Traveling with Mr Madison

In what I deem to be a significant accomplishment, I finally managed, on the third try, to complete a bio of our fourth president. The book is entitled, The Fourth President- A Life of James Madison by Irving Brant. Here I was thinking that this 642 page tome, written in 1969, was a tough read. This book is actually drawn from Brant's 6 volume, 3000 + page work. Guess I got off easy.

As always seems to be the case, I came away fascinated with Madison himself and all that he achieved, but also with the entire cast of characters with whom he interacted. Perhaps foremost among would be first lady Dolley, she who saved Washington’s  famous portrait just before the White House was burned in the war of 1812. She  was often described as glamorous and  arguably one of the best of our  first ladies. Or, as Brant wrote, ” Madison’s marriage had given him an effective sidearm.”

So, how can one describe the man who was the “father of the Constitution,” Secretary of State for 8  perilous years and the only president who served when his country was invaded? Brant used 3000 pages and  I will use fewer words than that. That is always a real dilemma when reading about a president, particularly an accomplished one, although his average ranking among presidents{ from 1948-2000) comes in around 12th. He just seems worthy of more. I kinda like him above Jefferson myself. His relationship with Jefferson himself was quite  was intriguing. They were rather close, although Madison want Jefferson’s puppet as he was accused of being. Nor was Jefferson controlled by Madison when he was Secretary of State. It was said that Madison often rescued Jefferson from some of his worst ideas.

Madison was often pilloried in the press, by the Federalist opposition and by  a somewhat belligerent Congress. It was amusing to hear him described by some of the above as well as the representatives of foreign governments. He was simultaneously weak nad timid but power mad. He was beholden to France , no he was in league with Britain. He wants war, why doesn’t  he  want war?

This quote from page 674 of Brant’s book in some ways summed up Madison for me. This was during some of the worst times of the war.

For more than four days the 64 year-old President had spent up to 20 hours in the saddle. Accused of fleeing to safety, he had been with the army at its farthest point of advance, followed it to battle, was under fire and came back to Washington  ahead of the army after the debacle. He found the  White House, (and) the Capitol………… a mass of gaunt and blackened ruins.

It often appeared that lies and falsehoods spread during his day were actually not refuted for many, many years leading to a less than flattering opinion of one to who, we owe much.

As he wrote in 1834 near the end of his life, the following,  which he desired to be  published after his death. ” The advice nearest to my heart and deepest in my convictions is that the Union of the States be cherished and perpetuated.” A man small  in stature and  by no means physically  imposing, what he wrote and championed secures his place among the Founding Fathers.

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Self-appointed Kitchen Cabinet

It is no secret  what “objective” journalist Chris Matthews thinks of President Obama. I almost hate to mention the “tingles” episode that occurred during the 2008 campaign, although I have seen the word used quite well as  a nickname for Matthews. Not so long after Obama took office, Matthews proudly admitted that it was his job to make sure that Obama succeeded.( Remember for a moment that Rush was roundly criticized for hoping that Obama failed.) I cannot  recall any approbation at what  Matthews said.

But  at least  Matthews is consistent. He remains firmly on the Obama/Democrat bandwagon. In a  recent interview with Democrat senatorial candidate Joe Sestak ( from  Matthews’ native state of  Pennsylvania) who is running against Republican Pat Toomey, Matthews openly longed for Sestak and the Democrats to do well in November by saying this.” I hope your party gets organized and wins this thing.”

But, there is even more. Matthews seems to be moving beyond the cheerleading/publicizing phase into the advising stage. I actually watched the video clip with Matthews providing this advice, so I am not making this up. His first piece of advice was to replace Def Secretary Robert Gates with, guess who? You will never get this one, so I’ll just tell you.  It is  Hilary Clinton. Wait, there is more. He has two options for New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg; either Treasury Secretary of Chief-of-Staff. No mention of who would succeed Mrs Clinton ( Bill maybe) or what would happen to the current hatchet man,Rahm Emanuel.

