The First Impeachment

---

---

It was 150 years ago today that an American president was impeached for the first time.

It has been fashionable in recent years for those who lose presidential elections to start calling for the impeachment of the winner — even before the winner has taken office — but impeachment had never been attempted before this day in 1868. Only two American presidents have faced the genuine prospect of impeachment since that time, and only one (Bill Clinton) faced a trial in the U.S. Senate. The House Judiciary Committee approved articles of impeachment against Nixon in the summer of 1974, but Nixon resigned before the full House could vote on them.

Four years earlier, Johnson (a Democrat) had been selected as the running mate for Republican President Abraham Lincoln in his bid for a second term. Not only was it unprecedented for a major–party nominee to pick someone from the other party to be his running mate (they actually ran under the National Union banner), but Lincoln's choice was the military governor of Tennessee, a state that had seceded and was still not a part of the Union (it was occupied by the Union army). Tennessee did not participate in the election of 1864.

Johnson was an inspired choice for a president whose mission was to preserve the nation. While a supporter of slavery, Johnson was an unapologetic Unionist who had been the only Southern senator to oppose his state's decision to secede.

I don't think vice presidents deliver inaugural addresses anymore, but they did in Andrew Johnson's day. At least, Johnson tried to deliver such a speech, but he wasn't feeling well so he drank some whiskey, believing that would help. Instead, he got gassed and gave a rambling speech. Thus, the inauguration of 1865, which is remembered in history for Lincoln's magnanimous call for "malice toward none" and "charity for all" in the North's treatment of the vanquished South following the Civil War, was an awkward introduction for Johnson to his fellow Americans.

That was particularly unfortunate since Johnson became the nation's leader a month and a half later.

Six weeks after the inauguration in 1865, Lincoln was assassinated, and Johnson became the 17th president. Things didn't go well for him, and by this day in 1868, 11 articles of impeachment, largely related to Johnson's efforts to dismiss the secretary of war, were adopted by the House. The case was sent to the Senate for trial — where Johnson was ultimately acquitted by a single vote.

Johnson failed to win the Democratic presidential nomination in 1868 and left office in 1869.

He returned to the U.S. Senate in 1875 and died shortly therafter.

The First Presidential Assassination

---

---

In hindsight, some things seem to confirm the concept of predestination. The shooting of Abraham Lincoln in Washington's Ford's Theater 150 years ago today is such an event.

Predestination has always played an important role in the story of Lincoln's assassination. About two weeks before he was assassinated, Lincoln claimed to have had a dream in which he saw a deceased person in repose in the East Room. In his dream, Lincoln said he asked a soldier who was dead in the White House. The reply was that the president was dead. He had been killed by an assassin's bullet.

For anyone who grew up in the United States, was educated in its schools and studied its history (even half–heartedly), the story of Lincoln seems to be an integral part of the story of America — which, indeed, it is, as is the story of each president. We tend to remember periods in history, after all, by the chief executives who presided over them — i.e., "the Reagan years" or "the Roosevelt years."

Not all presidencies are created equal, though, so it doesn't always work that way, especially the farther back one must go to locate a particular president. I would venture to say that, if you mentioned "the Fillmore years" or "the Pierce years," you'd draw blank stares from 21st–century listeners. (Heck, you'd probably get blank stares from many if you spoke about the Ford years.)

In part, I suspect that reflects the changing nature of American government. The modern president has more power than many of his predecessors, especially those who lived in the 19th century. When Fillmore and Pierce (and others — they just happen to be the two I mentioned earlier) occupied the White House, there were giants in Congress like Daniel Webster, and they were the ones who held most of the authority.

In the early days of the republic, two–term presidencies were not uncommon. Five of the first seven presidents were two–term presidents — the exceptions being the Adamses, John and his son John Quincy — but none of the next eight presidents served more than a single four–year term. I guess that made the American president seem more like a transitory figure.

Lincoln was elected twice, the first president to be re–elected in nearly 30 years, and he presided over the North's triumph over the South in the Civil War.

Other than Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln, most of the early presidents are largely unknown to modern Americans. There is no special reason why they shouldn't be, I guess. It was the nature of the times — and the nature of the presidency is that it has been an evolving office, one that has grown more powerful as time goes by. Consequently, the men who have held that office have been more powerful as time has passed.

That's really a topic for another time, though. My point here is that Lincoln's administration had a lot to do with the evolution of the presidency. It was a consequence of the unique situation in which Americans found themselves at that time — at war with each other. There was no precedent for what Lincoln faced, no opportunity to reflect on what some previous president did right or wrong in a similar situation and learn from it. It was uncharted territory, and it required Lincoln to do things that the founding fathers couldn't have anticipated. It required him to act quickly in many cases. It made his a different kind of presidency than any the country had seen before.

But 150 years ago today, that war was over. It was Good Friday. Able to relax for the first time since entering the White House, Lincoln and his wife made plans to go to the theater on this night and see the British play, "Our American Cousin."

Of the evening at the theater, Carl Sandburg wrote, "The evening and the drama are much like many other evenings when the acting is pleasant enough, the play mediocre, the audience having no thrills of great performance but enjoying itself."

Actor John Wilkes Booth wasn't in the cast, but he knew the play. He knew which lines drew the biggest laughs and which actors were on stage at particular points in the performance.

And he had determined a good point in the play to shoot Lincoln. It was just after one of the biggest laugh–getting lines in the script, which he hoped would muffle the sound of the shot, and only one actor would be on stage. After shooting Lincoln, he planned to make his escape by leaping to the stage and running off in the confusion. He figured it would be just after 10 p.m. when the moment came so, in his last meeting with his co–conspirators, he instructed them to kill the vice president and the secretary of state at about the same time. The would–be assassin of the secretary of state only succeeded in wounding him, though, and the would–be assassin of the vice president lost his nerve; if things had gone off the way Booth envisioned, all three would be attacked and killed at roughly the same time.

After the assassination, at least one witness to what had happened in Lincoln's box came forward. He had been watching the box instead of the stage at the moment the shooting occurred, and he said Lincoln was laughing.

Booth began making his way to the presidential box around 10 o'clock. Presidential security in the mid–19th century was almost nonexistent by 21st–century standards; even if it hadn't been, Booth was well known. His presence in a theater would not have been questioned if anyone had confronted him — but no one did. Lincoln's friend and self–appointed bodyguard, Ward Hill Lamon, was not on hand; the president had sent him to Richmond, Virginia. Lamon's substitute left his post and was drinking at a nearby tavern, leaving the president unguarded.

Booth was able to stroll into the theater and make his way to Lincoln's box almost without being stopped — and then only for a cordial greeting and some brief small talk. Walking at a fairly leisurely pace, Booth reached Lincoln's box in time to barricade the first door that led to the box. Booth would go through the second one and shoot Lincoln in the back of the head, then leap to the stage, but the Lincolns' companion for the evening, Major Henry Rathbone, tried to stop Booth, and he tumbled out of the box instead, catching the spur of a boot in a flag, and landed awkwardly on the stage below. He suffered a fracture but still managed to get away in the confusion as planned.

As I observed the other day, Booth swore to kill Lincoln a few days before actually pulling the trigger, so we know he had thought about it before he did it, but there is plenty of reason to suspect that Booth did not decide to shoot Lincoln on Good Friday until that day, when he went to Ford's Theater to pick up his mail and learned that the Lincolns would be attending that night along with General and Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant.

