Category Archives: Presidential elections

September 29, 2016 · 1:48 am

The Fixer

There’s nothing more historical than U.S. Presidential elections. With Ted Cruz’s recent stunning endorsement of Donald Trump, I thought a little political humor I wrote below might help us get through the current election cycle.

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Brethren of the True Faith Mitch and Paul had spent over six years in the Desert, cast adrift among the sands. They took some solace from having prevented the Usurper from achieving most of his objectives. And now they smiled at one another, knowing the Usurper’s days were numbered. As they witnessed the fifteen from the Tribe and two outsiders enter the ring, surely, they thought, one of their peers will seize the mantle and lead the Tribe to victory in the Ultimate Battle against The Others.

“Surely, we can simply anoint Sir Jeb as our champion,” whispered Brother Mitch.

“No,” said Brother Paul. “There must at least be the appearance of a contest.”

“Perhaps, but why allow the Joker and the Witch Doctor into the contest? They are Outsiders, not Brethren of the True Faith.”

“Fear not, Brother Mitch. They won’t last among the seasoned warriors. We need their followers in the Ultimate Battle. Allow them to make fools of themselves. A misstep here and a misstep there, and they’re out of the contest.”

Fifteen Months Later

And, lo, it came to pass on the 462nd day, Brothers Mitch and Paul shielded their faces with their robes as the desert sands swirled around them.

“Why?” asked Brother Mitch.

“How?” asked Brother Paul.

“He made every mistake in the book,” said Brother Mitch. “He insulted all of the lords.”

“And even Ladies Carly and Megyn,” said Brother Paul.

“Low Energy Jeb, Little Marco, 1 for 38 Kasich.”

“And Lyin’ Ted,” piped in Brother Paul.

“Not to mention his impersonation of the crippled beggar who sits outside the city gates.”

“And that comment about blood coming from Lady Megyn’s whatever.”

“And everyone who disagrees with him is a LOOZAH.”

“Just how does he get away with it?” asked Brother Mitch.

“Too many contestants. The Joker charmed the Dispossessed. They didn’t fall in line this time.”

Suddenly, a great sand spout arose in the distance and headed directly toward the two great men. They ran in all different directions, but the sand spout shifted in turn and came to a halt before them. The sand spout disappeared as quickly as it arose, but in its place stood Lucifer in the guise of a well-tanned Wall Street banker.

“Who are you?” asked Brother Mitch. “Where did you come from?”

Lucifer smiled. “You have come to me many times in the past. Do not insult me by pretending otherwise. I heard you speaking poorly about The Fixer. I’ve come to ease your minds about your champion.”

“How so?” asked Brother Paul. “He is profane. He’s insulted half of the voters and all of the Tribe’s great leaders.”

“Tell me, Brother Mitch, what is your heart’s greatest desire?”

“To put one of our own on the throne. To have unfettered control of the Empire.”

“That is not the rumor whispered by all inside my palace walls.”

Brothers Mitch and Paul looked at one another. “Ah!” shouted Brother Paul. “Yes, we yearn to designate the successor to Brother Scalia on the Empire’s Court of Ultimate Justice.”

“And to what lengths will you go to fulfill your hearts’ desire?”

“Why,” said Brother Mitch, “we’d go to the ends of the Earth.” Brother Paul nodded in agreement.

“Then you would throw your support behind The Fixer?” asked Lucifer.

Brother Mitch grimaced like he was sucking on a lemon. Brother Paul ground his teeth like two stones in a mill. The two men gauged one another. Both nodded. “Why, yes,” said Brother Mitch, “if we knew for a certainty that would guarantee our choice of Brother Scalia’s successor, we would do anything.”

“Anything?” asked Lucifer.

“Anything,” said Brother Paul.

Lucifer pulled a tablet from his breast pocket and recorded their names. “If you bow down in humble submission to The Fixer, I shall fulfill your greatest desire.”

“But how?” asked Brother Mitch.

“How can you make such a promise?” asked Brother Paul.

“I am he,” said Lucifer with a smile that revealed bright sharp teeth and a forked tongue, “who fulfills the wishes of those who lust for power, just as both of you have done since your youth.”

