President’s Day

President Abraham Lincoln, The Moral Politician

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In honor of Presidents’ Day weekend and African-American History Month, I am revisiting this post from last year on Abraham Lincoln.

Until the 1850s Abraham Lincoln was a frustrated one-term congressman who had decided to focus on his law practice. Lincoln was drawn into politics again during the Kanas Nebraska Act controversy. While he accepted slavery where it existed, he couldn’t abide its expansion into new territories.

He was not in favor of giving blacks full citizenship, however. In 1840 he criticized Martin Van Buren for voting to enfranchise blacks, and he did not support giving blacks the vote in his bid for the U.S. Senate against Stephen Douglas. He believed that blacks had the right to earn their own living without it being taken away by their masters. Though he lost to Douglas, the debates helped raise Lincoln’s political profile.

Although he did not officially campaign for the nation’s highest office, Lincoln cleverly placed himself in the public eye. Prior to the election he had the debates with rival Stephen Douglas published; the volume became a national bestseller. He also travelled to New York so people in that part of the country could listen to his arguments and see his talent as a public speaker.

256px-Abraham_Lincoln_-_Clara_Barton_Centenary

Photo of President-elect Abraham Lincoln, 1860

While in New York he had his photograph taken so it could be handed out just in case his name was mentioned at the Republican convention. After he was elected, more than sixty photos were taken of Lincoln, making him the most photographed president up to that time. Though opponents often made fun of his plain, slightly unkempt appearance, Lincoln also poked fun at himself. After being called two-faced, Lincoln said, “If I had another face, do you think I would wear this one?”

Unlike Buchanan, who claimed that he could do nothing if a state wanted to leave the Union, Lincoln refused to bargain with secessionists and sent supplies to the federal fort in South Carolina. He also rejected the idea that the president could do nothing about slavery. While maintaining the Union was his first objective, he said that if freeing the slaves would save the Union he would free them.

Lincoln remained a great politician during the Civil War. He gave out contracts and government offices in exchange for votes. Yet he also knew how to unite people behind a moral cause such as the constitutional amendment that abolished slavery.

As the war drew to an end, he offered friendship to the defeated Southerners “with malice toward none, with charity to all.” Americans can only imagine what Lincoln would have accomplished during his second term in office. On April 14, 1865, he was the first president to be assassinated.

Abraham Lincoln: The Moral Politician

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Until the 1850s Abraham Lincoln was a frustrated one-term congressman who had decided to focus on his law practice. Lincoln was drawn into politics again during the Kanas Nebraska Act controversy. While he accepted slavery where it existed, he couldn’t abide its expansion into new territories.

He was not in favor of giving blacks full citizenship, however. In 1840 he criticized Martin Van Buren for voting to enfranchise blacks, and he did not support giving blacks the vote in his bid for the U.S. Senate against Stephen Douglas. He believed that blacks had the right to earn their own living without it being taken away by their masters. Though he lost to Douglas, the debates helped raise Lincoln’s political profile.

Although he did not officially campaign for the nation’s highest office, Lincoln cleverly placed himself in the public eye. Prior to the election he had the debates with rival Stephen Douglas published; the volume became a national bestseller. He also travelled to New York so people in that part of the country could listen to his arguments and see his talent as a public speaker.

256px-Abraham_Lincoln_-_Clara_Barton_Centenary

Photo of President-elect Abraham Lincoln, 1860

 

While in New York he had his photograph taken so it could be handed out just in case his name was mentioned at the Republican convention. After he was elected, more than sixty photos were taken of Lincoln, making him the most photographed president up to that time. Though opponents often made fun of his plain, slightly unkempt appearance, Lincoln also poked fun at himself. After being called two-faced, Lincoln said, “If I had another face, do you think I would wear this one?”

Unlike Buchanan, who claimed that he could do nothing if a state wanted to leave the Union, Lincoln refused to bargain with secessionists and sent supplies to the federal fort in South Carolina. He also rejected the idea that the president could do nothing about slavery. While maintaining the Union was his first objective, he said that if freeing the slaves would save the Union he would free them.

Lincoln remained a great politician during the Civil War. He gave out contracts and government offices in exchange for votes. Yet he also knew how to unite people behind a moral cause such as the constitutional amendment that abolished slavery.

As the war drew to an end, he offered friendship to the defeated Southerners “with malice toward none, with charity to all.” Americans can only imagine what Lincoln would have accomplished during his second term in office. On April 14, 1865, he was the first president to be assassinated.

 

George Washington and the American Press

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As we prepare to celebrate President’s Day and George Washington’s Birthday, it’s tempting to think of our first president as an icon who was beloved by the American people at all times. As the victorious general in the American Revolution and the first president, much of the public admired Washington. Like all presidents who came after him, however, even George Washington could not escape criticism in the press.

