Tag Archives: Presidents

The assassination of President Garfield

November 17, 2018 Fred Michmershuizen

Today’s book report is about James A. Garfield, the 20^th President of the United States. A Republican from Ohio, Garfield was elected in 1880. A few short months after his inauguration he was shot by a crazed lunatic. He died two months later.

Back at this time, politicians doled out jobs to their political friends under the patronage system, and Garfield’s killer, Charles Guiteau, was among hundreds of job seekers who had been hounding the president and his cabinet secretaries looking for an appointment. After getting a firm no from Garfield’s newly appointed Secretary of State, James G. Blaine, Guiteau snapped and bought a gun. He stalked Garfield for weeks before catching up with him at a train station. He fired twice, with the first shot grazing Garfield’s shoulder and the second entering his back. This happened right in front of Blaine and two of Garfield’s sons. He was on his way to join his wife, Lucretia, who was recovering from an illness of her own, on a vacation. Garfield probably could have survived the shooing, but, sadly, he received poor medical care. A number of doctors — including Dr. Doctor Willard Bliss (the doctor’s first name was Doctor) — poked the gunshot wound with unwashed fingers and unsterilized instruments. This resulted in bacterial infection, which ultimately killed Garfield.

Garfield had been a surprise presidential nominee in 1880, and his vice presidential running mate, Chester A. Arthur, was an even bigger surprise. At the Republican national convention that year, there was a rift. On one side were the “Stalwarts,” including the powerful Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York. The Stalwarts liked the patronage system and wanted it to continue. The Stalwarts were prepared to nominate Ulysses S. Grant, who would return from retirement to run for an unprecedented third term. Meanwhile, the “Half Breeds” advocated for reform and were largely lined up behind Blaine. Garfield had spoken in favor of yet another candidate, John Sherman. When none of the candidates could get the necessary votes to clinch the nomination, many of the delegates switched their votes to Garfield, who got the nomination on the 36^th ballot. To placate the Stalwarts, they nominated Arthur (Conkling’s man) for Vice President. These were the days before state-by-state presidential primaries, when a “dark horse” could emerge as a nominee out of a “smoke-filled room.”

Garfield’s immediate predecessor, Rutherford B. Hayes, had tried to end the patronage system but ran into fierce opposition from powerful senators like Conkling. Hayes had fired Arthur, Conkling’s beneficiary, from the Collector job at the New York Custom House, and the dust had not yet settled. When Garfield came into office it was not clear what course he would take, but it soon became apparent when he ignored Conkling’s advice for cabinet appointments. The dispute got even nastier when Garfield appointed his own man as Collector of the New York Customs House.

In what they thought would be an effective power play, Conkling and his fellow New York Senator, Thomas C. Platt, then resigned, assuming they would be immediately re-elected by the New York State legislature, in a show of solidarity and thus prevailing over Garfield, but their plan backfired. Conkling and Platt were not re-elected by the New York legislature and were humiliated, and Garfield emerged triumphant. In those days Senators were elected by state legislatures, not by direct popular vote as they are today.

All of these events and much more are detailed in “Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President,” by Candice Millard. This book was a popular best seller, and I found it an absolute pleasure to read.

Here are some additional facts about James A. Garfield:

Born in a log cabin!
He was the fourth U.S. president to die in office and the second to be assassinated. This was just 16 years after Lincoln had been killed in office.
Robert Todd Lincoln, President Lincoln’s eldest and only surviving son, was Garfield’s Secretary of War. Sadly, it was Robert Todd Lincoln who brought in Bliss, who turned out to be a terrible doctor.
Guiteau was tried and convicted and later hanged. He claimed temporary insanity at his trial. Before he was executed, Garfield’s killer was shot at twice by would-be Jack Rubys.
The train station where Garfield was shot no longer exists.
Garfield and Lucretia — he called her “Crete” — had many children, mostly sons.
He had a full beard.
The A is for Abram, his father’s first name.
Just like Hayes, Garfield served in the Civil War. He led the Battle of Middle Creek. Also like Hayes, Garfield was elected to Congress while he was still serving despite not campaigning for office. He later was elected a United States Senator, but he did not serve because he was elected President. Before being elected to national office, Garfield also served as a state senator.
Also like Hayes, Garfield saw the Civil War as a battle to end slavery. Throughout his life, he fought for equal rights for blacks. He had been an abolitionist before the war.
Garfield’s father died when he was still an infant, and he had grown up in poverty. He worked on a Great Lakes canal boat before getting a formal education and becoming a teacher.
Garfield was book smart, and he was an excellent public speaker.
Garfield’s widow helped organize what would become Garfield’s presidential library. It became the first presidential library.
If he were alive today, Garfield would be a liberal Democrat.