“You are God?” asked Brother Paul.

Lucifer laughed. “Heaven forbid. I am he who was once favored by God. Nevermore. I curry favor among those who know the poor will always be among us, those who will sacrifice their very souls to achieve their worldly ambitions. You have always followed me and always will. Now, go, and just as The Fixer shall obtain his heart’s desire, so shall you.”

“And by what sign shall we know you can fulfill such a promise?” asked Brother Mitch.

Lucifer’s eyes opened wide to reveal tongues of fire, before simmering down. The Brethren’s faces turned white as a sheet. “Very well, I will provide you a sign. Before the sun sets four days hence, Brother Ted will prostrate himself before the Fixer. All the Brethren of the True Faith shall follow.”

With that, Lucifer’s eyes flared again as he spun into a sand spout and disappeared from their sight.

“What just happened?” asked Brother Mitch.

Brother Paul surveyed the landscape. “The Devil’s in the details, Mitch, but if Lyin’ Ted does the implausible, we just sold our souls.”

Short story copyrighted by J. Edward Gray/James Gray

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July 8, 2014 · 11:01 pm

You Can’t Please Everybody: The 1824 Presidential Election & the Twelfth Amendment

1824 election results (Source: WW Norton & Company)

1824 election results (Source: WW Norton & Company)

Last week’s article explored how the 1800 Presidential election motivated the highly partisan Democratic-Republicans and Federalists to pursue Article V’s extremely challenging process of amending the Constitution in order to avoid a repeat of the Jefferson-Burr fiasco (caused largely by the Democratic-Republicans’ failure to order one of its electors to vote for a favorite son, thereby avoiding a tie vote for its two candidates).

The Twelfth Amendment cured what in 1800 proved to be the most significant defect of Article V by requiring each elector to cast one vote for President and one vote for Vice President. The Twelfth Amendment further provides that in the event no candidate receives a majority of the electoral votes, the House of Representatives will select the President among the three candidates who receive the most electoral votes. This provision became important in the second, and last, election in which the House of Representatives selected the President.

John Quincy Adams (Source: Biography.com)

John Quincy Adams (Source: Biography.com)

By 1824, the Federalist Party had collapsed, leaving the Democratic-Republicans to run a candidate or candidates for President. Four men ran to become the nation’s sixth President: John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, and William Crawford. It is the rare history buff who remembers Crawford, who served as Secretary of the Treasury, but he was the official candidate of the party caucus even though he was in poor health.

Jackson garnered the most popular and electoral votes, but not a majority. Clay came in fourth, so he was out of the running. Clay, however, wielded great influence as Speaker of the House. He detested Jackson and threw his support to Adams in exchange for Adams’ promise to make Clay Secretary of State. Adams won the Presidency on the first vote, as contrasted with 1800’s thirty-six.

Jackson had his revenge four years later when he swamped Adams by a 2-1 margin in the Electoral College. By that time, only two state legislatures selected their electors, meaning that most electors were determined by the popular vote.

The 1824 election fractured the Democratic-Republican Party. Those who followed Jackson ultimately became the Democratic Party. Those who followed Adams and Clay founded the Whig Party, the predecessor to yet another party, Abraham Lincoln’s Republican Party.

Andrew Jackson (Source: Biography.com)

Andrew Jackson (Source: Biography.com)

The take-away from the 1824 election is two-fold: the Twelfth Amendment worked, thus avoiding another Constitutional crisis; and the election generated a split in what had been the only viable political party, the Democratic-Republicans.

As I said earlier, the House of Representatives has not selected the President since the 1824 election. We have witnessed what can happen even when a candidate receives a majority of the electoral votes (civil war). How will American voters react in a future election if a candidate does not receive a majority of the electoral votes (most likely due to a tie)?

Remember, the Twelfth Amendment did not change the voting methodology in the House of Representatives – each state has only one vote. This country has had some very close Presidential elections in the not-too-distant past (2004, 2000, 1968, 1960). Will Americans take a collective deep breath and accept as President a candidate who wins neither the popular vote nor the electoral vote, but wins a majority of states in the House of Representatives? We can only hope we do not have to answer that question in the not-too-distant future.

