that's just what we know about! Just like I can promise you that there were more than one intern that Bill Clinton had his way with, it's safe to assume that in Blaine's day, there was other money from special interests that found its way into his pocket.

The letters Blaine wrote that were published as evidence of his corruption allegedly instructed the reader to 'burn this letter'. Therefore, the Democrat's campaign slogan became 'Burn this letter!'. In my opinion, that's a catchier slogan than 'We are the 99%' or 'Yes we can'.

The Republicans countered by having party plants make public statements that the Democrats supported 'Rum, romanism and rebellion'. Rum was a reference to the temperance movement that had reached a fever pitch by the mid 1880's, romanism referenced the teeming masses of immigrants that were overwhelmingly Catholic and suspected to owe their loyalties to Rome, rebellion was a nod to the fact that historically, the democrats had been the party of the South and the confederacy.

Their biggest gem however came when it was revealed that Cleveland had fathered a child out of wedlock and it was alleged that he had provided housing for the boy and his mother only at 'the point of a shotgun'. They even came up with a catchy slogan for his bastard child: "Ma, ma, where's my Pa? Gone to the White house, ha, ha, ha."

Ultimately, the Republicans ended up looking worse during the ugly campaign and Cleveland gained sympathy when he didn't try and deny his 'illicit' relationship with the woman who had his child and made clear that he had provided for both of them.

You would have thought that Republicans in the 1990's would have remembered this lesson when they held the sham impeachment trials of Clinton, only to have their own affairs come to light shortly thereafter.

#22 and #24: Grover Cleveland

2011-11-06T15:00:00.002-05:00

In the mid 1880's, the Republicans were angry at Chester Arthur for not having their back once he became President. Arthur was a consummate machine politician that came up in the stinking pit of corruption of NYC. He was brought to power by being a party man and following the system of reciprocal political favors the New York machine had in place.

He was actually the collector of the port of New York for eight years before Hayes removed him as part of his early efforts to reform civil service. It's strange then that Arthur pushed through reforms and refused to make many political appointments to his cabinet and the many patronage positions that were available in civil service. The republican party thrived on those patronage appointments as ways to earn the votes and the money of their loyalists.

Whether the motivation for Arthur's principled stand was out of his true desire to be his own man, a desire to carry out Garfield's legacy after he was shot to death by an assassin (Arthur came to power as Garfield's VP) or self preservation to prevent being a murder suspect in the president's death, the Republican machine was angry at Arthur's change in heart.

They were so angry in fact that they adopted a suicidal policy of revenge. The public was on the side of reform (unless they benefited from the graft), so when the party decided to not put Arthur on the presidential ticket after his partial term was up and nominate his rival, the machine politician James Blaine, the move backfired on them.

Grover Cleveland, the Democratic nominee ran on a platform of continued reform. Civil service reform had taken place under the Garfield/Arthur administration, but Cleveland wanted to further it. Blaine and the wise old men of the Republican party wanted to reverse it and distracted the public by bringing up Cleveland's love child "Ma, ma, where's my Pa?" and base charges that the Democrats would bring "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion" to the United States if elected.

It's nice to see that they got punished for their cynical strategy and gives me hope that we could do the same in this country with our out of touch politicians.

NYC in the 1870's vs the 1970's: The worse bad old days

2011-10-30T23:07:00.004-04:00

Having relocated to NYC from Ohio four years ago, I noticed that I encounter a very different opinion of New York from older people that have lived their whole life here versus people that have moved here from other parts of the country.

From the life long residents over 50, you get all the same tired platitudes about NYC being 'the greatest city in the world', but you also notice a fear of the city. They take pride in having lived through the tumultuous 1970's when buildings were burnt down for insurance money and junkies roamed the streets at night like the zombies in "I Am Legend". They caution you against going out at night and often still refuse to take the subways that were the symbol of the city's decay in the 1970's.

Times were so bad then that it seems hard to imagine a time in New York that was worse. However, in the 1870's as immigrants were pouring into the city's ports to escape the famine of Ireland and the endless wars of continental Europe, the city had the dubious distinction of having the highest death rate in the Western world.

Even though this was the golden age of the streets of gold myths about the United States, unknown numbers of New Yorkers died of exposure in the substandard tenements, fell victims to the ethnic and political gang violence, or lost the struggle with contagious diseases that gripped the poor communities as a result of poor sanitation in the areas around lower Manhattan.

While Chester Arthur held court at the 5th Avenue Hotel near the modern 26th St and Lexington with his gilded elite friends, the poorer citizens to a mile south stood in line in soup kitchens and begged for favors of the local machine politicians that ran and owned the many taverns. The issues with poverty, corruption, violence and sanitation combined to make the New York City of the 1870's make the 1970's look comparatively good. You can bet those people would take some graffiti on subways over the sewage that flowed through the streets and would be happy with the occasional crack house compared with the opium dens that dominated the early Chinatown.

Chester Arthur: Change no one believed in

2011-10-17T22:30:00.004-04:00

All presidents since Washington tried to steer the country either into a forward or backward looking direction.

Presidents such as Jefferson, Jackson and Pierce tried to look backward and restore the country to what they viewed as the Republican golden age by keeping government small, weak and as out of people's lives as much as possible. They generally opposed having a central bank that could print money, supported only state militias to protect the country and tended to put as much decision making as possible into local communities.

Other presidents such as Adams, Polk and Garfield sought to look forward and modernize the country as much as possible through maintaining standing armies, supporting a strong central bank of the United States and 'internal improvements' which were usually public works projects such as railroads, canals or dams.

Arthur's legacy would certainly put him in the latter category as a modernizing president. He sought to continue Garfield's legacy of making the civil service more professional by making the non political positions be merit based rather than simple patronage, he pushed for time zones to be created in the United States, and even pushed for an early form of NAFTA by encouraging trade treaties with Nicaragua and Mexico.

In an age of even more suspicion and anger over immigration than our own, Arthur tried to create something even more powerful than NAFTA by pushing for a common currency for all of North and South America or a sort of United States Euro zone to further international trade.

This push for a common continental currency obviously didn't pass in the United States or Latin America and still would not today, but it really speaks to how dedicated to new ideas Arthur was.

Chester Arthur: A Lobbyist goes to Washington

2011-09-29T22:46:00.003-04:00

Chester Arthur was not the politician you'd expect to launch much needed reforms in the Gilded Age, but he ended up doing just that and he paid the highest political price for it.

His political career really took off in the 'Gangs of New York' style environment of New York City in the 1870's. He was appointed Collector of the Port of New York by a political ally, President Grant. He used this position to reward Republican party loyalists and fill the coffers of the local political machine. The money was good since at that time, there was no restriction on keeping a percentage of the customs that he was able to collect.

He rose to the top level of Roscoe Conkling's Stalwart Republican political machine and held court at the Fifth Avenue Restaurant in Lower Manhattan. Arthur, with his mutton chops and love of fine liquor and prime rib could have looked no more the part of the Gilded Age politician and he played it well too, holding dinners there almost every night of the week to confer with his advisers and decide the best way to win or buy votes for the party.

He was eventually kicked out of this lucrative position when Hayes became president and removed him as part of the effort to clean of the 'spoils system' of public positions. Hayes efforts were in vain though and the reforms would require a second effort of his successor Garfield.

When Garfield was nominated for president by the Republicans in 1880, Arthur was put on the ticket by the party's 'money men' to keep Garfield from pushing the reform effort from encroaching too far on the party's interests.

Garfield was shot shortly after taking office and died some months later. As I've discussed before, this put Arthur in the awkward position of having to deflect rumors that he had a hand in the murder of the sitting president. Whether it was a desire to carry out the wishes of Garfield out of respect for the deceased president or out of a sense of deflecting rumors that he killed him, Arthur cut ties with old political allies and started to push for competitive bidding processes for government contracts and positions shortly after taking over the office of President.

This ability to put country above party endeared Arthur to the history books, but not the power brokers of his party. At the end of his partial first term, the Republicans nominated his political rival for president and didn't even give him a spot on the ticket. We'll never know if his position of the unlikely reformer increased his standing with voters since he was never given the chance to actually run for president.

Arthur's example shows that even a politician that feeds at the trough from time to time can do great things if they're willing to put the voters' interest above that of their party. Maybe both party's culture warriors could learn a thing or two from the unlikely example of Arthur.

#21 Chester Arthur: Murder Suspect

2011-09-18T11:10:00.004-04:00

Imagine this scenario for a moment... Mitt Romney wins the nomination for the upcoming Republican presidential candidate and in order to retain the votes of the (much) more conservative members of its party, the Republicans nominate Rick Perry for the vice presidential candidate.

A few months after taking office, an assassin shoots Romney at point blank range and when apprehended, says that they did so for the Tea Party movement.

This might seem outlandish, but this situation happened in the Garfield administration with Chester Arthur serving as Vice President to retain the 'Stalwarts' in the Republican party. 100 days into office, an assassin mortally wounded Garfield and when he was wrestled to the ground, proclaimed "I am a Stalwart and Chester Arthur will be President."

This led to a very inauspicious beginning to Arthur's partial term presidency. He was elected to retain the votes of the Stalwart faction in the party. The Stalwarts wanted the United States to take a more active role in international affairs and increase they party's national appeal as well as attracting the votes of the many new immigrant groups that were coming the the United States from Ireland, Italy and elsewhere in Europe.

Garfield's faction of the Republican party still wanted to retain their old positions that they had since the civil war. Mainly retaining the "America First" attitude of isolation and anti slavery rooted views on reconstruction it had since the end of the Civil War. This faction looked at the Stalwarts with suspicion even before the assassination.

After Garfield died a few months after getting shot and Arthur took office, many of the conspiracy theories remained among the traditionalists of the Republican party throughout the rest of Garfield's life.

It's impossible to know if Arthur's adoption of many of Garfield's positions after the president's death were the result of Arthur trying to reduce suspicion of his role in Garfield's killing or if they were the honestly held views of a Gilded Age president that knew they were likely to serve only a partial term. However, Arthur's legacy will always be tied to Garfield's death.

James Garfield: Stalwarts and Mugwumps

2011-08-10T17:35:00.000-04:00

Like the Republican Party of today, the G.O.P. during the 1880's was extremely divided and in decline.

There was the civil war generation that looked at voting Republican as a moral obligation. Their strategy in the elections over and over was to 'wave the bloody shirt' which meant equating voting democratic as a vote for the confederate sympathizers. This strategy worked well, from Lincoln's assassination well into the Gilded Age. Public anger in the north was insatiable, but only for so long.

There were the 'Mugwumps' who were sort of like the Tea Party. They viewed the single most important issues being civil service reform, returning from the 'greenback' standard to the gold standard of currency and reducing or eliminating tariffs. In short- they wanted to shrink the size of government, avoid inflation and increase free trade. The mugwumps tended to be what you might say was the business class that made their fortune from importing or manufacturing. They had much more political conviction than political savvy.

Another movement within the Republican party was the 'Half Breeds'. They were more moderate and somewhat more modern than the civil war faction. They believed in Civil Service reform, but were not as ideological or economically conservative as the Mugwump faction.

The final group struggling to politically keep all the factions together at all costs were the Stalwarts. They saw political machines as a good tool in staying in power. The Stalwarts gave the 'Half Breeds' their name as an insult to say that they were not putting party first, but the Half Breeds wore it with pride. The Stalwarts were much more concerned with getting their people elected and paying out the necessary bribes in the form of government appointments than they were in any kind of political conviction. They were usually the ones that would broker deals between the various factions.

It's interesting to see the parallels between then and now. It seems our modern day Stalwarts such as Newt Gingrich are losing power to the Mugwumps in the Tea Party. Waiving the bloody shirt these days seems to fall to the cultural warriors in the Republican Party that endlessly rehash their battles with hippies from the 60's to an ever shrinking crowd of retirees.

All revolutions, even Republican revolutions eventually eat themselves.

http://www.frumforum.com/the-mugwumps-public-moralists-of-the-gilded-age

The Name Game

2011-06-18T19:00:00.002-04:00

Peter Baker wrote an article in the NY Times in May talking about how the American public loves to compare Obama to past presidents.

When his poll numbers are up, he's been compared to Abe Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson. If he addresses the American public directly, bypassing Congress, he's been called our generation's JFK or Regan. When his numbers are down, he's been called the next Carter or LBJ.

However, this isn't really a new phenomenon. When Rutherford B. Hayes was asked to perform one of Washington's speeches on the founding of the Republic for America's centennial in 1876, he was roundly criticized as a symbol of how far the country had declined.

Andrew Jackson (Old Hickory) was sort of a Regan type figure of his times, a divisive politician that enjoyed great loyalty and respect from some segments of the population and was reviled by others. His later admirers who would go on to become president were James Polk and Franklin Pierce. Both their supporters and opponents jointly gave them the nicknames 'Young Hickory' and 'Young Hickory of the Granite Hills' respectively to highlight the common policy of the three men.

Abraham Lincoln's supporters commonly compared him to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson for both his reputation as a warrior struggling to save the country and a man of peace. This was somewhat strange since the Confederate President Jefferson Davis was also commonly compared to Thomas Jefferson by his supporters for his belief in states' rights (to own slaves).

George W. Bush has been compared to James Polk for his partisanship and his skill at ramming through legislation, making enemies but also achieving his ambitious political goals.

Even George Washington in his own day was compared to a figure from history when there were no other presidents to compare him to. Washington was given the name 'Cincinnatus' after the Roman retired general/farmer who quit his plow and took his sword back up to defend his country from foreign invaders.

Maybe it's just human nature that people treat history like baseball, always looking for comparisons of current and former greats. At some point though, we have to accept that before they're anyone else, presidents are themselves, making their own history.

Lower Your Standards for Politicians

2011-06-06T23:32:00.003-04:00

I'm so tired of outraged anchors on TV and tearful and supportive wives on television.

Every time that some sex scandal breaks, it's as though Americans thought that our congressmen and senators lead an honorable life, giving an example of moral certitude (to quote Congressman Weiner) to our young people.

I really don't understand this. Politicians get paid to lie for a living and it's really no surprise to me that they're of questionable character in areas other than politics.

Politicians take money from corporations and unions and pass whatever laws their paymasters demand. They always cloak their actions in political ideology, but it's fairly obvious that we have nothing more than a sophisticated system of bribery in this country. The only people who aren't in on this joke are people that routinely vote for Democrats and Republicans.

The politician that cheats on his wife is the norm, not the exception. Just ask Henry Hyde, Newt Gingrich, Bob Dole, Rush Limbaugh, Phil Gramm, Rudulph Giuliani, Strom Thurmond, Mark Foley, Larry Craig, Bill Clinton, John Edwards, David Patterson or the aptly named Anthony Weiner. I'd keep writing but I'm afraid that I'd get carpal tunnel.

Lower your standards America!

Bin Laden: The Rabbit Hole

2011-05-02T22:36:00.003-04:00

For many, today was a day of soul searching. A day when many asked "I'm happy that we got Bin Laden, but should I feel happy over the fact that someone died?"

For me, the short answer is yes. I see absolutely nothing wrong with rejoicing over Bin Laden's death.

This guy took advantage of the Cold War in the eighties and enlisted the United States as an ally in driving the Soviets out of Afghanistan. He then stuck around and made the country a haven and training ground for Islamic extremists.

When the United States established a base in his home country of Saudi Arabia, he then started to launch terrorist plots against the Western world that increased in intensity culminating in the twin towers coming down in 2001.

We had him cornered in Tora Bora but he slipped over the border to Pakistan. We then shifted our mission in Afghanistan to the naive goal of 'nation building' which consisted of paying bribes to Warlords who would re emerge later as 'Taliban' and then re morph into allies again when they wanted our money. We also worked on building girls schools and teaching woman's lib to herdsmen. Policies I'm sure were very effective in a society that uses gang rape on innocent women to punish their male relatives for transgressions against a tribe's honor.

We then went into Iraq largely because by that time, the United States had become a national security state where even the potential threat of attack was enough to mobilize the whole military to seize control of a country. When that inevitably became a three way civil war we again switched our priorities to 'nation building' which consisted of building electric and water plants that the very people we were building them for would then blow up.

After we finally got Saddam, we decided to double down on Afghanistan and start a 'partnership' with the Pakistani government. This partnership consisted mainly of us giving a military dictatorship billions of dollars a year for the privilege of using our own military to kill tribesmen that were also enemies of the military dictatorship. All the while, they were apparently hiding Bin-Laden in the biggest, most conspicuous house of a military town.

So trillions of dollars and several thousand (U.S) casualties later, he's dead and I'm at least glad we got something for our money. Hopefully this will all prove what a waste it is to 'nation build' in a land where people still literally identify with tribes and most of the population is illiterate.

We immediately need to pull back our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan into permanent military basis where we can focus on quick strike missions to kill people that pop up and threaten the United State. That is what a military is for.

Leave the nation building to the people that live there and I think that everyone would be happier. As Alexis de Tocqueville once said "People get the government they deserve."

The Political Movements

2011-04-17T17:22:00.006-04:00

The post Civil War years were times of great change for American politics. Between Abraham Lincoln's Vice President Andrew Johnson mismanaging the post war occupation in the South so badly and the public (northern) anger towards the Democrats (most confederate sympathizers were Democrat) the Republican party enjoyed political support higher than America has ever seen before or since the war.

