PDP on Hiatus

Alas, Dead Presidents Daily must go on hiatus for the time being. Too much else to do -- always the enemy of nonprofit blogging. I will try to pick it up again before long.

George Washington's Brevity

By contrast with William Henry Harrison's long inaugural address, the shortest thus far is George Washington's second inaugural, delivered on March 4, 1793. This is the entire thing:

Fellow Citizens:

I am again called upon by the voice of my country to execute the functions of its Chief Magistrate. When the occasion proper for it shall arrive, I shall endeavor to express the high sense I entertain of this distinguished honor, and of the confidence which has been reposed in me by the people of united America.

Previous to the execution of any official act of the President the Constitution requires an oath of office. This oath I am now about to take, and in your presence: That if it shall be found during my administration of the Government I have in any instance violated willingly or knowingly the injunctions thereof, I may (besides incurring constitutional punishment) be subject to the upbraidings of all who are now witnesses of the present solemn ceremony.

William Henry Harrison, Noble Roman

On March 4, 1841, William Henry Harrison gave, in a record that stands to this day, the longest inaugural address. It took him an hour and forty-five minutes to deliver his remarks, on a cold, snowy day in Washington City all those years ago. Later, he died (probably) of pneumonia. The two events are inevitably linked in mentions of the demise of this shortest of short-time presidents one month later, but standing in the wet cold for a while, by itself, doesn't cause pneumonia.

Still, at some point President Harrison picked up an infectious agent that destroyed him -- all too easy for an elderly gentleman in the 19th century. But what about the inaugural speech itself? It is rarely quoted, perhaps for good reason. It's quite alien-sounding to modern ears.

For example, he freely made mention of ancient Rome to illustrate certain points, using the term Roman seven times during the course of the speech, beginning in the second paragraph:

"It was the remark of a Roman consul in an early period of that celebrated Republic that a most striking contrast was observable in the conduct of candidates for offices of power and trust before and after obtaining them, they seldom carrying out in the latter case the pledges and promises made in the former. However much the world may have improved in many respects in the lapse of upward of two thousand years since the remark was made by the virtuous and indignant Roman, I fear that a strict examination of the annals of some of the modern elective governments would develop similar instances of violated confidence..."

Later: "The boasted privilege of a Roman citizen was to him a shield only against a petty provincial ruler, whilst the proud democrat of Athens would console himself under a sentence of death for a supposed violation of the national faith — which no one understood and which at times was the subject of the mockery of all — or the banishment from his home, his family, and his country with or without an alleged cause, that it was the act not of a single tyrant or hated aristocracy, but of his assembled countrymen."

And then: "...The first Roman Emperor, in his attempt to seize the sacred treasure, silenced the opposition of the officer to whose charge it had been committed by a significant allusion to his sword. By a selection of political instruments for the care of the public money a reference to their commissions by a President would be quite as effectual an argument as that of Caesar to the Roman knight."

Harrison warned that, "Caesar became the master of the Roman people and the senate under the pretense of supporting the democratic claims of the former against the aristocracy of the latter; Cromwell, in the character of protector of the liberties of the people, became the dictator of England, and Bolivar possessed himself of unlimited power with the title of his country's liberator."

Toward the end, the president said: "It was the beautiful remark of a distinguished English writer that 'in the Roman Senate Octavius had a party and Anthony a party, but the Commonwealth had none.' Yet the Senate continued to meet in the temple of liberty to talk of the sacredness and beauty of the Commonwealth and gaze at the statues of the elder Brutus and of the Curtii and Decii, and the people assembled in the forum, not, as in the days of Camillus and the Scipios, to cast their free votes for annual magistrates or pass upon the acts of the senate, but to receive from the hands of the leaders of the respective parties their share of the spoils and to shout for one or the other, as those collected in Gaul or Egypt and the lesser Asia would furnish the larger dividend."

FDR's First Inaugural Address

Among 19th-century inaugural addresses, Lincoln's second is the most revered, honored in no less a place than the inside wall of the Lincoln Memorial, where it's carved in toto (see yesterday). Among 20th-century inaugurals, Franklin Roosevelt's first (the last March 4 swearing in) has been highly praised and, unlike Lincoln's, was recorded for the ages by motion picture cameras.

"This great nation will endure, as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself -- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."

Lincoln's Second Inagural Address

March 4, 1865.

Fellow-Countrymen:


AT this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war -- seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, 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.

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, 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. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

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.

Dead Presidents: March

There are a number of presidential birthdays in March -- Madison, Jackson, Tyler and Cleveland -- and days of death -- Fillmore, Benjamin Harrison, Taft and Eisenhower -- but the key presidential date of the month is March 4.

Lincoln's First Inauguration, March 4, 1861

From Washington to Franklin Roosevelt, no fewer than 27 presidents took the oath of office on that day (four did not because they were vice presidents who succeed presidents, but didn't win their own terms). Only 12 presidents have taken the oath on January 20 (FDR is in both categories and Ford didn't win his own term). Eventually, assuming the office endures and the Constitution isn't changed again, January 20 will overtake March 4, but it will be well into the 21st century before it does.

The March 4 inaugurations are rich in history. In 1801 and 1877, disputed elections almost meant the inauguration would have been delayed -- but it's never happened. William Henry Harrison famously gave a long, long speech on March 4, 1841, picked up a virus (presumably) and went down in history as a one-month president. Two of Lincoln's most famed speeches, the First and Second Inaugurals, were on March 4 four years apart. FDR's 1933 First Inaugural, which came on the very last March 4 swearing-in, is also rightly remembered as a rhetorical gem.

Dead Presidents: Leap Day

February 29 comes along only once in four years, which might account for the fact that no Presidents or Vice Presidents of the United States were ever born or died on that day, though President John Tyler came within a few feet of death on February 28, 1844, when a 12-inch gun on the warship USS Princeton accidently exploded, killing two members of his cabinet, among others.

There have been a few bits of presidential history associated with Leap Day, however. On February 29, 1796, for example, President Washington announced that the Jay Treaty was in effect -- officially, the Treaty of Amity Commerce and Navigation, between His Britannic Majesty; and The United States of America. (John Jay was the chief negotiator on the American side.) Among other things, the treaty provided for the end of the lingering British occupation of forts in the Northwest Territory; the settlement of compensation to U.S. ship owners whose vessels by the British during the Revolution; and the establishment of a commission to delineate part of the boundary with British North American (that is, the Canadas).

On February 29, 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt formally appointed a seven-man commission -- the Isthmian Canal Commission, which reported at first to Secretary of War William Howard Taft -- to get on with the task of building the Panama Canal, one of the signal achievements of his presidency. The move came immediately after the brand-new Panamanian government, which had been helped into existence by the U.S.S. Nashville in late 1903, ceded control of the Canal Zone to the United States on February 23.