In the late eighteenth century, newspapers didn’t claim to stick to the facts or be objective. One particular paper, the National Gazette, criticized President Washington throughout his presidency. Every time Washington threw a birthday party for himself, the Gazette complained about it. After his sixty-first birthday, the Gazette stated, “who will deny, that the celebrating of birth days is not a striking feature of royalty? We hear of no such thing during the republic of Rome.” Perhaps the Gazette failed to realize that most people in ancient Rome did not live to be sixty-one. Anyway, the paper was determined to label Washington as wishing to act as a king—an idea that horrified revolutionaries who had just escaped the rule of the King of England.

Another paper, the Aurora, published rumors about Washington’s disloyalty to America when he served as General of the Army. The letters portrayed him as a “lukewarm patriot”, which was untrue. Even when the army suffered from bad weather or defeat in battle, Washington was determined to defeat the British. The paper did not bother to check the source of the letters as might be expected today. Instead the paper’s owner printed what he liked, and he liked to criticize Washington.

The usually mild-mannered Washington lost his temper with these attacks on his character. According to Thomas Jefferson, he once swore at an article in the Aurora, something he rarely did in front of others. Even before becoming president, Washington had never been a fan of the press. As a general he complained that reporters hurt the American cause by revealing too much information. As president, he publicly pretended not care what the press said, though in letters to friends he wrote that he was tired of being attacked “by a set of infamous scribblers.” Personal attacks by his countrymen hurt him in a way that no enemy ever had.

Some historians claim that Washington retired from the presidency after two terms to show the press that he did not want to become king, though other reasons like ill health also played a role. Still, by retiring to his plantation, Washington could finally silence critics who wanted to portray him as a man obsessed with power. Now the press would have to turn its wrath on another president.

The Making of a President: George Washington’s Childhood

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Unlike other presidents who left records of their childhoods, we know very little about George Washington’s youth. The lack of information has led some stories that are not true about his childhood to pass for what really happened. For example, there is no evidence that George Washington confessed to his father that he cut down a cherry tree, saying, “I cannot tell a lie.” The only thing known for certain about George’s relationship with his father was that it ended when his father died suddenly. George was only eleven years old, and as a younger son he was not supposed to inherit the family estate, known today as Mount Vernon. 

Though he would inherit Mount Vernon eventually, George spent his youth with his mother in a six-room farmhouse near Fredericksburg, Virginia. Although there was a college nearby, George never attended it and only received an elementary school education. His lack of official instruction bothered him during the Revolution when he met other colonists who had more education than he did.

George’s older half brother, Lawrence indirectly influenced the man George Washington would later become. Lawrence had married into the Fairfax family, and one of the Fairfax cousins gave George his first job in 1748. During his work surveying Fairfax property in the Shenandoah Valley, sixteen-year-old George started his now famous diary. He wrote about the conditions of the country, stating that he “went into the Bed as they call’d it when to my Surprize I found it to be nothing but a Little Straw.”

Though he would endure some hardship away from home at times, George was not destined to be a poor younger son. Lawrence died young and George inherited his land. George did not want to sit at home, however. When Lawrence was ill, he applied for a small post in the Virginia militia. Despite his lack of experience, the same Fairfax cousin vouched for his character. Since Lawrence’s death created an opening in the military, Virginia’s governor decided to accept George. Major George Washington left for the west within a year.

 

 

Abraham Lincoln’s Education

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Abraham Lincoln, 1858

Abraham Lincoln, 1858

“What he has in the way of education, he has picked up.” Abraham Lincoln wrote this statement in a 3,000 word autobiography during his presidential campaign. At the age of ten, he attended school in Indiana, but school terms were far shorter than they are today. Abraham might attend school for one to three months in the winter and then he would be expected to help out on the family farm.

Trying to learn anything in just a few months each year was hard enough, but to make things worse country teachers were not always well educated. Lincoln remembered, “no qualification was ever required of a teacher, beyond readin, writin, and cipherin.” The educational system did not help most children become interested in learning. Abraham, however, was not like most children.

Though he did develop some talent for farm chores like chopping wood, Abraham was most interested in reading. He was not ashamed to beg others to let him take one of their books home with him. The chores he had meant that young Abe often stayed up late or got up early to read. Some of the books he read, like Robinson Crusoe and Aesop’s Fables, are still read by schoolchildren today. His stepmother, who supported his reading efforts, remembered that Abe had a scrapbook in which he would write down quotes that he liked and wanted to remember.

As he entered his teenage years, Abe also developed a talent for public speaking. When he attended church with his family, he would pay close attention to the sermon. After church, he would recite what the preacher said to a small audience of other children. Although no one could have predicted it at the time, Abraham’s habits of reading, writing and reciting would prove invaluable when he became president.