As it turned out, the Grants did not attend, but upon hearing the president would be there, the idea of assassination began to percolate in Booth's mind. He walked around the theater, observing its layout for a much more substantial performance than any he had given there before. Bishop wrote that Booth made plans for his getaway before leaving the theater around noon.

After that, it was simply a matter of time.

Lincoln's Last Speech

---

---

"It is unsatisfactory to some that the elective franchise is not given to the colored man. I would myself prefer that it were now conferred on the very intelligent and on those who serve our cause as soldiers."

Abraham Lincoln
April 11, 1865

---

On this day 150 years ago, Abraham Lincoln gave what would prove to be his final speech.

That wasn't the only thing he did that day, of course. Carl Sandburg observed, in his biography of Lincoln, that the president dispensed a proclamation closing Southern ports. If any vessel from outside the United States attempted to enter a Southern port with a cargo for which duties would be owed, such cargo would be "forfeited to the United States."

The president issued another proclamation barring foreign war ships from all U.S. ports if those war ships came from countries that would not give similar privileges to U.S. ships.

It was all part of the necessary, if somewhat routine, business to which Lincoln had to attend in the new postwar environment. Most students of history probably do not know the details, and, really, the only detail anyone needs to know is the big picture: The war was over.

Truth be told, Lincoln didn't devote that much time to such postwar business on this day in 1865.

"The president spent his best working hours this day on his speech for the evening," Sandburg wrote. "He was seizing the initiative to set in motion his own reconstruction program. Not until next December would Congress meet, not unless he called a special session. He intended to speak to the country so plainly that before Congress met, he could hope the majority of the people would be with him."

Those who are accustomed to the speed with which information travels in the 21st century need to understand how slowly news traveled in the mid–19th century. It didn't move at the speed of lightning, more like the speed of a snail. On this day, Lincoln probably envisioned having to go on some kind of barnstorming speaking tour through the American Midwest to ramp up support for his plan. At the same time, he had to educate his listeners about the issues — for, unless they read newspapers, and many could not read, they probably were not acquainted with much of the news that took place outside their towns and villages — and persuade them that his approach was the best.

It might have taken most of the rest of the year to accomplish, but, as Chinese philosopher Lao–tzu said, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Lincoln clearly intended to take that first step 150 years ago tonight.

Actually, a crowd clamored for him to speak to them the night before, on Monday, April 10, and many waited in the rain outside the White House, hoping to hear him speak, but Lincoln sent word that he was behind in his work because of a recent trip, and he asked those who were gathered there to disperse. He would speak the following evening at the formal observance of the South's surrender.

---

---

Lincoln did sit for a photographer that day, a session that was occasionally interrupted by Lincoln's 12–year–old son, Tad, who "frolicked around the room," Bishop wrote, "bouncing on and off his father's lap, distracting Mr. Lincoln to the point that, for the first time, he smiled faintly in a picture."

At one point, Tad dashed outside with a captured Rebel flag and ran up and down a porch "trying to make the banner snap in the breeze," Bishop wrote. Lincoln stepped out to retrieve his son, waved to the crowd and insisted he would speak the next night. The Navy Yard band was on hand, and Lincoln asked them to play for the folks who had gathered. Lincoln was asked what they should play; after a moment's reflection, he suggested "Dixie." He had long admired the song, and "it could now be considered the lawful property of the United States," Bishop wrote.

Lincoln is remembered for many things, of course, including some of the most important and most memorable speeches in American history, but the speech he delivered 150 years ago has always seemed to me to be the one that sealed his fate.

It was also a remarkable example of what made Lincoln such a unique and truly visionary leader. Those who had gathered "listened for exultation, and there was none," Bishop wrote. "They strained for eloquence, and there was none. They waited patiently for vengeance, and there was none."

Lincoln took the occasion to speak of the challenge of reconstruction (he observed that it was "fraught with great difficulty") and the problems of the postwar environment. And he advocated voting rights for black Americans.

The man who would assassinate Lincoln a few days later, actor John Wilkes Booth, was in the crowd listening to Lincoln's speech. When he spoke of giving blacks the right to vote, Booth turned to his companion, Lewis Paine, and said, "That means nigger citizenship! Now, by God, I'll put him through. That is the last speech he will ever make."

"The two men edged out of the crowd," Bishop wrote.

Booth was a Confederate sympathizer, and he may well have assassinated Lincoln, anyway, even if the president had not delivered the speech he made 150 years ago today. Booth and some co–conspirators had plotted earlier to kidnap Lincoln in an attempt to help the South's cause, but the plan fell through.

It is possible that the idea of killing Lincoln first seriously came to Booth 150 years ago tonight. I'm not sure if anyone really knows when it became more than idle musing on Booth's part.

Historian Jim Bishop wrote that it was probable that the idea first came to Booth following Lincoln's re–election in 1864. "Lincoln," Bishop wrote, "had been Booth's emotional whipping boy for four years." That may be so, but Booth may never have seriously entertained the idea of killing Lincoln until a few days before actually assassinating the president.

Lincoln's assassination was clearly the outcome of a premeditated conspiracy, but the conspiracy may have been as spontaneous as that. In modern times, the assassination of American leader undoubtedly would require more advance planning if only because presidential security in the mid–19th century was so unsophisticated compared to today.

If Lincoln's words were not what the crowd came to hear, they got it, kind of, from the next speaker — Iowa Sen. James Harlan who had been designated to be the next secretary of the Interior and whose daughter would, in a few years, marry Lincoln's oldest son, Robert.

"Mr. Harlan had excellent intentions," Bishop wrote, "but he did not know that a good speaker never asks an explosive mob a question.

"'What,' he said with arms outstretched, with silvery syllables echoing in the trees, 'shall be done with these brethren of ours?'

"As one, the crowd roared, 'Hang 'em!'

"The senator smiled in the face of thunder and said that, after all, the president might exercise the power to pardon.

"'Never!' the crowd screamed.

"The senator tried to educate and inform by suggesting that the great mass of Southern people were not guilty. He got silence. The senator was not up to further effort. He finished haltingly by proclaiming that he, for one, was willing to trust the future to the president of the United States."

Harlan, naturally, believed that president would be Lincoln, as did nearly everyone in the crowd that night.

History Is a Harsh Mistress

---

---

"Their cause must be our cause, too. Because it's not just Negroes, but really it's all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice.

"And we shall overcome."

Lyndon B. Johnson
March 15, 1965

---

History is, indeed, a harsh mistress. She beckons to those who will follow her when she deems that a great moment is at hand — but she never mentions that the window of opportunity is slamming shut nor does she identify what it is that must be addressed. She just gives vague nods in a general direction and lets you figure out the rest.

In the context of history, you have only minutes — seconds, really — to act, too. Then that window slams shut, and a new one will open sometime in the future, but history gives no warning until the moment is upon us again.

Nor can you apply what you learned from the last time to the new one — like old generals who are constantly trying to fight the last war and neglecting the things that will enable them to win the current one. "History doesn't repeat itself," Mark Twain cautioned, "but it does rhyme."

