Atlanta, GA
[NB: Catch up on our catalogue of the worst presidents here, here, here and here; the first installments of the better ones are here and here]
As we continue our chronological cruise thru presidential waters, we scour the sea for fish the court historians throw back. For nutritional value and good taste, we find this to be a reliable approach. The best catch is often found at great depth, far down the standard lists of presidential ranks.
But that’s OK. Among nature’s bottom feeders are cod, halibut, shrimp, sole, scallops, and bass. We prefer those to the more popular piranhas, barracudas, and sharks any day.
We’ve caught a couple good ones just beneath the surface, and one yesterday that we think to be the best. Today, we dive a little deeper.
This morning we bring out the net, and prepare for a bountiful haul. We start small, with a nondescript species known as…
Millard Fillmore. Like John Tyler, Fillmore walked into the White House after his predecessor was carried out. When Zachary Taylor died, he left his vice president fewer than three years to do as little as possible. Millard Fillmore was up to the task, and for that we give him credit.
The most significant event of his partial term was the Compromise of 1850. It was a mixed bag with many flaws. But among the states, Fillmore preserved a tenuous peace. That is preferable to precipitating a terrible war. We raise monuments to men who sound the trumpets and fire the cannons. Millard Fillmore has no monuments.
But he should. If not for keeping the peace, than for going with the flow. After installing a system of running water, Millard Fillmore placed the first bathtub in the White House.
Despite such ingenuity, he was inordinately modest. He rejected an honorary degree from Oxford because it was written in Latin, and Fillmore didn’t feel right receiving a degree he couldn’t read.
How refreshing. I assume most of our current presidents can read, but it’s mostly material placed in front of them to robotically sign. And they probably understand it about as well as Fillmore knew his Latin.
Swimming immediately in Fillmore’s wake is…
Franklin Pierce. Few executives receive as bad a rap as our 14th president. But I’m not sure it’s fair. As in our own era, the 1850s were a time of politicians, not statesmen. Franklin Pierce was a statesman. A logical leader, not an emotional hack, he was a fish out of water in those turbulent times. But despite difficult circumstances, he largely adhered to his oath.
Pierce came to office as a popular Democrat from a northern state. Tragedy preceded him to the presidency, and stalked him afterward. His children died young, the last son being decapitated in a train accident, in front of his parents, just before inauguration.
For much of her life, his wife suffered depression, which was understandably exacerbated by these events. Pierce himself was not immune from similar bouts, particularly after the deaths of his wife and his good friend Nathaniel Hawthorne. In his his later years, he would be intimately acquainted with the bottoms of bottles.
Franklin Pierce swam against the tide during and after his administration. This made him many enemies, and he wasn’t nominated for a second term. Perhaps this is why many of the better presidents served no more than one. By showing backbone, defending their oaths, and bucking party bosses, they tended not to get invited back.
Pierce’s modern reputation derives largely from a “definitive” biography by Roy Nichols, written in the early thirties, when activist government was all the rage. The book’s conclusion says more about the author and his audience than it does about its subject.
Pierce’s “problem”, said Nichols in an assessment shared by most later historians, was that he was too much of a strict constructionist. In essence, he’d have done a better job if he didn’t do it quite so well.
Like John Tyler, he was (and is) considered “weak” by most presidential historians. But how strong must one be to do what your told, and sign popular unconstitutional bills that everyone wants? Of much sterner stuff is the man who resists the tide, and makes waves despite standing his ground.
Pierce did that. During his first year in office, the new president vetoed the welfare state. To his desk came the Indigent Insane Persons Bill, which would’ve provided public funds and land grants to build asylums and hospitals for the mentally deficient poor within the several states.
Pierce rejected the bill as unconstitutional, which it clearly was. The president rightly believed that social welfare was the province of the states or private actors, and that the Constitution gave the central government no authority to intervene.
He also foresaw the floodgates, which opened 75 years later. If the US government could support insane indigents, why not sane indigents? If hospitals, why not schools? If schools, why not farms? If farms, why not business? If the poor, why not the rich? Where does it end? As we know all too well in our day, it doesn’t.
Acknowledging the limited functions and duty of the federal government, Pierce asserted that “the substantive power and the popular force, the large capacities for social and material development, exist in the respective states”.
Bear in mind, this guy was from New Hampshire, not North Carolina. He had the further gall, after his presidency, to chastise Lincoln and oppose his war. Which may be another reason he is loathed in the newsrooms and faculty lounges, where he is probably considered a traitor to his section and his class. To his credit, he didn’t care. His “sedition” continued.
Regarding Congressional authority to make appropriations for “internal improvements”, Pierce affirmed in one of his veto messages that “it is necessary to reject the idea of there being any grant of power in the preamble.”