On February 29, 1936, President Franklin Roosevelt signed the second Neutrality Act, which renewed a previous act that banned trading in arms or war materials with all parties in a war, and clarified the status of Americans traveling on ships of belligerent powers -- at their own risk (everyone still recalled the Lusitania in those days). The '36 act also banned loans or credits to belligerents. Other neutrality acts were passed in the late '30s, for all the good they did in the early '40s in keeping the United States out of war.

The Birth of the Republican Party

The Whig Party, never really a cohesive whole, fell apart in the aftermath of its loss in the election of 1852, when Democrat Franklin Pierce bested Whig Winfield Scott. The party had also lost its leading lights that year with the deaths of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. The Free Soil Party formed in the late 1840s as a single-issue party, but failed to take the Whigs' place in national politics in the early 1850s.

Rather, former Whigs (like Abraham Lincoln) and those who had dallied with Free Soil (such as Salmon P. Chase and Charles Sumner) soon found a political home in the Republican Party. A gentlemen by the name of Alvan Earle Bovay (1818-1903) is credited with founding the party by calling for a meeting in Ripon, Wisconsin in early 1854, in opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Act. That measure was then a bill (the "Nebraska" bill) pending before Congress that would allow a popular vote on whether the Kansas and Nebraska territories could have slavery, in contradiction to the Compromise of 1820.

"This meeting was held on Wednesday, March 1, 1854,: wrote A.F. Gilman of Ripon College in The Origin of the Republican Party in 1914. "What took place may be best expressed by the resolution that was adopted, which is as follows: 'Resolved, That of all the outrages hitherto perpetrated or attempted upon the North and freedom by the slave leaders and their natural allies, not one compares in bold and impudent audacity, treachery and meanness with this, the Nebraska Bill; as to the sum of all its villainies it adds the repudiation of a solemn compact held as sacred as the constitution itself for a period of thirty-four years.' "

Should the bill pass (which it did), the Ripon meeting further agreed that a new political party would be necessary to oppose it and the expansion of slavery. The meeting was not, of course, the only such meeting in the country, nor the only one to express those strong sentiments, but it's generally considered the first one out of the gate. Also, Bovay helped cement the name of the party with a timely letter to Horace Greeley, who endorsed the name in the June 24, 1854, issue of the highly influential Weekly Tribune.

The Republican Party has fielded a presidential candidate every election since 1856, claiming the prize 23 out of the last 39 elections.

What Manner of Man is Made Queasy by JKF on Church and State?

Sen. John Kennedy's presidential campaign speech to the Great Houston Ministerial Association in September 1960 is in the news over 50 years later, in the context of presidential politics. The speech is, of course, on YouTube in the early 21st century.

About a minute into the speech, Kennedy said:

"Because I am a Catholic, and no Catholic has ever been elected president, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured, perhaps deliberately, in some quarters less responsible than this. So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again — not what kind of church I believe in, for that should be important only to me — but what kind of America I believe in.

"I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishoners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.

"I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish — where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials; and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all."

George Washington Chicken McNugget Put on eBay

As of the evening of February 26, 2012, the Rare "President George Washington Chicken McNugget" has 52 bids on eBay, with the current high bid coming in at $4,050. A photo of the item shows a fairly ordinary fast-food chicken nugget that, if you put your imagination to it, might look a little like the profile of George Washington on the quarter. (This image at Omaha.com is a better look at it.)

News reports over the weekend said that the nugget has been put up for sale by one Rebekah Speight, an Iowa woman who says she discovered it three years ago and kept it in her refrigerator as a curiosity. More recently, she decided to sell it to raise money for her church's summer camp. Initially, eBay balked -- it's an expired food item, and auction rules don't allow that -- but later the company said it would make an exception since the sale was for charity (and it also seems unlikely that anyone would eat it, especially after paying thousands for it).

The auction is going along well, but still needs a slogan. Maybe "First in war, first in peace, and first in the deep-fry vats of his countrymen."

John Quincy Adams Dies

J.Q. Adams' presidency isn't particularly remembered as a success -- he wasn't the last president to face a hostile Congress -- but he was much else besides, including a highly talented diplomat and cabinet member in service of the young United States, and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1831 until his death on February 23, 1848, two days after he had (presumably) had a stroke on the floor of that chamber.

During his tenure in Congress, Adams because a prominent opponent of slavery, though not strictly speaking an abolitionist (more that once he predicted correctly that only a civil war would eventually end the peculiar institution). In 1841, he famously argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in the Amistad case, a cause célèbre of the time.

At issue was the status of enslaved Africans, led by one of the number called Cinque, who had in 1839 taken control of the Spanish ship Amistad, on which they were being transported. The ship ended up in the United States, and, with the help of sympathizers, Cinque and the others fought for their freedom in American courts. The U.S. government, in particular the Van Buren administration, wanted the Africans turned over to the Spanish, presumably to please the Spanish government, but also to mollify U.S. slaveholders.

In 1997, Anthony Hopkins portrayed Congressman Adams in the film Amistad. The following is a dramatized take on Adams' appearance before the court in late February 1841, but true to the spirit of his arguments.

The full text of Adams' argument is here. The Africans won their freedom.

George Washington's Birthday

In honor of the father of our country on the 280th anniversary of his birth, a gallery of Washington.

Dedication of the Washington Monument

On the occasion of the dedication of the Washington Monument on February 21, 1885, Senator John Sherman of Ohio (brother of the Union general) said:

"I need not say anything to impress upon you the dignity of the event you have met to celebrate. The monument speaks for itself -- simple in form, admirable in proportions, composed of enduring marble and granite, resting upon foundations broad and deep, it rises higher than any other work of human art. It is the most imposing, costly, and appropriate monument ever erected in honor of one man. It had its origin in the profound conviction of the people, irrespective of party, creed, or race, not only of this country, but of all civilized countries, that the name and fame of Washington should be perpetuated by the most imposing testimonial of a nation's gratitude to its hero, statesman, and father."

Third Monday of February, the Song

Dead Presidents Daily will return after Presidents' Day, which of course is officially no such thing (see February 1). But never mind. In recent years, the day has been promoted relentlessly by advertisers, who sometimes prove themselves adept at establishing quasi-holidays.

Entertainers have fun with the concept, too.

Grant's Reply to Buckner

The surrender of Ft. Donelson in February 1862 propelled U.S. Grant from obscurity to a commander of note in the Union army, a career that would ultimately put him in the White House. When Brig. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner, Confederate commander of the fort, sent a note to Grant requesting the terms of surrender, Grant -- famously, as it would turn out -- replied:

Sir: Yours of this date proposing Armistice, and appointment of Commissioners, to settle terms of Capitulation is just received. No terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works.

