History Buff's Guide to the Presidents (3 page)

Four distinct waves of governors have rolled into the White House, and all came in times of relative peace. From the end of “Mr. Madison’s War” in 1815 to the start of “Mr. Polk’s War” in 1846, six of the seven presidents had been state or territorial governors. After the Spanish-American conflict, it was four of four (counting Taft’s civil governorship in the Philippines). Between the world wars, there was Lieutenant Governor Harding of Ohio, Governor Coolidge from Massachusetts, and New York’s Franklin Roosevelt. After the fall of Saigon, four of the next five presidents had been heads of individual states.

Voters subconsciously prefer governors because they are effectively minipresidents. Governors are the head of a government, work with a legislature, manage a budget, act as commander in chief over militias or national guards (when they are not under direct federal authority), and nearly all have the power of vetoes and pardons. Before there was a federal executive, the young states of Delaware, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina referred to their respective governors as “president.”
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One future president desperately wanted to be governor but never won. In 1962, Richard Nixon narrowly lost the California race to Democrat Pat Brown. The Republican subsequently announced his retirement from politics and told reporters, “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore.”

5
. U.S. REPRESENTATIVE (18)

MADISON, JACKSON, W. H. HARRISON, TYLER, POLK, FILLMORE, PIERCE, BUCHANAN, LINCOLN, A. JOHNSON, HAYES, GARFIELD, McKINLEY, KENNEDY, L. JOHNSON, NIXON, FORD, G. H. W. BUSH

Much like state legislators, U.S. representatives reached their apex of influence in the nineteenth century. More than half the presidents in the 1800s came from the lower house, compared to only five during the 1900s and none thus far in the 2000s.

Nearly all of them had long stays on Capitol Hill. Lincoln became one of the few exceptions when he opposed the popular war with Mexico and was driven out. In contrast, James Madison served four terms as one of Virginia’s first representatives. James Knox Polk worked for fourteen years and became the first (and to date only) Speaker of the House to become president. James Garfield served the Nineteenth District of Ohio from 1863 to 1880, until he became the GOP’s pick for president.

The twentieth century witnessed a string of former representatives: Jack Kennedy, an aristocrat representing the working-class district of Boston; Lyndon Johnson, who placated his white constituents with several votes against civil rights; anticommunist Dick Nixon, who won many supporters through his hardhearted treatment of suspected spy Alger Hiss; and moderate George H. W. Bush, a supporter of the Vietnam War and tax incentives for independent oil companies.
⁵

James K. Polk is, to date, the only Speaker of the House to become president. In the nineteenth century, however, he was just one of thirteen veterans of the U.S. House of Representatives to reach the White House.

None were more respected than Michigan’s Gerald Ford. He won twelve congressional terms, all by landslides. A fiscal conservative, he opposed minimum-wage increases, fought Medicare, and endorsed an all-or-none commitment to Vietnam. But he used logic over raw emotion, exuded honesty, and was genuinely considerate when discussing controversial issues, leading many to call him a “Congressman’s Congressman.”
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But no sitting member of the House has been elected to the White House in nearly 130 years. Today, the once-prestigious chamber is commonly viewed as a mere apprenticeship for those seeking higher office.

In 1861, former U.S. Congressman John Tyler was elected by his fellow Virginians to the House of Representatives of the Confederate States of America. He died before he could take office.

6
. U.S. SENATOR (16)

MONROE, J. Q. ADAMS, JACKSON, VAN BUREN, W. H. HARRISON, TYLER, PIERCE, BUCHANAN, A. JOHNSON, B. HARRISON, HARDING, TRUMAN, KENNEDY, L. JOHNSON, NIXON, OBAMA

From its conception, the Senate possessed the air of lordship. Membership required U.S. residence of at least nine years (two more than the House), and senators were selected by state legislatures rather than by popular vote (a custom that lasted until 1913 with the Seventeenth Amendment). Inductees represented whole states rather than mere districts, and their terms were a courtly six years rather than a curtly two. There was also a greater presidential connection. Until 1886, the order of succession went from the president to the vice president to president pro tempore of the Senate. As Senator Lyndon Johnson said, “The difference between being a member of the Senate and a member of the House is the difference between chicken
salad
and chicken
sh—.”
⁷

For a time, the chamber was known as the “Mother of presidents.” From 1817 to 1849, all six executives had senatorial backgrounds. But since then, the upper house has seen a decline in the number of presidential victories. They are often well represented in elections but usually lose—and badly. On average, senators make up 36 percent of presidential candidates (more than any other group), and they win nomination 22 percent of the time. But in 2008, Barack Obama became the first sitting senator to be elected since John F. Kennedy.”
⁸

Lyndon Johnson much preferred his former job of Senate majority leader over the banal position of vice president. Most deputy executives, with the possible exceptions of the grateful Chester A. Arthur and opportunist Dick Cheney, viewed the vice presidency as essentially a political demotion.

In 1957, Senator Jack Kennedy won the Pulitzer Prize for
Profiles in Courage
, a biographical sketch of eight U.S. senators, including John Quincy Adams, who refused to follow popular opinion on controversial issues.

7
. VICE PRESIDENT (14)

J. ADAMS, JEFFERSON, VAN BUREN, TYLER, FILLMORE, A. JOHNSON, ARTHUR, T. ROOSEVELT, COOLIDGE, TRUMAN, L. JOHNSON, FORD, NIXON, G. H. W. BUSH

John Adams called it “the most insignificant office ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.” Thomas Marshall, Woodrow Wilson’s deputy, was partial to the joke about the woman who had two sons—one went to sea, the other became vice president, and neither was heard from again. “Not worth a pitcher of warm piss,” said Franklin Roosevelt’s first veep John Garner. When vice presidents died in office—which happened during the presidencies of Madison, Pierce, Grant, Cleveland, McKinley, and Taft—the government simply went without one.
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Yet in fourteen cases, deputy executives proved exceedingly important to their party and their countrymen. Eight provided invaluable continuity in the face of untimely deaths. Five were elected in their own right. One ably stepped up when his boss resigned.

The Cold War elevated the vice presidency to an entirely new level. With the possibility of nuclear strikes, executives began to treat their second in command as potentially just that. Vice presidents became common fixtures in cabinet meetings and the N
ATIONAL
S
ECURITY
C
OUNCIL
. In 1967, the Twenty-Fifth Amendment stipulated that all vacated vice presidencies had to be filled.

Recently, the office has gone through another transformation. Vice presidents were previously invaluable in “balancing the ticket” geographically. Up to the Civil War, nearly every pair of executives represented both the North and the South. From Reconstruction to World War II, a northeasterner was almost always paired with a midwesterner. Recently, however, the “balance” has been more political, joining moderates with slightly radical sidekicks, as exemplified by the Arkansas-Tennessee White House from 1993 to 2001 and the Texas-Texas pair from 2001 to 2009 (Dick Cheney lived in Dallas, but he claimed residency in his home state of Wyoming to be constitutionally eligible for election).

Franklin Roosevelt, undefeated in four presidential bids, failed in his only attempt to be vice president. Paired with Democratic nominee James Cox in 1920, they lost by a landslide to Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge.

8
. EDUCATOR (14)

J. ADAMS, JACKSON, FILLMORE, PIERCE, GARFIELD, ARTHUR, CLEVELAND, McKINLEY, WILSON, HARDING, EISENHOWER, L. JOHNSON, CLINTON, OBAMA

Until the late 1800s, the majority of teachers in the United States were male, and a few became president. John Adams, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, Chester A. Arthur, and Grover Cleveland taught to make ends meet while preparing for a career in law. Most viewed teaching as thankless grunt work, but most of them liked the kids, especially Adams. Fresh out of Harvard, he taught in a one-room schoolhouse in Worcester, where he believed: “In this state I can discover all the great geniuses.”
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In the twentieth century, primary schools increasingly became a female domain, while males continued to dominate the world of collegiate academics. The only president with a PhD, Woodrow Wilson taught political science and history at Princeton, where he wrote
Constitutional Government in the United States
, a highly insightful volume on the hidden potential of the executive branch. After his service in World War II, Dwight Eisenhower became president of Columbia University. Bill Clinton enjoyed a brief professorship at the Arkansas University School of Law in the early 1970s, and Barack Obama taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago in the 1990s.

Two future presidents planned on being teachers for life but were compelled to leave. James Garfield despised unruly kids, indifferent parents, and dilapidated schools, but he eventually became headmaster at a small academy in Ohio. He improved teacher quality, revolutionized the curriculum, and increased enrollment. The institute eventually became Hiram College. Lyndon Johnson became principal at a predominantly Hispanic elementary school in Texas, where he created academic competitions, speech tournaments, and a sports program, which he funded partly out of his own pocket. In addition to teaching, he also coached debate, softball, glee club, and volleyball. Disheartened by the lack of parental support, he left, coming to the same conclusion Garfield did a century before: “I want something that has the
thunder
in it more than this has.”
¹¹

After retiring from the White House, Grover Cleveland went on to head the board of trustees at Princeton, where he often disagreed with radical changes proposed by the university’s president, a professor named Woodrow Wilson.

9
. CABINET MEMBER (10)

JEFFERSON, MADISON, MONROE, J. Q. ADAMS, VAN BUREN, BUCHANAN, T. ROOSEVELT, TAFT, HOOVER, F. ROOSEVELT

Neither the word
cabinet
nor
secretary
appears in the Constitution. The document only mentions departments, which Congress is empowered to create. The president’s relation with these units is defined in article 2, section 2, stating, “he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices.”

In 1789, the Department of State was the first cabinet position constructed, followed by Treasury, War, and Justice with its attorney general. The prestige post was secretary of state, then commonly perceived as second in command of the government.

Before the age of specialization, many cabinet officials functioned interchangeably. While Lincoln’s team is famed for being a well-managed hive of rivals, the same could be said for nearly every cabinet up to that time, including James Monroe’s (himself the secretary of state under James Madison and, for a while, his secretary of war). Monroe’s wise choices included John Quincy Adams, who as state secretary inspired the M
ONROE
D
OCTRINE
and acquired Florida. Few despised Adams more than Monroe’s secretary of war, John C. Calhoun, yet Adams and Calhoun became president and vice president in the election of 1824.