The president recognized that “we” are not one amalgamated “people”, but a collection of distinct and independent societies, with separate interests, values, and ways of living. He reminded Congress that the “general welfare” clause was an explanatory overture, not an open-ended grant. Otherwise, there would’ve been no reason to follow it with a list the specific powers of Congress in Article I, Section 8.
Contrary to the mantra of our age, Pierce was wise enough to recognize that the more diverse a population in its perspectives and beliefs, the more diffuse government power must be. As he put it, “The dangers of concentration of all power in the general government of a confederacy so vast as ours are too obvious to be disregarded.” No wonder modern historians condemn this guy.
For these transgressions of duty and conscience, Franklin Pierce swims among the pond scum of conventional historical rankings. Aside from perhaps James Buchanan, few lie beneath him in these predictable polls. But if anyone does, it is likely to be…
Andrew Johnson. Few presidents had to swim upstream against stronger currents. Coming to power after Lincoln was killed, Johnson was a Southern “war Democrat” in a government comprised almost exclusively of Northern radical Republicans.
Johnson was among the antebellum Southern unionists who argued that if they left and lost, it’d be worse than if they stayed. On that point he seems to have been vindicated. As president, he tried to reconcile and restore the states to the extent he could. Yet he was often inconsistent and incoherent, trying to bridge Lincolnian nationalism and original intent.
But it was too late. The republic of the founders was gone. Johnson’s task was to pick up as many pieces as possible before the radical Republicans swept them all away.
Congress was basically a rump parliament, and blended equal parts aggression, arrogance, and incoherence into a toxic brew. The Republicans maintained the South had never left the union, but then set extreme terms for them to come back in. The erstwhile Confederate states, whether they “returned” or not, were placed under military occupation. Civil courts were closed, and martial law was imposed.
Andrew Johnson tried to salve the wounds and reestablish the union. In December 1865, he declared it restored, and argued against continued military occupation. The “rebellion”, if that’s what it was, was over. The army should be pulled from the South, the courts must be re-opened, provisional governments established, and pardons issued.
Johnson preferred the term “Resumption” to “Reconstruction”. To him, the previous union could be revived only if each state were on equal terms, as the Constitution required.
But Congress had other ideas, and would use the occasion to extend and solidify Republican power. They had no opposition party in Congress, held control of the judiciary, and faced no resistance from the states. The only obstacle was Andrew Johnson. He was doing all he could, but the battle lines were drawn.
Johnson said that any Congressional laws or presidential proclamations affecting the South must apply equally to the North and West. This was the appropriate Constitutional position. In a revealing reaction, the Republicans rejected it. A torrent of unconstitutional bills began pouring from Capitol Hill to Andrew Johnson’s desk.
Johnson, trying to halt or slow the madness, brought down his veto pen on a slew of egregious encroachments. Among them was the Freedmans Bureau Bill, to which he objected as an illegal use of Federal power. He vetoed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, as a violation of separation of powers between the states and the general government. These rationale ring hollow to 21st century ears, but they struck the correct constitutional chord.
A veto of the Military Reconstruction Act followed in 1867. This is the bill that established martial law in the South, and suspended civil courts. The Supreme Court declared this act unconstitutional, but Congress pressed ahead anyway.
Like Pierce before him, Johnson vetoed social welfare bills as an unauthorized incursion of Federal power onto state autonomy. He also objected that these laws would apply to states who were not represented in Congress, and were therefore unable to vote on bills that would affect them.
Congressional conditions were absurd. Southern states were compelled to ratify constitutional amendments before they could rejoin the union. But a state outside the union cannot ratify an amendment. This was circular lunacy. Law was arbitrary, which means it was tyrannical. This was imposition, not legislation, and Johnson was right to object.
But Congress overrode most of Johnson’s vetoes.
Johnson is responsible for one of the best bargains in American history. For just over $7M, he acquired Alaska from Russia. At the time, the deal was derided as “Seward’s Folly”, for the Secretary of State who negotiated the sale. But within thirty years, gold would be found in the Klondike. Oil would add to the bounty in the next century. With this cheap purchase of over a half million square miles, Johnson could claim to be one of the few presidents who left the country wealthier than he found it.
Andrew Johnson, like John Tyler, waged constant war with a petulant and out of control Congress. As with Tyler, articles of impeachment were drafted to punish a president who dared veto ludicrous bills. On this occasion, however, the articles were adopted. But even this Congress couldn’t with a straight face impeach a president merely for using his veto.
The charges Congress chose were violation of the Tenure of Office Act. Johnson had justifiably vetoed this as well, but it was overridden and became law. It was repealed twenty years later, and thirty years after that was declared unconstitutional.
The act prohibited a president from removing cabinet members without Senate consent. In Johnson’s case, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton became the bait. Johnson bit, moved to remove Stanton, and Congress proceeded with impeachment.
By one vote, Johnson wriggled off the hook, and swam away.
JD
JD these are all very well written. Reminds me of Bill Bonner, in fact.