A Presidents Story Too and the 2024 Election

As I’ve mentioned before, A Presidents Story Too was written very much with an eye on the coming election. So, you may want to buy a copy before the election for that relative or friend who is laboring under the belief that the issues, events, personalities or behaviors of today are novel or unique to our time in history. The book may or may not help, but it might buy you some peace while they are reading it.

Some excerpts from A Presidents Story Too will illustrate the point: 

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“Johnson refused to attend Grant’s inauguration. He also refused to give a reason but Grant knew it was because of Grant’s failure to clearly side with Johnson in the impeachment battle. A man more concerned with precedent and tradition than Grant would have been bothered that he was the first President since Andrew Jackson to not have his predecessor attend his inauguration. Grant was not that man and was, frankly, relieved to not start his time as President in a carriage with the petulant Andy Johnson.”

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“In early 1876, Grant’s Secretary of War William Belknap was impeached by the House of Representatives. Belknap was accused of accepting bribes and the Senate prepared for a trial, just as it had with Andrew Johnson eight years earlier. Unlike Andrew Johnson, William Belknap was not inclined to fight. He quickly resigned before the Senate trial commenced. The Senate carried on with the trial but failed to convict Belknap, just as it had failed to convict Andrew Johnson. When Johnson was acquitted, there were not enough senators who thought he did anything wrong. That was not the case with William Belknap. All senators were quite sure that Belknap took bribes. But twenty-five senators believed that the Senate did not have the power to try an official once he was no longer in office.”

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“The tariff was complex but it was the perfect political lodestar. His colleagues in the House would come to value his opinion on a critical issue. More importantly, the voters may not understand the precise meaning of tariff policy but they would understand when a congressman with expertise told them that a high tariff on imported goods was the only way to keep their jobs from being taken to other countries. The wealthy captains of industry would not care for high tariffs, but there were a lot more voters who worried about keeping their jobs than there were captains of industry.”

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“Unlike most national conventions, however, when Taft was declared the nominee, the floor did not erupt in support, but in protest. In a momentary lull, a delegate yelled, “We want Teddy! No more stealing!”

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“After Wilson’s stroke, Colonel House realized that the President was fighting not just for the League, but for his own sanity…

‘Ma’am, the President is in my prayers. I am at your service and will obviously see that the President’s work is uninterrupted as much as possible.’

Edith Wilson paused and gazed at House. “That will not be necessary Colonel. The President is resting but fully able to discharge his duties. I will see that he gets everything he needs.”

House was wary. “Members of the cabinet are asking whether it would be best for Vice President Marshall to take over temporarily.”

Edith’s eyes flashed before she reverted to serenity. “You may tell members of the cabinet what I said, ‘He is resting but fully able to discharge his duties.’ Now, if you will excuse me I need to get back to my husband.”

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“Franklin Roosevelt was going to win the election. Prudently, he spoke in platitudes, assiduously avoiding any promised course of action. Instead, he focused on President Hoover and the government’s reckless spending and new programs that were doing nothing to help the ‘Common Man.’ It was this ‘Common Man’ that Roosevelt pandered to, promising a ‘New Deal’ at every campaign stop without explicitly stating the terms of the ‘Deal.’”

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“Calvin Coolidge started slowly, dissecting the Democratic platform and its lack of a real plan. Wisely, he largely stayed away from mentioning Roosevelt. But, eventually, he could not resist:

‘The charge is made that the Republican Party and its candidates do not have any  solicitude for the general welfare of the common run of people. Their nominee attacks the rich. This is odd, coming as it does from a man born to wealth.’”

If none of this seems familiar to you, I admit to being somewhat envious.

Book Review: A. Lincoln by Ronald C. White

Over 15,000 books have been written about Abraham Lincoln. Around ten have been written about Martin Van Buren, give or take five. This disparity is part of the reason I wrote A Presidents Story. I wanted to shine a light on those Presidents that might, at best, have been mentioned in your U.S. History class on that one day devoted to what happened between Washington and the Revolution, on the one hand, and Lincoln and the Civil War, on the other. Through the internet, I have been heartened to discover that there are other Presidential history nerds like myself out there, but our numbers are not legion. We all share a curiosity about those Presidents that received little attention from historians or history teachers.

That said, there is no denying that Lincoln is a fascinating figure who served at a critical juncture in U.S. history. I have collected some Lincoln biographies and have read several books on the Civil War (including Freedom by William Safire which I highly recommend). Anyone else who has the slightest scholarly tendencies has read similar books. In short, I was not looking for another Lincoln biography to read, particularly when my list of biographies of other Presidents remains daunting.

Then I read American Ulysses by Ronald C. White. As I said in my Top Ten List of President Biographies, I loved it. White’s other significant work before his biography of Grant was A. Lincoln. After picking the book up several times, I decided White’s work on Grant earned an expectation that I would at least try reading his work on Lincoln.

A. Lincoln may be better than American Ulysses. I am not sure I learned anything particularly new about Lincoln but White really is a gifted biographer and writer. He has a talent for finding interesting material on his subject and weaving it into a compelling story that proceeds at a comfortable pace and never bogs down in the minutiae of a life. Lincoln’s shortcomings are developed to ground him in humanity but, in the process, the 16th President becomes more heroic rather than less.

I respect Lincoln because of the difficulty of the time in which he served and, I believe, he tried his best to accommodate many competing considerations. But, like all of us, he was not perfect. His suspension of habeas corpus was not his finest hour and there are valid arguments that his approach to the war may have cost many more lives than necessary. Hindsight is 20/20 but, even excluding those animated by racism, it is fair to question whether Lincoln’s tactics consigned us to 100 years of civil rights abuses that were little better than slavery itself or whether the process could only be hastened by the War and the Emancipation Proclamation.

A. Lincoln does not set out to resolve these questions. Instead, White gives us a much fuller understanding of who Lincoln was, how he was influenced and how he went about addressing problems. Much like I tried to do with the lesser known Presidents in A Presidents Story, White gives the Civil War and Lincoln’s assassination their due but the book truly shines when discussing the lesser known moments in Lincoln’s life and career. I finished the book still pondering whether Lincoln made the right calls as President but having a greater appreciation for what it was about his past that caused him to reach the decisions he made.

Ultimately, I concluded that Ronald White has not used his platform in A. Lincoln or American Ulysses to make me more or less of a fan of either of his subjects. He held my interest in order to make me more informed. I can take it from there.

The Ohio Presidents Tour

For a Presidents nerd such as myself, Ohio is Presidents Mecca. Eight Presidents were either born in Ohio or lived there a substantial part of their lives. Between our 17th President Andrew Johnson and our 28th President Woodrow Wilson, every President was either from Ohio or New York. The Presidents with Ohio connections were (by number):

9. William Henry Harrison

18. Ulysses S. Grant

19. Rutherford B. Hayes

20. James A. Garfield

23. Benjamin Harrison

25. William McKinley

27. William Howard Taft

29. Warren G. Harding

I decided to tour as many sites as I could for a week in addition to attending the Dayton Book Expo. I made it to sites for each of these Presidents with the exception of Grant. Here are some pictures:

This is Rutherford B. Hayes’ home in Fremont, Ohio. It was called Spiegel Grove. They did not allow picture taking inside the house which was unfortunate because most of the furnishings are original from when Hayes and his family lived in the house. It started as a 4000 square foot house but eventually was 21,000 square feet. One of my favorite President homes ever.

President Hayes was buried a short walk from the house. Despite winning one of the most controversial elections in our history, he appears to have still enjoyed a reputation for high integrity. After he left office he and his wife continued to serve for many worthy causes. If he had lived a hundred years later he would have been known as a civil rights activist.

This was too good to resist, particularly for an old BP hand. Hayes’ birthplace in Delaware, Ohio hasn’t been given a real prominent display.

James Garfield’s home just outside of Cleveland in Mentor. They only give tours on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays so I was only able to walk around the perimeter. Garfield was quite an orator so, even though it was still unseemly for a candidate to openly campaign to be President, Garfield gave a lot of speeches from this front porch in 1880. It was the first of a series of “Front Porch Campaigns” for the next several elections. Wouldn’t it be nice to just go to the candidate’s house and hear him or her speak? Would save a lot of money and a lot of grandstanding I suspect…

This is William McKinley’s tomb in Canton, Ohio. It is apparently the largest monument for any of our Presidents. I was very surprised by this one.

A bit about McKinley. By all accounts, a really decent guy. I visited the Pro Football Hall of Fame while I was in Canton as well. I really like football but did find it a little sad that mine was the only car in the parking lot at the McKinley Memorial but the Hall of Fame parking lot was packed.

McKinley was very devoted to his wife Ida who suffered from epilepsy. Legend has it that when she would have a seizure her husband would calmly throw a ‘kerchief over her head’ until the seizure abated. Sounded a bit cold to me but the contemporary accounts always seem to be touched by the whole display.

Warren G. Harding’s home in Marion, Ohio. It is closed for refurbishing but I braved the rain and cold to get this picture…just for you.

This is the monument to Harding in Marion. Again, I was surprised by the grandeur of this. Ohio makes a fuss over its Presidents.

Harding’s and his wife’s graves. He turned out to be less than savory in many ways so, again, I was surprised.

William Howard Taft’s childhood home in Cincinnati. They don’t have a lot of the original furnishings so I can’t say I recommend it highly. It may also have something to do with the fact that I managed to hit the house at the same time as a busload of senior citizens from upstate New York who were not nearly as curious about Taft as they were about where they were going to stop and eat next.

Taft is a favorite of mine. He was the only man to serve as President and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. If that didn’t make his Mama proud, she was a hard woman. I liked this early time lapse sequence of him finding out he had been nominated to run for President.

William Henry Harrison’s tomb at North Bend, Ohio. You will recall that Harrison died after only a month in office. This site is way out of the way but it’s a lovely spot.

I thought the entrance to the tomb was cool.

I find it amazing when one of the 44 people who have held our highest office is tucked away in a tomb that you really have to be looking for to find.

The view from Harrison’s tomb. This is standing in Ohio looking across the river at Kentucky. It reminded me of Alexis de Tocqueville’s vivid description of the stark contrast between free Ohio and slaveholding Kentucky during the 1840s. The passage is quoted in Part IV, Chapter 1 of A Presidents Story. Read it again—I think it’s one of the best arguments ever against slavery.

Finally, I visited Benjamin Harrison’s house in Indianapolis. Even though he was born and raised in Ohio, the 23rd President became a Hoosier. He was the grandson of William Henry Harrison.

Harrison collected canes. Apparently, they were considered quite a fashion accessory in the late 19th century, whether you needed one or not.

A local whittler made Harrison a cane with the face and name of every President that preceded Harrison carved into it. I wanted it.

Harrison’s home is another hidden treasure. The majority of the items in the house belonged to the Harrison family. This is the bed where both he and his first wife Caroline died. The guide said that Caroline died while Harrison was running for reelection in 1892. After she died, he suspended his campaign. Remarkably, his opponent Grover Cleveland suspended his campaign as well to show his respect for the First Lady. One of those “oh for the good old days” moments.

Harrison had an outstanding reputation in Indianapolis that was only tarnished late in life when he remarried. This is his second wife. It’s also his first wife Caroline’s sister’s daughter or, in other words, his niece. That was a bit creepy to me.

My last stop was to visit the cemetery in Indianapolis where President Harrison is buried. His first wife is on one side, his second wife (and niece) is on the other. Might be an awkward afterlife.