Sources:

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July 1, 2014 · 4:43 am

Constitutional Crisis: The 1800 Presidential Election

Charles Pinckney (Source: NNDB)

Charles Pinckney (Source: NNDB)

It isn’t easy to amend the United States Constitution. Article V requires that an amendment be proposed by Congress with a 2/3 majority in both the House and the Senate (or by a Constitutional Convention called by 2/3 of the States). The proposed amendment does not become part of the Constitution unless it is ratified by ¾ of the States. It is difficult to imagine how the current political divide would allow any further amendment to the Constitution in the near future. But the 1800 Presidential election generated change to the Constitution even in the midst of rancor between the two parties of the day, John Adams’ Federalists and Thomas Jefferson’s Republicans.

The disdain shown by the Federalists and the Republicans might embarrass today’s Democrats and Republicans. Federalists called Jefferson an atheist. Republicans called Adams senile. Federalists feared Jefferson would bring America the worst of the French Revolution. Republicans were certain the Federalists would return America to its colonial status or impose a central government equally offensive as the British crown.

Aaron Burr (Source: Biography.com)

Aaron Burr (Source: Biography.com)

At that time, the parties did not nominate separate candidates for President and Vice President. Each party nominated two candidates, both for the Presidency. In 1800, the Federalists chose John Adams and Charles Pinckney as their two candidates. The Republicans chose Jefferson and Aaron Burr. The candidate who received a majority of the electoral votes became President. Under Article II of the Constitution, each of the state’s electors cast two ballots. The candidate who came in second became the Vice President.

The sixteen states had a mishmash of methods of selecting electors. In eleven, the state legislatures selected the electors, meaning that the state’s controlling party selected the electors. In the others, white male property owners or white male taxpayers voted for the electors. Some states used a winner-take-all system while others split the votes.

The Federalists exercised sufficient control over their electors to insure that Adams received at least one more ballot than Pinckney. The Republicans failed to exercise such party discipline; their electors cast 73 ballots for Jefferson and 73 ballots for Burr. Adams received 65 votes and Pinckney received 64.

Tally of Electoral Votes for the 1800 Presidential Election (Source: NationalArchives.gov)

Tally of Electoral Votes for the 1800 Presidential Election (Source: NationalArchives.gov)

With neither Jefferson nor Burr receiving a majority of the electoral votes cast, Article II gave the House of Representatives the duty to choose the next President. Because Jefferson was the clear leader of the Republican Party, one would expect Burr to step aside. Ambition trumped party loyalty. It was left to the lame duck Federalist House to select one of its two Republican enemies as the next President of the United States.

Ultimately, backroom deals would give Jefferson the White House, of course, but it was not easy. Each state delegation could cast only one vote. With 16 states, Jefferson had to win nine, right? The Federalists cast their lot with Burr, generating 19 ties during a February 11, 1801 snowstorm. The deadlock remained unbroken through another sixteen votes. Finally, on Monday, February 17, Jefferson won a majority on the 36th vote, not because he picked up an additional state, but because the Delaware delegation abstained in accordance with Jefferson’s agreement to make various accommodations to the Federalists.

The parties averted a near debacle and worked to prevent a repeat of the 1800 election. Within three years, Congress proposed and the States ratified the 12th Amendment to the Constitution, which provides, among other things, that electors must cast separate ballots for President and Vice President.

Our white-wigged forefathers recognized that the original Constitution is an organic instrument that requires change from time to time. They made amendment a difficult process, but not an impossible one.

Sources:

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Video

Happy Days Are Here Again: The 1869 Inauguration

Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th President of the United States (Source: Whitehouse.gov)

(Source: Whitehouse.gov)

The theme song from the 1930 movie “Chasing Rainbows” was the campaign song for Franklin D. Roosevelt’s successful 1932 Presidential campaign and would become the unofficial campaign song of the Democratic Party for years to come. But the song’s spirit aptly describes the atmosphere of Ulysses S. Grant’s first inauguration.