I am Sir: very respectfully

Your obedient servant
U.S. Grant

Mary Lincoln Portrait Not the Real Thing

A portrait formerly hanging in the Illinois governor's mansion, one long believed to be that of First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln, has been relieved as a forgery. Previously said to be painted specifically for Mrs. Lincoln to give to her husband, and tragically never presented to him because of his murder, the painting is now thought to be the work of an early 20th-century con man who fooled the Lincoln family into buying it not long after Todd Lincoln's death in 1926.

The fraudster, one Lew Bloom, apparently had enough painting skills to modify an existing portrait of an unknown woman to resemble the First Lady. He then invented a chain of ownership dating back to Francis Bicknell Carpenter, a painter who lived at the White House for a time in 1864 while he painted "First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln."

Carpenter did not, however, paint the First Lady, as a conservator recently discovered when cleaning the painting. Lew Bloom apparently sold the fake to Jessie Lincoln, the president's granddaughter, for $2,000 or $3,000 -- a great deal of money at the time -- and Lincoln's great-grandson, Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith, ultimately gave the portrait to the Illinois State Historical Library in 1976.

In the late 1980s, the painting was sent to the governor's mansion. Now that it's known to be a fake, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum will keep the painting. It might not be the artifact it was thought to be, but it still has an interesting Lincoln-inspired back story.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Each age gets the Lincoln it deserves. So the early 21st century clearly deserves a vampire-killing, action-hero Abe. The trailer for the upcoming Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter was released today.

Note that in one of the panning shots of the trailer, the Washington Monument is visible -- the completed monument that we know today. It might be too much to ask a fantasy like Vampire Hunter to get such niggling details right, but in Lincoln's day the monument wasn't finished. It looked like this.

Abraham Lincoln's Birthday

Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States, born February 12, 1809

"Lincoln" by Mark Lundeen, located in Springfield, Illinois.

In his campaign biography, Lincoln said of his early days: "I was born Feb. 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families -- second families, perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks.... My father ... removed from Kentucky to ... Indiana, in my eighth year.... It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up.... Of course when I came of age I did not know much. Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher ... but that was all."

U.S. Senate Elects Richard Mentor Johnson Vice President

In February of 1837, the U.S. Senate did sometime it had never done before, and has never done since: it elected the Vice President of the United States. According to the 12th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, if no vice presidential candidate has a majority of the electoral votes, "then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice."

A funny thing happened on the way to the election of 1836. Presidential candidate Martin Van Buren, Democrat, received 170 of the 294 electoral votes, a clear majority and besting all of his Whig rivals. The Whigs hadn't had a national convention that year, and so state conventions nominated four separate candidates -- a recipe for losing.

Richard Mentor Johnson of Kentucky was on the ticket with Van Buren, mainly at the insistence of President Jackson, who perhaps thought Johnson would help win western votes. But not all of the electors liked Johnson, and only 147 voted for him, which was exactly half and thus one vote short of a majority. So the election was thrown into the Senate, where Johnson faced Whig Francis Granger of New York. Ultimately, Johnson prevailed in the Senate by a party-line vote of 33 to 16, and became the Ninth Vice President of the United States.

Why did Johnson face hostile electors? He had been in Congress for 30 years, both in the House and the Senate, but more importantly -- politically speaking -- he was a hero of the War of 1812, when he supposedly killed the Indian chief Tecumseh at the Battle of the Thames in 1813. It isn't clear that Johnson actually killed Tecumseh, but he used the story to his advantage anyway.

Damning, at least in the eyes of many slaveholders, was Johnson's unconventional behavior regarding his slave Julia Chinn. "Johnson never married," notes his U.S. Senate biography. "Family tradition recounts that he ended an early romance, vowing revenge for his mother's interference, after Jemima Johnson pronounced his intended bride unworthy of the family. He later lived openly with Julia Chinn, a mulatto slave raised by his mother and inherited from his father, until her death from cholera in 1833. Johnson freely acknowledged the relationship, as well as the two daughters born to the union, and entrusted Julia with full authority over his business affairs during his absences from Blue Spring Farm.

"The choice [of Johnson as vice presidential nominee] provoked bitter dissention in Democratic ranks... Van Buren's ally Albert Balch had previously warned Jackson that "I do not think from what I hear daily that the nomination of Johnson for the Vice Presidency will be popular in any of the slave holding states except Ky. on account of his former domestic relations," and a Van Buren correspondent later predicted that "Col. Johnson's... weight would absolutely sink the whole party in Virginia." Tennessee Supreme Court Chief Justice John Catron warned Jackson that Johnson was "not only positively unpopular in Tennessee... but affirmatively odious."

Nevertheless, Van Buren became president and Johnson vice president, both serving from 1837 to 1841, but losing their re-election bid to William Henry Harrison and John Tyler in 1840. One of the stranger things Johnson did as vice president was to return to Kentucky in 1839 and run a tavern for a while. Then again, vice presidents have little to do and Johnson was in chronic need of money, so a business venture probably wasn't that strange. He also took up with another slave woman.

The Senate bio continues: "By the spring of 1839, Amos Kendall reported to Van Buren on the vice president's latest venture: a hotel and tavern at White Sulphur Spring, Kentucky. He enclosed a letter from a friend who had visited 'Col. Johnson's Watering establishment' and found the vice president 'happy in the inglorious pursuit of tavern keeping -- even giving his personal superintendence to the chicken and egg purchasing and water-melon selling department.'

"Kendall wrote with consternation that Johnson's companion, 'a young Delilah of about the complexion of Shakespears swarthy Othello,' was 'said to be his third wife; his second, which he sold for her infidelity, having been the sister of the present lady.' Although one of the most fashionable in Kentucky, Johnson's resort also formed a source of considerable embarrassment for the administration."

Lincoln's Farewell to Springfield

In early February 1861, President-elect Lincoln gave a short speech at the railroad station in Springfield, before leaving for Washington and an uncertain future. Lincoln's eloquence did not fail him.

My friends: One who has never been placed in a like position cannot undestand my feelings at this hour, nor the oppressive sadness I feel at this parting. For more than twenty-five years I have lived among you, and during all that time I have received nothing but kindness at your hands. Here the most cherished ties of earth were assumed. Here my children were born, and here one of them lies buried. To you, my friends, I owe all that I have, all that I am. All the strange checkered past seems to crowd upon my mind. To-day I leave you.

I go to assume a task more difficult than that which devolved upon General Washington. Unless the great God who assisted him shall be with and aid me I cannot prevail; but if the same almighty arm that directed and protected him shall guide and support me I shall not fail; I shall succeed. Let us pray that the God of our fathers may not forsake us now. To Him I commend you all. Permit me to ask that with equal sincerity and faith you will all invoke His wisdom and goodness for me.

With these words I must leave you; for how long I know not. Friends, one and all, I must now wish you an affectionate farewell.

James K. Polk Tuesday

Regardless of what you think of Glenn Beck or his minions -- Stu and Pat, in this case -- you have to give them credit for acknowledging a certain dead president in recent years. Namely, James K. Polk, 11th President of the United States, whose term (1845-1849) is now well over a century and a half ago.