As political parties or movements are prone to do though, they overplayed their hand and became corrupt. They took full advantage of the spoils system under the pretense of patriotism and installed their friends and family in what would seem non political positions (post office workers, sheriffs etc.)

They also 'waived the bloody shirt' whenever they could. This term was coined by the Democrats and basically meant they tried to whip up anger over the Civil War during rallies in the North and tried to direct that anger towards the Democrats since most southerners were Democrats. This strategy worked for a while after the war, but as the actual veterans of the war started to die out and the public became preoccupied with the industrial revolution, this strategy seemed stale and out of date. Kind of like the public now is tired of Vietnam dominating the tired debates of Congressional ex hippies and cold war soldiers.

Just like now we have crusty old politicians looking at the culture and cold war issues as the 'real' debate who refuse to address the real issues that face the country such as preventing another financial crisis, the crushing national debt or the country's over response to terrorism threats, those politicians of the 1870's and 1880's tended to spar over who could out Civil War one another and which side was responsible. The public, even in the south had moved on to more pressing issues such as what the governments role should be in managing the industrial revolution and whether there should be a safety net for citizens.

As the Democrats rose back to power, the Republicans declined. The political machines which were at the height of their power in the gilded age of the post reconstruction years gradually gave way to national parties with parties based more on ideas than the geography of their members. The national parties would become so entrenched in American politics that the presidency would be challenged only a handful of times by a non major party ticket. The only ready examples I can think of for credible third party runs are the Bull Moose party of Teddy Roosevelt and Ross Perot's run as an independent.

It makes me nostalgic for the days of the Whig, Liberty and Anti Mason parties.

Garfield: The Middle Civil War President

2011-04-17T16:23:00.006-04:00

The Civil War defined generations of Americans and decades of politics from its end in 1865 well into the twentieth century.

In addition to catapulting the Republicans into political dominance on the national level for years after the war, it set up the issues to be debated for the next century.

There are the obvious ones that came directly after the war:

What is the status of freed slaves?
What is the Federal Government's responsibility in protecting the rights of freed slaves?
What is the status of the states that seceded from the Union? Are they states or are they a conquered territory? Do they have the right to self government anymore?
If Southern territories are made states again, can they be made to pay reparations for the war they started?

There were the ones that came later:

What is the financial obligation of the Federal Government to the Union Veterans? Should it take care of their retirement and medical care?
Can politicians and generals that served in the Civil War for the Confederacy serve again in the Congress and U.S. Army?
How long should the Democrats be kept out of power in the voting box? (Almost all Confederate Sympathizers in the South were democrats)
Should hay be made of politicians that didn't serve in the Civil War because they purchased 'substitutes' to serve in there place? (Think of Vietnam and Clinton not serving)

And the ones that would come much later:

Is the Confederate flag something that can be flown with pride or is it just a racist symbol? (South Carolina has it on its state flag to this day.)
If the Southern states will not suppress the KKK terrorizing its black and non democrat citizens, is the Federal Government obligated to send agents and troops to intervene? (again)
At what point could Southerners call themselves patriotic Americans again without being chastised by their friends? (for the generation in the South that fought the Civil War, the federal government was still viewed largely as the enemy.

Many of these questions are still being asked and Garfield fit squarely in the middle of the presidents that served in the Union military, with Johnson, Grant and Hayes before him and Arthur, Benjamin Harrison and McKinley after him.

While World War II largely defined America's place in the world, the Civil War defined domestic policy debates we have to this day.

Presidential Nicknames: Number 1-22

2011-04-10T23:04:00.004-04:00

I wanted to publish some presidential nicknames I've come across in the biographies I've read so far. I owe a debt of gratitude to Wikipedia for jogging my memory on some of the more obscure names.

Of note, Andrew Jackson (Old Hickory) inspired the nicknames of two later presidents; James Polk (Young Hickory) and Franklin Pierce (Young Hickory of the Granite Hills). Jackson's tough guy populism made him a kind of Ronald Reagan figure for the next generation, with many candidates claiming to be his legacy.

Five of the first 22 presidents' nicknames were preceded by 'Old', showing a trend where the second and third generation of Americans wanted to be less known as revolutionary and known more for being established.

I think that my personal favorite nickname remains 'The Careful Dutchman' (Van Buren) closely followed by John Quincy Adams (Old Man Eloquent).

Here's the list:

Washington:
The American Cincinnatus
The Survivor of Monongahela (used mostly during the revolution)

Adams:
The Duke of Braintree
King John the Second

Jefferson:
The Sage of Monticello
The Negro President (for his victory in the election of 1800 since he won because of the 3/5's compromise)
Mad Tom

Madison:
Little Jemmy (he was only 5'4'')
His Little Majesty

Monroe:
Nothing too creative

John Quincy Adams:
Old Man Eloquent

Andrew Jackson:
Old Hickory
The Hero of New Orleans

Van Buren:
The Careful Dutchman
The Little Magician
Old Kinderhook (O.K)
Martin Van Ruin (by his Whig opponents)

Harrison:
Old Tippecanoe

Tyler:
His Accidency

Polk:
Young Hickory

Zachary Taylor:
Old Rough and Ready

Millard Fillmore:
The American Louis Phillepe

Franklin Pierce:
Young Hickory of the Granite Hills

James Buchanon:
Ten-Cent Jimmie (because he once said a man should be able to live on 10 cents a day)

Abraham Lincoln:
The Rail Splitter

Andrew Johnson:
The Tennessee Tailor

U.S. Grant:
Unconditional Surrender Grant

Rutherford B. Hayes:
Granny Hayes

James Garfield:
Boatman Jim

Chester Arthur:
Gentleman Boss
Walrus

Grover Cleveland:
The Hangman of Buffalo
Jumbo

U.S. Foreign Policy: Middle East

2011-03-05T14:18:00.004-05:00

We live in a time that will almost certainly be remembered in history. Revolutions are sweeping across the middle east, a region of the world that has known nothing but repressive dictatorships over the last century or so.

The United States has always had a complicated relationship with this region of the world.

One of the first bold international acts of America was to take revenge upon the Barbary States of Morocco and Algiers for routinely capturing American merchant ships and demanding ransoms for the sailor's lives. The young U.S. Navy took the fight to the enemy, attacking the actual cities where the pirates made their home base (This is where the 'Shores of Tripoli' line came from in the famous military song).

That was in the old days when the United States followed a humble foreign policy which restricted us to protecting our own interests and fighting only those battles that represented a direct threat to the nation's interest and avoiding 'entangling alliances'.

We're now bombing Libya for the second time in our history and although it's certainly a noble cause, it would be prudent to evaluate the extent we're willing to further enter into the affairs of the middle east which are the very definition of entangling alliances.

Presidents Day 2011

2011-02-21T12:35:00.004-05:00

As I've written before, Presidents day is to celebrate the founder of our nation as well as the savior of our country, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

Now that over 150 years have passed since the death of both men, much about them has been simplified and/or lost. George Washington's early doubts about the revolution and his identification of himself as a British Gentleman not being given his due by the empire has been replaced by a cartoonish figure of a fire breathing patriot.

Abe Lincoln is portrayed as a messianic, stoic figure, but much of his warmth, humor and humanity has been lost.

Beyond the historical truth of both men, I'm left to wonder how much of Presidents Day in this modern age is really even about them.

During MLK Day, we get television programming and at least lip service to black history as we should. But on Presidents Day, we get advertisements for used car dealerships and half off sales at department stores.

I'm not sure if there's anything wrong with this. Many still live that remember MLK's speeches whereas Washington and Lincoln are in such the distant past, that they're little more than marble statues in the minds of most Americans now.

However, I think that we should at least pause for a few minutes and remember Washington's era when America was simply an idea and Lincoln's vision of the United States having to make the right moral choice at the cost of hundreds of thousands of American lives. This should put the nation's current concern over decline of our absolute world dominance in perspective.

Garfield: Self Made Man

2011-02-09T19:42:00.004-05:00

Many presidents in the early and mid 1800's demonstrate the level of upward mobility that was available in America at that time.

Andrew Jackson left his home state of North Carolina a practically penniless young man whose parents had passed away and found the respect and adventure he craved in the Tennessee militia. He became a military hero in the war of 1812 and ultimately had a career that culminated in the White House.

Abe Lincoln was the most famous president of humble means. He really was born in a log cabin, the son of a bumbling farmer for a father. He had to move several times due to land title disputes in Kentucky and Indiana and taught himself to read and write. He left home and took several odd jobs to earn a living and ultimately ended up practicing law and getting involved in local politics. Having no real military experience beyond the Black Hawk War, he poured over military strategy manuals and led the nation through the Civil War.

Garfield certainly belongs on this list of Presidents that rose from humble means along with less well know commanders in chief such as Martin Van Buren and Millard Fillmore.

Garfield was brought up in a log cabin in rural Ohio by a single mother. He spent his childhood working on neighbors farms to bring in some income to reduce the crushing poverty his mother faced. He learned to read in a wooden hut in village and borrowed as many books he could growing up. He went on to a local college and eventually became its administrator. He held the role of teacher, preacher, soldier and had many other occupations before he entered politics.

There's still far too much corruption and money in politics, however it's refreshing that so many men in America rose beyond the circumstances of their birth to achieve the highest office of the land.

#20: Garfield: 100 days in office

2011-01-17T18:50:00.005-05:00

1881

Sometimes getting assassinated does wonders for your career as a president. For example, look at JFK who although he's fondly remembered, was a much more divisive leader than people today realize.

Sometimes, getting killed in office just makes people forget you. This is unfortunately the case with Garfield who was really neither loved or hated and went from president into a historical foot note after he was assassinated 100 days into his term.

Garfield's legacy can be considered civil service reform, which he supported and Chester Arthur (his Vice President) enacted.

The very idea that he'd be remembered as a man who would reduce the role of 'spoils' politics is ironic. Garfield was elected only with the support of Senator Roscoe Conkling who mobilized the political machine he informally ran in New York to vote for Garfield. Without the support of the very machine that Garfield's reform sought to reduce, Garfield would have lost the election.

The fact that Arthur pushed Garfield's desired reform after he assumed the presidency is even more ironic. Arthur made his career in Manhattan as a loyal party man, coming up through the ranks of Conkling's machine.

I can think of a couple presidents that would have been much more fondly remembered if they had been killed early on in their terms, but we'll never know which category Garfield would have fit into.

Hayes: Contradictions

2011-01-04T20:02:00.005-05:00

There was a lot that was ironic about Rutherford B. Hayes.

Hayes had a very liberal view of blacks for his time, wishing for them to have nearly equal rights as whites, the right to vote and believed that through education, they could be integrated into society. It seems strange then that he presided over the end of reconstruction in the South.

He probably would not have personally chosen this path but allowed it as a bargain with the south to win the disputed electoral votes needed to decide his controversial election. Hayes had to fully know that when the South ceased to be a country occupied by federal troops, it would return to its policy of pseudo slavery against blacks through share cropping and black codes.

Rutherford B. Hayes is remembered as a man that sent federal troops in to suppress a huge railroad strike, but privately wrote in his journal and talked to friends about how he wished the desperate people striking could gain the education they needed to enhance their station in life and not resort to rioting.

Hayes was against the inequality that the industrial revolution was creating but was firm against any government policy concerning increasing the money supply that could potentially help the masses of poor farmers in the Midwest and western states.

He was known as the corrupt bargainer who bargained his way into office, but he honored his pledge to serve only one term.

Best of all about Hayes, he helped found The Ohio State University when he served as governor of the state, you'd think that he'd be more popular in Ohio than he is for that alone!

Hayes: "Silver Dick" Bland

2010-12-13T19:31:00.005-05:00

Got your attention, didn't I?

This has to be one of the funniest name for any figure in American history. This even surpasses "Old Fuss N' Feathers" (Gen. Winfield Scott), "Ten Cents a day Jimmy" (Buchanan) and even "Queen Victoria in Riding Breeches" (Hayes).

Ol' Silver Dick was a Congressman who wanted to help silver miners and 'the common man' after the United States went on a gold standard in 1873. This declared that the only metal that US Dollars could be redeemed for was gold.

While this helped to bring the United States in line with the rest of the world in terms of the stability of its currency, it decimated the silver mining industry and the miners and other people that owned large amounts of silver coins. It also contracted the money supply, effectively making it more expensive for farmers and small business owners to repay their debts.

While "Silver Dick" Bland and many in congress were for having both a gold and silver standard, Hayes was squarely on the side of one gold standard since he rightly assumed that adding to the money supply would cause inflation and be harmful to contracts negotiated on the basis of the gold standard. By around the turn of the twentieth century, Hayes would get his way, but America had a two metal standard for the next 25 years or so.

Now isn't this whole economics lesson more interesting when there's a guy named "Silver Dick"?

Ohio: The Crucible of Mediocre Presidents

2010-12-01T19:24:00.004-05:00

Just as in it's desire for quantity over quality in food, so it seems my fellow Ohioans have a similar outlook on presidents.

Like so many inoffensive, cheese covered dishes that are pumped out of the upscale casual chain restaurants that dot Ohio's landscape, it was doing the same with presidents during the 1800's and early 20th century.

Rutherford B. Hayes was perhaps the most average among the average company of his state's presidents. He stood in the middle of a line up that includes William Henry Harrison, Ulysses S. Grant, James Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley and Howard "The fat man that got stuck in a bathtub" Taft.

It's ironic that Ohioans occupy a full half of the list of assassinated presidents, with both Garfield and Harrison having been killed in office. The other two, JFK and Abraham Lincoln were certainly more controversial figures in their time, both serving during war times and periods of great internal conflict.

Love them or hate them, or more likely feel ambivalent about them, no one can deny that the state of Ohio put together a pretty impressive line up of leading citizens, at least based on quantity.

Rutherford B. Hayes: 'Rutherfraud' B. Hayes

2010-11-07T20:00:00.001-05:00

The country was bitterly divided and experienced a controversial election where the winner won by one electoral vote even though they lost the popular vote. An electoral commission decided along party lines of Democrat and Republican to disavow enough of electoral votes of the popular winner to confirm the Republican candidate.

Allegations of rampant voter fraud and intimidation flew and the country was ready to tear itself apart. The opposing party was portrayed in all media outlets as traitorous and tyrannical and one scandal after another rocked congress and the presidency.

Does this sound familiar? If it does, it's not Bush V. Gore, it's Hayes V. Tilden in the election of 1876.

This election occurred at a time when the North was taking a much more aggressive stance towards the former confederate democrats that ran the South and the nation was united on paper, but divided in reality.

Samuel Tilden, the favored Democrat in the presidential election of 1876 had 250,000 more votes than Hayes but lost the electoral vote.

To put that figure in perspective, think of how controversial the Bush Gore race was when Gore had 500,000 more popular votes than Bush but the population of the country was 10 times as high as it was in 1876. That would be the equivalent of Gore losing the electoral vote but winning the popular vote by a margin of 2.5 million votes.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Ulysees S. Grant: Scandals

2010-10-31T19:12:00.003-04:00

Grant's presidency is known for being scandal plagued. This is both impressive since he served in one of the more corrupt periods of American history and inexplicable since we're used to hearing about trysts in the men's room or salacious letter to Penthouse type tales of young pages.

There were more than 10 scandals Grant's administration was implicated in.

Some of the main ones were:

The Whiskey Ring Scandal: Government agents received kickbacks for helping the liquor industry avoid millions in taxes.

I don't see a whole lot of difference between then and now, except instead of suitcases of money, certain industries such as banking, home building and firearms give billions in campaign contributions to politicians to keep them in office and in return, are allowed to do pretty much whatever they want.

Black Friday: Some businessmen and bankers conspired to corner the market on gold by buying up most of the supply in the country on the open market. They would all get rich if this plan worked, since the government was expected to buy back the government bonds it sold with gold and they held the majority of the supply.

To keep the regulators away and make sure the government didn't sell gold, they recruited Grant's idiot brother-in-law to get close to him and argue against a government sale of gold. (always the idiot brother in law in these things right?)

This doesn't seem that much worse than modern times, when many industries now exist whose lobbying dollars buy them virtual monopolies and the ability to write the very laws that regulate them (see: mining, insurance, banking).

There were many other scandals that revolved around nepotism, bribery or extortion, but again, they don't seem that much worse than what we have now.

In my opinion, the reason for all the scandals were best summed up by the following:

Grant was a George W. Bush type figure who was generally an honest man, but easily influenced by underlings that used his administration for their own selfish purposes. When it became obvious to all but him that the corruption was going on, he couldn't abandon his military code of protecting his troops and refused to acknowledge their wrongdoing (see: Donald Rumsfeld, Michael Brown)

Grant was not a career politician and was somewhat naive of the ways of Washington.

Grant was a big picture guy and focused all his efforts on the great issue of the times, the occupation of the southern states and potential war with Mexico at the expense of the housekeeping or audit functions he should have performed.

Grant had political enemies that made the Tea Party look like, well, a tea party. The south had enjoyed virtual business as usual under the Johnson administration, but Grant made it clear they actually lost the war.

All in all, I don't think that Grant was such a bad president, just that he lived in bad times. The rest of the world seemed to agree too, since after his presidency, he toured the world and everywhere was cheered by crowds as the great General and liberator of the black man.

Grant: Elsewhere in the world in the 1860's

2010-10-25T23:09:00.003-04:00

Since the early days of American history up until the Civil War, America followed the Monroe doctrine. This essentially meant that there was an unofficial policy of not entering into 'entangling' alliances overseas and intervening in affairs in our hemisphere when America's interests are threatened.