Millard’s book is not a typical presidential biography. It focuses more on the assassination and events leading up to it. The book does not offer much on Garfield’s upbringing, and even less on his service during the Civil War. And I would like to know more about what was going on behind the scenes while Garfield was incapacitated. Nevertheless, the book still offered a great deal of information, and I found it to be a page-turner that I enjoyed immensely. The author weaves in the story of Garfield with his assassin, as well as many other key players in the drama. We also learn about Alexander Graham Bell, who had just invented the telephone and who was brought in to the White House to help locate the bullet with a new experimental device.

Also receiving attention is Joseph Lister — whose medical research on sanitary surgical techniques were completely ignored by Garfield’s doctors and ultimately led to his death. Sadly, that kind of head-in-the-sand stupidity still exists today. Just consider the dire warnings from scientists over greenhouse gas emissions and how they are contributing to the global climate crisis, our country’s current political leadership and the recent withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accords.

Rutherford B. Hayes and the disputed election of 1876

November 9, 2018 Fred Michmershuizen

It was a disputed election in 1876. While it appeared that the Democratic candidate, Samuel J. Tilden of New York, had won the popular vote, neither he nor the Republican, Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio, had enough electoral votes to claim victory. It turned into a long and nasty fight. The dispute focused on the election returns from three Southern states: Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina, where there had been widespread racial voter intimidation and fraud.

To resolve the crisis, President Grant helped form a 15-person committee made up of both Democrats and Republicans to decide which candidate would receive the electoral votes from each of the disputed states. The committee consisted of five members from the House, five from the Senate and five from the Supreme Court. The wrangling lasted until early March, just two days before inauguration. The transition was held in early March back then. To secure his path to the presidency, author Ari Hoogenboom writes in “Rutherford B. Hayes: Warrior & President,” Hayes himself did not make any concessions, but those working for him did make offers.

Shortly after Hayes became president, he withdrew federal troops that had been stationed in South Carolina and Louisiana to protect voting rights, and the governments in those states immediately flipped from Republican to Democratic control. This effectively ended the Reconstruction era following the Civil War.

As Hoogenboom writes, Hayes really had no choice. By this point there was no longer an appetite in the North for continued troop presence in the South. Besides, Hayes believed that over time, with more education and economic opportunities for all, racism would fade and American society would become more egalitarian. How very wrong he was about that. In actuality, getting the federal government out of the way and allowing the South to establish “home rule” led to almost a century more of racial violence and voter suppression.

During his presidency, Hayes pushed for civil service reform. This was his No. 1 issue. He wanted to upend the established practice of patronage appointments for government jobs. Up until this point, Senators and Congressmen were allowed to dispense appointments to their friends and allies under the “spoils system.” In return, those who received such employment had to give a portion of their pay to the political bosses who had gotten them their jobs. It was all very corrupt.

Hayes wanted to change all that. He wanted civil servants to be hired on the basis of competitive written examinations, and he did not want them to be fired for not making payments to politicians. This turned into an epic battle between Hayes and his party, with Congress, and especially with a powerful “Stalwart” Republican Senator from New York, Roscoe Conkling (not Roscoe P. Conkling, who was someone else). Senator Conkling controlled the lucrative New York Custom House, which was run by his lackey, Chester A. Arthur. Hayes ultimately had Arthur fired, setting up an epic battle with Conkling that would one day have immense consequences for the country that nobody could have imagined at the time.

President Hayes also dealt with violent railroad strikes and disputes over the nation’s money supply and the gold standard. He dealt with Indian affairs and with anti-Chinese immigration fervor. He won showdowns with Congress over “riders” aimed at voter suppression that were added by Southern Democrats to spending bills. Later in his presidency, a commission was formed go back and investigate the 1876 election, but that ultimately led nowhere.