"I can almost guarantee you will get this on no other show in America."

Once Upon a Lothario

It doesn't take much to get President Kennedy in the news, even though he's been dead for nearly 50 years. Did President McKinley have such a hold on the popular imagination in 1950? As well liked as McKinley was before his assassination, probably not.

Whatever the reason for the appeal, Kennedy's still got it. Note this photo taken during the summer of 2011 at Arlington National Cemetery. It depicts the crowd at the graves of the President and Mrs. Kennedy and two of their children. Not many other graves -- if any -- get this kind of attention, even at Arlington.

Yet another book about JKF will go on sale on Wednesday, but it's already in the news. The following is a sampling of headlines inspired on Monday by Once Upon a Secret by Mimi Alford.

Former intern: Book details Kennedy affair (CNN International)

Sex, drugs and JFK: memoir of a White House intern (The Independent)

Book details JFK affair with teen White House intern (Inquirer.net)

Grandmother details her teenage affair with JFK as a White House intern (The Australian)

Author says she was JFK's teen mistress (Baltimore Sun)

Former White House intern reveals JFK affair (TVNZ)

In New Book, Former White House Intern Details Her Alleged Affair With JFK (NPR)

5 Reasons JFK Was a Creepy, Lecherous Bastard (Gothamist)

Washington's Wine Cooler Sells for $782K

Christie's auction house recently auctioned a four-bottle, silver wine cooler presented to Alexander Hamilton by George Washington in 1797. The item fetched $782,500, whch was more than expected. The buyer, according to Christie's, was Gary Hendershott, a Little Rock-based expert and dealer in American relics; direct descendants of Secretary Hamilton were the sellers.

Washington originally commissioned the piece in 1789 as one of four to be used for after-dinner entertaining. It is Sheffield-plated silver, a layered combination of silver and copper, rather than solid silver. Washington had instructed Gouvernor Morris, whose task it was to outfit the president's house in Philadelphia, to "avoid extravagance" in procuring such items. Washington knew he was setting precedents for his new office, and didn't want monarchical overtones.

“I think it of very great importance to fix the Taste of our Country properly, and I think Your Example will go very far in that respect," Morris wrote to Washington. "It is therefore my Wish that every Thing about you should be substantially good and majestically plain; made to endure.”

And so it has. Washington bought the coolers from the federal government at the end of his presidency, for his own use at Mt. Vernon; sold another; and gave the remaining one to his close friend Hamilton. Washington wrote a letter to go with the gift, and in the mid-19th century, Hamilton's descendants had the contents of the letter engraved on the wine cooler.

“My dear Sir, Not for any intrinsic value the thing possesses, but as a token of my sincere regard and friendship for you, and as a remembrance of me, I pray you to accept a wine cooler for four bottles. It is one of four which I imported in the early part of my late administration of the Government, two of which were ever used. I pray you to present my best wishes, in which Mrs. Washington joins me to Mrs. Hamilton, and the family, and that you would be persuaded that with every sentiment of the highest regard, I remain your sincere friend, and affectionate humble servant: Geo. Washington.”

A photo of the piece and more about it is here.

Racing Presidents Tryouts

Baseball season is still a couple of months away, but the Washington Nationals are determined to be ready with newly recruited Racing Presidents. According to the team's web site, "The Washington Nationals are seeking part-time, seasonal staff to perform as the award-winning Racing Presidents. Each runner will wear a costume depicting one of the four Mount Rushmore presidents and race around Nationals Park while thousands cheer. Presidents will also pose for photos, sign autographs, and appear at select outdoor events."

Applicants must be between 5'7" and 6'6" and be at least 18 years old. They must also be able to run from center field to home plate -- about 200 yards -- in 40 seconds, and be able to stand wearing a costume that weighs about 45 lbs. for the duration of a game.

The deadline for applications is February 10, and there will be tryouts by invitation only, the team stresses, on February 18. So no wise guys in Millard Fillmore or William Howard Taft costumes need show up uninvited. The Racing Presidents web page is here, including photos. There are also numerous videos of the Racing Presidents racing, such as this one.

Dead Presidents: February

February has so many important presidential birthdays that more than 40 years ago it landed Presidents Day under the terms of the Uniform Monday Holiday Act. Except that there's no mention of "Presidents Day" or "Presidents' Day" or "President's Day" in the law, though the idea had been floated in Congress (as "Presidents' Day").

The official name of the federal holiday remains "Washington's Birthday," though of course to complicate things further, some states do have an official Presidents' Day holiday -- or some variation of that, see below -- which happens to be the same day as the federal holiday, the third Monday of February.

The holiday is "President's Day" in Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Maryland, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee, Washington, West Virginia and Wyoming. It's "Lincoln/Washington/Presidents' Day" in Arizona; "George Washington's Birthday and Daisy Gatson Bates Day" (who?) in Arkansas; and "Presidents' Day" in Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Vermont. Maine calls it "Washington's Birthday/President's Day," while it's "Presidents Day" in Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada and New Jersey. The holiday is "Lincoln's and Washington's Birthday" in Montana; "Recognition of the birthday of George Washington" in North Dakota; "Washington and Lincoln Day" in Utah, and "George Washington Day" in Virginia.

It should also be noted that the third Monday in February can never be February 22, the New Style date on which the adult George Washington celebrated his birthday. The third Monday can only be from February 15th to the 21st, which explains the anomaly in some years of having Washington's birthday celebrated on a Monday a week ahead of his birthday (the 15th) rather than a week later on his actual birthday.

One more thing: George Washington, son of Augustine and Mary Washington, was actually born on February 11, 1731, Old Style. After the adoption of the Gregorian calendar by the British Empire in 1752, Washington changed the date to be mathematically correct, and the year to conform to the new custom of starting the year on January 1.

Also born in February: Ronald Reagan (6th) and William Henry Harrison (9th), and of course Abraham Lincoln (12th), who is honored on his birthday with a holiday in a few states. Woodrow Wilson died on February 3 and John Quincy Adams died on the 23rd.

Among Vice Presidents of the United States, the dead Aaron Burr and Henry Wilson were born in February (the 6th and 16th, respectively). The living Dan Quayle celebrates his birthday on February 4. Vice President Charles Curtis is the only veep to die in February, on the 8th.

John Tyler's (Living) Grandsons

Making the rounds of dead-president news currently is the (seemingly) startling news that John Tyler, 10th President of the United States, who was born in 1790, has two living grandsons here in the early 21st century. The story broke at the web site Mental Floss and other sites soon picked it up.

New York magazine not merely repeated the story, but bothered to interview Harrison Tyler, one of the grandsons. Not only is he still alive at 83, he lives at the Sherwood Forest Plantation in Virginia -- home of the president from 1842 to his death in 1862. The other grandson, Lyon Gardiner Tyler, lives in Tennessee.

