Presidential Rankings - The Great Ones

I have long disagreed with the regular presidential rankings that are published every few years.  Invariably, the most recent Republicans are at the very bottom and the most recent Democrats rank very highly.  No bias there.  A couple of weeks ago, I came across one by Robert Graboyes that did not follow the usual rankings.  The presidents are separated into quintiles: highly positive, somewhat positive, neutral, somewhat negative, and highly negative.  There is a 6th category for those who died so early in office that they don't merit ranking.  Let's start with the greats (i.e., highly positive):

Graboyes defines highly positive as leaving "at least one blockbuster accomplishment that swamps any negatives."

George Washington:  He was the first president and established what the office would be.  Everything he did became a precedent, including his resignation after 2 terms.  He defined the presidency.

Thomas Jefferson: The third president bought Louisianna from Napoleon, dramatically expanding the United States.  Where most nations were paying protection to the Tripolitan pirates, Jefferson sent the Marines.

James Monroe: Other than Washington, Monroe is the only president to run unopposed for re-election.  His time in office was known as the Era of Good Feelings.  He announced the Monroe Doctrine, which declared the Western Hemisphere as off-limits to European powers.

James Knox Polk: Nearly doubled the size of the United States and established treasury autonomy.  As a longtime Polk fan, it pleases me greatly that he was placed in the highly positive group.  This surely impacts my view of his overall picks.

Abraham Lincoln:  He saved the Union.  Enough said.

Theodore Roosevelt: He strengthened the presidency and established America as a superpower.  Indeed, he is the first US president to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt: He led the allies to victory.

Harry Truman: He began the containment of Communism.

Ronald Reagan: He turned the economy around from the Ford/Carter mess, starting a 25-year economic boom.  More importantly, his strategy ended the Soviets without a war.

Generally, this is a good list.  I will quibble about FDR, whose actions regarding the Great Depression and threats of packing the Supreme Court should cost him a great spot.  However, FDR has been listed as one of the three greats - with Washington and Lincoln - in almost every list.  If Mount Rushmore had been carved in the 50s or later rather than the 20s and 30s, FDR would be on it.

Three Time Loser: The Great Compromiser

Discouraged by the Tyler administration, Henry Clay nevertheless saw opportunity coming in 1844.  Though Tyler wanted to be re-elected, no party wanted him.  He had left the Democratic Party and betrayed the Whig Party.  It looked like Martin Van Buren would be the Democratic nominee in 1844 and Clay the Whig.  Clay liked his chances.  Despite the ongoing ruckus about annexing Texas, neither Van Buren nor Clay were in favor of that.  It would be a policy argument, the American System vs. Jacksonian Democracy.  Once again, events turned against Clay.

Though Van Buren received the majority of the votes for the nomination at the Democratic Convention, he could not secure the two-third required.  Nor could any of the other initial contenders.  Then, someone suggested James Knox Polk.  Polk, the first dark horse candidate, was selected on the 9th ballot.  Unlike Van Buren, Polk favored the annexation of Texas.  President Tyler, who was running an independent campaign that supported annexation, dropped out of the race in favor of Polk.  The election now became a referendum on the Texas question and the country voted for annexation.  Henry Clay was now a three-time loser for the presidency.  Even so, he was not yet done.

Clay had taken Mexico at its word that a war would commence if Texas was annexed.  Not only would it lead to war with Mexico, but it would exacerbate the slavery issue.  Despite being a slave owner, Clay viewed slavery as morally wrong and had argued for gradual emancipation.  This half-measure on his part was appreciated by neither the abolitionist of the North nor the slave owners of the South.  However, it did demonstrate why he was called the Great Compromiser.  Indeed, he had a long track record of shepherding compromises through Congress.

The Missouri Compromise (1820) allowed Missouri to join the Union as a slave state, but offset that by admitting Maine as a free state.  Further, it set a boundary between slave and free states.  It was kicking the can down the road but quelled the hot tempers of the moment.

The Nullification Crisis (1832) saw South Carolina claiming a right to ignore Federal Tariffs.  President Jackson proposed invading South Carolina if that should happen.  Jackson's vice president, John C. Calhoun, resigned during the growing divide; he was a South Carolinian and one of the strongest voices for nullification.  Clay, despite his long rivalry with Jackson, sided against the Nullifiers.  He did not like Jackson's solution of a Force Bill and military invasion.  Instead, he guided the passage of a reduction in the tariff, which mollified the Nullifiers.  The hostilities subsided and Clay was once again key in maintaining domestic tranquility.