Fifty years ago, Lyndon B. Johnson gave what was probably the most inspiring speech of his presidency — his address to Congress advocating passage of the Voting Rights Act. It broke no new legal ground, really. It was designed to enforce what had been the law of the land for nearly a century in the form of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution. They were part of the Reconstruction Amendments that guaranteed rights of citizenship, particularly the right to vote, to minorities, but, as everyone knew, they had not been enforced in most parts of the South.

The voting rights legislation came at a time when LBJ was, arguably, at the height of his political power, prestige and influence. In the year following John F. Kennedy's assassination, Johnson's approval rating had been at its highest — in the 70s — and no president can sustain those numbers indefinitely, but Johnson was doing pretty well after nearly 18 months in the White House. Just a few months earlier, he had been elected to a full four–year term as president in a landslide of historic proportions, and, as he delivered his speech 50 years ago tonight, his approval rating, according to Gallup, was 68%.

Johnson wanted to do something about the situation, but he wanted to proceed slowly, possibly because he wanted to conserve his political capital — which, in hindsight, might have been a good thing to do. America soon soured on the war in Vietnam, and he needed that capital to keep his approval ratings above 50% — a point he dropped below almost permanently by the middle of 1966.

What Johnson told his allies was that he didn't think Congress would be eager to take on another civil rights measure so soon after passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But Johnson embraced the idea and enthusiastically pressed for the bill's passage in Congress.

As it turned out, his support for the Voting Rights Act appears to have had little influence on his approval ratings. He remained above 60% for the rest of 1965 — even managed to hit 70% in May. But, of course, that was still in the future; he was hesitant to move quickly in the early spring of 1965.

Perhaps the populist, liberal wing of the Democrat Party of 1965 knew what both parties seem to have forgotten in the 21st century — that history is a harsh mistress and one must act quickly to satisfy her. I have read that the liberals of the day were eager to capitalize on their sweeping victories in the 1964 elections, and history certainly indicates there was good reason for that. Following the 1964 elections, the Democrats had the greatest congressional majorities — in both chambers — that any party has had since the Republic's early years.

The lesson of history is that, when such extremes are reached, there is usually a correction that occurs, and huge majorities begin to dwindle. It is only possible in hindsight, of course, to determine when critical mass was reached. At the time, though, the temptation to believe that popularity has not peaked must be hard to resist.

In a democracy, political success is fleeting — and, in fact, Johnson's approval ratings did plummet in the second half of his term. The unpopularity of the war had a lot to do with it; likewise, the civil rights movement almost certainly had something to do with it. As his approval ratings fell, so did Democrat majorities in the House and Senate.

There is a steep price to be paid for failing to act quickly enough — or failing to recognize history's call when it comes. It was the populist, liberal wing that pressured Johnson to send a voting rights bill to Capitol Hill. The events on the Edmund Pettus Bridge accelerated the process.

---

---

In my lifelong love affair with history, I have come to appreciate its timing, its ironies. So it is with this moment in history.

Johnson delivered what many believe is the most powerful speech in presidential history only a week and a half after the centennial of Abraham Lincoln's masterful "With malice toward none" second inaugural address. History wasn't repeating itself, but it was rhyming.

Johnson's speech, of course, came a week after "Bloody Sunday" in Selma, Alabama — an event that has been re–created recently in the movie "Selma."

Anyone who thinks little progress has been made in racial relations in this country since Johnson gave his speech hasn't been paying attention. I was quite young when LBJ made that speech, and I wasn't aware of the historic events that were happening around me, but I had been to the single–screen movie theater in my hometown, and I had seen blacks being ushered into a corner of the balcony through a back door, and I knew that blacks were treated differently than whites. The public schools in my hometown didn't integrate until I enrolled in first grade. Mine was the first class in my hometown's history to go all the way from first grade through the twelfth integrated.

Since I wasn't old enough to read in 1965, I can't tell you if public drinking fountains and restrooms were still segregated in my hometown when LBJ made his speech, but if they weren't, they must have been at some time. I grew up in the South. Not the deep South where the worst things were happening, but it was still the South. In my home state, Orval Faubus led an ill–fated attempt to halt the desegregation of Little Rock Central years before George Wallace stood in the schoolhouse door and Bull Connor let loose the police dogs and fire hoses on civil rights activists in Alabama.

In those days, civil rights activists could be heard singing "We Shall Overcome." The phrase had become synonymous with "the movement," as I heard most blacks in my hometown call it, sanctified by the blood that had been spilled by so many. The casualties in Selma were only the latest, but they were the straw that broke the camel's back. Selma was too high profile for Johnson to ignore.

On this occasion, historian William Manchester observed, the president "concluded his speech with a phrase that had become hallowed by the blood and tears of a new generation of black Americans marching for justice. He said that their cause 'must be our cause, too. Because it's not just Negroes, but really it's all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome.'

"That was fine liberal eloquence," Manchester wrote, "but at times during the year it appeared to be a doubtful prediction. The eleventh anniversary of the Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education passed on May 17, and racism seemed stronger than ever."

My memory is foggy — I was, after all, a small child at the time — but I remember hearing the black ladies with whom my mother worked on our local Human Relations Council speaking of how great it was that the president had used that phrase.

It was more than symbolic to them.

'With Malice Toward None:' Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address

---

President Abraham Lincoln (bottom circle) delivers his second inaugural address
while the man who would assassinate him six weeks later listens (top circle).

---

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

Abraham Lincoln
March 4, 1865

---

One hundred and fifty years ago today, Abraham Lincoln gave his second inaugural address.

As I have mentioned here before, I have been studying the presidents and the presidency most of my life — and that is not a joke. I really have. And in the course of my life, I have read the texts of many presidential inaugural addresses. I have watched all or part of most of the inaugural addresses that have been delivered in my lifetime.

And the one Lincoln delivered 150 years ago today may be the best ever given. Its words adorn the walls of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.

Lincoln's first inaugural address is considered one of the great speeches in American history — and rightfully so — with its oft–quoted passage about "the better angels of our nature."

But imagine, if you will, Lincoln's state of mind when he prepared to give his second inaugural address. On the occasion of his first inauguration, Lincoln and just about everyone else knew that war was a foregone conclusion so that was Lincoln's focus. It was obviously going to be the priority of the new administration, and the status of the war was going to be critical to his re–election bid four years later.

For a time in his re–election campaign, Lincoln was convinced that he would be defeated. The war news in the first half of 1864 had not been good for the administration, and Lincoln had resolved that, if he did lose, he would see to it that the North won the war before he left office — because he knew the Democrat who defeated him would be committed to ending the war, not winning it or preserving the Union — but things were looking up in the second half of the year. General William T. Sherman captured Atlanta in his famed march to the sea, and David "Damn the torpedoes" Farragut captured Mobile Bay, Alabama. After that, it was all good news, and Lincoln was re–elected in a landslide. By the time he took the oath of office for the second time, the war was almost won.

I don't know if the weather in Washington was as severe 150 years ago as it has been recently, but historical accounts do tell us that it had been raining quite a bit in Washington in the days leading up to Lincoln's inauguration. On the day of the inaugural, though, the skies cleared, and the sun came out, bringing tens of thousands of people out to witness the historic event. After all, Lincoln was only the sixth president to give a second inaugural address.

"Abraham Lincoln, rising tall, gaunt and outstanding, stepped forward to read his inaugural address," Carl Sandburg wrote in his biography of the 16th president. "Applause roared, again and again was repeated, and finally died far away on the outer edge of the throng. In a silence almost profound the audience now listened. Seldom had a president been so short–spoken about the issues of so grave an hour."