Before Hayes became president, he served in the Civil War. He was an officer, and he fought bravely and was instrumental in some key battles. He was also injured numerous times. He was elected to Congress while he was still serving with the Union army in Virginia, but he did not leave the battlefield to campaign. All he did was write home in a letter: “An officer fit for duty who at this crisis would abandon his post to electioneer for a seat in Congress ought to be scalped,” and when these words were made pubic in the newspapers, he was elected resoundingly. After the war Hayes also served as governor of Ohio. He got his start in politics before the war, when he was elected City Solicitor in Cincinnati.

Here are some additional facts about our nation’s 19^th president:

From the beginning, Hayes had pledged not to run for a second term. He long advocated for a constitutional amendment giving the chief executive a single six-year term.
Hayes traveled extensively while in office. He was the first President to visit the West Coast.
He had a full beard.
The B was for Birchard, his mother’s maiden name.
He was married to Lucy, and they had many children, mostly sons. Some of the children died while very young.
He banned alcoholic beverages from the White House. He did so in part to mollify teetotalers who wanted to form a new political party that would have harmed the Republicans.
Despite not serving booze, the Hayses were fun people who knew how to entertain. They threw lots of parties. And when they went to parties, they were often the first guests to arrive.
His father died when he was very young. He was raised by his mother and his uncle, Sardis Birchard. Uncle Sardis acted as a surrogate father to Hayes, and later to his sons. He built them a house.
Uncle Sardis was racist.
Hayes was not racist and was anti-slavery. He supported John C. Fremont, the anti-slavery candidate, in the 1856 presidential election. And, like his immediate successor, James A. Garfield, who was also from Ohio and also fought for the Union, he viewed the Civil War as a battle to end slavery in our country once and for all.
Hayes believed strongly in the 13^th, 14^th and 15^th amendments (the “Reconstruction Amendments”), and felt that these amendments should be enforced in the South.
Before and after the Civil War, Hayes had many Southerners as friends. He met them in college. He never understood how they could be opposed to racial equality.
Although Hayes attended church regularly, he never joined a denomination and never “drank the Kool-Aid.” In other words, he did not fall for crazy ramblings of any preachers.

After his presidency, Hayes stayed active in public life and championed a number of what we would call today “progressive” causes. Education, especially education for blacks, prison reform, and Native American issues were causes he championed. He was involved on committees and foundations, and he traveled extensively. One of the beneficiaries of an educational scholarship he awarded through a fund he stewarded was W.E.B. DuBois, who would go on to become an influential author and civil rights activist. Hayes also continued to advocate for civil service reform and stayed abreast of politics. He also was active in Civil War veterans associations. He died in 1893 at age 70.

As presidential biographies go, I found “Rutherford B. Hayes: Warrior & President” to be well researched and thorough. For some reason though, this was not the most fun book I have ever read. It seemed to take me a long, long time to get through it, and I am not sure why. Despite not enjoying the book much, I did come to like Hayes as a person, especially after he left the presidency and continued to fight for what he believed in.

The reputation of Hayes suffered over time, with many historians considering him a mediocre president. But Hoogenboom argues that this reputation was not warranted. It was not Hayes himself who compromised with the racists in the South over “home rule,” but rather those who had been working on his behalf. Nevertheless, it was the decision of Hayes to pull federal troops from South Carolina and Louisiana, effectively ending Reconstruction and leaving the blacks at the mercy of white supremacists and their racial violence, harassment and voter intimidation.

For me, reading about his post-presidency advocacy was most inspiring. Hayes could have simply led a life of leisure after leaving office. He certainly had enough money. Yet, like former President Jimmy Carter does today, Hayes continued to serve. That, for me, counts for so much.

General Grant National Memorial

August 25, 2018 Fred Michmershuizen

Today I visited the General Grant National Memorial, also known as “Grant’s Tomb.” It’s a grand mausoleum, where Grant and his wife are laid to rest. It’s located on the Upper West Side between Riverside Church and Riverside Park, at 122^nd street. It’s operated by the National Park Service. Although it’s right on the bicycle route I took dozens of times over the years, today was only the second time I visited.

Coincidentally, my visit today corresponded with the 102^nd birthday of the National Park Service, and in honor of the occasion there were bagpipers and an outdoor performance of Civil War tunes by Linda Russell. There’s a visitors center across the street and down the stairs, with exhibits, an excellent 20-minute film, a gift shop and restrooms. The park rangers are friendly and knowledgeable.

I was especially moved by my visit today, having recently completed a biography of Grant.