Grant’s opponent, former New York Governor Horatio Seymour, had waged an ugly, racist campaign. During the months between his nomination in May and his election in November, Grant had spent most of his time in his hometown of Galena, Illinois, and the rest of his time exploring America’s Great Plains. As was customary in most Presidential campaigns of the nineteenth century, Grant had left the public speaking to others.

The town’s citizens were in a celebratory mood. They had endured four years of war and almost four years with President Andrew Johnson and Congress at each other’s throat, culminating in Johnson’s narrow escape from conviction at his impeachment trial the past spring.

Julia Boggs Dent Grant (Source: National First Ladies' Library)

Julia Boggs Dent Grant (Source: National First Ladies’ Library)

Although the air was cool and misty on Thursday morning, March 4, 1869, eager onlookers crowded the streets of the nation’s capital. All of them wanted a glimpse of the President-elect, the man who had brought an end to the Civil War. Some in the crowd wanted to see the First Lady, Julia Dent Grant, bringing their spyglasses to determine if there was any truth to the rumor that her brown eyes peered in two different directions.

Grant had won the election in an electoral landslide. Within the next few months, work crews two thousand miles to the west would complete the wonder of the age, the transcontinental railroad. Land-hungry men, North and South, were filling America’s vast territories. Scandals about Congressional bribes and generous payments to railroad companies would come, but on inauguration day citizens took a deep breath and celebrated the war hero who promised to bring peace to a recently reunited nation.

Sources:

 

 

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May 9, 2014 · 7:04 pm
May 2, 2014 · 9:37 pm

Adlai Stevenson II: Intellectual, Graceful Loser to Eisenhower

TIME Magazine from October 1952 cover featuring Adlai Stevenson II (Source: TakeMeBackTo.com)

TIME magazine cover from October 1952 featuring Adlai Stevenson II (Source: TakeMeBackTo.com)

Continuing last week’s theme, this article addresses the 1952 and 1956 Presidential elections, when Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson II suffered resounding defeats at the hands of General Dwight Eisenhower, commander of the western allied forces in Europe in World War II.

In an earlier article on the 1960 Presidential election, I discussed the states of the largely “solid South” which, with several exceptions, cast their votes for the candidate from Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy. Stevenson largely enjoyed the same support in 1952, when he carried West Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana. In 1956, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Louisiana threw their support to Eisenhower, while Stevenson won a majority of Missouri’s voters. Eisenhower won over 80 percent of the electoral vote in both elections, 442-89 in 1952 and 457-73 in 1956. (One Alabama elector cast his 1956 vote for an Alabama politician, Walter B. Jones.)

In the absence of a scandal, Eisenhower, like U.S. Grant 88 years earlier, was a shoo-in whether he ran as a Republican or a Democrat. With great justification Stevenson reluctantly accepted his party’s nomination in 1952. Having been bitten by the bug, however, he successfully pursued the nomination again in 1956 and was swamped by John Kennedy in 1960. His ambition irritated the Kennedy team and cost him the position of Secretary of State in 1960. Instead, he was relegated to serve as United States Ambassador to the United Nations, where he served with great distinction until his death in 1965.

Stevenson campaign button (Source: AntiquesNavigator.com)

Stevenson campaign button (Source: AntiquesNavigator.com)

The Bushes and Clintons are not the first American political dynasties. They were preceded by the Kennedys and the Roosevelts (and, of course much earlier, the Adamses). Adlai Stevenson II also was part of a political dynasty. His namesake grandfather served as Vice President under Grover Cleveland. His maternal great-grandfather was one of the founders of the Republican Party, counting Abraham Lincoln among his friends. Adlai II’s father served as secretary of state in Illinois and his son, Adlai Stevenson III, served as a United States Senator.