This advice brought to mind something used by a number of former presidents, the “kitchen cabinet.”  I believe Truman actually coined the phrase for his group of informal advisers, although it was quite popular with Jefferson and Jackson among others. Guess the only difference is that Matthews is self-appointed. But just think of the benefits. The Democratic National Committee could pay Matthews annual salary  of  $5 million and he could continue his tv show just like it is and work for the White House on the side. Better than Obama accepting Michael Moore’s offer to replace Emanuel, huh?

Related Articles

• Chris Matthews – ‘Obama is Almost Perfect’; Joan Walsh – ‘He’s the American Dream’ (newsbusters.org)
• Chris Matthews: How can people not like a president who’s “almost pluperfect”? (hotair.com)

Adams and Jefferson Declare

The Independence Day weekend seems like an ideal time for my  second installment on John Adams. We celebrate profusely on this weekend, some even to excess, believe it or not. And for the document itself, we owe gratitude to  a number of people who labored diligently to produce the document that we call the Declaration of Independence.

Jefferson was of course the author but the work involved many others of whom Adams may have been the most important. He was seemingly everywhere at once and at one point served on 26 separate committees. There were 54 other men who put their names to the document  and  chose to ” mutually pledge to each other our lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.” All knew they would have to pay a high price and that they did.

Perhaps the famous  part of the document was Jefferson’s lines eloquent lines from paragraph two that affected  the human spirit as neither he nor anyone else could have forseen. They speak to us still, some 234 years later.

                             We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

What did Adams have to say about the final result ? This  he wrote to Abigail.

                     The second day of  July 1776 will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the Day of Deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever more.

So he have his days confused? Not at all . The original vote did occur on Tuesday, July 2 with 12 states in favor and New York  abstaining in order to make the vote unanimous. They voted again 2 days later  with the day of celebration occurring on July 8. The actual signing  did not take place until August 2.

There would however be yet another fateful day in July for Adams and Jefferson. By 1826, July 4 was ensconced as the nation’s day of birth. It also marked a momentous day for the two stalwarts of independence. Both men were gravely ill, Jefferson at Monticello and Adams at Quincy, Ma. Jefferson briefly stirred after a 2 day coma but died at around 1:00 pm. Meanwhile Adams. quiet as well, stirred for a moment and sometime in the afternoon, said “Thomas Jefferson lives.” It was just a little while later at 6:20 pm that he too passed away.

John Adams

Just finished the David McCullough bio of John Adams and enjoyed it thoroughly. Hard to do justice to such a lengthy book about such  a towering historical figure. Some initial thoughts. The author commented  in his intro that we cannot learn enough about our funding fathers, a sentiment with which I very much agree. Makes me once again wish that I had majored in history in college. My presidential reading continues to remind me of my lack of historical education. I shudder to think of how American history is taught or not in public schools today.

It was delightful to read the many excerpts from the letters of Adams and his wife Abigail. Their correspondence numbered well over a thousand missives of which about half have been published. It is quite remarkable how enduring was their relationship in light of the quantity of time they spent apart. Over the course of their first 14 years of marriage they had been apart over half that time. Of course with communication and travel in those days being what it ways, even their communication was difficult. Letters from the United States to France or England of Holland took months and sometimes never made it at all. There as at  least one incident in which  a packet of her letters was lost at sea when an American diplomat about to be captured by the English threw them overboard along with other sensitive documents.

i observed to my wife after finishing the book that I probably knew more about the Adams’ family and its manner of living than of my own parents, thanks to their prolific correspondence. In contrast, Adams’ contemporary,Thomas Jefferson,destroyed all such family correspondence. His was  somewhat limited however,since his wife Martha died at age 33.

There is much to write about in reflecting on the ” colossus of independence” as Jefferson called him and I will attempt to do some justice to our second President, who seems  to me as somewhat overlooked in the pantheon of early American leaders.