Here are some pictures from my visit — click to make them bigger:

Ulysses S. Grant

July 29, 2018 Fred Michmershuizen

It was what General Ulysses S. Grant did after the battle of The Wilderness that changed things. By May 1864, the Civil War had been going on for more than three years. The loss of life to this point had been more than anyone could have imagined. It was already apparent that the South was not going to be able to win the war, but the Confederates were trying to drag the war on longer, hoping to make the conflict so costly to the North that the voting public would tire of the war and throw Lincoln out of office, to be replaced by someone who would end the war. The stakes were enormous. More than just the preservation of the Union was at stake. Ending the war at this point would have re-enslaved the 3.5 million people who had been freed on January 1, 1863, by Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.

Grant by Matthew Brady — President Grant, 1870
By Mathew Brady – Library of Congress, Public Domain

By this point Lincoln had already replaced his top generals numerous times. McClellan, Burnside, Hooker and Meade had all failed to prosecute the war with the urgency and vigor that Lincoln wanted. After Grant achieved key victories for the Union at Vicksburg and Chattanooga, Lincoln summoned him to the nation’s capital and named him Lieutenant General. Grant was the first since George Washington to hold the rank.

The Wilderness was Grant’s very first battle after being put in charge of all Union armies and his first faceoff with Confederate General Robert E. Lee. It did not turn out well for the Union. But unlike his predecessors who had all retreated north after suffering large casualties in battle, Grant decided to move his army farther south. There was to be no turning back this time. Grant was not one to make excuses, to blame others or to give up. Final victory was still a long way off, but Grant knew it was coming. It came the following spring, when Grant accepted Lee’s surrender at the home of Wilmer McClean, in the town of Appomattox Court House, Virginia.

After the war Grant stayed on as commander of the U.S. Army, serving under President Andrew Johnson. Grant served briefly as Secretary of War during Johnson’s dispute with Congress over the Tenure of Office Act. He was elected President in 1868 and then re-elected in 1872 by wide margins both times in both the popular and electoral votes. He never campaigned. In his first inaugural address, he called for the ratification of the 15^th Amendment granting blacks the right to vote, and he spoke out for the rights of Native Americans. He stumbled early on with less-than-ideal cabinet appointments. Grant himself was not corrupt, but some of his cabinet secretaries became involved in various scandals, which got worse in his second term. One of Grant’s best picks was Hamilton Fish as Secretary of State, whom grant had plucked out of retirement. Fish had been governor of New York and a United States Senator and turned out to be an excellent Secretary of State. He served through both of Grant’s presidential terms.

During the late 1860s the Ku Klux Klan emerged. Grant recognized the KKK immediately for what it was — a domestic hate group intent on using terrorism to prevent blacks from exercising their rights as citizens to vote. Grant formed the Justice Department and directed it to fight the Klan. He went so far as to declare martial law and to use federal troops in parts of the South to enforce voting rights.

Here are some additional facts about Grant:

He married Julia Dent, and they had four children. Julia’s family owned slaves, but Grant’s family was anti-slavery and his parents boycotted the wedding.
He was born in Ohio. After marrying Julia he built a house near her family in Missouri, calling it “Hardscrabble.” They later moved to Galena, Illinois.
His given name was Hiram Ulysses Grant, but from birth he was called Ulysses. His mother got the name Ulysses from a French novel about the Greek general Ulysses. When Grant got to West Point with the initials H.U.G. on a trunk, he realized that was not going to work. There was too much teasing from the other cadets. The senator who had appointed Grant to West Point had used Ulysses Simpson Grant (Simpson was his mother’s maiden name) so he went with the initials U.S., which were interpreted as “United States” Grant, and, later, “Unconditional Surrender” Grant.
Like Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, Zachary Taylor, Franklin Pierce and many others, Grant served in the Mexican American War. He was a quartermaster.
Several of the groomsmen in Grant’s wedding later fought against him as officers in the Confederate army.
Later in life, Grant became friends with Mark Twain.
As my cousin Lisa would be pleased to know, Grant loved horses! One of his favorites was named Cincinnati.

After Grant left office, he and Julia went on a grand overseas tour, traveling extensively throughout Europe, the Middle East and the Orient. Upon returning to the United States, he would have run for President again in 1880, but the Republicans nominated James A. Garfield instead. Grant eventually retired to New York City. He and one of his sons later invested with a Bernie Maddow-type swindler, and Grant lost all his money. He spent the final part of his life writing his memoirs, which, thanks to the help of Mark Twain, netted enough money for Julia to live on after his death. He died of throat cancer just days after finishing the manuscript. Today he and Julia rest in a massive mausoleum in New York City.