Adlai Stevenson II is remembered best for his grace in defeat and his intellectual wit. Here are a few of my favorite quotes from him:

“It is said that a wise man who stands firm is a statesman, and a foolish man who stands firm is a catastrophe.” [Fools and Foolishness Quotes]

“An independent is a guy who wants to take the politics out of politics.” [Politics Quotes]

“Some people approach every problem with an open mouth.” [Quips and Comments Quotes]

For more about Adlai Stevenson II, please see the following sources:

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April 25, 2014 · 9:26 pm

Running for President against a War Hero

Horatio Seymour (Source: Dickinson College)

Horatio Seymour (Source: Dickinson College)

For much of this country’s history, America’s voters have elected Presidents with some history of military service. Until President Clinton’s election in 1992, every successful candidate for the White House since World War II had worn a military uniform. But for a down-cycle economy in 1992 and a thriving economy in 1996, it is unlikely Mr. Clinton would have broken the trend.

Of our 44 Presidents, twelve have held the rank of general, with ten having seen battle action: Washington, Jackson, William Henry Harrison, Taylor, Pierce, Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, and Eisenhower.

Imagine two of the unsuccessful candidates who ran against the heroes of their day, former New York governor Horatio Seymour, who ran against General Ulysses S. Grant in 1868, and Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson, who challenged General Dwight Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956. This article is limited to a discussion of Seymour. I will talk about Stevenson in my next article.

Seymour had served two terms as governor of New York. In 1863, he had questioned the constitutionality of the Union’s conscription laws, largely because he believed they were tilted in favor of Republican congressional districts. During the New York City draft riots in July, 1863, he had addressed some demonstrators as “my friends.” The riots ultimately were extinguished by veterans of the Battle of Gettysburg.

Adlai Stevenson (Source: Wikipedia.org)

Adlai Stevenson (Source: Wikipedia.org)

At the 1868 Democratic Convention, Seymour reluctantly accepted the nomination on the 22nd ballot. In the election campaign that followed, Seymour and his Vice-Presidential running mate, former former Union General Francis Blair, pursued a “white man’s” platform, arguing that the Republicans’ reconstruction policies should be nullified. President Johnson had narrowly escaped conviction in his impeachment trial only a few months earlier. His impeachment had been due in large part to his resistance to reconstruction legislation (although the principal pretext for impeachment had been Johnson’s non-compliance with the highly controversial, and certainly unconstitutional, Tenure of Office Act). Americans had just suffered through four years of civil war and three years of Johnson and the Congress at one another’s throats. And Seymour thought they wanted more of the same?

Grant, in contrast, followed the tradition of the age, not campaigning at all (Can you imagine?), but instead spending much of his time either in his hometown of Galena, Illinois, or on vacation on the Great Plains. Rather than stirring the pot, he avoided making speeches. His campaign managers exhorted the populace to “[l]et us have peace.”

Seymour did win over 47 percent of the popular vote, but Grant won the electoral-college vote in a 214-80 landslide. Seymour won New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Oregon, Louisiana and Georgia. Three Southern states – Virginia, Mississippi, and Texas – had not been readmitted to the Union, and therefore did not participate in the election.

As I stated earlier, Grant was the hero of his age. He had “conquered the peace,” bringing an end to four bloody years of conflict. It is unlikely any Democratic candidate could have beaten Grant, particularly when many Americans believed the Democratic Party had brought on the war with their contentious 1860 Presidential nominating conventions in Charleston, South Carolina, and Baltimore, Maryland. Republicans waved the “bloody shirt.” Americans were not going to turn the White House over to the party they deemed responsible for over 600,000 American lives.

Sources:

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March 4, 2014 · 2:19 am

The Presidential Election of 1876

Regardless of your political affiliation, you certainly remember the Presidential election of 2000, when George W. Bush ultimately prevailed over Al Gore. By a 5-4 decision, the United States Supreme Court ultimately validated the election results certified by a Florida Republican official.

Flash back to the Presidential election of 1876. Inauguration day was set for Sunday, March 4, 1877, giving government leaders four months between November and March to resolve the election results of a hotly contested election. Three former Confederate states were in play: South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida.

Federal troops played a significant role in the South in the years after the Civil War (Reconstruction). The troops protected African Americans from white persecution and guaranteed that Republican officials ran the state governments. White Southerners strongly resented the presence of federal troops within their borders. In the months leading up to election day, organized groups of whites intimidated African Americans, working diligently and violently to suppress black turnout at the polls.