The reconstruction of the Union was on Lincoln's mind, and that called for a brief speech, Lincoln told his listeners, and he reminded them of the circumstances four years earlier when he took office. "Both parties deprecated war," he said, "but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came."

And it had gone on far longer than either side had expected.

"Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God," Lincoln observed, "and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes."

"Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray," Lincoln said, "that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away."

Sandburg wrote that "[a] subdued handclapping and occasional cheers punctuated the address. Reporters noticed at the final paragraph many moist eyes and here and there tears coursing down faces unashamed."

Frederick Douglass reportedly told the president, "Mr. Lincoln, that was a sacred effort."

Douglass was there. He heard the speech when it was given. What a privilege that must have been — especially when you consider that modern presidents seem to feel obliged to speak interminably. Lincoln gave the greatest speeches in the nation's history; frequently, they lasted only a few minutes. His Gettysburg Address was written on an envelope, and his second inaugural address might as well have been.

And the significance was in the eye — or, rather, the ear — of the beholder.

"Like the Gettysburg Address, and more particularly the House Divided speech, the second inaugural took on varied meanings," Sandburg wrote. "To some it was a howl for vengeance, to others a benediction and a plea — with deep music."

Lincoln was re–elected with 55% of the popular vote four months earlier on Nov. 8, 1864, defeating his former general, George McClellan.

The Fine Art of Compromise ... and Lost Opportunity

---

---

"The trusts and combinations — the communism of pelf — whose machinations have prevented us from reaching the success we deserve should not be forgotten nor forgiven."

Letter from Grover Cleveland to Rep. Thomas C. Catchings (D–Miss.)
August 27, 1894

---

I have mentioned here that I have been studying the presidency most of my life.

And Grover Cleveland has always fascinated me. He always stood out because he was — and still is — the only president to serve two nonconsecutive terms. (He was also president half a century before presidents were limited to two terms — so, presumably, he could have sought a third term in 1896, but his party repudiated him. More on that in a minute.)

I have found it fascinating, too, to observe all the different presidents in American history to whom Barack Obama has been compared.

That didn't really begin with Obama. Incoming presidents are almost always compared to presidents from the past. I don't know why. Maybe to try to get an idea of what to expect. There have been no other black presidents so Obama couldn't be compared to anyone on a racial level.

When he was about to take the oath of office for the first time, Obama was compared, at different times and for different reasons, to great presidents from American history like Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Lincoln, of course, was a natural, having presided over the Civil War and issued the Emancipation Proclamation. There were some comparisons, as well, to Franklin D. Roosevelt, mostly because FDR had taken office during the most perilous economic period in the nation's history, even to John F. Kennedy, perhaps because both were young and their elections made history.

Over the course of his presidency, Obama has been compared to less accomplished presidents. In recent years, it has frequently been asked if he is more incompetent than Jimmy Carter, who is generally regarded as the most incompetent president in recent memory.

Six years ago, about three weeks before Obama took the oath of office the first time, political scientist Michael Barone suggested that Dwight Eisenhower might be the more appropriate comparison, and I wrote about that.

Barone's point was that Eisenhower had done little to help his fellow Republicans, many of whom "grumbled that Ike ... was selfish.

"Eisenhower, I suspect, regarded himself as a unique national figure," Barone wrote, "and believed that maximizing his popularity far beyond his party's was in the national interest."

I was reminded of that tonight when I heard Obama's speech on immigration. Many congressional Democrats are supporting the president — publicly, at least — but some are not. Regardless of the negative ramifications of his executive order — and a poll conducted Wednesday night indicates that nearly half of respondents oppose Obama's acting via executive order — Obama seems determined to prove that he is still relevant.

Coming a mere two weeks after Democrats lost control of the U.S. Senate in the midterm elections, it seems to me a president who was more concerned about his party's future than his own would act more prudently. Bill Clinton, after all, lost control of both chambers of Congress in the midterms of 1994, and Democrats didn't regain the majority in either chamber for 12 years.

Clinton did manage to retake some his party's lost ground when he ran for re–election in 1996 and then again after surviving an attempt by the Republicans to impeach him before the 1998 midterms, defying all logic.

I've always felt that a lot of that was because Clinton was appropriately chastened by his party's massive losses in the midterms. I felt, at the time, that many of the voters who had voted Republican in 1994 believed Clinton had learned an important lesson and were more open to supporting him and the members of his party in 1996.

Obama has now been through two disastrous midterm elections, and he has emerged from the second not chastened but defiant. He appears to be entirely ready to do everything on his own, completely ignoring the role that the Founding Fathers intended for Congress to play. An opportunity to let compromise and cooperation be what the Founding Fathers envisioned in their fledgling republic is being squandered.

Once such an opportunity is lost, once such a president takes this kind of approach, it is hard, if not impossible, to establish a rapport with the other side.

Obama isn't the first to do this, which brings me back to Grover Cleveland. A little background information is called for here.

Cleveland was first elected president in 1884. He was the first Democrat elected to the office in more than a quarter of a century — in spite of the revelation that Cleveland had fathered a child out of wedlock. It was close, but Cleveland managed to pull it off.

Four years later, when Cleveland sought a second term, conditions were good. The nation was at peace, and the economy was doing pretty well, but there was division over the issue of tariff policy. The election was another cliffhanger. Cleveland again won the popular vote by a narrow margin, but his opponent, Benjamin Harrison, received enough electoral votes to win.

So Cleveland left the White House in March 1889, but he returned as the Democratic nominee in 1892 and defeated Harrison. It was the second time a major party nominated someone for president three straight times. The first one, Andrew Jackson, also won the popular vote all three times; like Cleveland, though, he was denied the presidency once because he lost the electoral vote.

Perhaps it was the experience of having been returned to the White House after losing the electoral vote four years earlier that contributed to Cleveland's messianic complex. To be fair, it would be hard not to feel that there was an element of historical inevitability at work.

But that doesn't really excuse how Cleveland approached the outcome of the 1894 midterms.

One cannot tell the story of the 1894 midterms without telling the story of the Panic of 1893 for it defined Cleveland's second term as well as the midterms. It was the worst economic depression the United States had experienced up to that time. Unemployment in America was about 3% when Cleveland was elected in 1892. After a series of bank failures, it ballooned into double figures in 1893 and stayed there for the remainder of Cleveland's term.

The depression was a key factor in the debate over bimetallism in 1894. Cleveland and his wing of the Democratic Party were known as "bourbon Democrats," supporters of a kind of laissez–faire capitalism. They supported the gold standard and opposed bimetallism, in which both gold and silver are legal tender.

The economy was already the main topic of the campaign, and a major coal strike in the spring didn't help. In fact, it hammered the fragile economies of the states in the Midwest and the Northeast. Republicans blamed Democrats for the poor economy, and the argument found a receptive audience.

Republicans gained House seats just about everywhere except the Southern states, which remained solidly Democratic, and states where Republicans already held all the House seats. Democrats went from a 220–106 advantage to a 104–226 deficit. It remains the most massive shift in House party division in U.S. history.

Under circumstances such as these, a president has two choices — he can be conciliatory and try to move to the political center, as Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan did, or he can dig in his heels and be even more intransigent.

Much as Obama is doing 120 years later, Cleveland chose the latter approach after the midterms in 1894. Perhaps he felt he had no allies in Washington anymore, but I've always felt his go–it–alone approach was a big reason why he was repudiated by the Democrats in 1896. The fragmented party chose instead to go with William Jennings Bryan, who would be nominated three times and lose each time. In fact, with the exception of the Woodrow Wilson presidency, no Democrat would win the White House for the next 36 years.

For that matter, they didn't regain the majority in the House until the 1910 midterms, but they lost that majority six years later in spite of the fact that President Wilson was at the top of the ballot. It took the stock market crash of 1929 to restore Democrats to majority status in the House in the midterms of 1930.

That is one cautionary tale that emerges from this year's midterms. Another is the exaggerated importance given to the turnout. I know it is a popular excuse to use after a party has been slammed in the midterms, but it is misleading.

In 2006, when Democrats retook the majority in both chambers for the first time in 12 years, they treated it as a mandate for change. But roughly the same number of voters participated in 2006 as participated in 2014. Granted, there has been an increase in the overall population in those eight years so the share of registered voters who participated is different, but the overall numbers are the same.

Republicans, too, pointed to low turnout in 2006. My advice to them would be not to duplicate the Democrats' mistake. They believed their success was permanent — and it never is in politics.

It can last longer, though, if you lead.

Four Score and 70 Years Ago

---

The president's speech followed a two–hour address so
photographers could be forgiven for thinking they had
plenty of time to prepare. But Lincoln's speech was so
brief it was over before photographers could get ready.

---

"The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here."

Abraham Lincoln
Nov. 19, 1863

---

In my experience, days that have truly historic significance rarely begin with any clue that something special is going to happen.

Take Sept. 11, 2001, for example. When I think of that day, I think of how truly ordinary it was when I drove to work that morning. There was no hint that anything unusual was about to happen — until the radio mentioned an apparent airplane crash at the World Trade Center.

I'm not old enough to remember the day John F. Kennedy was shot, but I have read a lot about it, and the accounts I have read suggest that there was no indication that morning that anything was going to happen — at lunchtime or any other time.

Sometimes big events are anticipated, but nobody really knows when they will happen — like the fall of the Berlin wall or Richard Nixon's resignation.

Sometimes, of course, there is advance notice that something historic will happen at a certain time on a certain day. When I was a child, I followed the Apollo 11 moon landing — as did everyone, frankly — with great interest. And, if you followed their mission schedule, you knew when the astronauts were scheduled to land on the moon and take their first steps. There was no element of surprise, just the sensation that all the people in the country, if not the world, were holding their collective breath waiting for the Eagle to land or Neil Armstrong to take that giant leap for mankind.

Even in the annals of unexpectedly important events, the Gettysburg Address, which Abraham Lincoln delivered at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pa., 150 years ago today, holds a unique place in American history.

(Few speeches have begun as memorably: "Four score and seven years ago ...")

It was in that speech that Lincoln re–defined the objective of the Civil War. It began as an effort to keep the Union together. But, after Lincoln gave this speech, it was about abolishing slavery. That was what he meant when he spoke of a "new birth of freedom."

It had been the official policy of the Union since Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, but it became the focal point of the war effort after Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg.

As I wrote last summer on the 150th anniversary of the start of the battle, I remember when my classmates and I had to memorize the Gettysburg Address and deliver it in class. I took my turn at reciting the speech, just like everyone else, but I don't know if I gave much thought to the words or what they meant.

I don't remember it as some kind of epiphany. I didn't feel anything unique when I was called to the front of the room to deliver the speech. Well, my stomach was a little queasy ...

Heck, I was a teenager. I was nervous about having to stand in front of a room full of my peers and say anything. But I committed it to memory, and I recited it, just as everyone else did.

Years later, I could still recall all the words upon hearing a single sentence, even a single phrase, from the speech. And then the talk about a rebirth of freedom had more of an impact on me.

I realized that Lincoln was not talking about the past, about the sacrifices that the soldiers on both sides had made at Gettysburg. He had turned his attention to the future. Like spouses renewing their wedding vows and re–pledging themselves to each other, with a deeper understanding of what the commitment meant, Lincoln urged the people of his own time and the generations to come to periodically renew their commitment to freedom.

But Lincoln's actual words were "a new birth of freedom," and I interpret that to mean an expansion of freedom to those who had not experienced it — primarily the slaves. Lincoln had already issued the Emancipation Proclamation; the Gettysburg Address confirmed it as an objective of the war.

As I said before, that wasn't the objective when the war began. But it became one 150 years ago today.

---

---

Maybe that is the special quality of the Gettysburg Address. It had the power to move people at the time it was delivered — well, except for Lincoln — and it can have the same influence in a sort of delayed reaction, kind of like those time–release capsules you take when you're sick.

Carl Sandburg's biography of Lincoln reported that the president was not pleased with his speech — which was a rather last–minute assignment. Edward Everett of Massachusetts, one of the great American orators of the 19th century, was the featured speaker, and he spoke for two hours. Lincoln followed with his two–minute address.

"That speech won't scour," Lincoln told his bodyguard after he concluded and sat down. "It is a flat failure, and the people are disappointed."

To understand what Lincoln meant, it is necessary to understand something about the language of the farmers of Lincoln's boyhood. "When wet soil stuck to the mold board of a plow, they said it didn't 'scour,' " Sandburg explained.

Some of the newspapers of his day agreed with him.

"The cheek of every American must tingle with shame as he reads the silly, flat and dish–watery utterances of the man who has to be pointed out to intelligent foreigners as the president of the United States," wrote the Chicago Times.

(The Times no longer exists, but a Pennsylvania newspaper recently felt compelled to retract its 150–year–old negative review of the speech.)

But some did not.

The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, for example, wrote that few who read Lincoln's words would do so "without a moistening of the eye and a swelling of the heart."

Everett himself, in a letter to Lincoln, wrote, "I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as close to the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes."

"Lincoln had translated the story of his country and the meaning of the war into words and ideas accessible to every American," wrote historian Doris Kearns Goodwin.

"The child who would sleeplessly rework his father's yarns into tales comprehensible to any boy had forged for his country an ideal of its past, present and future that would be recited and memorized by students forever."

Was Gettysburg As Decisive As Historians Say?

---

---

"If I had had Stonewall Jackson at Gettysburg, I would have won that fight."

Robert E. Lee

---

I think I was in ninth grade when I was required, along with everyone else, to memorize the Gettysburg Address and recite it in my civics class.

I remember little about the day when I finally had to deliver that speech; what I do remember is that my mother endured hour upon hour of listening to me practice giving that speech at home. By the time we finished, Mom probably could have delivered the speech herself — and she probably would have done a lot better than I did.

(Of course, she probably had to memorize that speech when she was a teenager, too.)

Today is not the anniversary of that speech — nor is it the anniversary of the day I delivered it in class. Today is the sesquicentennial (the 150th) anniversary of the start of the three–day Battle of Gettysburg. The Union's victory at Gettysburg (with affiliated battles in the Pennsylvania campaign of 1863) is widely believed to have been the turning point in the Civil War.

That was the premise of an excellent mockumentary that I saw several years ago called "C.S.A." It was about the alternate history of America if the South had won the Civil War — presuming the South had prevailed at Gettysburg.

This was accomplished in the movie, as I recall, when the South persuaded Britain and France to support the Confederacy, seizing the moral high ground (before the Union could do so by making the conflict about a "rebirth of freedom," to quote Lincoln in the address he delivered at Gettysburg in November of 1863).

That didn't happen, of course. Britain and France did not intercede on the South's behalf.

In two days, it will be the 150th anniversary of George Pickett's ill–advised "Pickett's Charge" in a final attempt to reverse the outcome of the battle. Apparently, that anniversary is going to be a huge deal in Gettysburg.

---

---

The charge failed, as Gen. James Longstreet had predicted, and the South never really recovered from the setback.

Robert E. Lee believed that he would have won the battle if Stonewall Jackson — Lee's right arm — had been alive. But Jackson was killed about two months earlier in the Confederates' victory in the Battle of Chancellorsville.

Confederate losses at Chancellorsville had been heavy — not as heavy as the Union's but heavy nonetheless. And, as far as Lee was concerned, the loss of Jackson made it a costly win indeed. He still had Longstreet, of course, but Jackson had been his finest commander, capable of quickly and accurately assessing battlefield situations and identifying weaknesses that could be exploited.

In Lee's eyes, he was irreplaceable.

No one will ever know if the South could have won the Battle of Gettysburg if Jackson had still been alive — or if Jackson could have kept casualties down. But we do know that, without him, it was the bloodiest battle of the war with roughly 50,000 casualties combined.

And no one can say with any certainty that Gettysburg alone was as decisive as it is said to have been. It was, to be sure, the largest of the war, but, as a student of history, I have always felt that it was Gettysburg and the series of battles in and around Vicksburg, Miss., at the same time that combined to deal the South a setback from which it never recovered.

While Lee, Longstreet and Pickett were trying to turn things around in Pennsylvania, Lt. Gen. John Pemberton's Confederate troops were engaged in a nearly seven–week battle for Vicksburg with Ulysses S. Grant's Union troops. When the Confederates, who had been cut off from reinforcements and supplies for most of that time, finally surrendered on July 4, 1863, the Union controlled the Mississippi River and the supply route it provided.

In most ways, the value of the Gettysburg campaign was symbolic. It effectively ended the notion that Lee was invincible — an important psychological hurdle for the Union troops.

That doesn't mean the defeat at Gettysburg wasn't costly for the Confederates in a very real sense. The number of casualties alone was staggering for the Southern cause.

But the loss of vital supply lines at Vicksburg had a very real impact on the daily lives of all Confederates. Strategically, I have to think Vicksburg was the more meaningful victory.

Those two Union triumphs demonstrated that the Union had deeper pockets when it came to both personnel and firepower and that it was far better equipped for a long–term engagement.

The war went on for nearly two more years, but the South never mounted an offensive attack again. All its subsequent military moves were defensive in nature.

When I was a child, my family frequently planned summer vacation road trips that took us to Civil War battlefields, and I remember walking around the grounds, observing the statues that had been erected in memory of the fallen and touring the museums that were often on the sites.

There probably wasn't anything special about the Gettysburg battlefield when we were there. It was like most of the others we had seen. What was different was what it represented in the story of the Civil War, the reputation it has for being a game changer.

Its place in American history may also account for all the tales of ghost sightings in the area.

---

---

One of the more persistent of such stories concerns Devil's Den, a boulder–strewn ridge south of Gettysburg that was the scene of some of the most intense fighting of the battle.

For me, Devil's Den has always been one of the most fascinating parts of the three–day battle of Gettysburg. That dates back to the first time I heard about it — when I was a kid.

I was probably 8 or 9 when my family visited the Gettysburg battlefield, and Devil's Den was like an outdoor playground. There were boulders to climb — the same ones from which Union snipers picked off Confederate soldiers down below. There were caves. Some of the boulders and caves were restricted, probably for safety reasons, but there were many others that were not.

I'm sure it was a lot more fun for my brother (who is three years younger than I) and me than it was for the Confederates who tried to take it 150 years ago.

Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood (for whom Fort Hood in Texas is named) was assigned by Lee to assault Devil's Den. Hood didn't like the assignment and requested a different one that he believed had a greater chance of success, but he was turned down repeatedly.

Hood's assault began in the late afternoon of July 2, but battlefield factors (probably the 19th–century equivalent of the "fog of war") diverted his remaining troops from their intended course, and they wound up joining other Confederate forces in their assault on Little Round Top.

Even 150 years later, people try to rationalize the Battle for Little Round Top. Michael Rubinkam of the Associated Press writes of topographic evidence that suggests Lee didn't realize how many Union troops there were on that ridge.

Little Round Top is still regarded as the crucial defensive effort for the Union that day. Col. Joshua Chamberlain of Maine directed his troops, who were low on ammunition, to mount a downhill bayonet charge that completely caught the Confederates off guard.

A day of glory for Chamberlain was a day of loss for Hood, who not only lost the conflict but the use of his left arm as well.

Hood was a career soldier with a reputation for courage and a fighting spirit, but some said those qualities bordered on a careless disregard for consequences. Attacking Devil's Den had not been his choice, but he was determined to give it the best he and his men had.

A college professor by training, Chamberlain was praised and promoted for his daring at Little Round Top. After the war, he returned to Maine where, in part because of his exploits, he was elected governor four times and served as teacher and president at his alma mater, Bowdoin College.

What a difference a day made in the lives of those two men — and, perhaps, in the life of a nation.

Beneath the Dignity of a Great Nation

---

US News
|
Weird News
|
More ABC News Videos

---

I really don't know — as I have said here before — when I developed my personal fascination with history, especially American history.

But whenever I did, I certainly reached the conclusion at roughly the same time that America was a great nation — or, at least, a great idea for a nation.

It isn't a perfect nation, but it has always aspired to be one. When its faults have been brought to the attention of its people as a whole, sincere efforts have usually been made to correct them. And I have always drawn inspiration from that.

There have been complaints, from time to time. The complaints are not always warranted, but sometimes they are — the FEMA foot–dragging after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans eight years ago comes to mind — but, for the most part, this nation and its leaders have honestly striven to keep promises to the people.

Again, there are exceptions to that, one of which has been on obvious public display in the last few months.

Barack Obama came here to Dallas in April to participate in the opening of the library dedicated to the presidency of his immediate predecessor. When that was over, he and his entourage traveled roughly 70 miles southwest of here to the town of West, Texas, which is near Waco, to mourn the deaths and injuries that were suffered in an explosion at a fertilizer plant.

(The plant, it is always worth mentioning, produced the kind of fertilizer that was used to blow up the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995.)

Lots of people think it is a constitutional duty of the president to mourn with and to comfort Americans who have been affected by a disaster, but it isn't. You won't find a single word about it in the Constitution or its amendments. It's one of those things that has evolved over time.

"Though the non–administrative capacities of the commander–in–chief were not set out in the Constitution," wrote Dan Fastenberg in TIME two years ago, "the tradition of forging an intimate relationship with the American people goes all the way back to George Washington."

President Lincoln spoke at the dedication of the cemetery in Gettysburg, producing perhaps his most memorable speech as president. President Harding and two of his predecessors attended the dedication of Arlington National Cemetery.

In my lifetime, I can recall a few instances of presidential participation in moments of great sorrow. Ronald Reagan appeared at a ceremony honoring the astronauts who were lost in the Challenger explosion, greeted the family members, embraced some of them. Bill Clinton came to Oklahoma City (when I was living in nearby Norman) to share the grief over the bombing of the federal building there.

Less than a year into his presidency, George W. Bush comforted a grieving nation after the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Obama has attempted to comfort Americans on several occasions since becoming president — at Fort Hood following the 2009 shootings, in Arizona following the shootings in 2011, in Boston earlier this year after the explosions at the annual marathon there.

The trip to West wasn't anything unusual.

But it is worth remembering the words he spoke that day — his pledge that the federal government would be there to help the people of that small town long after the attention it was receiving at the time had disappeared — in light of the decision by FEMA to deny additional funds to help West's recovery.

Now FEMA says it won't provide additional funds to the people of that small town.

FEMA may well be correct when it says that the death and destruction "is not of the severity and magnitude that warrants a major disaster declaration."

But the fact is that, when the president was here in April, he made a promise to the people of West. He didn't carry Texas in either of his presidential elections, but my memory is that West was glad he came to the memorial service to share the town's grief and grateful for his promise of continued support even when no one was paying attention anymore.

Can they be blamed for feeling abandoned by their government now?

When the president makes a promise to a constituency, that is a solemn oath — not all that different from the oath Obama has taken twice except that he didn't place his left hand on the Bible when he took it. A president's word is his bond with the people, and all the agencies in the government that are required to fulfill his promise are honor bound to do so.

Failing to do so is far beneath the dignity of a great nation.

Thoughts on Washington's Actual Birthday

---

---

Today is George Washington's real birthday — not the manufactured Presidents Day that serves as the commemoration for Washington and Abraham Lincoln, both of whom were born in February but neither of whom was born on Presidents Day.

When I was a little boy in elementary school, the practice was to recognize each president on his birthday. My teachers would decorate one bulletin board with images of Washington and another with images of Lincoln, and they would talk about each president on the appropriate day.

Then, at some point, it was decided that it was better to honor both presidents with a single day.

I don't know how or why it was decided that would be better — or for whom. Maybe Lincoln's actual birthday distracted too much from Valentine's Day two days later. More likely, it interfered with Valentine's Day sales.

Whatever the reason for it, that is how things were done when I was a little boy. And then that is what changed.

A lot of other things have changed over the years. Whether they are connected is not necessarily for me to say but rather for others to decide for themselves.

But it seems to me that the clear theme is a greater disregard for history than at any other time in my life.

That is certainly saying something. After all, history was never a popular subject when I was in school.

I'm not really sure how I developed my interest in history, actually. Seems I've always had it, and it distresses me to see the lack of respect for the lessons of history.

After all, as George Santayana wrote, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." And we humans seem determined never to learn from the past.

The ongoing debate over guns is a good example of that. Proponents of what is popularly known as gun control like to speak about it in terms of need — i.e., a hunter doesn't need a certain number of bullets to kill a duck or a deer.

I never believed the Bill of Rights was about needs — other than the fact that the Founding Fathers believed that Americans needed to have their rights spelled out in writing.

In the 18th century, the right to defend yourself and your freedom against all enemies, foreign and domestic, was very important to the men who had just fought a revolutionary war against a tyrannical ruler.

Although I have done other things in my life, at heart I am — and always will be — a journalist. As such, I value things like freedom of speech and freedom of the press, which were just as important to the Founding Fathers as the right of self–defense. So was freedom of religion. And a lot of other things.

We don't speak of things like the right to a trial by a jury of one's peers as needs. We speak of such things as rights — which are, I suppose, special kinds of needs.

Free men do need to have rights that are constant and respected. And such rights cannot be doled out as gifts from the government to the masses. They aren't the government's to give — or take — away.

The Founding Fathers essentially told the generations to come that, if they lived on this land, they had all the rights (as well as the responsibilities) that come with freedom.

(And over the years, by the way, the procedure for someone from another country to become an American citizen has evolved and been spelled out clearly. Nothing has been hidden from potential citizens. There are no surprises, and all are welcome — but that is not unconditional.

(By definition, anyone who attempts to enter the United States illegally is not an immigrant. That person is an alien.)

If the government can restrict a single right that is mentioned in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, what is to prevent it from restricting other rights?

What is to keep the government from shutting down news outlets that have been critical of its performance? Or attempting to intimidate citizens to keep them from speaking out?

What is to keep the government from telling you which religious institution, if any, you may attend?

What is to keep the government from conducting all legal proceedings in private, presided over by judges who have made up their minds before hearing a single witness?

Well, that's the main problem I have with the gun control debate.

A lesser — but not inconsequential — issue I have with it is the fact that, typically, when such a tragedy occurs (whether it involves guns, public or private health and safety measures or whatever), the legislation that is usually proposed is aimed at dealing with some aspect that made the tragedy possible.

In the case of the Newtown shootings, none of the proposals I have read would have prevented that tragedy from happening.

That's frustrating, I know. I guess it's human nature — or a free human's nature — to believe there is a quick and ready solution to all of life's problems.

In this case, I have yet to find one.

The guns were purchased legally by a middle–aged woman who most likely was subjected to background checks prior to purchase. The weapons were used by her son, who had not paid for them, who had in fact killed his mother to obtain them.

They were not automatic weapons, which are the kind of weapons that spray many bullets with a single pull of the trigger. Such weapons have been strictly regulated — and deservedly so — for decades.

They were semiautomatic weapons — handguns like the ones tens of millions of Americans own to protect themselves and their families. Those Americans don't necessarily go hunting for sport — neither did the Founding Fathers, for that matter, although many, if not all, hunted for food.

That was another practical application of firearms for people of the 18th century — but it was also practical to say that free citizens had the right to defend themselves against any enemies.

I can only wonder what Washington would think of this debate.

Fourth-Best President Ever?

---

---

"I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president — with the possible exceptions of Johnson, FDR and Lincoln — just in terms of what we've gotten done in modern history."

Barack Obama
60 Minutes interview

---

My, someone certainly has a high opinion of himself and his place in American history.

I didn't watch the president's recent interview on CBS' 60 Minutes, but, apparently, in a segment that was not aired originally, he claimed that his administration's "legislative and foreign policy accomplishments" were as good or better than any other "with the possible exceptions of Johnson, FDR and Lincoln."

As I have said here before, I'm something of an amateur historian. I minored in history when I was in college, and I have always had an interest in the American presidency and American politics in general.

I'm also a journalist. That was my major in college, and it is the subject I am teaching now. I was trained to write and to think in Associated Press style, which constantly strives for clarity and consistency. So, when a president compares his presidency to "Johnson, FDR and Lincoln," my question is, "Which Johnson?"

The statement, you see, is imprecise. There have been two presidents named Johnson. I'm pretty sure I know which one Obama meant — Lyndon, who succeeded John Kennedy nearly 50 years ago, not Andrew, who succeeded Lincoln nearly 150 years ago.

Until the Clinton presidency, Andrew Johnson was the only president to face an impeachment trial in the Senate — where he was acquitted by a single vote. He chose not to seek a full term on his own in 1868.

A Siena College survey that was released in July 2010 rated Andrew Johnson as one of the five worst presidents in American history.

No, I'm quite sure Barack Obama did not mean to compare himself to that President Johnson. His image has undergone some changes in a century and a half, but, in recent years, he has been remembered as a "white supremacist."

I'm convinced the first black president in American history does not want to be remembered as comparable to Andrew Johnson.

Lyndon Johnson, on the other hand, is almost a Lincoln–like figure for American blacks — and he was responsible for the most advancements — in housing, education, employment opportunities, voting rights, in fact rights in general — for blacks and all other underprivileged Americans.

But LBJ, as I wrote about a month ago, had the misfortune of being a president who wanted to do great things domestically (which he did) but served at a time when foreign affairs dominated.

I wrote that Obama appears likely to turn out to be LBJ in reverse — a president who first ran for the presidency because he wanted to end a war and wound up being undone by his inability to tame the economy.

In addition to teaching journalism, I have also been teaching basic writing, and one of the things I try to impress on my students is the importance of using the right word to express the right thought.

That isn't an easy thing for most people — even people who earn their livings (or who have earned their livings) as writers struggle at times to find the right word. I know I do. Most of the time, I keep a thesaurus within arm's reach whenever I sit down to write — and there are still times when I choose the wrong word.

Nor is it easy to select the right word when one is being interviewed without some notes or a TelePrompTer to help. Consequently, I do have some sympathy for Obama. I have seen many people "misspeak" (to use a word that was particularly popular during the Watergate days) in such a setting.

But this wasn't the first time Obama has been interviewed by someone. Far from it. He is no novice when it comes to being interviewed. He just has a tendency to stick his foot in his mouth when he does.

When Obama suggests that his presidency is the best in history "with the possible exceptions of Johnson, FDR and Lincoln," I really have to marvel at his use of the word "possible" and what it implies.

In hindsight, Obama himself might admit that it wasn't the most prudent word choice he could have made, but I believe it speaks volumes about what he really thinks of himself and his presidency.

I think he really does believe his presidency, in its first two years, accomplished more than any other president — but he will allow for the possibility that LBJ, FDR and Lincoln accomplished more.

Lincoln is kind of a no–brainer. The Siena survey listed him third, and most surveys rank Lincoln in the top three.

FDR was the top–rated president in Siena's survey, which is also kind of a no–brainer. The only president to be elected four times, he guided the country through its worst economic crisis ever and is credited with leading it through World War II even though he died a few weeks before hostilities ended in Europe.

But Siena's survey did not rank LBJ in its Top 10. Apparently, Obama holds him in much higher esteem than most historians — at least the ones who were surveyed.

They ranked Theodore Roosevelt second. Roosevelt is remembered for several achievements — trust busting, conservation, labor laws, public health and safety laws — that continue to influence American life.

T.R. was the first American to receive the Nobel Prize — but, unlike Obama, he was rewarded for an actual achievement (negotiating the resolution of the Russo–Japanese War), not merely for his potential. By his omission from Obama's statement, though, it appears the president thinks his accomplishments in his first two years were greater than Roosevelt's.

The survey listed George Washington as the fourth–best president, and that should be a no–brainer, too. He is remembered as the father of the country, its first president. Thanks to his selflessness (he declined the salary that was offered to him, preferring not to tarnish, in any way, his image as a public servant) and his insistence that the leader of the new country should not be a monarch, we call our presidents "Mr. President," not "Your Highness."

It set the tone for the last 200 years, but I can only conclude that Obama also believes his contributions to American life in his first two years as president are greater than Washington's.

The Siena survey ranked Thomas Jefferson fifth. Once again, that should be a no–brainer, shouldn't it? Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, and there are few documents in recorded history that have had the kind of influence on a culture that it has had.

Jefferson also was responsible for the Louisiana Purchase, which doubled the size of the United States at that time — and still represents roughly one–third of its land mass.

But, apparently, Obama feels his accomplishments in his first two years exceeded Jefferson's.

Sixth in Siena's survey was Jefferson's successor, James Madison. Before becoming president, he was the "Father of the Constitution." As president, he sought to continue Jefferson's policies, but he may be largely remembered for the crumbling of U.S.–British relations and the War of 1812, during which the White House, the Capitol and many other public buildings were burned.

Seventh in the rankings was Madison's successor, James Monroe, whose signature achievement probably was the Monroe Doctrine, which established the Western Hemisphere as the United States' sphere of influence and served notice to Europe that any attempt by any of its nations to interfere would be seen as an act of aggression and treated appropriately.

Ironically, America has not re–elected three consecutive presidents since Monroe's re–election in 1820. If Obama wins a second term next year, he would match Monroe's electoral achievement — but, apparently, he believes he has already bested Monroe as a president.

Siena's eighth–ranked president was Woodrow Wilson, a leader of the progressive movement. A Wilson biographer, John M. Cooper, wrote that Wilson's record of legislative achievement, which included child labor reform, the Federal Trade Commission Act and the Federal Farm Loan Act — was unmatched by any other president except FDR, and his advocacy of women's suffrage helped lead to the ratification of the 19th Amendment.

Perhaps it is subliminally, but Obama seems to think that what he did as president in 2009 and 2010 is greater than what Wilson achieved nearly a century earlier.

Ninth on the list was Harry Truman, whose low point in his approval ratings (22) was unmatched by any president until Obama's immediate predecessor, George W. Bush.

But that doesn't tell the whole story of Truman's presidency. From the day he succeeded FDR in April 1945 until he won the 1948 election, Truman did great things in spite of the fact that he had been virtually ignored by Roosevelt in his 82 days as vice president.

He knew nothing of the Manhattan Project, which gave him the weapon that he used to bring the war in the Pacific to a quick conclusion. The attitudes about his use of nuclear weapons in 1945 have changed over the years, but at the time and for years thereafter, it was believed to have saved hundreds of thousands who, it was said, would have perished in a fight–to–the–death invasion of Japan.

He had to deal with the transition from a wartime economy to a peacetime one, which always seems to be uneasy but was especially so after World War II. There were several economic conflicts that had gone unaddressed during the war years but boiled over when the war ended; Truman managed to deal with them all.

He was an advocate of the "Fair Deal," national health insurance and civil rights.

I would guess that Obama has quite a bit of respect for what Truman did as president — so much that he is clearly trying to duplicate Truman's "upset" victory in his re–election campaign in 1948. Truman won a full term largely by running against a "do–nothing Congress," and that seems to be Obama's strategy as well.

For that to work, you need a solid record of achievement to contrast with Congress'. Obama clearly believes he does, and so do his adoring supporters, but, judging from presidential approval ratings, millions are not convinced.

They are not convinced for much the same reason that the people of the late 1960s were not convinced about LBJ. They felt out of sync with their president's priorities. He was focused on domestic issues, which were (and are) important, but they were more concerned about the meat grinder of Vietnam.

In modern times, Obama's highest approval ratings have been for his handling of foreign affairs — when Americans are hurting at home, struggling to keep a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs. They need jobs.

The Siena survey ranked Dwight Eisenhower 10th. Eisenhower earned Americans' respect when he led the Allies to victory over the Axis powers in World War II, and he presided over a country that was at peace in the world but suffering from some postwar growing pains in the 1950s.

His most lasting legacy, I suppose, is the interstate highway system — and his warning, in the final days of his presidency, against the growing influence of the "military–industrial complex."

Both continue to influence American life, but Obama thinks his achievements are equal to or greater than Eisenhower's.

Maybe they are, but that will be up to the voters to decide next year.