For the record, Harrison and Lyon are the sons of Lyon Gardiner Tyler (August 24, 1853--February 12, 1935), who was the fifth child of John Tyler and his second wife, Julia Gardiner Tyler. The elder Lyon was born when his father was 63; Harrison and Lyon were born when their father was in his 70s. This full interview is here.

Jackson Thrashes His Would-Be Assassin

Today is President Franklin Roosevelt's birthday. The New Deal and WWII president would have been 130. One hundred years ago today, the young patrician Roosevelt was holding his first elective office, that of state senator from Duchess County, NY.

Today is also the anniversary of an attempt on the life of President Andrew Jackson in 1835, at the U.S. Capitol. It was the first known attempt on the life of a president in office, though not of course the first attempt on Andrew Jackson's life -- the man had been in a few duels and other scrapes, after all. By 1835, he was 67 and still carried a bullet near his heart put there by Charles Dickinson, whom Jackson then killed in the duel.

People experienced their mental illness unmedicated in the 19th century, and so it was with Richard Lawrence, a house painter by profession who was variously reported to believe that Jackson was personally responsible for his unemployment, and that he (Lawrence) was British royalty. Lawrence approached the president and pointed a pistol at him from about six feet away. It misfired. So did a second pistol.

This was also the pre-Secret Service age, so President Jackson (characteristically) was one of those who helped subdue Lawrence, supposedly giving him a sound thrashing with his cane. The president lived on until 1845, finally dying of old age; Lawrence spent the rest of his life in lunatic asylums, dying in 1861.

The Plan to Reanimate Washington

News of the weird, presidential variety: A website called io9 ("We Come From the Future") recently published an article called "The Capitol architect wanted to reanimate George Washington's dead body," along with a George-Washington-as-zombie illustration that says more about the current penchant for zombies than the 18th-century statesman. Naturally, zombie George Washington prints are for sale by Plemont Studios, the image's creator; and a movie treatment can't be long in coming, especially if Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter does well.

The io9 article cites Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution, by Holly Tucker (2011) as the source for the story. "If William Thornton [pictured], physician and designer of the US Capitol, had had his way, Washington's body would have been subjected a scientific experiment designed to bring the deceased former president back to life," writes Lauren Davis. "... he planned to perform a tracheotomy so he could insert a bellows into Washington's throat and pump his lungs full of air, and finally to give Washington an infusion of lamb's blood. Friends and family declined Thornton's mad scientist offer..."

Lamb's blood, apparently, was thought at the time to have regenerative properties -- or at Thornton wanted to investigate the possibility, good Enlightenment scientist that he was. He probably deserves the benefit of the doubt, since medical science was primitive at the time, and at least he wanted to investigate new avenues of research, however strange they might sound to us.

A couple of other outlets have picked up the story, including the Daily Mail, which in true British tabloid style called its article, "Zombie George Washington: How a mad scientist planned to reanimate the first president with lamb's blood after he died."

Ronald Reagan's State of the Union Joke

Ronald Reagan, well known for his talents as a raconteur, included a touch of humor at the beginning of his first state of the union address, which he delivered on January 26, 1982.

“Today marks my first State of the Union address to you, a constitutional duty as old as our Republic itself.

“President Washington began this tradition in 1790 after reminding the nation that the destiny of self-government and the ‘preservation of the sacred fire of liberty’ is ‘finally staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.’ For our friends in the press, who place a high premium on accuracy, let me say: I did not actually hear George Washington say that. [Laughter] But it is a matter of historic record.”[Laughter]

The Monroe Doctrine: Slipped Into the President's Annual Message

The famed Monroe Doctrine got its beginning as a few paragraphs in the seventh annual message to Congress delivered -- in writing -- by President James Monroe. His Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, is universally acknowledged as the one who actually formulated the doctrine. In nondiplomatic terms, the doctrine says, "Hands off Latin America, powers of Europe! (Especially you, Spain)."

Of course diplomatic language was used, which JQA, son of a president and soon-to-be president, excelled at. The money quote from President Monroe's annual message to Congress -- we would now call it a State of the Union address, dated December 2, 1823 -- is as follows:

"We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered and shall not interfere.

But with the Governments who have declared their independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States.

Because the United States had a weak navy at the time, European powers generally ignored the doctrine during the 19th century -- and yet the Spanish and other powers didn't often try to colonize or recolonize Latin America, because it became part of the British Empire's informal sphere. What the U.S. Navy couldn't do (until the time of TR), the Royal Navy did, with the unintended consequence of enforcing the Monroe Doctrine.

The Four Freedoms

On January 6, 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt delivered his State of the Union, which included what would be known as the Four Freedoms, making it one of the best-known in the long line of State of the Union addresses.

"In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

"The first is freedom of speech and expression -- everywhere in the world.

"The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way -- everywhere in the world.

"The third is freedom from want -- which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants -- everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear -- which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor -- anywhere in the world.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.

The complete speech is here, transcribed and on audio.

The State of the Union Address

Tomorrow marks the latest of more than 200 State of the Union addresses given by a U.S. president. The custom has its origin in Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution, which says, "[The president] shall from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient."

Though the term "State of the Union" is used in the Constitution, it wasn't widely used to describe the president's annual address until Franklin Roosevelt's presidency, and not universally used until Harry Truman was in office. Earlier, the document was simply the President's Annual Message to Congress. Note also that the Constitution is vague about timing, saying nothing about an "annual" message. Still, custom has established an annual timetable.

Moreover, George Washington and John Adams delivered the addresses themselves, but Thomas Jefferson started sending written messages to Congress, as all of his successors did until Woodrow Wilson revived the practice of giving the annual report to Congress as a speech once more. Maybe his professorial leanings led to the change. Since Wilson's time most, but not all, of the State of the Union addresses have been delivered orally. The last president to send a written message was Jimmy Carter, during the waning days of his administration in January 1981.

The first paragraph of the First Annual Message to Congress on the State of the Union, delivered by President Washington on January 8, 1790, went as follows:

"Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:

I embrace with great satisfaction the opportunity which now presents itself of congratulating you on the present favorable prospects of our public affairs. The recent accession of the important state of North Carolina to the Constitution of the United States (of which official information has been received), the rising credit and respectability of our country, the general and increasing good will toward the government of the Union, and the concord, peace, and plenty with which we are blessed are circumstances auspicious in an eminent degree to our national prosperity.

Lyndon Johnson Dies

On this day in 1973, only about a month after the passing of Harry Truman, and only two days after the second inauguration of Richard Nixon, Lyndon Baines Johnson, 36th President of the United States, died suddenly at his ranch in central Texas.

A very young LBJ is pictured here.

A much older LBJ is pictured here -- the year before his death, and sporting a hairstyle not usually associated with the '60s president.