The Compromise of 1850 resolved what to do with the vast territory acquired in the Mexican-American War.  Where President Taylor was in favor of adding California and New Mexico as free states, the South was strongly opposed to such a move.  Once again, Clay assembled legislation that offered something for everyone, but also a bitter cost.  California could be a free state but the fugitive slave laws would be strengthened.  Texas would lose much of its claimed territory in exchange for debt relief.  New Mexico would be a territory, not a state.  Taylor's untimely death and replacement by Millard Filmore saw the compromised signed into law.

In 1848, Clay had tried a final run for the presidency, but General Zachary Taylor won the Whig nomination.  Yes, as in 1840, Clay lost the nomination to a general who died in office.  He had sought the presidency in 1824, 1832, 1840, 1844, and 1848.  Though he never made it to the presidency, he is a hugely consequential American.  Clay died in 1852 and became the first person to lie in state in the Capitol rotunda.

When the Party Cracked

In 1848, President Polk could claim success on all four of his campaign promises.  He had reduced tariffs, reestablished an independent treasury, settled the Oregon boundary with Great Britain, and acquired California from Mexico.  Promises made and promises delivered.  This should have been a boon to his party.  Instead, his success broke his party.  That vast stretch of land was now up for grabs between the free states and the slave states.  Many northern Democrats weren't keen on the extension of slavery.  These voters split from the Democratic Party to join the Free Soil Party.  Former President Martin Van Buren (1837-1841) was chosen as the presidential nominee and Charles Francis Adams - son of President John Quincy Adams and grandson of President John Adams - as the VP nominee.  Though the Free Soil Party didn't earn a single electoral vote, it did manage to accumulate 10% of the popular vote.  The Free Soil Party out-performed the Democrats in three states.

Of course, Vermont and Massachusetts had voted for Henry Clay (Whig) in 1844, so Van Buren did little damage to the Democrats there. The important state was New York with 36 electoral votes.  In 1844, President Polk carried the state by a margin of 5,100 votes.  Native New Yorker Van Buren took all those votes and much more.  General Taylor, the Whig candidate, defeated Lewis Cass by an electoral vote of 163 to 127.  If Cass had carried New York, that would have been exactly reversed.  Van Buren knew full well that he had no chance of winning and that he was almost certainly handing the presidency to the Whigs, but he had moved toward the abolitionist camp over the years.

This was the second - and final - time that the Whigs won the presidency.  Like the previous time, the president died during his term: Harrison had only served a month as president and Taylor died after 16 months.  By the next presidential election, it was the Whig Party that unraveled.  By the mid 1850s, the disaffected Democrats, the Free Soil Party, the American Party, and various other splinter groups formed the Republican Party.

The War with Mexico, Volume II

In the second volume of The War with Mexico, Justin H Smith opens with a discussion of Mexican politics.  The country had been ill-managed since its founding and had succeeded in chasing its entrepreneurial, wealth-generating class back to Spain.  The country had been stripped of most wealth, with the exception of the Catholic Church.  Unable to secure loans thanks to its long history of financial mismanagement, the government looked to plunder the church.

Meanwhile, Winfield Scott landed his army virtually unopposed on the beaches south of Veracruz.  Over the next 7 months, Scott's relatively small army trekked across Mexico in a path not unlike Hernan Cortes.  Veracruz was pounded into submission with artillery by early March.  Santa Anna was once again sent retreating to Mexico City after the Battle of Cerro Gordo in April.  Though some of his generals argued for an immediate assault into the capitol, Scott wanted more troops, supplies, and money.  The campaign stalled until August when he resumed his march to Mexico City and captured it.

The differing viewpoints of the Americans and the Mexicans is one of the more interesting parts of the book.  Where the Americans would willingly halt after a victory to discuss peace, the Mexicans - especially Santa Anna - viewed this as just an opportunity to rebuild his shattered army and somehow appropriate more money to take another crack at defeating the Americans.  Nicholas Trist, the plenipotentiary minister for the United States, had many conferences during the lulls in fighting and nothing ever emerged.  It was not until the Americans captured and occupied Mexico City and Santa Anna was forced to flee the country that real peace talks could take place.

Where the first chapter discussed politics in Mexico City, the final chapters look at the politics of Washington, from financing the war to lobbying for or against it, to international relations regarding it.  The overwhelming victory by American forces was in spite of, rather than thanks to, the machinations of DC.  Polk had wanted an inexpensive war but the costs grew rapidly and the Congress was not eager to provide funding, thus explaining Scott's halting advance.  Arguments about how much of Mexico to annex ran the gamut from virtually nothing to all of Mexico.  Polk himself was leaning toward a much larger chunk than was ultimately secured if only to justify the expense.  However, Trist's unauthorized treaty - though not to Polk's liking - was an opportunity to end the war as soon as possible.  As for international relations, Mexico had not won itself the allies it had expected because it had so often reneged on loans and harassed foreign merchants.  The US earned grudging respect for winning what many - even Lord Wellington! - thought was an unwinnable campaign.