“American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant,” by Ronald C. White (pictured, the book I read) is one of two major biographies of Grant published recently. The other is by Ron Chernow. Both are what are often called rehabilitative, meaning the authors go back and re-examine a person’s reputation that has fallen over the years. Some historians have looked down upon Grant for a number of offenses, both real and imagined. Among them are that he was not as smart as Lee (Grant graduated 21^st out of 39 in his class at West Point, while Lee graduated 2nd). Others have postulated that Grant was too indifferent to the large number of troops who were killed, and that he was a drunk. White argues forcibly against these accusations.

Having thoroughly enjoyed White’s previous biography of Lincoln, I decided to read his telling of Grant’s life story as well, and I was richly rewarded. “American Ulysses” was a page-turner, with many helpful maps, photographs and illustrations. He also presents Grant as a complete human being, describing his family life and even the books he read and the things he said to his friends and colleagues. And yes, I cried in the end!

In reading this book I got to know the general quite well. I can therefore say confidently that had a President Grant been in office when a group of white supremacists held a “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last year, the response from the White House would have been quite different.

The impeachment of Andrew Johnson

July 25, 2018 Fred Michmershuizen

There were 11 articles of impeachment against Andrew Johnson, our nation’s 17^th President, who went on trial in the Senate back in 1868. Articles 1 through 9 dealt with the Tenure of Office Act. Article 10 dealt with speeches Johnson had given in which he was accused of bringing disgrace upon Congress, and Article 11 was a “catch-all” that incorporated allegations from all the other articles.

Andrew Johnson was a Democrat who became president in April 1865, after President Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, was assassinated just one month into his second term and just five days after Lee’s surrender to Grant that effectively ended the Civil War. Andrew Johnson was not vice president during Lincoln’s first term. Hannibal Hamlin was. But leading up to the 1864 presidential election, the Republicans decided to dump Hamlin from the ticket in favor of Andrew Johnson, who was a Senator from Tennessee. Andrew Johnson had stood out from all the other Southern Democrats because he had stayed loyal to the Union during the war. The goal therefore was to have a “national unity” ticket. But Andrew Johnson did not bring unity to the country. Just the opposite. At the inauguration in March 1865, Lincoln delivered a beautiful address calling for our nation to heal. But Andrew Johnson appeared to be drunk. He was disrespectful, and he insulted cabinet members and embarrassed himself.

Andrew Johnson was also a racist to his core. He infuriated the Republican-dominated Congress by acting on his own rather than through the legislative process on Reconstruction. He wanted to welcome the rebel states back quickly, and he wanted to empower the former Confederates to continue their cruel oppression of those whom they had enslaved. He vetoed legislation passed by Congress, but most of his vetoes were overridden. Congress also passed, by overriding yet another veto, the Tenure of Office Act, which was the legal noose with which they intended to hang Andrew Johnson. The law stated that the president needed Senate approval to fire a cabinet secretary. Congress accused Andrew Johnson of violating the law when he tried to remove Edwin Stanton as secretary of war. Gotcha! It was a dumb law that was later repealed, but it formed the basis for what would become the impeachment of Andrew Johnson.

From the start, the trial itself turned into a bit of a circus. The Republicans were disorganized, and their legal case was ill conceived. The Democrats, meanwhile, used all manner of crazy tricks to delay and obstruct the proceedings. It got really ugly. They argued that Salmon P. Chase, Chief Justice of the United States, who presided over the trial, should not be allowed to make judicial rulings. And when witnesses were finally called, the Democrats objected to everything and the result was that after each question, the entire Senate had to vote up or down on whether or not a witness could answer. This made everything take forever. Opening and closing arguments also took forever. In the early days of the trial the galleries were packed with visitors. But the speeches were so long-winded that people quickly got bored.

The Senate voted on Article 11 first. After Johnson was acquitted by a single vote, the House managers, the prosecutors of the trial, called for adjournment to re-strategize. After a break that lasted 10 days, the Senate voted next on Articles 2 and then 3, with the same results. The House managers then abandoned their effort altogether. The Senate never voted on Article 1, or on Articles 4 through 10.

Later that year, Ulysses S. Grant was elected our nation’s 18^th president.

