Tomorrow we celebrate Presidents' Day. We have lots to be grateful for by way of this country's chief executives. As I mentioned before, I am appreciating Bill Clinton more and more, so when he went to the hospital last week with a heart problem, it was a concern, especially given the many good things he has done in his post-presidency (some in tandem with George H.W. Bush).
The genius of America, though is not that we have been graced by wonderful statesmen as chief executives. Rather, it is that we have been graced with a system that empowers true leaders, restrains would-be tyrants, and reveals incompetents.
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I think this is a good day to learn about some lesser known presidents who actually did their job well. Everyone is familiar with Abe Lincoln and think he's great despite the many atrocities of which he is guilty. I think Martin Van Buren, Grover Cleveland, John Tyler, Calvin Coolidge, Zachary Taylor, Ulysses S. Grant, and Warren G. Harding are all worthy of study. They are good examples of presidents who followed the Constitution fairly closely.
Nice post. I'm always impressed every 4 or 8 years of the peaceful transfer of power from one president to the next. We can largely thank George Washington and the other framers for that. Truly inspired men.
Nic, could you elaborate on the atrocities of Lincoln? The only thing that comes to mind off the top of my head that you would label an "atrocity" would be the suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War - any others?
*clarification - Nic would probably label the Civil War suspension of habeas an "atrocity." I would not.
Let me start off by saying that I do *not* want to get in a debate about the benevolence of Lincoln here. I've lost friends over this subject.
But some of the atrocities that come to mind include repeated attempts to force deportation of all blacks to Africa; shutting down Northern newspapers and arresting entire newspaper staffs without trial for criticizing him; arresting and removing from office duly elected officials in Maryland for criticizing him; started the draft and gunned down those who protested it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Draft_Riots); unconstitutionally created West Virginia for votes; supported the Corwin Amendment which would have Constitutionalized slavery (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corwin_amendment); originally signed and supported General Order No. 11 which expelled all Jews from Tennessee, Mississippi and Kentucky (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Order_No._11_%281862%29) before flip-flopping on it; ordered "total war" destruction tactics in the South; signed off on Butler's General Order No. 28 which authorized Northern soldiers to treat Southern women as sexual play things if they criticized the North (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butler%27s_General_Order_No._28); ordered General Sherman to kill all Plains Indians in Missouri and to make no distinction between men, women and children; caused a significant number of deaths by declaring medicine to be contraband during the war; and attempted to have Jefferson Davis assassinated.
Contrary to what you said, Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus isn't a big deal for me because the Constitution specifically lists rebellion and invasion as acceptable reasons to suspend it.
I had no idea Lincoln had done those things. Are we better off as one nation with no slavery, or would we be better off as two with slavery still being legal in the South? With that being said, if those things are true of him, I don't think Lincoln deserves the all the respect he gets.
I have never heard of those things about Lincoln either. That being said, they may not be entirely accurate. Secondly, if they are accurate we don't really know what his motives were nor do we know the extent of the circumstances under which he acted. For example, simply stating that he instituted the draft and then gunned down those who protested it is not necessarily a fair portrayal of what occurred.
If any of that is actually true (you can never be sure with Wikipedia, the source for all of those claims...), I think it's hilariously ironic how EVERYONE in the media was comparing Lincoln to Obama last year.
But seriously, I think the justification for most if not all of them was simply that the nation was at war with itself. No matter how bad the atrocities were they still look better than the alternative of no action at all, for which Lincoln's predecessor James Buchanan (sp?) has earned the rank as the absolute worst president ever. But again, I'm not all that inclined to automatically trust Wikipedia without some sort of support.
Re: Wikipedia -- Wikipedia isn't a source. Scroll to bottom, check sources, voila.
@Jeff -- if you're suggesting that the end justifies the means, here are a couple of good quotes for you:
"We shall never prevent the abuse of power if we are not prepared to limit power in a way which occasionally may prevent its use for desirable purposes." -- Friedrich Hayek
“If you don’t stick to your principles when the chips are down, they’re not principles…they’re hobbies.” -- Jon Stewart
Also, the United States is the only country I know of that accomplished emancipation through war. Countries such as Britain, Spain, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, all of Central America, Mexico, Bolivia, Uruguay, the French and Danish colonies, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela all got rid of slavery through compensated emancipation. The only reason Lincoln's half-hearted compensation proposal failed was because he insisted that all freed slaves be deported to Africa. The man wanted to go to war. His motives are another story completely.
Was the civil war about slavery? If a serious compensation offer had been on the table, would the Southern States have remained in the Union?
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