President Hayes (Source: Library of Congress)

President Hayes (Source: Library of Congress)

Republican officials in South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida certified the results, in each case tossing out enough votes for the Democratic candidate, Samuel Tilden, to give the state’s electoral votes to the Republican candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes. But the game was not over. On the first Wednesday in December, the Democratic electors met separately from the Republican electors in each of the three states and cast their votes for Tilden. It appeared the country might be at the brink of another civil war.

Justice David Davis (Source: Library of Congress)

Justice David Davis (Source: Library of Congress)

The Democrats controlled the House of Representatives and the Republicans controlled the Senate. Ultimately, the politicians agreed to appoint an advisory commission consisting of five members from the Senate (3 Republicans and 2 Democrats), five from the House (3 Democrats and 2 Republicans), and five from the Supreme Court, who were to be selected by agreement of the 10 members from Congress. Two of the justices were Democrats and two were Republicans. Everyone expected the commission to select independent David Davis as the final member. Everyone was wrong.

In those days, each state legislature selected its United States Senator. The Illinois state legislature, deadlocked over its choice, chose Justice Davis as its compromise choice. Davis agreed to take the Senate seat and resigned from the Supreme Court. All of the remaining justices from whom the commission could choose its final member were Republicans. Thus, the commission, with a one-vote Republican majority in the Supreme Court, recommended that Congress accept the election results certified by the Republican election officials in the three contested states.

John Sherman (Source: Library of Congress)

Sen. John Sherman (Source: Library of Congress)

But all was not over. Many Democrats believed they had been robbed of the White House. In an unwritten agreement between the Hayes men and Southern moderates intended to calm the nation, the Hayes men agreed to withdraw federal troops from the South, provide no further support for the carpetbaggers in Louisiana and South Carolina, and allow the Democrats to resume control of the state governments. Generations of African Americans paid dearly for the compromise. In the height of irony, the Hayes men included Senator John Sherman of Ohio, whose brother had made Georgia howl, and Senator John Gordon of Georgia, who had served as a general in the Confederate army.

For more information about the 1876 election and its aftermath, please go to the following sources:

H.W. Brands, The Man Who Saved the Union, pp. 567-577 (Random House 2012);

John Gordon (Source: Library of Congress)

John Gordon (Source: Library of Congress)

Jean Edward Smith, Grant, pp. 597-605 (Simon & Schuster 2001);

James W. McPherson, Ordeal by Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction, pp. 639-646 (McGraw Hill, 3rd Edition 2001)

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January 31, 2014 · 12:59 am

Gideon Welles – On Lincoln’s Team, But Not Lincoln’s Rival

Gideon Welles House (Source: Historic Buildings of Connecticut)

Gideon Welles House (Source: Library of Congress)

This week, I continue with the theme of Cabinet officers, this time with Gideon Welles, who along with Secretary of State William Seward, were the only Cabinet officers to serve Lincoln throughout his presidency. Unlike Seward, Welles never considered himself better suited than Lincoln for the Oval Office.

Like Lincoln, his principal rivals for the 1860 Republican nomination – William Seward and Salmon Chase, Lincoln’s first secretary of the Treasury – established successful law practices before entering politics. While Gideon Wells obtained a legal education, he left the practice of law at twenty-four years old to run the Hartford Times, a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party. He served in Connecticut’s General Assembly and also was appointed as the state’s postmaster by President Andrew Jackson. In the mid-1850s, he tired of the South’s control over the party and joined the Republican Party. He was 59-years-old when Lincoln chose him to serve in his Cabinet as secretary of the Navy.

Whatever Welles’ talents, historians are unflattering in their physical descriptions.  One describes him as wearing “a wig [that was] a poor match for his voluminous whiskers.” [Catton, The Coming Fury, p. 54 (1961) (2009 Fall River Press edition)] Another says he was “a peculiar-looking man with a curly wig perched on his outsize head, and a flowing white beard.” [Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals, p. 232 (2005) (2006 Simon & Schuster paperback edition]

Gideon Welles House (Source: Historic Buildings of Connecticut)

Gideon Welles House (Source: Historic Buildings of Connecticut)

Welles’ Navy included both a “blue water navy” and a “brown water navy,” the latter often supplementing Union armies on America’s rivers, such as on the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers in the battles of Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, and Shiloh, and on the Mississippi River at Vicksburg and New Orleans.