"He could take a bite out of you bigger than a T-bone steak and the very next day he would put his arms around you like a long-lost brother." -- Hubert Humphrey

"He is a master of the art of the possible in politics." -- Adlai Stevenson

"You know when I first thought I might have a chance? When I realized that you could go into any bar in the country and insult Lyndon Johnson and nobody would punch you in the nose." -- Eugene McCarthy

Inauguration Firsts

First presidential inauguration: George Washington, April 30, 1789, later than March 4 because of the time it took for the First Congress to assembly in the temporary capital, New York City.

First time the Chief Justice of the United States gave the oath of office to the incoming president: John Adams, March 4, 1797.

First president to be inaugurated in Washington City (the District of Columbia): Thomas Jefferson, March 4, 1801.

First time the United States Marine Band played for an inaugural ball: that of James Madison, March 4, 1809.

First president inaugurated wearing long trousers instead of knee breeches: John Quincy Adams, March 4, 1824. Such fashion belonged to his father's generation. JQA is also the first president to not wear a powdered wig for formal occasions.

First president to be sworn in on the East Portico of the U.S. Capitol: Andrew Jackson, March 4, 1829. The move allowed more members of the public to attend, as befitting a president who had run as the champion of the common man. Previously, the ceremonies were held in the House or Senate chambers (except for Washington, on a balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street, and Monroe in 1817, in front of the temporary capitol, because the U.S. Capitol had been destroyed in 1814 and was still being rebuilt).

First president-elect to arrive in Washington City for his inauguration by railroad: William Henry Harrison in 1841, for all the good it did him.

First inauguration thought to be photographed: that of James Buchanan, March 4, 1857.

First president to review an inaugural parade: James Garfield, March 4, 1881.

First inauguration recorded by a motion picture camera: that of William McKinley, March 4, 1897.

First president to use an automobile to arrive and depart from his inauguration: Warren G. Harding, March 4, 1921.

First inauguration broadcast on the radio: that of Calvin Coolidge, March 4, 1925.

First January 20th inauguration: for the second term of Franklin Roosevelt, 1937.

First televised inauguration: that of Harry Truman, January 20, 1949.

First time a poet participated in the inaugural program: at the ceremony for John Kennedy, January 20, 1961. Robert Frost, 86, read "The Gift Outright" by memory, when he was unable to read the poem he had written for the occasion, "Dedication."

First president to be sworn in on the west side of the U.S. Capitol: Ronald Reagan, January 20, 1981.

Nixon Quotes MacLeish

On January 20, 1969, Richard Nixon assumed the presidency, taking his oath of office from Chief Justice Earl Warren at the East Portico of the U.S. Capitol. Toward the end of his inaugural address, Nixon quoted poet and librarian Archibald MacLeish (1892-1982) regarding the flight of Apollo 8, only a month earlier.

"Only a few short weeks ago, we shared the glory of man's first sight of the world as God sees it, as a single sphere reflecting light in the darkness.

"As the Apollo astronauts flew over the Moon's gray surface on Christmas Eve, they spoke to us of the beauty of Earth -- and in that voice so clear across the lunar distance, we heard them invoke God's blessing on its goodness.

"In that moment, their view from the Moon moved poet Archibald MacLeish to write:'To see the Earth as it truly is, small and blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the Earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold -- brothers who know now they are truly brothers.'

"In that moment of surpassing technological triumph, men turned their thoughts toward home and humanity -- seeing in that far perspective that man's destiny on Earth is not divisible; telling us that however far we reach into the cosmos, our destiny lies not in the stars but on Earth itself, in our own hands, in our own hearts.

"We have endured a long night of the American spirit. But as our eyes catch the dimness of the first rays of dawn, let us not curse the remaining dark. Let us gather the light."

Kennedy's Inaugural Address

John Kennedy uttered a number of memorable phrases in his inaugural address on January 20, 1961: "pay any price, bear any burden," "a long twilight struggle" and of course "ask not what your country can do for you..."

The speech was more than just a string of memorable sound bites, however. As a work of rhetoric, it's rightly considered a soaring masterpiece, one of the best of the presidential inaugurals (though none will likely ever best Lincoln's Second Inaugural). And, at about 14 minutes, worth listening to in its entirety from time to time.

Eisenhower's First Inaugural Address

On January 20, 1953, Dwight D. Eisenhower took the oath of office as the 34th President of the United States from Chief Justice Frederick Vinson. The ceremony not only marked a change of presidents, but the recovery of the office by the Republican Party after Herbert Hoover had lost his re-election bid 20 years earlier.

Without naming names -- Stalin would be dead in less than two months, but no one knew that yet -- Eisenhower asserted that the United States had the lead role in a new geopolitical reality: the Cold War.

"How far have we come in man's long pilgrimage from darkness toward light? Are we nearing the light — a day of freedom and of peace for all mankind? Or are the shadows of another night closing in upon us?

"Great as are the preoccupations absorbing us at home, concerned as we are with matters that deeply affect our livelihood today and our vision of the future, each of these domestic problems is dwarfed by, and often even created by, this question that involves all humankind.

"This trial comes at a moment when man's power to achieve good or to inflict evil surpasses the brightest hopes and the sharpest fears of all ages. We can turn rivers in their courses, level mountains to the plains. Oceans and land and sky are avenues for our colossal commerce. Disease diminishes and life lengthens.

"Yet the promise of this life is imperiled by the very genius that has made it possible. Nations amass wealth. Labor sweats to create — and turns out devices to level not only mountains but also cities. Science seems ready to confer upon us, as its final gift, the power to erase human life from this planet.

"At such a time in history, we who are free must proclaim anew our faith. This faith is the abiding creed of our fathers. It is our faith in the deathless dignity of man, governed by eternal moral and natural laws...

"The enemies of this faith know no god but force, no devotion but its use. They tutor men in treason. They feed upon the hunger of others. Whatever defies them, they torture, especially the truth.

"Here, then, is joined no argument between slightly differing philosophies. This conflict strikes directly at the faith of our fathers and the lives of our sons. No principle or treasure that we hold, from the spiritual knowledge of our free schools and churches to the creative magic of free labor and capital, nothing lies safely beyond the reach of this struggle.

"Freedom is pitted against slavery; lightness against the dark."

FDR's Second Inaugural Address

Because of the 20th amendment to the Constitution, in 1937 Franklin Roosevelt was the first president to take the oath of office in January, which has been the case for his successors since then. Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes administered the oath on the East Portico of the U.S. Capitol on January 20, 1937.

The election of 1936 had been a landslide victory for the president. In his second inaugural address, FDR reminded the nation that much had improved since his first inauguration in 1933, but much had not, and asserted that it was the obligation of progressive government to do something about the nation's ongoing problems.

"In this nation I see tens of millions of its citizens -- a substantial part of its whole population -- who at this very moment are denied the greater part of what the very lowest standards of today call the necessities of life.

"I see millions of families trying to live on incomes so meager that the pall of family disaster hangs over them day by day.

"I see millions whose daily lives in city and on farm continue under conditions labeled indecent by a so-called polite society half a century ago.

"I see millions denied education, recreation, and the opportunity to better their lot and the lot of their children.

"I see millions lacking the means to buy the products of farm and factory and by their poverty denying work and productiveness to many other millions.

"I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.

"It is not in despair that I paint you that picture. I paint it for you in hope -- because the nation, seeing and understanding the injustice in it, proposes to paint it out. We are determined to make every American citizen the subject of his country's interest and concern; and we will never regard any faithful law-abiding group within our borders as superfluous. The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."

William Polk Carey

Real estate businessman and philanthropist William Polk Carey died in early January, aged 81. Among many other things, Carey was a pioneer of the sale-leaseback financing structure, which involves a property owner selling real estate assets to investors and then occupying the same property under a long-term lease. The arrangement works well in most cases: the seller capitalizes its real estate, allowing it to do something else with the money, while the investors get a steady, locked-in rate of return from the property.

Currently W.P. Carey & Co. oversees a worldwide investment portfolio of about $12 billion. The company's investments through the sale lease-back structure are highly diversified, comprising contractual agreements with about 288 long-term corporate tenants spanning 28 industries and 18 countries.

Carey was also renowned for his generous support of higher education thorough the W.P. Carey Foundation. His beneficiaries included the University of Maryland, Johns Hopkins University, and Arizona State University. He also gave millions to private schools in Baltimore.

Carey was not, however, a direct (lineal) descendant of James K. Polk, 11th President of United States, as was reported in a number of news stories recently. President Polk had no children. That Carey was a relative of the president's -- as well as Gen. Leonidas Polk, CSA -- there is no doubt. The Polk clan was quite extensive; the president's immediate family alone included ten brothers and sisters, all of whom (remarkably) survived childhood.

William Polk Carey was well aware of his connection to President Polk. According to the New York Times -- which merely uses the term "descendant," which might include collateral descent -- "Mr. Carey’s middle name, Polk, is an acknowledgment that he was a descendant of the 11th president of the United States, James K. Polk.

" 'He was very proud of that,' Mr. Carey’s great-nephew, William Polk Carey II, said last week. 'He liked to hand out those $1 gold coins with engravings of his Uncle Jim. That’s what he called him.' ”

Nixon and the Space Shuttle

In early January 1972, at the beginning of the last year of the Apollo program, President Nixon gave his go-ahead for a new U.S. manned space craft: the Space Shuttle. Whether you consider it a white elephant or useful tool for getting into orbit, the Space Shuttle was Nixon's baby. The following is from the statement he released on that occasion:

I have decided today that the United States should proceed at once with the development of an entirely new type of space transportation system designed to help transform the space frontier of the 1970s into familiar territory, easily accessible for human endeavor in the 1980s and '90s.

This system will center on a space vehicle that can shuttle repeatedly from Earth to orbit and back. It will revolutionize transportation into near space, by routinizing it. It will take the astronomical costs out of astronautics. In short, it will go a long way toward delivering the rich benefits of practical space utilization and the valuable spinoffs from space efforts into the daily lives of Americans and all people...

The new system will differ radically from all existing booster systems, in that most of this new system will be recovered and used again and again -- up to 100 times. The resulting economies may bring operating costs down as low as one-tenth of those present launch vehicles... Preparation is now sufficient for us to commence the actual work of construction with full confidence of success. In order to minimize technical and economic risks, the space agency will continue to take a cautious evolutionary approach in the development of this new system. Even so, by moving ahead at this time, we can have the Shuttle in manned flight by 1978, and operational a short time later...

'We must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it', said Oliver Wendell Holmes, 'but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor'. So with man's epic voyage into space -- a voyage the United States of America has led and still shall lead.

The Citizens of the Granite State Are Not Easily Won

"Eisenhower, Taft, Stassen, Warren, MacArthur, Truman, Kefauver -- it's a free country, and no armed guards to restrict your personal opinion."

So said the voice of a newsreel covering the first modern New Hampshire primary in 1952, in an unspoken comparison to Soviet Russia. As it happened, Eisenhower won the Republican primary and went on to win the presidency, while Estes Kefauver bested Harry Truman in the Democratic primary, though Kefauver didn't win the nomination (and neither did Truman, who chose retirement soon after New Hampshire). Kefauver won again in 1956, since New Hampshire clearly liked the Senator from Tennessee, and that year he was the vice presidential nominee.

"New Hampshire has spoken, and experts are looking for more straws in the political wind."

Richard Nixon's Birthday

Richard Milhous Nixon, son of Francis Nixon and Hannah Milhous, would have been 99 today.

He will be remembered for many reasons, but also has one distinction among the men who have been president (besides the matter of quitting the job): He is the only person in U.S. history to have been elected both vice president and president twice: 1952, 1956, 1968 and 1972.

"I heard Nixon speak. He was talking about free enterprise, getting government off your back, lowering taxes and strengthening the military. Listening to Nixon speak sounded more like a breath of fresh air. I said to my friend, 'What party is he?' My friend said, 'He's a Republican.' I said, 'Then I am a Republican!'”

-- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger

“Nixon is a shifty-eyed goddamn liar... He's one of the few in the history of this country to run for high office talking out of both sides of his mouth at the same time and lying out of both sides.”

-- President Harry Truman

Fillmore Week Wrap

On Friday, January 6, 2012, Col. John Higgins, the Vice Commander of the New York Air National Guard's 107th Airlift Wing, laid a wreath at the grave of President Millard Fillmore at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo. Col. Higgins acted on behalf of President Barak Obama, since it's now customary for presidential wreaths to be laid at the grave sites of each dead president on the anniversary of their birth. Fillmore, of course, is the first on the calendar.

President Nixon is next. According to The Orange County Register, Rear Adm. Mike Shatynski will represent President Obama at the ceremony at the Nixon Library on January 9, which would have been Nixon's 99th birthday. According to the paper, Edward Nixon, Richard's youngest brother (and now 91) will attend. He is the last of the Nixon siblings.

The University of Buffalo also does not forget Millard Fillmore, who was not only 13th President of the United States, but the first chancellor of that institution. At the same event as Col. Higgins' wreath-laying, A. Scott Weber, UB vice provost and dean of undergraduate education, delivered a memorial address at graveside. This year's commemoration marks the 47th consecutive year UB has organized the ceremony, which dates back to 1937. From 1937 until 1965, the anniversary ceremonies were staged by the city of Buffalo and the Buffalo Board of Education.

The Adventures of John Fillmore

A Narrative of the Singular Sufferings of John Fillmore and Others on Board the Noted Pirate Vessel Commanded by Captain Phillips, "With an Account of their daring Enterprise, and happy Escape from the tyranny of the desperate Crew, by capturing their Vessel" is a 23-page, first hand-account by Fillmore of what happened after the dread pirate John Phillips pressed him into service on September 5, 1723, after capturing the fishing sloop he was aboard.

