A fun picture related to Monday's class

The Presidency in the Early 20th Century

Federalist 8:  "It is of the nature of war to increase the executive at the expense of the legislative authority."

Tocqueville, Democracy in America: "If the Union’s existence were constantly menaced, and if its great interests were continually interwoven with those of other powerful nations, one would see the prestige of the executive growing, because of what was expected from it and of what it did."

Darth Sidious: "We stand on the threshold of a new beginning. In order to ensure our security and continuing stability, the Republic will be reorganized into the first Galactic Empire, for a safe and secure society which I assure you, will last for ten thousand years. An empire that will continue to be ruled by this august body, and a sovereign ruler chosen for life... an empire ruled by the majority... ruled by a new constitution..."

THREE VIEWS OF PRESIDENTIAL POWER

Wilson and presidential power in wartime (Milkis 254-255);

• American Protective League
• Committee on Public Information
• Espionage Act of 1917
• Sedition Act of 1918
• The Palmer Raids

Woodrow Wilson's stroke.

From Wilson's History of the American People, vol. 3.

Intertitles from The Birth of a Nation

The Harding letters and a recent news story about them

The underrated Calvin Coolidge made the first presidential speech on sound film:



Do you think Hoover was a great media president?

To and From the Civil War

Civil War timeline

• Lincoln letter to Albert Hodges on presidential prerogative
• Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and second inaugural

Between 1876 and 1892, no president won a majority of the popular vote:

1876 Hayes.......... 48.0*
1880 Garfield........48.3
1884 Cleveland.....48.5
1888 Harrison.......47.8*
1892 Cleveland.....46.1

*Won fewer popular votes than his main opponent.

The Senate Still Reads Washington's Farewell Addres

As the first president of the United States, George Washington yielded immense power to set precedents for his successors. In his Farewell Address, he emphasized his beliefs about certain issues still plaguing the U.S. today: the preservation of the union, the danger of factions, religion and morality, and America's role in the world. For a deeper discussion of those points, click here.


Over two hundred years later, the Senate is still looking to Washington for advice and encouragement, as supported by their annual tradition of reading his Farewell Address. Each year one senator is selected to read the address out loud, and the reading is followed by the writing of small notes which are maintained by the secretary of the Senate.


What this article pointed out was the hypocrisy of this practice: a very bipartisan legislature championing the ideas of a man who condemned political factions, long term foreign alliances, and the division of American unity.

Early 19th Century Presidency

Writing

Jefferson inaugural:



The drunk version is fun and broadly true -- but it was a low-level bureaucrat, not Mrs. Madison, who saved the Declaration.


Andrew Jackson was bat-guano crazy.



"I should have hit him," said Jackson after the duel, "had he shot me through the brain."

Jackson and the Bank Veto






  Territorial expansion

First Assignment, Fall 2014

Pick one of the following:

1. Ask any American over the age of forty to describe the first presidential event that he or she can clearly remember (e.g., FDR’s Pearl Harbor speech, the JFK assassination). Then “go back in time” to contemporary press reports and documents. How did the event look then? What accounts for differences between memory and the printed record? 
2. Find a recent (2013-2014) speech that invokes Washington, Lincoln, FDR, or JFK in order to make points about current politics. Why does the speaker or writer use this comparison? Is it historically accurate? How well does it apply to current politics? 
3. Pick any president between Washington and Bush 43. If Milkis and Nelson were to give four more manuscript pages to that president, what should they say? That is, what key aspects of this presidency did they downplay or overlook?

• Whichever essay you choose, do research to document your claims. Do not write from the top of your head. 
• Essays should be typed, double-spaced, and no more than four pages long. I will not read past the fourth page. 
• Cite your sources with endnotes, which should be in a standard style (e.g., Turabian or Chicago Manual of Style). Endnote pages do not count against the page limit. 
• Watch your spelling, grammar, diction, and punctuation. Errors will count against you. 
• Turn in essays to the class Sakai dropbox by 11:59 PM, Monday, September 29. Late essays will drop a gradepoint for one day’s lateness, a full letter grade after that. I will grant no extensions except for illness or emergency.

The Early Presidency

Washington Inauguration


Presidential power:  Neutrality, Pacificus and Helvidius

The Whiskey Rebellion:

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Farewell Address:

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice ? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

... 

Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people under an efficient government. the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.

Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice?

It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense. But, in my opinion, it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them.

The Election of 1800


The "bald, blind" Adams
Jefferson and the "pike and halbert"


For more on Washington, see a lecture by Yale historian Joanne Freeman (Pomona `84):