One incident during the Civil War illustrates the contrasting demeanors of Secretary of War Stanton – mercurial, temperamental, prone to panic – with that of cool, calm, and collect Gideon Welles. After the Confederacy’s ironclad, the Merrimack, sank two Union ships in Hampton Roads, Stanton famously panicked at a hastily called Cabinet meeting:

[C]rossing to a window which commanded a long view of the Potomac, he looked out and, trembling visibly, exclaimed: “Not unlikely, we shall have a shell or a cannonball from one of her guns in the White House before we leave this room.”

Welles assured Stanton that the Merrimack would draw too much water if its commander tried to make such a cruise. He also calmly assured President Lincoln and the entire Cabinet that the Navy already had an answer in the form of its own ironclad, the Monitor, which had already reached Hampton Roads. Of course the two ships would fight to a draw, marking the end of the age of wooden warships. [Shelby Foote, The Civil War: Fort Sumter to Perryville, p. 258 (1958) (1986 First Vintage Books Edition)]

Not only did Welles serve in the Cabinet throughout Lincoln’s presidency, he was there at Lincoln’s end when the president succumbed to an assassin’s bullet at a small townhouse across from Ford’s Theatre on the evening of April 14, 1865. [Shelby Foote, The Civil War: Red River to Appomattox, pp. 981-982 (1974) (1986 First Vintage Books Edition)]

When he took office, Welles “hardly knew one end of a ship from the other.” [The Coming Fury, p. 283], But this was an age when men took on great tasks without any prior experience in the work they set out to accomplish. (One need only look at the California storekeepers who eight years later would complete the western leg of the transcontinental railroad and meet their eastern counterparts at Promontory Summit, Utah.) Four years after Gideon Welles took office, the United States Navy grew from 76 ships to a fleet of 671 and from 7,600 seamen to 51,000. [Team of Rivals, p. 672]. By all accounts, Welles ably served Lincoln and the country, helping to transform the navy from an insignificant flotilla to a fleet worthy of a world power.

You can gain a clearer understanding of how the brown navy worked hand in hand with General U.S. Grant’s troops by reading about the battles of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson in my novel, New Garden, available on line from Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, and Dog Ear Publishing.

You can find more information about Gideon Welles at the National Parks Service’s website, www.nps.gov/resources, and at www.biography.com.

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January 16, 2014 · 1:54 am

Civil War Personalities – Simon Cameron

Cameron LOC

Simon Cameron (Source: Library of Congress)

One of the more colorful politicians of the Civil War era was Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania, once accused of being so corrupt that the only thing he would not steal was a red hot stove.

Another politician, Edwin Stanton, served as Lincoln’s Secretary of War during most of the Civil War, but before assuming that position in February, 1862, he served as legal adviser to his predecessor, Simon Cameron.

When Lincoln’s political managers worked for his nomination at the 1860 Republican Convention in Chicago, they made many promises, some overt and others subtle, to secure the delegates needed for the nomination. They desperately needed Pennsylvania’s delegates, and no one questioned U.S. Senator Cameron’s ability to deliver them, with the understanding that Pennsylvania would cast its votes for favorite-son Cameron on the first ballot and for Lincoln on subsequent ballots.

Stanton Library of Congress

Edwin Stanton (Source: Library of Congress)

The leading contender, Senator William Seward, thought he had secured Cameron’s support in a visit to the Pennsylvanian’s home in the spring of 1860, trusting the quote often attributed to Cameron that “an honest politician is one who, when he is bought, stays bought.” [Goodwin, Team of Rivals, p. 217]. But when the Republicans convened in May, many Pennsylvania delegates thought Seward was not electable.