David O. Stewart impeached book review — “Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln’s Legacy,” by David O. Stewart

All this is described in great detail in “Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln’s Legacy,” a book by David O. Stewart. This is one of many books on the impeachment of Johnson. Other books cover the impeachment proceedings against Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, and many other books cover the impeachment cases against all three. I really liked Stewart’s book on Johnson’s impeachment. I found it to be comprehensive, and even a bit suspenseful. The author shows that the trial was both a judicial proceeding and a political exercise. He also explains that impeachment is rooted in British law and had been included in the U.S. Constitution as a stopgap measure against tyrannical rule. (Note: At the time our founding fathers wrote the Constitution, there were no political parties!) I think the author of this book did a good job of placing the impeachment into the context of the times. Our country had never been so divided, and the whole matter was tragic. A quote from the book: “Andrew Johnson was an unfortunate president, an angry and obstinate hater at a time when the nation needed a healer. Those who opposed him were equally intemperate in word and deed. It was an intemperate time.”

Here are a few more notes on the impeachment of Andrew Johnson:

There was no Vice President at this time, so had Andrew Johnson been convicted in the Senate and removed from office, Benjamin Wade of Ohio, as President Pro Tem of the Senate, would have become president. In the time leading up to and during the trial, those seeking government jobs inundated Wade with requests.
The author makes a strong case that many of the Senators who voted to acquit had been bribed.
The two Senators from Michigan voted to convict.
Republicans from the House led by Thaddeus Stevens and Benjamin Butler acted as prosecutors. Stevens was an elderly, fire-breathing, anti-slavery “radical.”
This had been the third attempt to impeach Andrew Johnson. There was also a fourth attempt, which went nowhere.

Before Johnson, the only other president to face the possibility of impeachment had been John Tyler. It would not happen again until Nixon, who resigned before a House vote on impeachment. Clinton was also impeached but was acquitted in his Senate trial, which was presided over by Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Clinton faced two articles of impeachment, for lying to a grand jury and for obstruction of justice.

Impeachment might happen again. In my view, having read about the trial of Andrew Johnson and how that all unfolded, getting to two-thirds (67 votes) in the Senate to oust the current president seems far from likely.

Andrew Johnson as avenger

July 21, 2018 Fred Michmershuizen

If I’m going to cry while reading a presidential biography, that usually happens when I get to the end. This book, by Howard Means, brought tears to my eyes at the beginning. It opens with a vivid, minute-by-minute description of the events of April 14 and 15, 1865. The assassination of Abraham Lincoln by the vile racist John Wilkes Booth was part of a conspiracy, with Booth as the ringleader, in which Vice President Andrew Johnson, Secretary of State William H. Seward, and General Ulysses S. Grant were all to be killed on the same night.

Lee had surrendered to Grant at Appomattox just days earlier, on April 9, effectively ending the Civil War, but the conspirators had somehow hoped that decapitating the leadership of the U.S government would throw everything into chaos, thus enabling the South to reignite the war. It was a far-fetched idea, which did not work out as planned and had disastrous consequences for everyone.

The Lincolns had invited Grant and his wife to accompany them to Ford’s Theater that fateful night, and their attendance together had even been published in newspapers. But the Grants declined the invitation at the last minute and departed by train on a family trip to New Jersey. Booth was a well-known actor who was able to gain access to the theater. He also knew the exact moments during “Our American Cousin” when the audience would laugh, thus helping him sneak into the presidential box to fire the fatal bullet. Meanwhile George Atzerodt, the guy who was supposed to kill Johnson at his room at Kirkwood House, did not show up. He spent time that night on a barstool and either got drunk and forgot, or simply chickened out. The author speculates that had Atzerodt found the courage to attack the belligerent Johnson that night, the confrontation would not have ended well for the attempted assassin.

Lewis Powell, however, did in fact show up to kill Seward, who had recently been in a carriage accident and was recuperating at home in bed. Powell showed up at the house and told family members that he was delivering medicine. When Seward’s son Frederick refused to let him upstairs, Powell pistol whipped him and stormed into the Secretary of State’s room. His gun had jammed, so he pulled a knife and stabbed Seward, in a grisly attack with blood everywhere, before fleeing on horseback. By some miracle, Seward survived the assassination attempt.