Of particular note, Smith paints a picture that is mostly approving of the US arguments for the war.  The US invasion of the 1840s for unpaid debts was not unique. France invaded during the Pastry War of 1838 and again during the Franco-Mexican War (1861-1867), which initially saw Great Britain and Spain as French allies.  Smith argues that Mexico brought most of its troubles upon itself.

The final chapters are dreary reading.  Where the marches of Taylor and Scott offered a strong narrative that drew the reader along, the jump among various politicians and their disparate goals was often hard to follow and not very interesting.  However, the footnoting is spectacular and so expansive as to make one wonder how one man could have gone through so much material for this work.  Of course, he won the Pulitzer Prize for The War with Mexico.

Recommended.

The War with Mexico, Volume I

In 1919, Justin Smith published his Pulitzer Prize winning The War with Mexico.  Volume I covers the various causes of the war and then the various battles up to Buena Vista (February 22-23, 1847). A thoroughly researched book, Smith offers some well-supported arguments.  He opens by detailing event in Mexico from the war with Spain and the various efforts at self-government in the wake of independence. Of particular note, Mexico exiled many Gachupines, people from Spain.  This does not seem unusual in the wake of a war of independence from Spain but the Gachupines were the entreprenuer and educated class.  Ejecting them left the economy crippled.  Soon, other foreigners (e.g., British, French, American, etc.) moved in to mine the resources of Mexico.  The Mexican government sailed from one disaster to the next, often suffering the latest revolution that brought a new 'president' to power.  The judiciary ruled in favor of whomever offered the greater bribes.  This situation did not sit well with foreign powers who saw citizen's stripped of their property or imprisoned on trumped up charges.  In 1838, France invaded to settle financial disputes; this was the Pastry War where Santa Anna lost his leg in battle.  Like the other countries, the United States had suffered similar troubles with Mexico, but there was the counterbalancing issue of Texas.

One of the most interesting things that Smith details is the Texas border.  In the Adams-Onis Treaty (1819), Spain surrendered Florida and claims to Oregon in order to secure its claim to Texas.  In the wake of the Louisiana Purchase (1803), the US held that the Rio Grande was the border while Spain argued that the Calcasieu River was the border.  Thanks to the treaty, the border became the Sabine.  Therefore, the treaty recognized the Province of Tejas as extending from the Sabine to the Rio Grande.  When Texas became independent, this definition was the default.  However, Mexico argued both that the Nueces was the border of Tejas and that Tejas was still a province of Mexico.  Nine years of independence tended to nix the later argument and US prior claims to Tejas disputed the former.  As Mexico clearly could not govern the region, the US wanted to settle outstanding claims.  The US would pay any claims that American citizens had against Mexico and also pay for the land.  Mexico declined.

Polk had set out to determine both the northern border with Canada and the southern border with Mexico in his term.  With England, he entered into brinksmanship to get the border set at the 49th parallel.  A deal was struck.  He used virtually the same tactic with Mexico and there was war.  Where England looked at the issue on the basis of economic interest, Mexico had viewed it with national pride.  Had Mexico worked with the same thought process as England, there would have been no war.  Though Santa Anna had boasted that he would march on Washington if there was war, this was nonsense.  He had been unable to subdue Texas.  However, Mexico was compared to Spain during the Napoleonic Era.  The US would be unable to win in much the same way that France found Spain to be a quagmire.  Mexico could afford continual defeats and still not lose the war.  Eventually, a new president would be elected in the United States, anti-war sentiment would grow, and the border would be settled where Mexico wanted it.

The book concludes with the battle which Santa Anna pinned his hopes upon: Buena Vista.  He had assembled an army vastly larger than Taylor's.  He very nearly succeeded.  The battle was a draw.  Luckily for Taylor, a draw credits the defender.  Santa Anna made haste to face Winfield Scott's invasion, telling a tale of victory as he rode far ahead of his retreating army.  He had American banners and canon as symbols of his success.

Outstanding book with footnotes galore.  Highly recommended.

My Newest Book

 

Here is the brief biography I wrote for my college term paper at Iowa Western Community College in 1993.  I've also included reviews of books, movies, and such that cover the Antebellum Era.  It is only available via Kindle at this point; not long enough to make a paperback.