In the fullness of time, John Fillmore would be the great-grandfather of Millard Fillmore. Born in Ipswich, Mass., on March 18, 1702, John Fillmore was the first child of John and Abigail Fillmore and later referred to as the first known American-born Fillmore. He died in 1777, but as a young man barely survived his time with Captain Phillips.

"The pirate soon came up and sent a boat on board our sloop, demanding who we were, and where we were bound," Fillmore wrote of his first encounter with the pirate ship. "To which our Captain gave a direct answer. By this boat's crew we learned that the noted pirate, Captain Phillips, commanded their ship... Having often heard of the cruelties committed by that execrable pirate, made us dread to fall into his hands."

Phillips in fact let the sloop go -- but only after deciding that Fillmore would join his crew as a "good, stout, resolute fellow," forcing him to serve aboard the pirates' ship Revenge. "Those only who have been in similar circumstances can form any adequate idea of the distress I experienced at this time. If I obstinately refused to join the pirates, instant death stared me and my comrades in the face; if I consented to go with them, I expected to be massacred for refusing to sign the piratical articles, which I had fully determined never to do..."

Fillmore did not sign the articles, but was put at the helm of the ship anyway. Captain Phillips had promised to release Fillmore after two months, but of course did not. "Captain Phillips... was not addicted to one particular vice, but to every vice," Fillmore wrote.

The better part of a year passed; the pirates attacked other vessels and pressed other men into service; and Fillmore and others plotted to take the ship from Phillips. Naturally, Phillips got wind of the plot.

"Phillips charged me, as he had done my friend, with contriving to betray him, and take the ship," Fillmore recalled. "The accusation was true enough, but I concluded a lie was warrantable in that case, and consequently replied, that I knew nothing of any conspiracy either against him or his crew. I had prepared to make resistance, in case he offered any abuse; but he had a pistol concealed under his coat, which he presented to my breast, and snapped it, before I had time to make any evasion; but happily for me it missed fire. He drew it back, cocked, and presented it again, but I struck it aside with my hand, so that it went off by my side, without doing any injury.

"I thought of knocking out his brains with the handspike that lay near me, but I knew it would be instant death for me, and therefore concluded if he would leave me, I would not meddle with him at that juncture. He then swung his sword over my head, damned me, and bid me go about my business, adding, that he only did it to try me... The pistol missing fire when snapped at my breast, and then going off by my side, was a strong indication to me that Providence had interposed graciously in my preservation -- that our final deliverance from the barbarity of the savage Phillips, and his abandoned banditti, might be more speedily effected."

And so it was. One morning after the rest of the crew had gotten good and drunk the night before, Fillmore, a man named Cheeseman and a captive referred to as "an Indian" rebelled. Direct action was the only thing to win their freedom: "The Master being busied, I saw Cheeseman make the motion to heave him over, and I at that instant, split the boatswain's head in twain with the broad axe, and dropped him upon the deck to welter in his gore. Before the Captain had time to put himself in a posture of defense, I gave him a stroke with the head of my axe, which partly stunned him; at which time Cheeseman, having dispatched the master overboard, came to my assistance, and gave the Captain a blow with his hammer, on the back side of his head, which put an immediate end to his mortal existence."

Having captured the ship, Fillmore and the others took it into Boston, where three of the surviving pirates were executed (and three others were sent to England for that fate). Fillmore concluded: "The honorable court which condemned the pirates gave me Captain Phillips' gun, silver hilted sword, silver shoe and knee buckles, a curious tobacco box, and two gold rings that the pirate Captain Phillips used to wear."

The Wisdom of Milliard Fillmore

Every U.S. president leaves behind a body of quotes, a few of which ("Speak softly but carry a big stick") make it into the common heritage of English speakers everywhere.

Alas, none of President Fillmore's quotes fall into that category. Still, he had a few pithy things to say. The following are all attributed to him.

On the hell of being a pre-pension ex-president (a situation not dealt with until the Former Presidents Act of 1958):

"It is a national disgrace that our Presidents, after having occupied the highest position in the country, should be cast adrift, and, perhaps, be compelled to keep a corner grocery for subsistence."

On why he wasn't an abolitionist:

"God knows that I detest slavery, but it is an existing evil, for which we are not responsible, and we must endure it, till we can get rid of it without destroying the last hope of free government in the world."

A prescient thought indeed for the mid-19th century:

"England at present wields the destinies of the commercial world, and her power is concentrated in London; but if this country can maintain its union, there are those now within the hearing of my voice who will live to see New York what London is now."

Something to gladden the heart of Ron Paul:

"The government of the United States is a limited government. It is confined to the exercise of powers expressly granted, and such others as may be necessary for carrying those powers into effect; and it is at all times an especial duty to guard against any infringement on the just rights of the states."

On the 19th-century locusts known as office-seekers:

"Nothing brings out the lower traits of human nature like office-seeking. Men of good character and impulses are betrayed by it into all sorts of meanness."

In an antebellum moment of despair:

"May God save the country, for it is evident that the people will not."

Sure, I headed up the Know-Nothing Ticket in '56, but some of my best friends are foreigners:

"I have no hostility to foreigners. . . . Having witnessed their deplorable condition in the old country, God forbid I should add to their sufferings by refusing them an asylum in this."

LBJ & the Great Society: 1965

On January 4, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson gave his State of the Union speech, proclaiming the "Great Society."

World affairs will continue to call upon our energy and our courage.

But today we can turn increased attention to the character of American life.

We are in the midst of the greatest upward surge of economic well-being in the history of any nation.

Our flourishing progress has been marked by price stability that is unequaled in the world. Our balance of payments deficit has declined and the soundness of our dollar is unquestioned. I pledge to keep it that way and I urge business and labor to cooperate to that end.

We worked for two centuries to climb this peak of prosperity. But we are only at the beginning of the road to the Great Society. Ahead now is a summit where freedom from the wants of the body can help fulfill the needs of the spirit.

We built this Nation to serve its people.

We want to grow and build and create, but we want progress to be the servant and not the master of man.

We do not intend to live in the midst of abundance, isolated from neighbors and nature, confined by blighted cities and bleak suburbs, stunted by a poverty of learning and an emptiness of leisure.

The Great Society asks not how much, but how good; not only how to create wealth but how to use it; not only how fast we are going, but where we are headed.

It proposes as the first test for a nation: the quality of its people.

This kind of society will not flower spontaneously from swelling riches and surging power.

It will not be the gift of government or the creation of presidents. It will require of every American, for many generations, both faith in the destination and the fortitude to make the journey.

And like freedom itself, it will always be challenge and not fulfillment. And tonight we accept that challenge.