The First President Johnson

And he would be Andrew or Andy as he was often called. He is  a president  that intrigues me quite  a bit, for 2 reasons. One is his North Carolina birth ( one of 2 NC presidents along with Polk) and the generally one-sided view  that we have of him. His name comes to mind as Lincoln’s tragic successor and as being the first president to be  impeached ( we would wait over 100 years for the second guess who?) and  only by  a very narrow margin fail to be removed. But the bio I read of Johnson has provided much more than those salient facts.

Author Hans Trefousse did a very good job with the life and career of our 17th Chief Executive. He devotes only  a chapter or two about the impeachment  which is appropriate since Johnson’s career was much more than that. I remember reading in Profiles in Courage, I think, about the critically ill senator who was brought into the chamber and cast the deciding vote, for the vote to convict only failed by that one vote.

One gets a much broader picture in this than that near tragic event. Even though the author calls Johnson’s presidency a disaster, he gives it fair treatment and points to  Johnson’s overall political skills, great but at times reckless oratory and steadfast devotion to preserving the Constitution as he saw fit. His lifelong heroes Jefferson and Jackson were always  close  in spirit.

The stories of his early years as an orphaned tailor’s apprentice are illustrative in explaining his defense of the poor, although he later became quite successful as a tailor and landowner, albeit with never a day of formal education. He still championed  education for his children and others.

A couple of rather unrelated things stand out for me. As with a number of presidents his family life left much to be desired. His wife Eliza was often sickly  and they were usually apart. His sons, in spite  of his best efforts did not fare well and two preceded him in death.

After reading of the twists and turns, I still am a bit confused as to the reason for his selection as Lincoln’ s running mate in 1864. He was a slaveholder and had defended it consistently. That does not square up with a President who signed the Emancipation Proclamation. It appears that Johnson’s impassioned defense of the “Union” and his service as military  governor in Tennessee overrode the slavery issue. Plus, in what later proved to be rather disingenuous he spoke of the rights of the freedmen. Later events proved that to be mere window dressing for his prejudices.

It can be safely said that the failure of the impeachment, led by Ben Butler and Thaddeus Stevens was good for the country for their case was weak and overly political. But he in a sense forced the hand of Congress by his stubborn fight against the 14th amendment and determination to restore the Southern states with as little inconvenience as possible. Had he pushed them harder when it was  opportune, right after the war ended, many of the issues of Reconstruction and racial division could well have been avoided or greatly mitigated.

It Was A Very Good Year, But…

…only as one looks back with hindsight’s 20/20 vision. What was the year? 1776!  We date the very birth of our country from that year, focusing our attention primarily on the “doings” in June and early July that culminated in  Mr Jefferson’s finest work, although it was not his alone, the Declaration of Independence.

Quite a phrase that is, even 233 years and 9 months hence. But as David McCullough writes in his excellent book of the same name, 1776 was known maybe more for its failures than successes at least as far as  the Revolutionary War itself. He writes of the Battle of Brooklyn that was an American disaster, the retreat from Boston, a crushing defeat at Ft Washington and on it goes. Were it not for the near miraculous crossing of the Delaware and the victories at Trenton and Princeton, all could have been lost.

What fascinated me even more were the insights into George Washington, both good and bad. He was indeed highly thought of by his men and officers, but there were flaws. He was somewhat lacking in strategy and tactics, particularly in the early days. He showed several marked examples of poor judgment as well. But, perhaps the key as McCullough  writes, he never forgot what was at stake and he never gave up. In both his words and deeds, the concept keeps recurring, perseverance. As Nathaniel Greene so aptly foresaw,” he will be the deliverer of his own country.”

But perhaps for me this next showed Washington at his best and foreshadowed his attitude towards the presidency and the near hero worship status he was accorded. In late 1776, Congress gave him, for a period of six months, near dictatorial powers. A lesser man could have done irreparable damage to the  country while edifying himself above civil authority. In our time , in many countries, we have seen that very thing. But this was his response.

                   ” Instead of thinking myself freed from all civil obligations by this mark of their confidence, I shall constantly bear in mind that as the sword was the last resort for the preservation of our liberties, so it ought to be the first thing laid aside when those liberties are firmly established.”

The Father of his county indeed and a good example to follow.

“Jefferson’s Great Gamble”

The title is that of a book by the same name by Charles Cerami about the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. It was a fascinating read on a number of levels. Once again, I was able to revel in and learn about a major event of American history. Just the cast of characters is amazing. Jefferson was the major player of course. But, on the American side alone there were  James Madison and James Monroe, the next 2 presidents, Robert Livingston, John Quincy Adams, and after the fact a little Andrew Jackson. On the French side, one sees Napoleon and the wily Talleyrand as well as the lesser known but important Louis Pichon.

One quote from the book really hit home for me. Its source was our sixth president, John Quincy Adams. He called the purchase”next in historical importance to the Declaration of Independence and the adoption of the Constitution. It was unparalleled in diplomacy because it cost almost nothing.” In raw dollars the price was $15 million. When interest is factored in up till the final payment in 1823( money borrowed from the Dutch) the total expended was around $ 27 million. That equates to less than ten              cents per acre for  an acquisition that doubled the size of the United States.So, in our infancy as a nation, we at one fell swoop surpassed the whole of Europe and “sea to shining sea” became just  a matter of time.

Among the many things on which to reflect are the quality of our nation’s leaders at that time. It just amazes me to realize how incredibly capable  our nation’s leadership was at what was our infancy as  a country. Less than 30 years prior, there was  a group of colonies with a rag tag army arrayed against the pre-eminent  military power in the world. Now, Jefferson,et. al are jousting diplomatically with France and to a degree England, whose spectre hovered in the background throughout the negotiations. Virtually all the decisions made by France and the United States had an English influence. France needed money to wage war against England. The United States feared English control of New Orleans and thus the Mississippi River, and so on.

So, in looking back, the purchase now  seems like  a no-brainer. An offer that you can’t refuse, in a very good sense. That is what I always thought, along with astonishment at the price per acre. But the beauty of studying history tells us much more.

First, France had bullied Spain into “giving” them the land by treaty with the provision that it could not be sold but would revert to Spain. Obviously that did not happen. And what actually was being purchased? What was the western boundary and was Florida included? Napoleon’s response, it’s what you want it to be.

  Did  Jefferson actually have the authority to make the purchase? He wrestled mightily with the idea, leaning as he did, towards the states rights side. Did James M0nroe, our point man in Paris, have the right to agree to  a price of $15 million when Congress had “approved” about 2 million. Would he be disgraced for the agreement? Might Jefferson even be impeached?

There was so much intrigue over the many months of negotiation that one must conclude it was near miraculous that the purchase  happened at all. To me, calling the deal for Louisiana in the health care legislation the  Louisiana Purchase did nothing but provide  a coarse  comparison to this monumental event that took place 207 years ago on May 2, 1803.

For certain, it was a gamble that not only brought the fledgling nation 875,000 square miles and all or part of 13 new states but in Madison’s words “one great, respectable, and flourishing empire.”

The Second Louisiana Purchase

Way back in 1803, President Thomas Jefferson negotiated a deal with Napoleon Bonaparte that virtually doubled the size of the infant United States. This land deal which cost the princely sum of fifteen million dollars ( a really big deal in those days) bought us 828,000 square miles of territory and  a lot of stability.

Now, it appears that some 206 years later we are seeing a second Louisiana Purchase. This one  does not involve land but rather health care, Senators Harry Reid and Mary Landrieu and an illustration of how things often get done in Washington, DC.

In an ABC news article by Jonathan Karl, he describes language in the health care reform bill, tailored to be applicable to only one state, Louisiana. Beginning on page 432 of Reid’s bill, there is language referencing states that have been declared a major disaster area in the past 7 fiscal years. That  statement refers to the commonwealth of Louisiana. The descriptive language continues for 2 pages. Bottom line says the Congressional Budget Office, this  is  a  $100 million windfall or payoff, depending on one’s point of view. The senator from Louisiana says it is not $100 million but $300 million and she is  somewhat pleased with what she has gained for her state, by pledging her vote in Senator Reid’s direction. Her Press Secretary, Robert Sawicki says she has been working on this deal for a while. Senator Maverick,aka John McCain, was not so happy about it.

One should not be amazed, I guess, since Rush has always said to follow the money. What is  a bit refreshing is Senator Landrieu’s frank admission of  her intentions, saying that was elected to accomplish, bring the $ home  to her state. Refreshing, but a bit disheartening. Remember, we are still in the early stages of this bill. Today’s vote is just the first of several . You have to wonder what other commitments will be or have already been made  that have no connection to the real issue at hand.

Paging Rep William Jefferson and wouldn’t Huey Long be proud.

Three Who Pledged

The final sentence of the Declaration of Independence reads thusly: ” And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our scared honor” . Stirring words are they not and ones that should be read and pondered periodically, along with the remainder of the document.I suspect that most of us are woefully inadequate when pressed for knowledge of our declaration, much less those who wrote and signed it. Sure, we know of Jefferson and Franklin and Washington among others. But each of those 13 colonies had at least one and usually more than one representative.

For today, I want to briefly mention those from my home state of North Carolina. They were John Penn(who I had completely forgotten) William Hooper and Joseph Hewes.None of course was born in North Carolina. Penn came  from Virginia to Granville County, Hooper from Boston to Wilmington and Hewes from New Jersey to Edenton.

There is so much one could say but I just want to illuminate them a bit and help assure that they are not totally forgotten. Penn and Hooper were in their mid 30′s when they signed , with Hewes about 10 years older. None  lived very long afterwards. Hewes died first in 1779, Penn in 1788 and Hooper in 1790. One  can safely assume that  the rigors of the Revolution had to play a role in this. In fact, Hewes was serving the Department of Naval Affairs when he died .

Penn and Hooper were lawyers while Hewes was a wealthy merchant and  sponsor of one John Paul Jones. Hooper for his trouble was disowned by his father and barred from the practice of law. he also had property destroyed and barely escaped British capture.

There is not a wealth of information about them as after the revolution they really were not around to make a visible impact. But they were there at the beginning and for that, along 53  other men, we owe them much.

Joseph Hewes

William Hooper

John Penn

Tar Heel Deja Vu ?

Well Heels fans , we should be very happy about now . An exhilirating win last Saturday over Notre Dame ” vaulting ” the team to as high as 18th in the polls . I am a Heels football fan of long standing remembering a 50- 0 win over that team from Durham in the late 1950′s ( man that sounds ancient ) but also being plagued with another memory . This one only goes back to 1981 . Carolina had a stellar running back named Kelvin Bryant or KB . He was one of the best to play tailback for the Heels, scoring 6 touchdowns in a game that season , He was on pace to set all sorts of individual records . At the time , I lived in Georgia but was fortunate enough to get a  ticket to the Carolina – Georgia Tech game  in Atlanta . If memory serves me correctly, I remember Bryant breaking loose for a potential td run down the far sideline when a Tech player dived at him, I think clipping his knee. It was an innocuous  looking play until he didnt get up. Long story short, he had a serious   knee injury and a magical season ended . Thankfully for him he recovered and had a short but productive pro career . Now the pessimist fan returns to bemoan the injury to Brandon Tate , another player  having a once in a lifetime season ( Tate in 08 ) Our condolences and best wishes for a complete recovery to a hard working young man who I hope has much football success in his future . But this week brings a trip to Thomas Jefferson U where the guys in light blue havent won in  a gazillon years . Time for history to change ?