While Seward waited at his Auburn, New York estate for word of his nomination, the anti-Seward forces were hard at work in Chicago. In exchange for Pennsylvania’s support, Cameron wanted Lincoln to give him the Treasury post and sole control of all political patronage in Pennsylvania. [Bruce Catton, The Coming Fury, pp. 60-61 (1961) (2009 edition).] Cameron was known as the “Winnebago chief” for purportedly swindling the Winnebago tribe in a supply contract [McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 260 (1988)], and any suggestion that Lincoln would agree to give a reputed crook control of the government’s purse strings is disingenuous. But Lincoln’s men at least gave a wink and a nod of some sort assuring Cameron of a position in the Cabinet. Pennsylvania delivered its support and Seward would have to be satisfied with the State Department rather than the White House.

Interestingly, during the first year of the war, many military contracts went to manufacturers in Cameron’s home state of Pennsylvania. In addition, military supplies traveled inordinate distances on Pennsylvania railroads. There were also many complaints about the quality of materials furnished to the troops. The war added new words to the vernacular, including “shoddy,” charges of pressed scraps of wool used to make uniforms that fell apart after a few weeks’ wear. [McPherson, Ordeal by Fire, p. 183 (Third Edition, 2001)]

Because he received intense criticism for his poor management of the War Department, Cameron sought to secure his fragile position by kowtowing to the Radical Republicans in Congress. In the War Department’s December 1861 annual report, he advocated freeing and arming slaves who escaped into Union army lines. [Ordeal by Fire, p. 291] This early in the war, Lincoln was struggling to keep the slaveholding border states in the Union. Cameron’s report did not help.

In January, 1862, Lincoln let Cameron know his services in Washington were no longer needed. The President ultimately accepted Cameron’s letter of resignation and appointed him as Minister to Russia, thereby sending him where he could do no further harm to the war effort. [Team of Rivals, pp. 410-412]

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December 24, 2013 · 2:24 am

The 1960 Presidential Election & the Lingering Effects of the Civil War

1960 presidential electoral map (JFK Library)

1960 presidential electoral map (JFK Library)

In my previous article, I explained how the Democrats’ implosion at the 1860 Democratic National Convention in Charleston, SC, opened the door to Lincoln’s election. This week, we will move ahead 100 years to see how the Civil War affected party politics well into the twentieth century. Some say it still continues to affect national elections. I would not contest the point.

It may be difficult to believe today, but in 1960, John Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, could not have won the White House without winning most of the South. Nixon took Virginia, Tennessee, and Florida, but Kennedy took North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. A third party candidate, Harry Byrd, took Mississippi. Kennedy and Byrd split the electoral votes in Alabama.

First-ever televised presidential debate in Chicago, Ill. (Source: NBC News)

First-ever televised presidential debate in Chicago, Ill. between Nixon and Kennedy (Source: NBC News)

Yes, having Texas United States Senator Lyndon Johnson contributed to Kennedy’s success, but Southerners’ antipathy to the Republican Party (the party of Lincoln), played the larger role.

One only has to look at Eisenhower’s landslide victories in 1952 and 1956. Although Ike was very popular as the World War II commander of the Allies’ European forces, Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson won his few electoral victories in the South, winning North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas in both elections (also winning West Virginia, Kentucky, and Louisiana in 1952, but not in 1956, and picking up Missouri in 1956).

So, what turned the tide? When Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law, outlawing discrimination in voting registration, schools, and employment, he knew he did so at the peril of the Democratic Party. Although Johnson won a landslide victory in 1964, Republican candidate Barry Goldwater took South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and his home state of Arizona. It seems white Southerners were more intimidated by the immediate prospect of African Americans with equal rights than by the more remote possibility of a nuclear war that might extinguish human life from the planet. (See Johnson campaign “Daisy Girl” commercial below)

Once the Republicans made inroads into the South, they employed a “Southern strategy,” successfully convincing many Southern Democrats that the Democratic Party had become hostile to Dixiecrats’ segregationist policies. The trickle of Southerners into the Republican Party became a flood. But in 1960, most white Southern voters viewed Republicans as the party of Lincoln, the party of “Northern aggression.” They had not yet abandoned the party of their ancestors.

To see electoral maps from Presidential elections, go to the President Elect website at http://presidentelect.us.

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