The Civil War however, put a stop to both of these policies. The south actively courted Great Britain for supplies and foreign currency. It exported virtually all the cotton that Britain was using in its textile mills at the time and wanted allies overseas to protect it from the north once it broke away from the United States.

Other countries in Europe also began to look at expanding in the Americas since the United States was in such a weak and vulnerable position. Emperor Maximilian of France took invaded Mexico shortly after the Civil War came to an end when America was still in a weakened position.

Grant felt threatened by this incursion into the United State's sphere of influence and sent a large amount of military aid to the ousted rebel leader of Mexico and stationed about 50,000 federal troops on the southern border of Texas.

Maximillian was eventually killed by the Mexican army and the French army went back to Europe. America once again controlled its center of influence and would expand its reach overseas and to the further out former Spanish colonies, eventually controlling the world in the aftermath of World War II.

It's interesting to think about what would have happened if the French had been able to hold Mexico. It would almost be a reverse Louisiana Purchase. You have to wonder if France and Britain would eventually fight a proxy war in the United States or if the United State's influence in this region would simply diminish.

Grant: Picking Up the Pieces

2010-10-12T22:33:00.002-04:00

Grant's presidency is usually a compared (unfavorably) to his time as General during the Civil War. It may be true that his presidency didn't live up to his military brilliance, but he did one very important thing that his predecessors were unwilling or unable to do.

Grant came in to power at a time when the KKK was at the height of its power during the reconstruction era. Intimidation, rape and murder of blacks and Whig politicians was commonplace and was out of control.

At this time, many of the vigilante groups acted with impunity and did whatever they could to make life the way it was before the war. Blacks in the south were hated more than ever after slavery by poor whites who viewed their place in life as sinking while the freedman's life was rising.

Grant sent the federal troops in to areas that the KKK/southern militia was occupying and actively fought them. He also sent federal troops in to areas where blacks were being denied the vote and protected them to at least a minimal degree.

The problem with his predecessors after the war was that they followed a policy of appeasement. The south was allowed to go on as if nothing had ever happened in an effort to restore national unity. This accommodating policy brought into question what the war was even fought for. Laws would go on the books giving rights to blacks, but they were still in virtual slavery.

Only by showing resolve did Grant make the violence in the South decline somewhat. This relative peace allowed the country to start on the long road to normalcy before the next national crisis.

#18:Ulysees S. Grant: War Hero

2010-09-13T19:46:00.005-04:00

I've spoken before of how the Civil War could have gone several different directions.

Although I don't think that the South could have marched up North and enforced a slaveocracy on everyone, I don't think that it's impossible to imagine they could have chased the northern troops out of their territory and succeeded in secession.

At times, the Northern army had to contend with both large standing armies filled with experienced officers and troops as well as a brutal insurgency fighting on land it knew so well.

Then as now, the invading army did not know the lay of the land, did not understand who was their friend and foe and had to deal with corrupt army contractors that exhorted ungodly sums from the federal government to feed, clothe and equip the troops with the tools they needed to win the war.

Grant dealt with all this with a combination of cunning, bravery and brutality and ultimately oversaw Lee's surrender after taking the southern capital of Richmond, VA.

While Grant's predecessors all suffered embarrassing defeats and were suspected of sympathizing with the confederate army (most officers received their training in the South), he forced the south's surrender three times.

He won these fights through both intelligence and basic bravery. He anticipated the enemies moves, blocked supply lines and paths of retreat and would perform bold surprise attacks on the enemy's position.

The northern public loved Grant and ultimately promoted him to the presidency in one of the nation's darkest times.

Grant joined a large cast of former generals and military men to assume the presidency. George Washington, James Monroe, Zachary Taylor, Truman and Eisenhower among them.

I can't fault people for wanting generals to run the presidency. There's some logic to wanting people that know the price of war to be the only ones that can declare it.

Andrew Johnson: Labor Politics

2010-09-02T16:03:00.000-04:00

Andrew Johnson had some interesting theories on labor relations. He was a friend of the 'mechanic', a loose term in the mid 1800's that designated any role above laborer but below large plantation owner. I guess you could say that the closest comparison today would be small business owner.

The small business owners of the time were carriage repair shops, innkeepers, general store managers etc.

Many politicians at the time were for wealthy interests such as large scale farmers, rail roads or mining interests, but very few were talking about the mechanic class of laborer. There simply wasn't a lot of money in it, I guess that's why today we have certain industries such as pharma or banking so improportionately represented in Congress, but we don't hear a lot about the guy that just owns a repair shop.

This love of the mechanic class led Johnson to take some strange views. He came out strong against a rail road cutting through his district when he was in Congress because he was afraid that it would put the wagon operators and inn keepers who weren't close enough to a rail road stations out of business. It would seem like overall, a rail road would bring commerce and wealth into a community, but Johnson tended to not think of the big picture on these things and stayed pretty dedicated to his favorite class of people.

He also was against slavery because he felt that it took jobs away from the white man and forced small farmers off of their land since a plantation can expand indefinitely with slave labor since its labor cost is somewhere close to $0.00 and any expansion means additional profits.

Under reconstruction, Johnson showed how little he was concerned about freed slaves when he underfunded all the reconstruction projects and suggested that they simply pick up and leave the United States, but by virtue of him not wanting to enslave them, it certainly put him in the progressive class in the south.

I like reading about Johnson, because it shows that in American politics, people will have different view points for different reasons. What gets lost in the soaring anti slavery rhetoric is the fact that not all people supported the abolition of slavery for simply moral reasons.

Andrew Johnson: Domestic Terrorism

2010-08-26T15:43:00.000-04:00

After the war, a couple of good ol' boys that recently 'walked the dog' (the forced loyalty oath returning confederate soldiers had to make to federal troops) met for drinks as they commiserated about their situation.

They eventually formed a social club of sorts and called it the Klu Klux Klan.

They dressed up like ghosts in bedsheets and went on torch lit parades through town.

All of these men were angry, having fought a useless war and now being governed by the same federal troops they fought against. They took much of their anger out on the recently freed slaves who as they saw it, were better off now while they were in a worse situation.

Their ceremonies became more regular and started to focus on scaring the freedmen and keeping those who they thought were 'uppity' in line.

They also eventually morphed into a militant 'Al Quaeda in Iraq' sort of organization and started carrying out murders of freedmen and federal troops for dramatic effect and to change the political situation in their favor. This anger was also turned on the 'carpet baggers' from the north and started to spiral out of control a year or so after the war ended.

Northerners weren't safe walking the streets and whig politicians would be murdered from time to time. Johnson certainly did nothing to stop this and restrained the federal troops from aggressively going after the terrorists.

Only when Grant sent in the full force of the Army did the tide start to turn. Even after that, no freed man could break the 'black codes' without fear of being visited at night by a gang of murderers.

Andrew Johnson: Post Civil War Years: Welcome Back South!

2010-08-19T18:57:00.004-04:00

After the war was over, Lincoln was murdered and the North's desire for revenge had never been stronger. Certainly, had Lincoln lived, he would have forced reforms in the South, but would have held back the strongest Northern extremists that wanted to treat the entire South like a conquered country and repopulate it with their own people.

Lincoln however, did not live to see his reconstruction plans through and it was left to Johnson to figure out exactly what the South was and wasn't with respect to its place in the country.

Was the South part of the United States again? Was it some sort of territory that the Federal government needed to oversee? If it was not immediately welcomed back into the Union, then what would the conditions be that would allow it back in? Should it pay reparations to what now is its own government?

The questions go on and on and are extremely complex.

Johnson was of the school of thought that the policy of the North should be one of forgiveness.

I should note that this was also Lincoln's policy, but where Johnson and Lincoln would seem to differ is that as soon as the South surrendered and its soldiers took a loyalty oath to the United States (southerners called this 'walking the dog') they were completely United States citizens again.

Johnson wanted southern states to rejoin the Union as fast as possible and pardoned high level members of the rebellion.

He said nothing when the same people that served as congress members of the confederacy eagerly rejoined the Congress of the United States and their own state's house of representatives. This begs the question of how things were any different after the Civil War politically between the North and South.

Although he outlawed slavery, he did nothing to prevent the 'black codes' from going into effect and stood by when virtually all southern states disenfranchised the recently freed blacks.

He did what he could to prevent the public works projects for teaching freed slaves business or trade skills and sent letters of support in favor of programs to send free blacks overseas or down to Mexico.

Johnson put the South in a strange position. Before and during the war, he was completely hated for his sympathies for the Union cause and his distrust of rebellion. After the war, he was loved for the way he tried to make everything the way it was before the war, minus slavery of course. Poor whites stepped into a world where they had somewhat more upward mobility since they no longer had to compete with no wage workers and the former slaves were largely excluded from political and economic life.

In short, Johnson made things as good as possible for white Southerners and made things as bad as possible for freed slaves.

Andrew Johnson: Let me be your Moses!

2010-08-11T19:55:00.003-04:00

Those were the words uttered to a crowd of freedmen by Andrew Johnson. I suppose that in those times, simply the fact that he didn't want to own them as property must have made him seem very much the Liberator, but it seems a little disingenuous.

I don't want to make it seem like Johnson was any worse than any other white people at the time towards the blacks, but he sure wasn't much better.

Johnson didn't support emancipation of black people in the south as a moral imperative, but as a way to take the Aristocratic class down a few notches.

Johnson was a self made man, a Tailor that rose to success by his own hard work and ruthlessness and constantly fought for the 'mechanic class'. This would have been what we would call blue collar jobs these days and encompassed such professions as innkeepers, coachmen etc. Johnson saw, not inaccurately, that the slaves represented the ultimate cheap labor and forever would keep poor white people from ever making a 'living wage'.

I guess you could say he was the Lou Dobbs of his day, fighting to keep cheap foreign or in this case, black labor out of the country.

Did Johnson like the blacks and want them to make better lives for themselves? No.

Johnson basically wanted them to leave the country and head south to Mexico where they might in his words, mingle with the other mongrel races.

Here's another gem:

"I have lived among negroes, all my life, and I am for this Government with slavery under the Constitution as it is. I am for the Government of my fathers with negroes, I am for it without negroes. Before I would see this Government destroyed, I would send every negro back to Africa, disintegrated and blotted out of space. "

It just goes to show that the whole debate on emancipation was more than a black and white issue.

#17: Andrew Johnson: The Aftermath of Confederate Terrorism

2010-08-05T15:43:00.001-04:00

It was extremely hard for me to write about Lincoln. There's very little I can say that hasn't already been said and it's hard to write about him without sounding like some propaganda piece or like a weepy fan.

Luckily, I'm moving on to a much, much lesser man, Andrew Johnson.

Andrew Johnson came to power after Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth shortly after the surrender of the south.

The conspiracy to kill Lincoln was far reaching and his killer had conspirators that attempted to simultaneously kill his Secretary of State, William Seward and other members of the cabinet.

Into this confusion and turmoil stepped the Tennessean.

To use the phrase of George W. Bush, Johnson did not have a whole lot of political capital to spend.

As a Senator, Johnson was not respected by Southerners since he took the controversial stand of backing Lincoln during the Civil War and refusing to go over to the Confederacy.

He was especially hated by the citizens of Tennessee since he served as a somewhat despotic military governor during the war.

He was hated by Northerners since in the tradition of John Tyler, he was on Lincoln's ticket as VP to 'bring out the southern vote'. It was clear even as he was running that although he stopped short of wishing to secede from the Union, he certainly did not share the Republican party's beliefs, which was a problem, since that was the ticket he was running on.

Also- Johnson was hated for a whole host of other reasons:

He was kind of a dick.
He was completely drunk during his inauguration speech as VP.
He was so paranoid, it made Nixon seem like Jack Johnson.
and a whole host of other things which I'll try to get to in later posts.

For all these traits and his absolute bungling of the post war reconstruction era, Johnson is consistently ranked as one of the worst presidents we ever had.

I'm looking forward to writing about him!

Lincoln: Navigating the Civil War

2010-07-27T15:25:00.000-04:00

Civil Wars are tricky things.

Normally in War, the end game should be to kill as many of your enemies as possible and take over their resources, but in a Civil War, you have to face the reality that after it's all over, all sides will be citizens of the same country again. There's just something distasteful about celebrating a victory over your defeated foe when they're also your fellow citizens.

In Imperial Rome, they decreed that no victorious general was to receive a triumph (like a really, really cool parade with dancers, exotic animals and defeated enemies in chains) when the victory was over a rival for the throne. Then again, this was a little different than the American Civil War. in Rome- they were all striving for the same thing- control of an empire. It wasn't as though one rival wanted to break away from the empire while another wanted him to stay put.

This attitude of the southern states that they didn't consider themselves even to be American anymore opened the door for a level of brutality that probably surprised both sides.

Furthermore, most of the upper military class were either southerners themselves or were from border states. Also, even the northern military leaders often had sympathy to the southern cause themselves because they would generally receive their military training in the south and would feel a certain kinship with the south's aristocratic social order since they were often aristocrats in their own right.

Hardcore hatred from both sides, a halfway committed military and the reality that after it was all over, the north would basically have to rebuild what it destroyed in the south and remake the entire power and social structure of half the country. This is what Lincoln walked into. Also- Lincoln had no formal military training and basically learned military tactics on the job, reading the "Art of War" by candlelight after his hectic days in the office.

It's really amazing that he won the war.

I shudder to think what would have happened then and for the following 150 years of American history and feel that it shows Lincoln is worth a hell of a lot more than a penny.

Lincoln: Impact of the Civil War

2010-07-18T16:41:00.002-04:00

As a result of the South's insistence that it be able to enslave people, over 1 Million people lost their lives. This is greater than the casualty numbers in the Revolutionary War, World War 1 and II combined.

That loss of life is amazing, especially when you factor in that it includes primarily military age men and the entire free population of the country included only around 27 Million people. That's 1 in 27 people that died! Also- Then, as now, the people that enter the most dangerous ranks of the military and fight on the front line are for the most part from the less affluent, rural parts of the country.

It's easy to imagine that there must have been entire communities where the majority of the children were orphans and young men were mostly absent. This is staggering and is a testament to how badly the South wanted to hang on to its aristocratic, agricultural way of life as the world moved on.

For many southerners after the war, they never would admit that they actually lost the war and thanks to President Johnson's southern sympathies in the post war era, many confederate generals and senators returned to politics as though nothing happened. This allowed slavery to continue under the guise of sharecropping and the race codes that were put in effect after the war.

So did the Civil War ever truly end? The shots may have stopped, but the culture and race wars went on for over 100 years more and some would argue that they continue to this day.

Lincoln: On Religion

2010-07-09T15:50:00.000-04:00

Everyone speaks of Lincoln's faith and in a way they're right. In his later life, most of his speeches were infused with reference to a vague 'higher power' or 'great creator', but he certainly wasn't religious in the traditional sense, especially for the times.

He best summed up his own views when he said "When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That is my religion."

Like Jefferson, Lincoln most likely thought of Jesus as the greatest philosopher but avoided what he called religious enthusiasm.

He was raised in a very religious Baptist household, but never officially joined any church. This was at a time when church was the main social activity and surely must have raised eyebrows.

Lincoln did get involved in the temperance movement which was mainly backed by protestant churches but was turned off by their focus on looking down on the sinners. Lincoln wanted the movement to focus on making positive changes in the lives of individuals that have trouble with alcohol and eventually lost faith in it.

Lincoln mocked the idea of religion when he was younger saying things like:

"When I see a man preach, I like him to look like he's trying to avoid bees."

He resented hypocrites that had a holier than though attitude:

"My experience is that someone who has no Vices also has no Virtues."

Certainly Lincoln was not like Jefferson who had his own version of the bible where he blacked out all of the miracles of Jesus and ended the gospel when the rock was rolled over the tomb, but he would probably have a hard time getting elected today.

It's just hard to believe that a person who didn't attend any church could get elected to the highest office 150 years ago, but most likely not now when we've discovered things like the big bang, evolution, space travel etc.

Happy Fourth of July

2010-07-04T13:00:00.001-04:00

John Adams on what he thought would be the future of July 4th Independence Day celebrations:

"I believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be celebrated by pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other..."

It seems that we're fulfilling his dream.

Happy 4th!

Lincoln the Comedian

2010-07-02T15:08:00.000-04:00

Lincoln had what the Irish call the gift of the gab and could always diffuse an audience with a joke.

Maybe that's why his opponent Stephen Douglas once said "His qualifications for side splitting are quite as good as rail splitting."

Here's some lines of his that I like:

(to a Senator that told Lincoln that slavery was a good thing) "For a good thing, slavery is strikingly peculiar in that it is the only good thing which man does not seek for himself."

"Whenever I see anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally."

"Better to be silent and be thought a fool than speak out and remove all doubt."

"If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?"

"If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; if this is tea, please bring me some coffee."

"What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself."

Abraham Lincoln: Changing Views on Slavery

2010-06-27T16:26:00.004-04:00

What can I say about Lincoln that hasn't already been said?

He's got an entire section at most book stores, so the chances of me coming to any great insight here are slim.

For the project, I read "Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power" having already read the other main modern Lincoln biography "Team of Rivals".

The difference between the two books was that this one focused on the evolution of Lincoln's thinking, philosophy and religious views that allowed him to lead the country through its most turbulent time ever whereas "Team of Rivals" focused much more between the interactions and conflicts between members of his cabinet and Lincolns quiet management of them.