All this takes place in the first (and best) chapter of “The Avenger Takes His Place: Andrew Johnson and the 45 Days That Changed the Nation.” The title is taken from a line in a poem by Herman Melville, written in that era, which evokes the feelings many had at the time. Despite the “malice toward none” and “charity for all” that Lincoln had promised in his second inaugural, many wanted to see the South punished after the war. These sentiments were very real, as the author of “The Avenger” describes, by citing personal letters written at the time, quotes from newspaper editorials — and even descriptions of what preachers were saying to congregants in their sermons in churches.

While this book was definitely insightful, especially in describing the mood of the country at the time of Lincoln’s assassination and its aftermath, I still feel I could learn more about the 17^th president — especially his dealings with Congress and his impeachment trial in the Senate. This book by Means is the second one I have read about Andrew Johnson. The other was by Annette Gordon-Reed. Both Means and Gordon-Reed make frequent references to an earlier biography, by Hans L. Trefousse, a copy of which I recently found at The Strand bookstore here in NYC. But I subsequently moved on to Ronald C. White’s excellent biography of Grant (with yet another book review coming very soon), and I am now taking a detour by reading the biography of yet another famous general. So I will return to Andrew Johnson at another time.

Andrew Johnson

June 26, 2018 Fred Michmershuizen

The effort to impeach him failed. More on that in a moment.

Andrew Johnson was a Democratic senator from Tennessee when the Southern states moved to secede in 1861. He delivered a fiery pro-Union speech on the floor of the Senate, speaking over the course of two days. His words were widely published in newspapers, and he became quite popular among the Unionists in the North. In the South he was villianized. Tennessee seceded with the other Southern states, but there were strong pockets of pro-Union resistance there, especially in the eastern part of the state. When the Union achieved battlefield victories in Tennessee, Lincoln appointed Andrew Johnson military governor.

By 1864, the Civil War was entering its fourth year. The death toll was continuing to rise and there was no end in sight. Many were growing tired of the conflict, and it was looking like Lincoln was going to be defeated for re-election by George B. McClellan, the general he had fired for delaying too much. It was under these circumstances that Hannibal Hamlin, Lincoln’s vice president during his first term, a fellow Republican from Maine, was dumped from the ticket and replaced by Andrew Johnson. The pro-Union southern Democrat. They ran on the “National Union Party.” Later that year, after General Ulysses S. Grant won important victories in Virginia and General William Tecumseh Sherman took Atlanta, the tide turned once and for all in the Union’s favor and Lincoln was easily re-elected, with Andrew Johnson as his new vice president.

In his second inaugural in March 1865, Lincoln was magnanimous, offering some of the most eloquent words ever spoken by an American. But moments earlier, the incoming vice president appeared to be drunk, and he gave an incoherent, rambling speech in which he embarrassed himself and mortified everyone present. To everyone’s shock and horror, Lincoln was assassinated a month later, and Andrew Johnson became the 17th president of the United States. Unfortunately for the 3 million newly freed people of color, Andrew Johnson was a racist. Even by 19^th Century standards, he was a racist.

Lee had just surrendered to Grant, meaning it was time to figure out how to put the country back together again. Congress was ready to work with the new president, but Andrew Johnson wanted to do it his own way. He was stubborn and did not want to listen or collaborate. Earlier, Andrew Johnson had led everyone to believe that he was going to be harsh on the secessionists and punish them. But he ended up issuing broad amnesty and offering thousands of pardons. Meanwhile he offered nothing, literally nothing, for the formerly enslaved, who had literally nothing and were desperately in need of some assistance, an education, and most importantly some land to farm. Congress passed a Freedmen’s Bureau Bill and a Civil Rights Bill, which Andrew Johnson vetoed. His vetoes were then overridden by Congress. This became a pattern. Congress kept passing laws, Andrew Johnson kept vetoing, and Congress kept overriding.

It got really nasty between Congress and the president. So nasty that Andrew Johnson became the first American president to face an impeachment trial in the Senate. Congress had passed a law called the Tenure of Office Act, requiring the president to get Senate approval before firing any cabinet secretaries. Andrew Johnson challenged this law by firing Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, which set up a huge battle of wills and all sorts of drama. There were 11 articles of impeachment, nine of which had to do with the Tenure of Office Act.

In the end Andrew Johnson survived by a single vote. But it was 1868 already, and his presidency was almost over anyway.

