By Edwin Cooney
THE CULT OF THE PRESIDENCY
Forty-eight years ago, on Monday, February 15th, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon proclaimed over nationwide radio and television that President Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1968 Federal Holidays Act was about to take effect. All federal holidays, except for Independence Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s, would henceforth be celebrated on a Monday. A major element of the act combined Washington’s and Lincoln’s birthdays. The beauty of Presidents Day was that the third Monday in February never falls on either the 12th or the 22nd, Lincoln’s and Washington’s respective birthdays. Since Presidents Day celebrates no particular president, it might be said that it celebrates all presidents — big or bad, small and sad, calm or mad. In other words, Presidents Day enhances the cult of the presidency.
As established under Article II of our Constitution, the president is constitutionally an institution as much as it is a person. It consists of qualifications and powers. Throughout history, the first leader of virtually all new nations has invariably been a victorious warrior. Take United Britain, for instance. The first king of a United Britain was either Alfred the Great (871 CE to 899 CE) or William the Conqueror (1066 CE to 1099 CE). Take your pick! Once General George Washington was picked by the electors of the several states, most of his contemporaries began hoisting him high atop the newly created presidential pedestal. Much time during April of 1789 (Congress’s first month in existence) was taken up on the topic of how to address the new president. Should he be called “His Honorable Excellency,” “His Excellency and Majesty,” or “His Excellency, the President of the United States”? (Note: who came up with simply Mr. President.) Vice President Adams wasn’t so revered. Much of the time taken up by considering his title was met with derision, including “his corpulency.” Ultimately, George Washington’s military heroism, his grand height and appearance (especially on a horse), his dignified manner, his relative political impartiality, his planter aristocracy, and finally his integrity would successfully be ingrained into his lofty executive office. By March 4th, 1797, Washington had inculcated several vital public expectations into the the presidential office. They included the structure of seniority in the cabinet, standards of selecting presidential appointments to both the cabinet and especially to the Supreme Court, and finally the expectation that a president would only serve two terms of office.
Although primarily institutional insofar as the population was concerned, the presidency has never been short of candidates nearly half of whom throughout the 19th Century had a military background or at least had military service. Still, most people realized that the president served as the civilian rather than the military Commander-In-Chief. After all, a successful soldier, in the public mind, was the most likely candidate to keep the public safe.
Some potential presidential candidates realized however that there was a difference between soldiering and administering the Office of President. Andrew Jackson, for instance, once insisted that although he could command a body of men in a rough sort of way, he wasn’t vain enough to think he could become president. Abraham Lincoln, even as he expanded his national speaking schedule following the 1858 Illinois U.S. Senate election against Stephen A Douglas, admitted that the taste for the presidency was only in his mouth a little. By 1895, those who knew and worked with Theodore Roosevelt (then the President of the New York City Police Commission) were convinced that the 36-year-old was a possible future president.
On one occasion sometime in 1895, writer Lincoln Steffens was in TR’s office with a friend when he asked Roosevelt if he had ever thought of becoming president one day. Suddenly TR leaped to his feet, his face showing rage: “Don’t you dare ask me that!” he almost screamed. “Don’t you put such ideas into my head! No friend of mine would say a thing like that. Never, never, must either of you remind a man on a political job that he may be president. It almost always kills him politically. He loses his nerve, he can’t do his work, and he gives up the very traits that are making him a possibility.” However, once TR became president, he created a new and ongoing expectation that the President of the United States was the “people’s president” whose first and foremost obligation was as much to the will of the people as to the Constitution of the United States.
It followed that Teddy purified our food and regulated the manufacture of our medicine. William Howard Taft busted trusts even more effectively than TR. Woodrow Wilson established the Federal Reserve System. Warren Harding hosted the 1921-22 World Disarmament Conference. Calvin Coolidge protected business and lowered our taxes. Herbert Hoover worried that dependence on government would be worse for you and me than starving to death. Franklin Roosevelt insisted that the interests and welfare of your family were essential to the welfare of his family. Harry Truman insisted that the buck stopped at his desk. Ike tried to wage peace as he had once waged war. John Kennedy insisted that the primary task of every president was to set before the American people the unfinished public business of our nation. Lyndon Johnson offered you and me a “Great Society” to improve our general welfare. Nixon brought us “peace with honor.” Jerry Ford would carry on Nixon’s unfinished task. Jimmy Carter would give us a government that is as decent as we are. Ronald Reagan would get government “off our backs” so we could make more money and enjoy more liberty. George H. W. Bush would create a New World Order. Bill Clinton assured us that he felt our pain. George W. Bush would ferret out terrorism and eradicate it. Barack Obama insisted that “yes we can” change things for the better. Now, President Donald J. Trump insists he can do anything he wants to do to assure the people’s safety and security, even if it is unconstitutional.
Millions of Americans, me included, have come to look to the president as an advocate on our personal behalves. We expect the president to protect us from danger, insure peace and prosperity, and protect if not share our personal values and religious beliefs. Our president is supposed to be our friend and advocate as well as our national leader and teacher.Twenty-one presidents have sat in the White House since Grover Cleveland observed in his second Inaugural Address that the government wasn’t designed to serve and support the people, but that it was the people’s task to serve and support the government.
Thus, the questions: If the government’s primary task is to serve the people, who is supreme? If it is the task of the people to serve the government, as President Cleveland insisted, who is supreme? Finally, has the American presidency become a secular cult? If so, is a cult a good investment?
I find questions like these fascinating! If the government is to be the servant of the people, is it legitimate for a conscientious servant to protect the people against themselves or is a servant only an order taker? If the people are the servants of the government, is the welfare of the government their primary — if not their only — responsibility?
What say you?
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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