Lincolns views on slavery changed over the course of his life and circumstances.

At an early age in Kentucky and Illinois, Lincoln didn't have too much direct interaction with slaves and spent his energy on self education and improvement, trying to find a way out of his hellish frontier existence. He did however get exposed to his parents' adamant anti slavery views.

As he grew older, he started to look at odd jobs to escape his frontier life. He was famously a rail splitter on the new railroads blanketing America and worked taking a load of cargo by ferry to New Orleans from Springfield. There, he witnessed a slave auction for the first time which left a lifelong impression. He now knew that he hated slavery.

He entered local politics back in Illinois and had no real official dealings on that level with slavery although it's believed that he felt it should be confined to the old south and never come north or west. He also believed as Monroe and almost all prior politicians that there should be some colony created in Africa where slaves could eventually return to, never being able to make a life for themselves in America due to hatred and oppression even if they are freed.

When he hit the national stage in Congress, his resolve was strengthened, again, witnessing the slave auctions and workers in D.C. He came out against the Mexican War not only because he saw it for what it was, an ugly land grab of another countries territory but most likely also because he knew that it was primarily southern slave owners that wanted to find new lands for their slaves to grow the profitable cotton crop.

After the war, he hesitated to declare the slaves free so the south would not have it's assumptions that the North was trying to impose its 'lifestyle' on them and to not be seen as a radical in a time of war, but eventually saw that he had no choice.

One of the most interesting questions in history is what would have happened if Lincoln had lived to oversee Union victory and the reconstruction.

Most reconstruction presidents other than Grant were downright hostile to blacks and did everything they could to undermine any real change of balance of power in the south.

The real Lincoln is so much more interesting than the marble statue version.

Lincoln: Latest in the Self-Made Men

2010-06-22T15:00:00.000-04:00

Most of Lincoln's life is well known and he's widely regarded as being one of the best presidents and American citizens to ever live. While someone like Rutherford B. Hayes might have one or two biographies written about him that are from the 1920's, Lincoln has an entire section at most book stores.

Lincoln's early life is relatively well chronicled. He was born in poverty (the log cabin myth actually isn't a myth at all) and his father moved his family west to Illinois from Kentucky. There they tried for the most part unsuccessfully to scratch out a living with agriculture.

Lincoln hated farm life and knew he was destined for something greater. He taught himself to read and write and studied the law at night by candle after his days of working the fields. He left home as soon as he could with no intention of coming back. He became the 'rail splitter' working on the rapidly expanding rail roads exploding from the East coast.

He eventually found work in law and politics and the rest is history from there. But many people don't know that Lincoln's story of early hardship and success through hard work is hardly unique.

Washington was an amazing man but was hardly self made as he came from an aristocratic family. The same can be said for Jefferson, Madison and Monroe and all the Virginia presidents like Tyler. Other Presidents, like Polk, Taylor or Harrison came from well known or wealthy families.

Most of the other presidents up to the Civil War though came from little to nothing to take the highest position in this new land of opportunity. Jackson, Van Buren, Fillmore, Buchanan and Johnson who followed Lincoln were all men of modest family roots.

Jackson was raised by his mother who died when he was still young, led a troubled life but turned himself around and made a life for himself out west in Tennessee.

Van Buren counted Dutch as his first language and came from the small town of Kinderhook where his family made a modest living through farming.

Fillmore's father unsuccessfully tried to start a farm over and over again, never prospering. He escaped a life of poverty through education and rising up in the New York political machine.

Buchanan's family were poor settlers in a Pennsylvania trading post and he also escaped through the law as Lincoln did, starting his own successful practice and charging the high rates that would allow him to leave the practice to enter politics.

Johnson was an awful president, but a great business man. He was an apprentice who ran away from his Tailor he was studying under and started his own garment business far away in a new settlement in Tennessee. He grew the business to the point he was able to expand to buying and selling real estate and he succeeded in politics through his force of will and overcame his utter lack of education or even literacy.

That seems to be the quality that runs through almost all presidents from Jackson up to the Civil War. It must have seemed then like America truly was the land of opportunity with the path laid out before those who were simply able to work hard enough to earn what they wanted.

Right Before the Civil War: 1850's

2010-06-16T16:02:00.001-04:00

During the late 1850's, the North and South were vastly different places.

In the North, immigrants were reshaping the landscape in large east coast cities and the midwest. There was more than twice the amount of miles of railroad laid in the north as the south and it was much easier for people and goods to move from state to state.

Cotton and tobacco were the dominate industries the South. With slave wages at no more than the cost of keeping a human being alive with basic food, water and shelter, the concentrated aristocracy in the south felt no need to join the industrial and transportation revolution in the north.

Slaves begat more slaves and plantation owners would pour the profits back into expanding their estates, which would produce more capital, which could buy more slaves. They primarily exported raw goods and imported luxury or finished goods from Great Britain since with the sparse tracks of railroad in the south, it was easier than buying the products domestically.

Eventually, all the good land in the old south was used up, and enterprising southerners bought up westward lands from the federal government and looked to expand their agricultural feudal system.

In the west, northerners and southerners would mingle, both seeking to dominate the territories they were settling. With the new 'religious enthusiasm' in the north as Lincoln called it, slavery became the great moral issue of the day in the north and west.

The westerners from the north brought a new urgency to the anti slave movement and the south felt threatened.

As the north entered into the industrial revolution, new paths to social mobility were open even for immigrants while class division and slave driven feudalism continued to dominate the south.

The south did have one large advantage it would use in the war though. It had most of the military colleges and by far the most experienced generals, as the military culture fit in much better with the south's aristocratic world view.

This is where the two sides stood before the war. The north and south had dramatically different economies, world views, and infrastructure and would fight to the death to preserve them. The western states would become battlegrounds both in the literal sense and for the hearts and minds of their inhabitants, with massive amounts of money and effort spent on recruitment and propaganda in all the border states by both sides in the war.

This is the world Lincoln stepped into in 1861, with 8 years of almost criminal neglect of the deteriorating situation by Buchanan and Pierce. As a border state president from Illinois, he would be on the front line of the hearts and minds war.

Decoration Day

2010-05-31T17:30:00.003-04:00

The origins of what we know today as Memorial Day had murky beginnings. It was originally known as Decoration Day and was practiced only in the South.

During the Civil War, confederate women's groups would meet to lay flowers on the graves of the southern war dead.

After the war, Union General John Logan declared that May 30th was Memorial Day. The day was set aside to lay flowers on both the Union and Confederate war dead.

However, it was only really nationally recognized after World War I when the holiday was changed to honoring all Americans who died in all wars rather than just the Civil War. Until that time, all Southern states made their 'decoration days' on separate dates because they were upset that the North would co opt their tradition of honoring their dead.

Finally, in 1971 it was declared an official National holiday.

This really goes to show that although the 'hot' Civil War ended in the 1860's- the 'cold' Civil War raged on for the next 100 years. In the big picture of American history it's only recently that calling someone a 'yankee' or 'carpet bagger' can be done so in jest.

It's surprising and encouraging that such a divisive holiday turned into a symbol of national unity.

Happy Memorial Day- let's remember that all gave some and some gave all.

James Buchanan: States Rights

2010-05-26T23:19:00.004-04:00

Whether you believe the constitution is a living document or you are a strict constructionist, you have to agree that there's disagreement on what its intent is.

Just like the bible or any other sacrosanct document, people first decide what they believe, then examine the document for how they can prove it validates what they believe.

There's no longer any pretense of nominating supreme court judges based on their credentials or loyal following of the law. It's pretty much a naked tabulation on how closely their rulings can advance the nominating politician's stance on the issues of the day or at the very least, what their party masters want.

Buchanan was no different from politicians in the modern age in wrapping his social and economic views in the constitution.

As I've mentioned before, although he was from Pennsylvania, his sympathies were completely with the southern slave interests.

Somehow, Buchanan saw fit to send federal troops in to capture escaped slaves in Massachusetts, but could not see justification in using the federal army to put down armed rebellion in the south.

As southerners in South Carolina (where else?) were seizing federal military bases, Buchanan would not lift a finger based on his 'constitutional' views.

He argued that no state has the right to secede from the Union, however, all bodies under any Constitution had the right to take up arms to prevent oppression. The federal government he argued had no power to either recognize the secession of states or coerce them through arms. In other words, the Federal government can never tell the states what to do, even if they're threatening to not be part of the government anymore.

Does this make sense? No.

But that's not really the point, then, as now, all low minded arguments are wrapped in the high minded language of our founding fathers.

James Buchanan: His Katrina(s)

2010-05-26T16:29:00.000-04:00

Buchanan was president between 1857 and 1861 and there was no shortage of bad things that happened during his time in office.

They say that disasters such as the Civil War and Great Depression made great presidents out of men like Lincoln and Roosevelt. But as Buchanan shows us, they can also make really awful presidents if they're not dealt with properly.

Here's just a couple examples of the things that most definitely were putting the country on the 'wrong track':

The Utah War: Based on false intelligence, Buchanan sent the Federal Army in to Utah on rumors that the same Brigham Young that James Polk had sent out there a few years ago was planning a rebellion. This was easy to get everyone to buy into because anti Mormonism had been building in Washington over their polygamy. Buchanan was widely reproached when the rumors of rebellion were proven false and this became referred to as 'Buchanan's Blunder'.

You'd think that a man that said it was 'illegal' for the United States to put down a slave holders rebellion in the years leading up to the Civil War would have shown a little more restraint, but I guess it's all about who's causing the rebellion.

I'd make an Iraq War comparison here, but that would be way to easy.

Bank Failures: We think we have it bad, but 1400 Banks and 6000 major businesses failed during Buchanan's presidency. To encourage Americans to tough it out, he gave a speech saying that 10 cents a day was enough for any working man to live on.

This is where he earned the nickname '10 Cents a Day Jimmie'.

Kansas Bleeding: Before the Civil War officially was declared by the South, there were skirmishes in the Kansas and Nebraska territories. Abolitionists moved in and powerful slave interests sent death squads in to attack and harass them so they could make it a slave territory by squatters rights.

Buchanan wasn't convinced that this was worth sending the Army in like the Mormon incident was. As I mentioned before, it's all about who's being harassed and he was clearly in the slave holder's corner.

Filibustering Expeditions: In the name of expanding slavery and profit, wealthy plantation owners would raise private funds to send mercenaries over to unstable areas in Central America and the Caribbean to both have an opportunity to take over those countries from Spain and have a ready supply of slaves and income from the sugar and mining operations already in place there.

These expeditions were almost like Super Halliburtons. They were made up largely of army and sea veterans as well as other desperate men, and they'd not only have access to great wealth if successful, but could also become Kings.

Buchanan did very little to stop this and it only increased the anger of the anti slavery movement in the north, further pushing the country towards war.

The allowed takeover by Southerners of Federal Forts and the traitors in his cabinet that would later join the confederacy are worth another post altogether.

This just goes to show that although it takes extreme times to make a man remembered in history, it doesn't indicate how he'll be remembered.

James Buchanan: A Pennsylvania Dandy

2010-05-21T16:03:00.000-04:00

Let's start with the tawdry before we jump into the more serious and disturbing parts of Buchanan's presidency and the descent into civil war.

The popular rumor is that Buchanan was gay and although this is thrown around a lot on presidents from that period, most notably Lincoln, I tend to believe the rumors in regards to him.

The style of writing in the mid 1850's between men was much more intimate than it is now. Lincoln wrote of how he missed his bunk mates who would share his bed on a cold night when he was a circuit judge, but that was a common practice back then and it doesn't indicate anything extraordinary.

Buchanan on the other hand never married, being saved from what must have been an uncomfortable arrangement when his wealthy fiancee suddenly broke it off. She suspected, most likely correctly, that he was just interested in her fortune. Saying that his heart was broken and vowing never again to marry, this severed relationship allowed him to be free to be a lifelong bachelor and continue to form close relationships with the men he'd live with while in Washington.

You may think that never getting married doesn't necessarily mean that someone is gay and closeted and you're probably right. But for god sakes, Charlie Christ in Florida has lost support from conservatives, because as an older bachelor, they think that he may be gay. (like many of his colleagues) This is one hundred and fifty years later!

Now, although I've mentioned that men generally shared their feelings more with other men back then, this excerpt from one of his letters just seems over the top:

"I am now 'solitary and alone', having no companion in the house with me. I have gone a wooing to several gentlemen, but have not succeeded with any one of them. I feel that it is not good for man to be alone, and [I] should not be astonished to find myself married to some old maid who can nurse me when I am sick, provide good dinners for me when I am well, and not expect from me any very ardent or romantic affection."

His manners were also said to be somewhat effeminate, with people referring to him as a dandy. His long time room mate and fellow Senator was also slurred with derogatory names, with Andrew Jackson referring to him as "Miss Nancy" and "Aunt Fancy".

Furthermore, on Buchanan's directions, all the letters between him and King were burned upon his death. It wasn't unusual for politicians of the revolutionary or antebellum period to do this, but Buchanan had many of his other correspondences painstakingly preserved, so this also makes me wonder.

Oh well, I guess we'll never know, which is just how he would have wanted it.

Franklin Pierce: My Burden

2010-05-16T16:40:00.000-04:00

Reading a book on every single president for this project is hard enough, but it's especially hard with the more obscure presidents.

I had thought that it had gotten about as bad as it could get when the only book I could find on Harrison was a biography from the 1930's with stilted and let's say politically incorrect language regarding Native Americans. However, this Pierce book took it to another level.

The Harrison book, racial epitaphs used by the author aside, was written by at least a decent historian. It was difficult to read because it tried way too hard to cover every aspect of Harrison's life preceding the presidency in sequential order. This includes periods of his life that might be interesting to Harrisonphiles, but not to casual readers like myself.

The Pierce book on the other hand was hard to read because it just wasn't very well written or put together. The author is well regarded for his writings on the history of American political parties and for covering politics in the 1800's, but the fact that his profile on Wikipedia omits this biography is probably a bad sign.

The fact that this book was written in the 1920's also might make this book hard to relate to as well as the fact that it was nearly 500 pages long with small print.

However, there were a few lines that made it an interesting look at an earlier period of history.

My favorite line referenced how far technology had come since the mid 1800's and marveled that a telegraph from Alaska to the East cost now (1920's) could take as little as a few hours, whereas a message from the midwest to the East Coast in Pierces time could take as long as a month.

Jefferson may have shuddered to think that God was just, but I shudder to think that the worst presidential biographies may be still ahead of me. Although books on Jefferson, Lincoln and FDR routinely make the best seller list, there's just not that many people out there that really want to dig into Chester Arthur or Rutherford B. Hayes.

Franklin Pierce: God complex

2010-05-11T16:10:00.000-04:00

Many politicians that reach high levels have something inside them that convinces them they're fighting for a higher cause and that their enemies are on the side of evil.

Franklin Pierce was no exception.

An obscure politician from New Hampshire that had the right combination of being able to bring home Northern votes as well as a suitable party loyalty to the Democrats and their Southern power base. Beyond being in the right place at the right time, I wouldn't call Pierce a masterful politician, but he sure thought he was imbued with a God given sense of purpose that propelled him to the highest office.

Tragedy struck his family when his son died in a railway accident a few months before his inauguration. Looking at the glass as being half full though, his wife convinced him that God took his son away from him so he wouldn't be distracted from his quest to rescue America from the evil doers. When his wife suffered from 'melancholia' (depression) and became a recluse, I suppose he saw that as a way to let him focus on his work as well.

Like the football player who thanks God for helping them make a touchdown, Pierce seemed to think that God took a personal interest in his political well being.

Special Interests in the mid 1800's

2010-05-06T16:55:00.000-04:00

Let's pause for a minute and compare today's politics with the1850's. What were the equivalents of the NRA, Pro Life, Immigration lobbies etc?

Many of the political lobbies that existed then exist today in different forms.

There were anti immigrant political movements like the 'No Nothing Party' or 'Liberty Party' Today we have the 'Minute Men' and anti immigrant lobbies at work in Arizona.

There were anti national bank groups like the 'LocoFocos' who were made up of a populist grouping of working men and reformers on the East Coast.

There was the Temperance movement that was popular in the Midwestern and southern states that wanted to ban alcohol. Many of their advertisements and pamphlets wouldn't look much different from the current anti smoking 'truth' ads we see on television.

Of course, there were Religious movements that wanted more involvement of various churches in government policy. These movements all had their own Pat Robertsen type personalities that would travel the country and fill social halls with the faithful.

Abolitionism was a major movement in the north and west. There were abolitionist newsletters that would rate candidates in regards to their adherence to the abolitionist mission, much like the special interests of today do.

The Pro Slavery lobby was the counter reaction lobby to the abolitionists. Slavery was one of the most profitable industries in the country at that time and candidates would be judged by how well they adhered to the slaveholders interests. As lobbyists, the large plantation owners would contribute money and resources to campaigns of those friendly to their industry. Many of the wealthiest men in the country owned huge, slave run estates and they made it their business to make sure that slave friendly newsletters were funded and anti slavery activists were chased out of town.

The rail road industry at this time had a huge impact not just on peoples lives but also on government policy. They'd constantly have representatives lobby to purchase cheap land in the newly conquered western territories from the government.

Capitalists and investors in different 'schemes' also would send men to the government to lobby for 'internal improvement' money for canals and tunnels. This is not so different from todays mad dash of contractors competing with each other to get access to the no bid contracts the government gives its friends.

Abortion was not an issue at this time as women had yet to be able to vote or have a general public voice, much less have the technology to even get a safe abortion.

Environmentalism also was not in the political lexicon at this time as nature was still largely looked at as an enemy to be conquered, not a friend to co exist with.

Gun rights wasn't much of an issue at this time either since cities were not as populated at this time and a rifle at least was much more of a multi purpose tool for hunting more than just the ultimate prey.

Much of that time looks different, but much of it seems all too familiar.

Franklin Pierce: "We POLKed you in 1844, we shall Pierce you in 1853"

2010-05-02T15:54:00.005-04:00

Millard Fillmore was a decent president that just happened to take over after a sitting president died in office and didn't really have any popular mandate for enforcing his policy. The nation was in that tense period between the Spanish American War and the Civil War and needed a steady hand to guide the ship of state.

While Fillmore didn't do anything extraordinary or horrible during his presidency, Pierce seemed to do everything he could to stir resentment in the North and destroy the fragile peace that existed between the North and the South.

Pierce's campaign slogan was "We POLKed you in 1844, we shall Pierce you in 1853" and he seemed to do just that.

Though he was from New Hampshire, Pierce consistently sided with the concerns of the slave holding aristocracy in the South. While Fillmore can be faulted for avoiding the explosive issue of slavery, Pierce put it in every one's faces, enforcing the Fugitive Slave act in Boston with Federal Marshalls. He worked hard to make sure that Haiti did not receive official diplomatic recognition by the United States to avoid the impression that it was acceptable for slaves to revolt. He refused to send Federal troops in to the territory of Kansas to help the abolitionists that settled there from being targeted by Southern death squads.

All of these things continued to embolden the South and embitter the North, making it more clear to each side that their real enemies were now internal instead of the external enemies they faced up until the 1840's. Pierce goes to show that sometimes it's better for a President to do nothing than something.

Millard Fillmore: Hawaii, "The Saudi Arabia of the 19th Century"

2010-04-25T10:52:00.004-04:00

Whale oil fueled the industrial revolution before the process of refining petroleum was discovered.

It not only powered the street lights of the cities in the Midwest that seemed to be growing exponentially overnight, but it also was used to lubricate the machines that were required for the new mass production economy.

It's no surprise that as a resource, it became a political subject. Whaling fleets in New England eventually hunted whales off their coast to the point of exhaustion and were required to look elsewhere.

In the early 1850's, it would be nearly 100 years before Hawaii became a state, but this was the time that diplomatic relations really were established with the ruling monarchy. U.S, British and Japanese whaling fleets started to span the globe looking for suitable whaling. Both the U.S and Britain competed for fishing rights over the Hawaiian islands and sent offers of protection, threats and bribes to the ruling monarchs of the islands.

Things continued to escalate, with the major powers including the confederates during the Civil War sending privateers after competing nations' vessels. Like the oil industry, it was both public and private.

Hawaii's status as a mineral rich, remote kingdom allowed it to play the major powers against each other, using one side's negotiations against the other. It would eventually fall victim to the fate of most colonies and have much of it's wealth and resources annexed, but for the time being, it's remoteness allowed it to be the Saudi Arabia of it's times, amassing enormous amounts of wealth and power for it's ruling and connected families.

It only lost this status when petroleum oil replaced whale oil as the driver of industry.

This will be the fate of Saudi Arabia not if, but when something better than petroleum is discovered.

Millard Fillmore: Where the Whigs Came From

2010-04-15T20:40:00.001-04:00

It's fascinating to understand the origin of political movements.

The cool thing about political parties in the 1800's was that they tended to be conglomerations of different movements rather than the well rehearsed national talking points we're used to. The Whig party that Fillmore belonged to was originally made up of several smaller, more focused interest groups.

The Whigs pulled together supporters in the Northeast that were fearful of immigrants and catholics (the No Nothing Party), northerners and westerners opposed to slavery because of various moral and economic reasons (the Free Soil Party) and anti aristocratic movements (the Anti Mason movement).

The other groups that eventually merged into the Whig party were manufacturing interests that were supportive of tariffs on imports and citizens that felt the county needed to be governed in a more modern matter that didn't match with Jefferson's original vision of an agrarian, egalitarian society which the Democrats still held. In the South, they tended to attract supporters who were skeptical of the expansion of Executive power under Jackson who wanted Congress to be the most powerful branch of government.

The one thing that united all Whigs was that they hated Andrew Jackson. For the entire life of the Whig party which was from around 1830 to 1865, 'King Andrew' remained their manifestation of what they should fear the most, even years after his death.

This is similar to the modern incarnation of Republicans rising up against FDR and his liberal, new deal policy. Powerful movements can be started from love or more often hatred of a powerful personality.

The Hitler Comparison Tradition

2010-04-09T10:00:00.000-04:00

It seems in vogue lately to compare anyone you don't agree with 'Hitler'. You might think that the tea partiers clever photo shopped posters of Obama with a Hitler mustache are a new thing, but this seems to stretch back at least to the cocaine and pop rocks infused days of the 1980's.

Everyone from punk rockers to right wing 'patriots' seem to feel more and more free to use this choice of words. I even found a liberal blogger that seemed to think the founders were Nazi's as well. This all seems a bit of a stretch, I mean it's understandable that people can passionately disagree about issues concerning the redistribution of wealth, foreign policy, hot button issues like abortion etc., but I fail to see the correlation between political rivals and accusing someone of being a Nazi.

As I was trolling the right and left wing nut job sites for Hitler presidential pictures, a curious trend emerged. Recent presidents- Obama, W. Bush, Clinton and Bush Senior all were relatively easy to find Hitler caricatures for. As I searched for Reagan, I could only find a few punk albums from the 80's that implied Reagan was a Nazi. As I moved on to the 70's, no Carter Nazi pictures emerged (although I found several screeds by Michael Savage calling him an anti Semite). I had to cheat on this one with a picture of Carter with a Hamas head band (close enough to Nazis I guess).

Believe it or not, no Ford or Nixon caricatures were to be found. I thought was odd (Nixon and Ford were called Fascists by many protesters after all) but came up with a few possible reasons for this.

1) Language has become diluted. Swear words are common in every day speech now when they used to be reserved for the most extreme situations, maybe the willingness to pull out the Nazi or Communist card is a symptom of that trend.

2) Politics has become more 'viral' and less civilized. I don't want to make it out that politics ever was civilized- The pamphleteers of the early 1800's used to print things that would make the writers of mother jones or redstate.com blush. You have to wonder why I couldn't find the Nazi accusations about former presidents in the 70's- a much more divided decade than any time in the last 30 years.

3) The Statute of Limitations has passed on the Nazi's. Maybe the 50's, 60's and 70's didn't see a lot of the Hitler comparisons being thrown around because the war was still fresh and most veterans were still living. As the baby boomers and generation x grew up, maybe they felt less need to show the restraint the greatest generation did for this topic.

4) Less political pictures from the 70's were able to be put on the web. This really is the most boring possibility, but I'm sure that it's at least partly right.

Whatever the case, calling people Hitler is unproductive and eliminates the possibility of intelligent debate.

What Would the Founders Think About Health Care?

2010-03-23T22:36:00.006-04:00

This is a question I've been seeing a lot on facebook (cut and pasted from foxnews.com probably) , but I have a better question ...

How would they have an opinion of it and if they did, who cares?

There's three main reasons that I pose this question:

1) In the founders' day, there was really no such thing as health care as we know it today.

Get sick? You die.
Get cancer? You die.
TB? You most likely die at some point. Maybe some time in the solarium will help a little.
Routine issue like burst appendix? You die.

In other words, health care expense wasn't much of an issue because medical science was for the most part unable to keep you alive if you had any kind of serious disease or health emergency.

There was no premium or co-pay, no deductible to worry about. You just had to make sure you could pray hard if an evil demon gave you 'the fever' or a case of melancholy.

2) The question 'What would the founders think?' is a weighted question that implies that anything that costs money (taxes) is an infringement on the liberty of the people.

While I understand this reasoning (no taxation without representation), the founders really felt that liberty was protection from government intrusion on your life (seizing your property, not allowing free expression, discriminating against religion etc.).

Their opposition to a standing army (Jefferson and the radicals at least) came from the fear that the army would overthrow the civilian government and force its will on the people, not due to taxes being increased.

3) If somehow the founders were transported into our world with its health care concerns, they certainly did not think as a block.

Some founders like Washington were reluctant to rebel against their own country and did so only because they felt something had gone wrong with the empire to make it 'less good' than it once was.

Others like Jefferson wanted an entire new society in the new world to spring forth and throw off the yoke of tyranny, almost a milder version of the French Revolution.

Still, there were moderates like Adams and Madison that fell somewhere in the middle.

So it seems naive to think they would have all been on the same page, even if they had been transported to our time and gained an understanding of the trials and tribulations of our longer and more expensive lives.

Unless of course, you're the Texas school board, then you can simply remove the founders you don't agree with from the history books.

Millard Fillmore: The Mormons Part II

2010-03-05T14:00:00.000-05:00

I think I should take this opportunity to formally thank and acknowledge the great folks at Wikipedia.

I try to not rely on it too much since 1) I'm reading a whole book on each president and shouldn't need cliff notes and 2) I feel a little bit guilty about finding an interesting tidbit on there and having it be attributed to my own research.

But there's no denying that it's a wonderful tool when I end up with one of the books as I have now which is a poorly written diary on what Millard Fillmore liked to eat and do for fun, his greatest hopes and dreams etc. Wikipedia just gives me the facts in an easy to digest manner even though I sometimes wonder about the people that put them on there.

Using this tool helped me find this great piece of information- Millard Fillmore continued the policy of Polk in giving the Mormons autonomy out West and formally created The Utah Territory appointing Brigham Young governor. Yes, it's that same Brigham Young that once lobbied Polk to start a Mormon militia, is hailed as a prophet by Mormons today and has a University named after him.

In gratitude for making him governor and giving the Mormons a formal home, Brigham Young named the capital of the Utah territory 'Millard' and named the surrounding county 'Fillmore'.

I initially thought this might be some joke by a disgruntled grad student or something- but behold, I've attached an image of a shirt for the Millard Eagles. Go Millard Eagles!

Millard Fillmore: It could have been a lot worse

2010-03-01T22:48:00.002-05:00

Millard Fillmore gets a lot of flack in American history for being mediocre. He's almost known for not being very well known as in the Seinfeld episode about "The Fillmore Boys Gang".

Perhaps that's why the only book I could find on him was written in the 1930's by what I can only assume was an unrepentant Fillmorephile since the book was a 550 page opus on the life and times of Millard Fillmore.

As I choked down page after page of this uninspiring book written in the stilted language of academics of that time, I couldn't help but think that although this guy was clearly a little too fond of Fillmore, there's plenty of people out there that are too hard on him.

Yes, he didn't do a lot in office that was very notable other than sending Commodore Perry to Japan as the first American to open trade there and start the presidential library, but he also didn't do things that made him one of the nation's worst presidents either.

He didn't commit high treason like President Tyler who joined the Confederacy in his retirement (he was the only former president to die who was denied a state funeral and flags at half staff)

He didn't do nothing to try and stave off Civil War between the North and South as President Pierce did.

He didn't have active Confederate sympathizers in his cabinet like President Buchanan (they were actually feeding information to rebels on troop levels in Federal bases prior to the Civil War)

So I would argue that it could have been a lot worse and the guy kind of gets a bad rap.

It's also important to remember that he took over after the death of Taylor, so it's not as though he was elected with some big mandate anyway. No one expected much from President Ford right?

Zachary Taylor: The Tease

2010-02-16T16:55:00.001-05:00

I've mentioned before that Taylor wasn't exactly a political lifer. President was the very first elected office he held.

But he took not being political to a new extreme. Here's part of an actual letter he wrote in response to a reporter asking him to state his political views:

"I reiterate what I have often said...I am a Whig but not an ultra Whig. If elected I would not be the mere president of a party- I would endeavor to act independent of party domination and should feel bound to administer the Government untrammelled by party schemes.

Second- the veto power- the power given by the Constitution to the Executive to exercise his veto is a high conservative power, but in my opinion, it should never be exercised except in cases of clear violation of the Constitution, or manifest haste or want of due consideration by the Congress. Indeed I have though for many years past, that known opinions and wishes of the Executive have exercised undue and injurious influence upon the Legislative Department of the government and from this cause I have thought that our system was in danger of undergoing a great change from its true theory."

So....he didn't want to actively enforce party beliefs and he prefers to let congress figure out what to do, reserving his veto for extreme cases and not letting his beliefs influence it. Not exactly playing to the base.

I'm not saying that they should have put some fire breathing party animal on the ticket, but it just seems strange to put someone on the ticket that almost refuses to be classified as even belonging to the party they're running for.

It was a testament to the exhaustion of the American people with the party politics of the increasingly southern dominated democratic party. Could an independent get elected in this day and age, or have the two parties gotten their tentacles too deep into the keys to power?

Happy Presidents' Day

2010-02-15T20:35:00.003-05:00

Today is a good day to reflect on the men this holiday is devoted to- Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. They were both indispensable to the founding and the saving of the country from internal and external enemies.

Much is known about Abraham Lincoln's quiet determination in steering the country back on course and helping his countrymen make the right moral choice on the scourge of slavery. His letters are all well preserved and his speeches and philosophy are part of the national psyche.

Less however is known about George Washington who burned his letters and writings before his death and left little more for the nation's written record than his journal on the daily temperature and rainfall that he kept for his entire life.

There were many possible motivations people assign to Washington's purposeful anonymity- possible fear of reprisal from Britain on his family and friends if the revolution failed or the country didn't sustain itself, wanting to let Americans decide for themselves what America is or should be etc.

One of the greatest unknowns is why George Washington turned down a ruler for life position and the chance to be a founding of an aristocracy that would have lasted for the entire history of the nation that he founded.

The aristocracy question is interesting to me especially, since my family on my father's side is distantly related to George Washington.

I was going through some old papers on our family history the other day and came across an article my Grandmother cut out called 'West Virginia Royalty' or something like that. In it- the journalist interviews a woman in West Virginia who's distantly related to the Washingtons and talks about how different life would be for her had Washington accepted the sword from his fellow generals and started a familial empire.

Instead of working for a living like some sucker, I could be kicking back and enjoying a guaranteed income from the family estate like one of the Julians or Claudians in the Roman empire.

Oh well- I guess some choices he made are better for the country and not for me. Anyway- Happy Birthday President Washington and Lincoln!

Zachary Taylor: Office Politics

2010-02-11T16:33:00.000-05:00

The idea of a President and his cabinet and/or his Vice President not getting along is really nothing special. We had the 'kitchen cabinet' of Andrew Jackson which led to armed posses and near duels over a woman's honor, we had Thomas Jefferson's service as Vice President to John Adams who felt that he was actively trying to undermine him and today is no different- with the presidential hopefuls John McCain and Sarah Palin who now it seems, could barely stand each other.

That's all normal, but never before the Polk administration did a President have so much animosity towards an active General fighting a war. As General Zachary Taylor, a Whig (not even a declared Whig at that point), was fighting the Mexican War, James Polk, a democrat, did everything that he could to minimize his victories on the field of battle so he couldn't become another War Hero president like Henry Harrison.

Polk was like a less corrupt Richard Nixon, brilliant and effective, but thinking that everyone was out to get him. By the time of his administration, the Whigs blossomed into an effective national protest movement against the Democratic policies of national expansion and limited 'internal improvements' Polk espoused. He constantly wrote to friends, suspecting Taylor of 'Whiggery'.

The irony of this strained relationship, is that Taylor was more or less completely apolitical until the Whigs convinced him to accept the presidential ticket in the election of 1848. Once he accepted the nomination as Whig candidate, he refused even to put his beliefs in writing, simply saying that he'd 'protect and enforce the constitution'. I think that Taylor's limpness on issues hardly put him in the category of Whig crusader.

Imagine today if President Obama kept General Gates' from enacting his policies to keep him out of presidential contention. How would the American people feel about that?

Gays in the Army v. the Civil Rights Movement

2010-02-07T15:59:00.003-05:00

I read an article in the Times today by Frank Rich that made me want to take a little sidebar from my writings on history and address current events.

The article points out that most Republicans who were once fierce opponents of gay rights are now distancing themselves from the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' debate. The article reasons that attitudes in the last 20 years have changed regarding gays and that it would not be politically expedient for the Republicans to retreat to tired social arguments when they're trying to attract independent voters who might identify with their fiscal responsibility and small government message.

Frank Rich points out that the arguments about troop cohesion, morale etc. being damaged by by the inclusion of gays in the military were all the same ones that were used in the 50's when Truman ordered the integration of the Army.

This got me thinking about the weight of history that some of the conservative leaders must surely feel bearing down on them. Gays and Mexicans (illegal immigrants) might be some of the last acceptable targets of borderline bigotry to score political points, but it won't be that way forever. Surely Orrin Hatch and gang must know that with the momentum of acceptance of gays in America, if they make a strong stand against eliminating this bias, in twenty years, their biographers will be writing things like "it was a different time...", "he also did some good things" etc.

It also made me think about how uncontroversial the idea of not forcing military gays to be closeted is vs. the idea of allowing blacks into the Army in the 1950's. In the 1950's, a black person had to drink out of a separate water fountain in many parts of this country and could literally be LYNCHED for looking at the wrong white person's wife. Southern Whites made up a large percentage of the Army and certainly needed to be forced into this arrangement.

Gays on the other hand, although they face some overt discrimination, are overall allowed to freely travel where they want throughout the country, work where they want and go to school where they want. It's more and more obvious that this and the marriage issue are going to be resolved for good in our generation's lifetime and that those that stand in the way will look worse and worse when the history books on this period are written.

Zachary Taylor: The Occupation of Mexico City?

2010-01-28T18:50:00.004-05:00

If you're like me, you have a cursory understanding of American history. You know the big events, the big players, wars etc. but may be surprised when you go a little deeper than the front page of the major chapters of a High School History book.

For example, I knew their was a 'Mexican War', but for some reason, I always thought that it took place in what were once Mexican territories, New Mexico of course, Texas, California... but I had no idea that the U.S. Army marched all the way down to Mexico City and occupied it.

It seems ridiculous that I don't know this, but there it is. It really happened.

One of the best parts about this project is that you find these kinds of things out. It seems like the majority of a lot of these biographies (especially the ones on minor presidents like Taylor who died in office) focus mostly on the movements and events that happened leading up to their presidency and I'm OK with that.

The viewpoint from one author to another will change dramatically or focus on different parts of the country. All this variety fills in a lot of blanks for me and makes me appreciate the complex nature of our history.

Zachary Taylor: The Trainee Politician 1849

2010-01-27T19:13:00.004-05:00

Many politicians before and after Taylor had well known military careers as war heroes and he was no exception. What is exceptional however is that his very FIRST political office was President of the United States.

It's understandable that many Americans don't want career politicians as President, but it's hardly imaginable that someone who never held any political position could be elected to the highest office in the land (think of the flack Sarah Palin got and she was the mayor of Wasilla!). Taylor spent nearly 40 years in the military before being nominated by the Whig party.

The Whig party calculated that having a Southerner and Northerner on the same ticket would be a good political move in this divided time and they were right. The irony is that as a career military man, Taylor didn't foster the strong Whig beliefs that they might have expected- at least none that he shared publically during the campaign.

Taylor, like Harrison got elected because most of what was known about him was nothing more than that he was a war hero. Taylor took the opposite approach as Polk in the election before and rather than being the candidate to make a bold stand on his beliefs, Taylor would take almost no public stands on the issues of the day other than that he believed in the constitution. He let people decide for themselves what his beliefs were and seemed to attract voters on conflicting sides of the same issue.

Many politicians have tried this tactic throughout world history, but I guess it takes a newbie to pull it off.

James Polk: The Mormon Battalion

2010-01-11T22:53:00.002-05:00

I've mentioned before that James Polk grew a distaste for religious intolerance at a young age when his mother's Episcopalian Preacher refused to baptize him because his father was a Deist. Perhaps that's why he had a special place in his heart for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (say that three times fast).

The mid 1840's weren't exactly a great example for religious tolerance in America. The recent influx of foreign immigrants, especially Irish to the east coast of the United States had led to the rise of the 'Know Nothing' party which was essentially an organization devoted to keeping Catholics and foreigners out of political office and if possible, out of the country. In addition, 'Anti-Mason' parties would be devoted to fighting the influence of secret organizations on paper, but in practice they often would attack those who were not of a main line Protestant religion.

It's not surprising then that in this time period, a religious movement that supported polygamy and modern day prophets would not be met with understanding. The Mormon Church members were chased out of New York and many other eastern and Midwestern cities and were forced to flee west.

During Polk's time in office, he met with the leader of the church, Brigham Young (yes, the one the college is named after) and decided to allow them to form a 'Mormon Battalion' to head west to California and support the US efforts there in the Mexican War. They didn't see much action, but they made their first steps to creating a home land in the West, far away from the religious persecution they'd faced back east.

The History of the United States is interesting in that the intolerance faced by minorities was really no more or less than anywhere else in the world, however, the sheer size of the expanding country constantly allowed those who were persecuted to move elsewhere and start their own enclaves. When else in the History of the World have you seen anything like Utah, a state founded as a homeland for persecuted minorities within a country?

James Polk: Dark Horse

2010-01-01T15:33:00.000-05:00

Polk served as the Speaker of the House of Representatives and Governor of Tennessee before he entered the competition for Presidential Candidate.

He had a long and distinguished career, but was actually thought to be a Vice Presidential Candidate of the Democratic party, not a presidential candidate. The Democrats were expected to choose Martin Van Buren who had actually served as president two administrations ago.

What made Polk into a serious contender on the national stage and then the President of the United States were his views on manifest destiny.

During the Whig and Democratic Convention of 1844, Henry Clay, the Whig candidate and Van Buren, the expected Democratic candidate had both come out against the annexation of Texas, badly misreading public opinion at the time to be against the expansion of the country. Polk however came out strongly in favor of annexing Texas.

Clay and Van Buren both thought that the leading issue of the day, slavery and its potential to expand would cause most Northerners to be against the annexation of Texas, but they were wrong.

Polk was the new hero of the people and quickly went from vice presidential candidate to President Elect, adding another sad chapter to the ballad of Martin Van Buren and Henry Clay.

Presidents Christmas Special

2009-12-24T14:55:00.003-05:00

It's that time of year and it's a good time to reflect on some of the interesting facts on the religious views of our past presidents.

Many on both sides of the political spectrum like to use the dead to serve the political ends of the living, but the truth is often more interesting than legend.

Some quick tidbits:

George Washington outlawed the practice of burning an effigy of the pope on Guy Fawkes day when he was trying to build support of his revolution among French Catholics in the north and Canadian territories.

John Adams was a Unitarian, a religion that even now is considered a sort of Hollywood type church. He was originally going to be a preacher, but left to pursue the practice of law which he believed was a higher calling.

Thomas Jefferson considered Jesus to be the greatest philosopher of all time, but rejected his divinity and miracles. He went as far as creating his own rational bible in which he blacked out all the miracles and had the gospels end with the stone being rolled in front of Jesus' tomb.

James Polk's father was a deist and much of his views on religious tolerance were formed when his minister refused to baptize him unless his father converted.

Andrew Jackson was heavily influenced by Old Testament teachings and would frequently refer to enemies as worshipers of Baal or Mammon.

20% (11) of the US Presidents were Episcopalian even though they only comprise 1.7% of the current US Population.

Christmas was not even a national holiday in the United States until Ulysses S. Grant declared it as such in 1870.

With that in mind- remember that history is never as clear cut as you think!

Merry Christmas-

Paul

James Polk: A Modest To Do List

2009-12-06T11:55:00.003-05:00

I was surprised to learn that Polk is widely considered one of the most influential presidents of all time, but after reading this book I understood why.

Here's the platform he campaigned on:
1845-1849

1) Lower Tariff's
2) Restructure National Banking System
3) Take California from Mexico through peaceful or other means
4) Secure Oregon Territory and border with Canada/British

Polk promised all these things during his campaign, and unlike the vague and unachievable campaign promises of today, he put his credibility on the line and actually did them in the one term of office he served.

He kick started the industrial revolution by lowering Tariffs for manufacturers, averted financial disaster by restructuring his mentor Andrew Jackson's broken banking system. He stretched the borders of the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean, securing California which would eventually become one of the largest economies in the world in its own right. Oh yeah, and he averted what would have been a costly drawn out war with Great Britain through tough but fair negotiations.

John Tyler: This is Your Life

2009-11-25T15:12:00.000-05:00

As I tried to think of things to write about Tyler, I could think of few positives about the man, at least in the view of history.

It's hard to say what public opinion would have said about him at the time. Maybe he would have been thought of by his southern colleagues as a true defender of the Republic and enemy of the 'Tyranny' of the national bank and northern meddling in southern affairs.

Now, however, the consensus view of history is that his great legacy was the following:

1) He seized power after Harrison died and maintained the presidency. (until this point, most thought that the vice president would simply serve as acting presidency until another election was arranged) He was referred to as 'His Accidency' to his death.

2) He tried to be a national cheer leader for the institution of slavery going as far as hiring foreign secret agents to promote it in London and Paris newspapers. He supported and signed the joint resolution on the acquisition of Texas to expand the slave holding republic in the South.

3) He agreed to run on the Whig ticket while refusing to adhere to almost any of the party's beliefs (internal improvements, protection of manufacturing interests etc) It was well known at the time he was nominated that he was really a Southern Democrat, but it was thought that putting him on Harrison's ticket as VP wouldn't hurt anything since even in the event of Harrison's death, he wouldn't really become president (SEE NUMBER 1)

4) When he made the decision to stay in Office, he was abandoned by both major political parties, the Whigs because he was a Democrat and the Democrats because he ran as a Whig. Except for Daniel Webster, his entire cabinet resigned.

5) He ultimately betrayed his own country, defecting to the Confederacy during the Civil War (he died soon after)

When Tyler died, the United States didn't even officially mourn his passing. I can't say I do now either.

John Tyler: Letters to the Land of the Rising Sun

2009-11-20T15:04:00.000-05:00

John Tyler suffered from the same view as Europe that the non European world was the white man's burden. In fairness to him, his ignorance of Asian and African cultures continued will into the 20th century in America, but we still have to shake our head at some of the things he said.

In a letter to the Emperor of China, which was at the time, one of the most powerful and richest countries in the world, Tyler sounds as though he's talking to some tribe of hunter gatherers that have no written language.

Here's a piece of his letter that was featured in Edward Crapol's biography:

"China is a great empire, extending over a great part of the world. You have millions and millions of subjects. The twenty-six United States are as large as China (?), though our people are not so numerous. The rising sun looks over the great mountains and great rivers of China. When he sets, he looks upon rivers and mountains equally large in the United States."

This sounds like Jackson's letter to the Seminole Indians explaining that they need to join their great brothers west of the Mississippi where the Great Creator wants them to live in peace and abundance.

Maybe any president around Tyler's time would have had the same stereotypes about the Chinese being little more than barbarians, but it's just striking that this letter was actually an official correspondence.

John Tyler: World Opinion

2009-11-15T14:47:00.000-05:00

We all think that W. must have been the president to make the worst impression abroad in the history of these United States, but Tyler may have given him a run for his money.

In a time when the great empires of Europe, France, England and some of the German kingdoms were outlawing slavery in their territories, Tyler was sending secret agents over to the UK to promote it with propaganda and letters to the editor in British newspapers written under false names.

He actually appointed an 'ambassador' to slavery in the UK who would put a good face on the peculiar institution. While the UK was certainly not blameless for historical atrocities during the period of the mid 1800's, it can certainly take credit for the abolitionist movement that spread to the North.

Instead of heading the call of historical inevitability though, Tyler dug in and was determined to prove to his friends abroad that slavery was not only necessary, but also was righteous. He used the same pseudo science Jefferson used in his 'Notes on the State of Virginia' to try and prove his racial points.

I guess Tyler's refusal to admit that slavery's days were numbered is similar to Tea Partiers that refuse to believe pollution and global warming exist. They hold this view because it's more convenient for them if pollution doesn't exist, that way they can continue their life style unfettered by the inconveniences and moral dilemma of causing harm to their world.

John Tyler: Not the best Judgement

2009-11-10T15:20:00.000-05:00

Tyler may be remembered as many things, an unrepentant pro slavery man, the last vestige of ante bellum southern society, a traitor to the country, but there was one thing he was good at, and that was entertaining.

Sadly, even though this was his strength, it's also something that he's negatively remembered for.

On the deck of "The Peacemaker", a massive warship, John Tyler threw a party for a bunch of diplomats, senators and much of his cabinet. The party was kicked off by having the Peacemaker fire off a bunch of rounds from its huge 12 inch diameter cannon.

After the guests had watched the display for an hour or so, they went below deck for dinner and more champagne (Tyler's favorite drink)

After more merriment, Tyler gave several toasts and then the dinner was started. A while later, they noticed they were passing Mount Vernon and requested a final gun salute to George Washington. As if from some novel, the Captain of the ship initially refused saying "No more guns tonight", but the Secretary of Navy pulled rank and insisted that there would be more guns that night.

As you can imagine, something horrible happened. The massive cannon exploded, killing the secretary of Navy, a couple members of Tyler's cabinet, a diplomat and the father of his future bride to be (30 years younger than him) who was in attendance (Tyler comforted her in her grief and they later married)

Tyler was spared from the explosion because he stayed below deck to listen to a song his son in law was signing.

Amazingly, this wasn't the low point in history of Tyler's career. That would come later where he actually joined the confederacy in betrayal of his country.

John Tyler: Opportunist

2009-11-05T15:00:00.000-05:00

John Tyler like most politicians of his day was not satisfied with the vice presidency.

Probably even more so than politicians of our day since in the 1830's, it was believed that in the event a vice president stepped into office after the death of the president, he'd merely act as the steward of the state until another election could be arranged.

We're probably much more concerned about who a presidential candidate is now than they would have been in Harrison and Tyler's time since we know that the VP will at the very least, finish out the term of the deceased president and potentially run for re election. Harrison supporters most likely wouldn't have had these Sarah Palin type concerns since they thought the worst that could happen was that the party would simply pick another candidate to run in a second election.

It's not as though he could have an alternative reading of the constitution, take the reins of power and refuse to step down could he? Well, yes he could apparently.

Immediately after news of Harrison's death came to him in his home in Virginia, Tyler returned to Washington and had himself sworn in. At this point, it wouldn't have been a clean process to unseat him from power, so people (most people anyway) grudgingly accepted.

This would not stop his enemies from addressing correspondences to him addressed to 'The Acting President' and people referring to him as 'His Accidency'.

It's ironic that Tyler set the precedent for a peaceful, orderly transfer of power in the United States since he took office against the will of almost his entire cabinet and leading members of his own party.

#10: John Tyler: The Southern Strategy

2009-10-31T09:43:00.004-04:00

We all know one of the most famous slogans in American Presidential Politics, Tippecanoe and Tyler too- but how did we get to the point that this became such an iconic slogan? The answer is old fashioned message control and ticket management behind one of the country's first national opposition parties, the Whig party.

I spoke before about how in the late 1830's and early 1840's, the country was largely divided into three sections, The North, The South and The West (although this meant mostly what we would call the Midwest today).

The Whig party put a candidate in the field (Harrison) with a lot of things going for him, War Hero that killed Tecumseh and his 'nation of tribes', executive experience being the Governor of the Indiana territory and someone that didn't have a lot of dirt on him (not much was known of him nationally other than that he was a war hero). He was also a Virginian, even though he left his home state at a young age.

Harrison had the West (Ohio, Indiana, Michigan etc) locked up, he had a small contingent in the North tired of what they viewed as Jackson and Van Buren's populist policies and he had a fair showing in the South. Harrison needed to do something to win over either the North or South to really lock up the presidency.

They opted to nominate John Tyler, the tried and true Southerner that was really more of an old time republican than a Whig, but they were willing to compromise.

The move paid off in that the Whigs won the election of 1840 but would come back to haunt them a month later when Tyler expectantly stepped into the power vacuum as president when Harrison became the first president to die in office.

Harrison: Regional Realities

2009-10-18T15:00:00.000-04:00

From the 1820's on, the nation was progressively more defined by regional differences and identities.

Instead of Nascar Dads, Soccer Moms, immigrants, etc. the country was divided in a large part by geography with the Northeast, the South and the 'West' making up the primary designations of political loyalty.

The south, Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia etc. was run by the slave holding old money class of people. Many of the economic reforms in manufacturing and other industries never arrived there, making the landholding aristocracy more powerful and the poorer whites in a constant state of dependence. Blacks obviously were in the ultimate state of dependence there.

The Northeast, New York, Massachusetts, Maine etc. also had an established power structure since it was one of the oldest parts of the country, but it also had a new merchant and business class that was gaining more influence than it ever had in generations past. The improvements to transportation were making it ever richer compared with their southern, more feudal counterparts.

As the value of American currency plummeted during Jackson's disastrous war against the National Bank in the 1830's, the Northeast continued to export and bring in much needed gold and foreign currency into its economy. This kept their economy more stable as the south, which was a net importer of materials fell apart.

The West was dominated by 'new men' from both the south and north. They were speculators, homesteaders and entrepreneurs. They were generally in favor of a strong central government for security against the Indians that populated the land and 'internal improvements' such as rail roads, canals etc. that improved transportation.

Harrison was ultimately a candidate that could appeal on at least two out of three of the levels having been the governor of Indiana a true westerner but having been born in the Tidewater district of Virginia also sufficiently southern. Family title played big in the south and this was the son of a signer of the Declaration of Independence. From the North's perspective, he was attractive because he was not viewed as a complete southerner having made his way in the unsettled lands of Ohio and Indiana.

He also made the Northeast a little more comfortable because although he owned slaves, he was in a large part silent on the issue and didn't challenge the notion that it should not expand and would eventually be fazed out.

To cement his victory in the south however, the Whigs put John Tyler on the ticket. A southern gentlemen that was a sort of Sarah Palin to the ticket. Most Whigs understood he was really a Democrat and not a Whig, but thought that with the upside he'd bring to getting them elected, what's the worst that could happen?

Barely a month after Harrison took office in 1841, they found out.

Harrison: Temperance

2009-10-13T15:10:00.001-04:00

Harrison was an unlikely advocate for moderation in all things.

The fact that his early history involved coming out to the unsettled Northwest Territories (now Ohio and Indiana) after joining the military due to the difficulty of obtaining wealth in his home state of Virginia gives him a Jacksonian frontiersman feel.

He ran for one of the first effective opposition parties under the 'log cabin and hard cider' campaign which denoted a sort of good old boy/Fox News Tea Party type marketing effort.

He won the campaign in a large part because of his bravery and selfless risk taking in the battle against Tecumseh's multi tribe fighting force during the War of 1812.

All of these things would have us guess that he was more populist in nature, a real man's man. But Harrison would have preferred to be a scholar like Quincy Adams or Jefferson had his circumstances allowed it rather than a military hero like Washington or Monroe.

When he first came out to the territories to lead the army there, he was appalled by the excesses he saw in the alcohol abuse of both his own men and the resident creek Indians, the constant dueling and the lack of discipline at the military camps.

He implemented severe penalties for dueling, passed such progressive reforms as refusing to allow white merchants to accept the clothes off the tribesman's backs for alcohol (it was apparently a problem at this time that there were a bunch of Indians running around naked because they pawned their own clothing) and punished drunkenness severely.

Harrison also did his best to treat the Indians fairly, at least compared to Jackson and the other Indian fighters of the time (I know that's a pretty low bar) and even court martialed his own men when they practiced indiscriminate killing of tribesmen in retaliation for Indian raids on the white settlements.

The idea of such an Indian fighter having such a temperate lifestyle just amuses me. Hardly what I expected from 'Old Tippecanoe'.

Harrison: The View from Main Street in the 1930's

2009-10-08T14:45:00.000-04:00

Truth and memory are subjective things that change from century to century and decade to decade. This could not have been driven home to me more obviously than when I read this book.

As you probably know from 7th grade history class- Harrison was only president for a few weeks. He famously caught pneumonia after giving his inaugural speech outside in foul weather and died shortly thereafter. It's not surprising then that my choices were limited as far as books. Turns out there's only one Harrisonphile out there and the book he wrote was from 1939.

Everything about this book seemed dated, from the crude racial language to the author's old timey name- Freemen Cleaves.

What was more interesting than the book itself though, was reading a view of historical events that for the most part changed in the last 25 years or so. This author's view of the Battle of Tippecanoe was quite different than our current guilt ridden view of our interaction with the Native people's of the United States.

Tecumseh, the Shawnee Chief that helped to unite several tribes in the Midwestern United States against American expansion is now remembered as something of a folk hero. In the historical re enactments such as the ones my family and I used to watch in southern Ohio, he's usually the 'noble savage' fighting uncouth settlers to maintain his people's benign way of life.

In this author's mind though, he was barely more than a terrorist and lacked the self control that the noble whites could exercise over themselves. The Indians were constantly shifting sides from supporting the British to the US, from anger to passivity. The alcoholism that ravaged their people is treated almost as a character flaw of the hapless 'redskins'.

In addition to his dim view of the 'redskins', he also seemed to have a dark view of mixed race people, referring to them as 'mulattos', octoroons or quadroons (I actually had to google the last two to find out what they even meant).

It's easy to write off this man's unpolitically correct views as extremely racist, but we have to remember that his views were the status quo of the American white population when he wrote this book in the late 1930's. In fact, this guy actually was from suburban New York, so it's not like he was some KKK member from Mississippi or anything like that.

If we want to judge this guy's views on non white Americans as a relic of the past, we should really ask ourselves just why is it that a significant portion of the American population doesn't think that Barack Obama is a 'real' US citizen? Would we learn that we're less evolved than we thought?

William Henry Harrison: Not an Idiot

2009-10-04T15:06:00.001-04:00

If you're like me, you grew up thinking that Harrison was an idiot.

Any guy who's best known for giving his inaugueration speech outside in the cold who catches pneumonia and dies a month later must be an idiot right?

Wrong.

Harrison was sort of a mix between the idealism of Thomas Jefferson and the political realism of Martin Van Buren. He carried with him the speeches of Cicero and other Greek classics, but was not above trafficking in populism to win votes during his presidential election (the log cabin and hard cider campaign)

He's a hard guy to pin down, he was known as an Indian fighter famous for defeating Tecumseh at the Battle of Tippecanoe, but in his private correspondences, he chastises his colleagues for not honoring Indian land treaties that they signed and committing atrocities against tribes.

Like Jackson, he came out west (Ohio was still the frontier when he went out there in the late 18Th century) but was not the brawling, risk taking man's man Jackson was.

He was a frontiersman who was against the excesses of drinking, gambling and dueling that he saw in his militia troops.

In short, he was a complicated individual. He did a whole lot of stuff before he was president, it's sad that he was able to do so little while he was president.

Martin Van Buren: Party Animal

2009-09-29T15:00:00.000-04:00

I'm not just calling Van Buren a party animal because the term 'booze' was coined because of the E.B. Booz liquor company which supplied the log cabin shaped liquor bottles in his unsuccessful campaign against the Whigs.

Van Buren helped to form one of the first truly national movements in America. To this point, with some exceptions, most politics were defined by regional interests. The Federalist party, or what little was left of it at this point represented the Northeastern manufacturing interests. The Democratic-Republicans represented the Southern agricultural interests.

At one time to be from Massachusetts was to be a Federalist, to be from Virginia was to be a Republican (different meaning then). Van Buren changed all that.

He had modern advances in technology and transportation on his side. Now was the heyday of steam ship travel, the start of efficient train travel and the golden age of party newspapers.

Presidents and politicians in the northeast or Virginia in the early 1800's would never have dreamed of taking months off to travel out west to Ohio or down south to Georgia. To do so would have presented great risks, been excruciatingly slow, uncomfortable and cost prohibitive.

Now, if Van Buren wanted to consult his mentor Andrew Jackson on a policy matter, he could board a train to Tennessee and be back to Washington D.C. in a matter of days, not months.

Newspaper presses started to cater more towards general political sentiments than regional interests. They were also becoming easier to operate and could get readers undivided attention, unlike the political pamphlets of the early 1800's which were only read by those already inclined to agree with them.

These are the tools that allowed Van Buren to forge his national democratic party and are the same tools that the Whig party, copying his methods would use to defeat him four years after took office.

Martin Van Buren: O.K.

2009-09-25T15:00:00.000-04:00

Few people who say 'ok' reflexively to a question realize that the term comes from Van Buren.

He used to sign his letters 'O.K.' which stood for 'Old Kinderhook' (his hometown in NY)- one of his many nicknames. This one was use mostly by his operatives to give a homey feel to his policies (think Old Hickory for Jackson or the fireside chats of FDR)

For whatever reason, the phrase stuck around for much longer than people's memories of the president.

Some other interesting nicknames of Van Buren (he had many)

"The Careful Dutchman" (his native language)
"The Little Magician" (he was a kingmaker and very short)
"Martin Van Ruin" (Whig critics name for him due to the Panic of 1837)
"The Red Fox of Kinderhook" (the best kind of nickname, used by friends and enemies)

Martin Van Ruin: Specie Circular

2009-09-21T15:00:00.001-04:00

Political Cartoon "The Ghost of Commerce"

Martin Van Buren's presidency was dominated by an economic crisis that known as the Panic of 1837.

It's hard to say if government policy was completely to blame for this economic crisis, but it's fair to say that Martin Van Buren was unjustly blamed for it with his Whig Party critics calling him 'Martin Van Ruin'.

The crisis stemmed from land speculation in taken Indian Lands. If you recall from my posts on Jackson, the Indians by this time were mostly pushed out of the South and East. Jackson's poor Democratic constituents rushed in to purchase cheap land from the government and homestead it.

Speculators got in on the act buying and selling large parcels of this land to resell to people looking to come out and ranch or farm on it. Many of these speculators borrowed from state banks whose paper currency was not backed by specie (gold and silver). This led to massive inflation and a devaluation of paper currency.

In response, Jackson towards the end of his second term issued the Specie Circular act which required that Federal (old Indian) lands be purchased by gold or silver. This essentially froze the credit markets (similar to the credit freeze that escalated the 08' banking crisis, but actually imposed by the government) since the state banks and the borrowers were relying on and trading in drastically inflated paper money they issued.

It's fair to say also that in not renewing the National Bank's charter in his crusade against the bankers and moving the Fed's reserves to state banks, Jackson created the conditions that the state banks could cause this credit bubble.

Van Buren was caught between a rock and a hard place, since he did not want to take responsibility for the crisis himself and did not want to sell out his old friend Jackson. He could have done better in the PR department as he was the first man to really start a political machine, but this was his undoing. The Jackson administration had made so many enemies, the opposition had a very easy time covering the story in their partisan newspapers.

It's the economy stupid. Martin Van Buren was doomed to be a one term president.

Martin Van Buren: A Few Words

2009-09-17T15:00:00.001-04:00

(From the White House Historical Association)

As Jackson's Secretary of State, Martin Van Buren was the Super Ego to Jackson's Id. While Jackson was known for challenging his opponents with the (actual) threat of bodily harm, Van Buren was much more likely to invite them to dinner.

His style was not of a gentleman of rank and status like Jefferson and Washington but also was not the hard charging, take no prisoners strategy of Jackson. He was much more of a political animal, understanding that he could not always make a stand on his own pure principals and that sometimes you have to make an alliance with your opponent to get what you want.

This dedication to preserving the peace helped him serve as a moderating influence in the Jackson administration, curbing some of Jackson's wilder instincts. It also helped him serve as a fixer in the constant infighting in the cabinet. He befriended the scandalized Peggy Eaton who had embroiled the administration in sex scandals and who the cabinet members' wives had shunned.

He helped to found the Democratic Party (he and Jackson called it The Democracy) which was not quite like Barack Obama or Nancy Pelosi's party, but still was a political party in the true sense. He united slave owning interests in the South with populist interests in the North, creating the first truly National party.

He has the ironic distinction of being the first President born an American citizen and the only president ever whose native language is something other than English (Dutch). Lou Dobbs and his Birthers would be very confused!

Andrew Jackson: Indian Policy- Could the results have been different?

2009-09-13T15:03:00.000-04:00

The American Indian Policy of the early 1800's was similar to most other European powers of the time. That's to say that there was forced or nearly forced assimilation of religion, agriculture and laws. Native Peoples were expected to adopt the language and customs of the more powerful colonizer in a very short time frame, often within a lifetime of running into the foreign power.

This is different than in the Ancient world where for example, the expanding Roman Empire would often let native religion and customs flourish, assimilating the natives over several lifetimes. This assimilation was often carried out through incentives such as positions of influence that were rewarded or simply leading by example and making the natives wish to adopt customs of 'civilization' rather than doling out punishments. The military would often resettle lands that were conquered and over 100 yrs or so, the conquered lands began to look more roman and less 'barbarian'.

I think to look at the possibilities for the way things could have turned out differently in America greatly depended on the individual Indian Nation/Tribe.

I'm of the belief that tribes like the Apaches in the Southwest never could have lived peacefully amongst settlers. This is because their way of life was nomadic and there wasn't really a concept of land ownership or boundaries like there is in Western Culture. Raiding rival tribes was an accepted part of life. There's no possible way that the American people, who came West precisely to own and homestead land could ever have lived in peace with them.

In fact, if you want to look at an ancient parallel, you could look to the Germans in the Roman Empire who even when defeated, Rome could never truly colonize and assimilate until very late in its history. This is because their entire way of life depended on warfare. Agriculture and settlement were actually forbidden by the chieftains because they were afraid that it would make their people too peaceable and unprepared for war.

I do however believe that relations between the '5 civilized tribes' could have gone very differently than they did. The Cherokee, Chicksaw, Choktaw, Seminole and Creek tribes had all adopted regular, settled agriculture to varying degrees. These are the nations that the Supreme Court and many leading citizens of Jackson's time wanted to maintain treaties and trade with.

In my opinion, if it weren't for such a pro Indian removal Executive in the White House at this time that marshaled the US Army for his purposes, these tribes could have remained in the Southeast through the Civil War and possibly to this day. I would also say that if it weren't for the British and Spanish manipulating and convincing the Seminoles and Creeks to fight the United States in the War of 1812, sympathy for Jackson's policies would most likely have been less.

These tribes had villages and cities, some had adopted the Christian religion to varying degrees, many had adopted the Western form of dress and many had learned English, conversed regularly and traded with the White settlers that lived near them.

It's very easy to imagine if not for the forced resettlement, these tribes holding on to much of their culture and evolving and modernizing along with the White Settlers. It's interesting to think about what the country would look like now if the Southeast were some sort of semi autonomous or fully autonomous country.

I think that most of the Tribes would simply have been eventually annexed by the United States and would be sort of like Puerto Rico or Hawaii today- places with their own history and identity, but also are undeniably American.

It's a shame that the populists and speculators won the day in Jackson's time and the stage was set for ethnic cleansing and the forced removal of people from their land.

Andrew Jackson: Indian Policy

2009-09-09T15:35:00.001-04:00

Map of the Trail of Tears showing the path that the Cherokee nation had to take to where they resettled in Oklahoma.

from mapoftheunitedstates.org

To the Native Americans in this country, Andrew Jackson is like Hitler. I've talked before about how some tribes will make efforts not to accept twenty dollar bills and the long running campaigns to remove him from the twenty dollar bill.

Jackson got his start as the famous Indian Fighter in the Tennessee Militia in skirmishes with the Creek Indians who had sympathies towards the British after the War of 1812. He later fought the Seminole Indians in Spanish Florida, nearly leading to renewed war with the British when he executed two British Citizens whom he accused of spying.

He capped off his reputation as the enemy of the Indians by siding with the State of Georgia in the 1830's when the State, having found gold on the Cherokees' land, wanted to kick them out. The surprising thing about this is that the Supreme Court at the time actually ruled against the State interfering on Indian lands due to previous treaties and Jackson went against it, eventually putting in motion the Trail of Tears, where thousands of Cherokees who were forced off of their land by the US Army died of exposure, disease and starvation in their forced Western march. The friend of democracy was not a friend of judicial supremacy apparently.

It's without a doubt, that Jackson certainly is the poster boy for the horrible policies against Indians, but I have to wonder if he's to some degree a scapegoat or convenient target. Jackson's views were extreme compared with people like Jefferson and Q. Adams who favored peaceful relations and coexistence or at least tolerance of Indians that abandoned their hunter gatherer ways and adopted agricultural practices. However, they weren't that far out of the mainstream.

Several groups favored abandoning previous Treaties that U.S. had agreed to and favored the policy of pushing Indians off their land. The poor who Jackson identified with had much to gain in homesteading fertile land that was once held by the Creeks, Cherokees or Seminoles. Wealthy land speculators wanted to buy and sell huge swaths of land for development and banking interests wanted to lend to those speculators. Religious interests feared that the Indians among them would erode morality.

Even the most compassionate/law and order whites usually only favored tolerating the presence of civilized, agriculture based tribes, not groups that still made a subsistence from hunting and gathering.

Jackson, in carrying out the policy of forced removal with the Trail of Tears, was simply removing the pretense of law and order that his predecessors had clung to. In his mind, he was bringing democracy to the masses (whites at least).

He also justified these policies as more than simple land grabs by making flimsy arguments that it's in the Cherokees' best interest to move West where tensions with the White Man would cease and they could live their own way of life (never mind that the Whites were causing most of the tension).

Andrew Jackson: The Irony of Paper Money

2009-09-05T15:00:00.004-04:00

(from getjacksonoffthe20.net)
very subtle!

There's two major reasons why it's ironic that Andrew Jackson is on the twenty dollar bill.
First and most obvious-he hated paper money.

Jackson was an opponent of the central banking system which printed currency and one of his major legacies was to not renew its charter and remove its gold deposits to state banks.

Andrew Jackson was a populist and always was suspicious of power in the hands of the elite. He saw the bank as something that could buy influence of politicians (there was probably some truth to this) and something that was inherently undemocratic as it could print money without oversight of elected officials (also some truth to that)

He favored an economic system with gold and other precious metals as the currency. He felt that these are the only monetary instruments that cannot be manipulated by powerful interests.

Second, there's the fact that Indian reserves to this day will often not accept twenty dollar bills.

Why do you ask? Well, his policies towards the Indians are worthy of an entirely separate blog post. Remember the Trail of Tears? That's Jackson.

This is doubly ironic due to the fact that Jackson would most likely not want to accept his own twenty dollar bill due to his stance on paper money vs. gold.

Andrew Jackson: SEX Scandals

2009-09-01T16:00:00.001-04:00

Peggy Eaton (from academicamerican.com)

Apologies to any new readers, that was just a cheap trick to get you to visit this blog.

Sex scandals have been around for all of American History- certainly there was Sally Hemings with Thomas Jefferson and in almost every Presidential Election- there were accusations from the opposition candidate that their rival had sired children with their slaves (with the exception of John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams since they were the only Presidents so far to not own slaves)

Two major scandals dominated Jackson's administration.

The first I think would even be hard to take even in today's much more forgiving world. Jackson had married a woman before she was technically divorced from her husband. There's lots of opinions on this- for example some feel that in the frontier, marriage could be annulled by mutual consent, some claim that the woman was in an abusive relationship etc...

But seriously, can you even imagine if a presidential candidate married someone before they were legally divorced from their spouse???

Jackson was called a bigamist and adulterer as well as home breaker and wife stealer. In the end, his wife died right before he took office and he blamed the whole affair (no pun intended) on John Quincy Adams' political operatives. Both men went to their death as bitter enemies.

Secondly, there was Peggy Eaton. Peggy was the wife of Jackson's Secretary of War.

The accusations against her were basically that she was a loose woman. She had been married to a man in the Navy who had ended up killing himself and the rumor was that it was because he was distraught over his wife's infidelity.

She was the daughter of a Washington Inn Keeper and would always flirt with the politicians that came in, striking up conversations with men she found interesting. This being un-natural for a woman of these times only fueled the rumors.

The cloud that followed Jackson into the White House would have eventually dispersed, had the feelings on this woman not led to an internal squabble between the wives of his cabinet members.

In those days, there was great importance put on woman calling on or receiving other women of their social rank as guests. Peggy Eaton felt that since she had married into political prominence, she was entitled to be treated as a lady of distinction. The other wives of the cabinat members however, felt that it would insult their virtue to associate with such a woman and refused her visits.

I won't go on anymore about the nuances of the Petticoat Scandal except to say that it ends with an armed posse, one of Jackson's cabinet members fleeing D.C. for his life as Jackson looks on, and the Eatons living an alcohol fueled retirement where they consumed on average two bottles of wine and one bottle of rum a day, an excessive amount even for the times. (I should mention that the cocktail was invented as a breakfast drink in the 1800's)

I can promise you though- as we're getting into the time of cheap, partisan newspapers, the sex scandals will become much more visceral from here on out, and the whisper campaigns will eventually become the shouting matches that we're all so familiar with.

Andrew Jackson: Hatred of the British

2009-08-27T15:00:00.000-04:00

From a very young age, Jackson held a deep seated, Mel Gibsonish hatred of the British.

He volunteered at the age of thirteen to be a courier in the revolutionary War. He and his brother were captured and brought in front of a British Officer who ordered Jackson to clean his boots. Jackson refused and the officer then became upset, striking Jackson in the head with the flat part of his saber and leaving a scar running the entire length of his face for the rest of his life.

In prison, he and his brother nearly starved to death and became infected with small pox from the unsanitary conditions. His brother ended up dying on the journey back home after his mother won their release.

His mother died not too long after that and even if it was not directly caused by the British, he at least somewhat blamed them.

Jackson saw the British encroachments on American sovereignty such as the capture and impressment of American sailors after independence was won and saw many of the Indian revolts in the West as evidence of British aggression (he was probably right as often as he was wrong about this)

I think that if we try and look for the root cause of all his hatred of the British, we could also look to where his parents came from, Northern Ireland. I assume that his mother (his father died before he was born) had tales to tell of British Atrocities over there as there were many at the time.

Also, the class system created by the British Empire in which well born, educated elites rose to the heights of power and the lower classes toiled away in subservient roles created an environment that held Jackson, a poor self educated orphan, back.

He was a man that saw the world in black and white, and to him, the new Zion in which he lived was good, while the old world was corrupt and evil.

Does it still make sense for people to have this view of American Exceptionalism in the world of today? Can America have the moral superiority when it's not the underdog anymore?

Stop Calling People Hitler

2009-08-25T15:00:00.000-04:00

Politics in America has always been nasty. Even in the 'deferential' age of Jefferson, Adams and Washington, insults were thrown freely around.

But the duels and accusations of tyranny notwithstanding, it seems that the politics of the masses in this country have gone a little extreme lately.

People are being whipped up by the poor man's revolutionaries at Fox News like Glenn Beck or Shawn Hannity. Soccer moms, Nascar dads and otherwise normal individuals are going to town halls and city council meetings and shouting down politicians and their 'Nazi' health care plan. Barack Obama is portrayed with a Hitler mustache on effigies and signs by people protesting his 'socialist Nazi policies'. Never mind the fact that Hitler was a fascist, but I don't think many of these people paid attention in history class anyway.

Do they realize if they want to throw the Nazi card down that shouting down all opposition politicians was also the method of Hitler's Brown Shirts and not to mention the revolutionary guard in Iran? The only reason that you make a show of carrying assault rifles outside some political event is intimidation, not sticking up for your rights.

I'm not going to cut the liberals a break on the Nazi card either. Many of their ilk carried around the famous Bush Nazi merchandise as well. All of their leftist Hannity equivalents like Olberman and Michael Myers would have you believe that Bush stole Christmas (the secular part of course since they don't believe in religion) and was going to put everyone into concentration camps any day.

My point is that although strong words in politics are sometimes needed, I think that people need to dial it down a little bit on both the right and the left.

Adolph Hitler's insane policies of racial extermination directly or indirectly led to the deaths of between 50 to 70 MILLION PEOPLE from combat, starvation, exposure and simple mass murder. He tried to wipe an entire race of people from the planet and take Europe's historical anti semitism to its 'final solution'.

I hardly think that disagreeing with Barack Obama's Public Heath option or George W. Bush's tax policy is justification to call either one of them the name of the most infamous mass murderer that ever lived.

That seems like an unforgivable insult to the memory of the millions and millions that died in that war and also to the millions of people that were lucky enough to survive it.

Andrew Jackson: Anger Problems

2009-08-23T15:00:00.001-04:00

from The Washington Post

Jackson duels with Charles Dickinson- getting wounded but killing him.

Andrew Jackson followed what we might call gut feelings politics. He saw black and white, and not a whole lot of nuance in between.

As our former president said, you were either with him or against him. It's not surprising therefore that he didn't take criticism or insults very well.

He had fought in two duels, one in which, recognizing that he was a bad shot, allowed his opponent to fire first, then, holding the wound to avoid passing out from the loss of blood, slowly aimed and fired killing the man.

The second duel was fought when he was a lawyer working on one of his early cases. He felt the other lawyer had insulted him in front of the judge and challenged the man to a duel right then and there in front of the judge and jury. Perhaps he had grown some wisdom by then since he and the other man decided to simply point their pistols up in the air and fire to satisfy honor.

When South Carolina threatened to secede he told the instigator that he would personally come down to the state and hang him from the tallest tree if he continued talk of the state withdrawing from the Union.

He once chased an enemy on the street with a bull whip. As a judge in Tennessee when a fugitive refused to appear in front of the court, Jackson personally hunted the man down and brought him into custody at gun point.

After an assassination attempt, he swung at his attacker with a cane and had to be restrained by his cabinet.

He was not a man to be trifled with.

Andrew Jackson: Humble Beginnings

2009-08-19T15:00:00.000-04:00

I'll come right out and say it, I don't like Andrew Jackson and I don't like the populist era of politics that he ushered in.

However, I have to respect that he was the first American president to live what we would call the American Dream.

Previous to Jackson, all presidents had come from distinguished families. Jackson, though, was what the Romans would have called a 'new man'. He was the first in his family to do anything of real acclaim and obtain the status of the upper class.

His father died the year he was born and his mother died of a cholera epidemic when he was 14. He was raised as an orphan from the age of 14 by a not so thrilled family.

Although he had private tutors, he had none of the formal education that Jefferson, Madison and the Adams' had enjoyed. He had no family members in politics and no real connections in the professional world.

He drank excessively, gambled and fought. He wasn't what you might call presidential material.

At some point however, he decided to pursue a law degree, move to the great west (Tennessee at the time), eventually becoming a judge, general of the state Militia and eventually, President of the United States.

Whatever we might think of the man, it's still kind of amazing that he rose as far as he did.

John Quincy Adams: Rivalries

2009-08-15T16:00:00.000-04:00

Like many of his predecessors, John Q. Adams had an intense rivalry and almost personal hatred of the man who would defeat him after one presidential term- Andrew Jackson.

Q. Adams was a Puritan, one of the last well known gentlemen from the 'deferential age', was Harvard educated and steeped in the classics.

Andrew Jackson was self taught, had not been to school, and was a frontiersman that had fought in two duels and had a bullet lodged near his chest to prove it. He was what the Romans would have called a 'new man'- someone that came from obscurity but rose to a high political rank.

Even beyond the difference in backgrounds, Jackson's political beliefs were about as different as possible from Q. Adams. Where Q. Adams saw a mob, electioneering and backwardness, Jackson saw democracy.

Jackson ran against Q. Adams when Q. Adams won his first term and lost. Jackson called it a 'corrupt bargain' and blamed Q. Adams for essentially going against democracy and making political bargains with Henry Clay to secure the presidency.

During the election after Q. Adams first term, things got very personal very fast. Jackson was called a bigamist (when he married his wife, she was technically still married to another man) Jackson took offense to this and his wife, who had a very hard time enduring these kinds of politics ended up getting sick and dying.

Jackson personally blamed Q. Adams, although it was most likely political operatives that he wasn't directly controlling that caused these accusations to be published. Q. Adams wanted to explain his position to Jackson after the election in D.C., but Jackson never bothered to 'call' on Q. Adams which was a big deal and big time snub to a gentleman of those days.

Q. Adams, like his father with Thomas Jefferson, ended up leaving D.C. in the middle of the night rather than staying in Washington to view Jackson's inaugural. There were only three presidents in all of American history to do this, and one was Q. Adams' father.

On not attending the Harvard award ceremony of an honorary degree to Jackson, Q. Adams said " As an affectionate child of our Alma Mater, I would not be present to witness her disgrace in conferring her highest honors upon a barbarian who could not write a sentence of grammar and could hardly spell his own name."

John Quincy Adams: Union Forever

2009-08-11T15:42:00.000-04:00

John Q. Adams, like Jefferson and the presidents before him could see that the country was becoming ever more divided.

I've written before that the issue of foreign sanctions on imported goods almost made the Northeast and his home state of Massachusetts secede early in the history of the country, long before slavery became the most divisive issue of the day.

As abolitionists in the North grew more determined and pro slavery elements in the South grew more divisive, he could see that there was a rift taking place between regional factions and interests that would tear the country apart.

If he had continued Jefferson and Madison's policies on relying heavily on state funded and run militias, it would have only accelerated the rift. Most of Q. Adams policies during his presidency sought to increase the power of the federal government and thus strengthen the national identity of Americans.

After his presidency, he became ever more anti slavery and in the last years of his life, he influenced Abe Lincoln who would later be president to use War Powers to eliminate slavery in the South when Civil War broke out.

"The preservation of the Union is to me what the destruction of Carthage was to Cato, the conclusion of every discourse."

John Quincy Adams: Life Experiance

2009-08-07T16:22:00.004-04:00

John Q. Adams lived an amazing life. At a time where most American citizens never made it out of their own county, much less state, Q. Adams traveled the world.

He had diplomatic posts in France, Britain, Russia, Germany and The Netherlands. That would be an amazing career even today in the era of jet travel! At the time, intercontinental travel by sea took months and was dangerous even on ship worthy vessels.

When most Americans were illiterate, he spoke fluent or nearly fluent French, German, Russian, Dutch as well as Greek and Latin.

He chaired the first Smithsonian committee and made great scientific advances in weights and measures as well as planting the seeds for the first Astronomical observatory.

He was one of the first Americans to have his image recorded by Daguerreotype (a precursor to the photograph).

He was born in the Revolutionary period, came of age right after America won its independence and died right before the Civil War.

He is believed to be the only American to have known all the Founding Fathers personally and also have known Abe Lincoln. Lincoln became an Illinois congressman shortly before Q. Adams died and was influenced by Q. Adams in eliminating slavery during the Civil War.

Wherever people want to rank Q. Adams' presidency, I think you'd almost certainly have to rank him first in living an interesting life.

John Quincy Adams: Foreign Policy

2009-08-02T16:00:00.000-04:00

Q. Adams greatest lessons on international relations were likely learned when he was abroad as a young man with his father to France and Britain on diplomatic missions with the likes of Benjamin Franklin and John Jay.

It was there that he learned the massive array of languages (7 if you include Latin and Greek) and saw the terror that ambitious foreign policies could reap on countries. He saw the needless destruction of cities, towns and lives and witnessed the even bloodier revolutions (he was a critic of the French Revolution like his father) that could occur when citizens sought to unseat their rulers by force and create populist utopias.

He felt the United States had enough problems of its own, with internal divisions between the different geographies threatening to tear it apart and external enemies looking to take advantage of any weakness. The best option was to focus on security at home, improve the armed forces but deploy them only for defensive missions. Abroad, he felt the United States should maintain relations with Europe, but not enter into any military agreements or treaties for 'wars of intrigue'.

These fundamental beliefs led him as Secretary of State in the Monroe administration to work with James Monroe to craft what's now known as the Monroe Doctrine.

My favorite quote of his best sums up his beliefs "America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own."

It's sadly ironic that the Bush administration called the policy of pre emptive strikes in the Middle East extensions of the Monroe Doctrine, both Q. Adams and Monroe would roll in their graves if they heard that.

John Quincy Adams: Slavery

2009-07-31T15:51:00.000-04:00

Early in his career and even during his presidency, John Q. Adams didn't express much of a view on the issue of slavery, other than he felt it shouldn't be allowed in the new states of the union.

This isn't surprising for a man of his times, since being in the Northeast, he probably didn't feel it had much of a direct effect on him and he wasn't a direct witness to its horrors. He, like many of his contemporaries felt that abolitionists were radical and even seditious, since they were pushing the fragile United States ever closer towards open Civil War.

However, late in his life he had a change of heart. As a lawyer, he represented the escaped slaves from a Spanish Slave ship in the Supreme Court case United States vs. The Amistad Africans and won their freedom by arguing that although the United States allowed internal slavery, it had joined other countries in preventing the international slave trade.

He also defied the infamous Congressional gag order that the Southern congressional delegation had put in place before the Civil War prohibiting the discussion or legislation regarding slavery in Congress. My favorite example of this is when he continuously would propose to introduce petitions on slavery from current and former slaves in the Southern States forcing the Speaker to shout him down and prevent the democratic process. This united Northern abolitionists and even Southern libertarians against the gag order in particular and the pro slave delegation in general.

John Quincy Adams views on slavery and race were complicated and changed over time, but he certainly was more enlightened on the subject than most of his contemporaries.

John Quincy Adams: Liberal or Conservative?

2009-07-26T17:42:00.004-04:00

It's interesting to go back and find the 'conservative' and 'liberal' causes of early American history because we would hardly recognize them as fitting in the modern era.

John Q. Adams was pro national bank, pro tariff, pro internal improvements (think national works projects for infrastructure), anti Indian removal and late in his career as a congressman Anti Slavery.

Tariffs of course helped the domestic manufacturers, internal improvements helped the country in a general sense, the idea of being against the forced removal of 'civilized' Indians who had abandoned their nomadic ways and had taken up agriculture and railing against slavery would all seem in the modern era to be liberal ideologies, not conservative. However, Q. Adams was derided by the southern Jeffersonians as anti Democratic and monarchical for these beliefs.

In those days, the 'populist progressive' would be someone that was for a small federal government, state militias instead of standing armies and who was willing to clear away the settled Shawnee, Creek, Seminal and Iroquois Indians to make room for the poor white man.

When you look at the important policy makers of early American history, the idea of Liberal vs. Conservative rings hollow and you're forced instead to look at their specific beliefs on specific issues to really understand them.

John Quincy Adams: Not a politician

2009-07-19T21:55:00.001-04:00

Q. Adams viewed public service as an obligation, not something to 'electioneer' for.

He was apart from his family for years when he was called to service as a foreign diplomat in London, France, Germany and Russia and expressed much regret in letters home.

He'd constantly talk of retiring to pursue intellectual pursuits, only to be named the Secretary of State and then President.

He finally looked forward to an enjoyable retirement as a relatively old man for the times after one term of the Presidency when he lost to Jackson but was compelled by his fellow citizens a short time later to serve out the remaining years of his life as a congressman where he literally died at his desk.

He hated populism and referred to political rallies as 'mobs'. In a letter home to his wife, he remarked how pleased he was that an actually impromptu celebration for him in Massachusetts after his one term in the presidency resulted in "no violence".

He did so little to help his political situation, that friend and rivals actually referred to him as Macbeth.

John Quincy Adams: Scholarly Man

2009-07-16T21:41:00.003-04:00

John Quincy Adams in my opinion is the last of the deferential society, thinking man presidents for a long time. The next presidents really played up their appeal to the common man- Jackson's nickname was 'Old Hickory' or 'The Hero', Van Buren was 'Old Kinderhook' (created the saying O.K.), Harrison was 'Old Tippecanoe'.

John Quincy Adams could not have been more different than the populist presidents that followed. He was steeped in the Roman and Greek classics, like his father John Adams. He also spoke fluent French, German, Russian and even some Dutch as well as complete fluency in Greek and Latin.

He read so much that he actually was nearly blind in his old age. He was a Renaissance man that wrote scholarly works on Astronomy and had a huge part in ushering in an era a standardized weights and measures through his own research and read the great works of Philosophy by night.

Barack Obama may have been the president of the Harvard Law Review, but he has a long way to go before he's as much of an intellectual as Quincy Adams.

James Monroe: Monrovia

2009-07-05T20:09:00.004-04:00

Did you know that the city of Monrovia in Liberia is named after James Monroe?

James Monroe supported the idea of sending freed slaves back to Africa and aided the efforts of the American Colonization Society in the 1820's to help slaves establish a new country there and the city is named in his honor.

This seems radical and tinged with racism today and it probably was, but at the time when the South was willing to secede to preserve their 'Peculiar Institution' of slavery, this was about as compassionate as it got.

The idea of a bunch of former slaves who were considered property recently forming their own sustainable society with little to no resources seems doomed to failure, but it's important to note that the country of Liberia still exists today even if it has suffered its share of civil strife through the years.