Here are a few more facts about Andrew Johnson:

Born in a log cabin!
He came from poverty. He looked at the Civil War as a class struggle between rich industrialists in the north aligned with plantation owners in the South, versus the common working (white) man.
He married Eliza McCardle, and they had several children. Eliza was frequently sick and almost never appeared at White House events as “first lady.” One of Johnson’s daughters served as hostess.
They were married by Mordecai Lincoln, a cousin of Abraham Lincoln!
He was a tailor. He was sometimes referred to as a “mudsill,” a derogatory term used against him because he once had a shop with a dirt floor.
He entered politics as an alderman and then mayor of Greenville, Tennessee. He subsequently was elected to the Tennessee state legislature, then to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served four terms. When he was redistricted out of office, he ran for governor of Tennessee and won. He was elected to the United States Senate in 1857. In those days Senators were chosen by state legislatures, not by direct popular vote. When Tennessee seceded in 1861, Andrew Johnson remained in the Senate.
After his presidency he ran for the United States Senate from Tennessee and lost. Then he ran for the House and lost. Then he ran again for the Senate and this time he won. Six months later he died.
One more note: During the Andrew Johnson presidency, Secretary of State William H. Seward (who had served in the office under Lincoln and stayed on) purchased Alaska from Russia. So in addition to botching Reconstruction we can also thank Andrew Johnson for Sarah Palin.

This biography, “Andrew Johnson,” by Annette Gordon-Reed, part of the American Presidents Series, was clear and concise but, for me, just a bit too short. The books in the American Presidents Series are generally quite good, but they are limited to 200 pages or less. For such a consequential president I subsequently decided to add another volume to my reading list. But that will be a book report for another day.

The National Portrait Gallery

May 9, 2018 Fred Michmershuizen

After returning from my two-day mini vacation to visit Monticello, Highland and Montpelier and before taking the train back to New York, I had time for a visit to the National Portrait Gallery in Washington. D.C. I had never been before, and I was most interested in seeing the new portraits of President Obama by Kehinde Wiley and Michelle Obama by Amy Sherald.

I found myself wanting to take pictures of all the presidential portraits, but I had to constrain myself. Some, such as those of Obama, Clinton and Kennedy, are nontraditional, while many others are classic portraits. Interestingly, Nixon’s is by Norman Rockwell and is very small. Out of all the portraits, though, I was particularly moved those of the Obamas. Michelle’s portrait is in a different section of the museum.

Also in a different section was “Unseen: Our Past in a New Light,” a selection of “deconstructed portraits” by Titus Kaphar, who offers a completely shocking yet instantly understandable take on our country’s founding fathers. In one, an enslaved woman peeks out from behind a curtain that is a portrait of Thomas Jefferson. On another wall, two of George Washington’s slaves are seen in fancy clothes with their faces obscured.

The American Presidents exhibit at the National Portrait gallery in Washington, D.C.

Kehinde Wiley portrait of Barack Obama in the National Portrait gallery in Washington, D.C.

Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington

Chester Harding portrait of James Madison

‘Behind the Myth of Benevolence’ by Titus Kaphar

‘Billy Lee: Portrait in Tar’ and ‘Ona Judge: Portrait in tar’ by Titus Kaphar

James Madison’s Montpelier

May 9, 2018 Fred Michmershuizen

On Wednesday morning I drove the rental car about 45 minutes from Charlottesville to visit Montpelier, home of James Madison. It’s about a third of the way between Charlottesville and Washington, D.C. I took the very informative tour of the mansion, and I walked around and took pictures. Before the tour, I visited the family cemetery, which includes Madison’s burial site.

Just before I left to go back to Washington, I visited the very worthwhile slavery exhibit, which is in the basement of the main house. Upon driving away from the property I thought about Montpelier, as well as Highland and Monticello, and Mount Vernon (which I visited last year), and I was overcome with emotion as I reflected on the horrors of slavery. I am glad that these historic sites in Virginia feature exhibits and educational tours about slavery, which is such a sad part of our nation’s legacy.

James Monroe’s Highland

May 8, 2018 Fred Michmershuizen

Just a few miles up the road from Monticello is James Monroe’s Highland, also known as Ash Lawn. I visited Tuesday afternoon after Monticello, taking a guided tour and walking around the property taking pictures.

The site is owned and operated by William & Mary University. Official website here. Monroe spent only part of his life here and the main house no longer stands, however the tour was immensely informative and it was well worth the trip.

Click any of the pictures to see them bigger: