By Edwin Cooney
Just think of it! Could a presidential name be any plainer than that of Andy Johnson? That’s what Andy Johnson was—plain (without frills) and direct. He wasn’t nearly as rough, dramatic, or deadly as General Andrew Jackson. In fact, Andy Johnson was often especially helpful to people down on their luck. Ultimately however, he possessed an indomitable determination, which made his personality stand out. He was a Democrat to his very core, which is the heart of his tragic presidential story.
Born to Jacob Johnson and Mary McDonough (her friends called her Polly) in Raleigh, North Carolina on December 29th, 1808, Andy would be fatherless by age three. His dad, Jake Johnson, who served for a time as Town Constable of Raleigh, North Carolina, saved two prominent local men from drowning in nearby Hunter’s Mill Pond one day in December 1811. He dragged the two men to the shore before collapsing from exhaustion. Becoming ill from the effects of the chilled water, he never quite regained his health. On January 4th, 1812, while serving as sexton of the local Presbyterian Church, Jacob Johnson was tolling the church bell for a local funeral when he collapsed and died from the exertion.
Raised by his widowed mother, Andy and his older brother William were indentured to a local tailor when Andy was fourteen. That meant that until they had worked off the cost of their training as tailors, the Johnson boys were virtual property to their boss James J. Selby. However, both boys became disenchanted with the arrangement and made their break one night in the spring of 1824. In June of that year, Selby offered a ten dollar reward for the return of the Johnson boys, but he made it plain in the local newspaper that he’d pay the full reward even if it was only Andy who was returned to him.
However, after short stays in Carthage, North Carolina and Laurens, South Carolina, Andy headed for the hills of East Tennessee. He settled in Greenville sometime in 1826.
Good things happened fast in that east Tennessee mountain town for young Andy. The very day he arrived in Greenville with his mother and stepfather Turner Dougherty, he was spotted by sixteen-year-old Eliza McCardle. She immediately declared, “There goes my beau,” and married him the following spring. The town tailor had just retired, so Andy Johnson’s profession was laid out for him upon his arrival. Two years later, he was a town alderman and, in 1830, just before his twenty-second birthday, he was elected the town’s mayor. He’d come to Greenville in 1826 as an illiterate runaway from indentured servitude and by 1830 he’d begun his profession, married, been elected to public office, and, most important of all, learned to read. His young wife was his teacher; Andy Johnson never attended even one day of school.
He was twenty-six when he went to the State Legislature in 1835. His platform was simple: he was and always would be for the workingman. Yet, he showed his considerable courage early on when he opposed a popular internal improvements bill in the State Legislature. He voted against it -- and his constituents voted against him the next Election Day. They returned him to the legislature, however, in 1839. He would be re-elected in 1840 and elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1842.
For ten years in the House, he supported most of the things other Southern Democrats supported, such as: the annexation of Texas, the Mexican war, the gag rule in the House preventing that body from even considering antislavery petitions, and the Compromise of 1850 which brought California into the Union and instituted the Fugitive Slave Law.
What Congressman Johnson did oppose was spending for federal institutions (such as the Smithsonian Institute) and large expenditures for the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
Gerrymandered by Tennessee Whigs out of his congressional district in 1850, Johnson decided to run for Governor of Tennessee in 1852. Frustrating his enemies, he won -- and for two terms championed the working folks once again, this time by creating a public school system and a state library.
In 1857, the State Legislature unanimously elected Andrew Johnson to the United States Senate. He proclaimed at the time that the Senate was his highest ambition. No doubt he meant it too! Andy Johnson hated pretentious “high brows.”
As America moved closer to civil war, Johnson became convinced that wealthy planters were causing the trouble and not the people. There were, after all, only about 385,000 slave holders in the South’s entire population of around nine million. It was the fear for their waning power and influence that threatened disunion, not “uppity” slaves. Thus, as Andy Johnson saw it, a civil war would be a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.
In 1860, the fifty-one-year-old Tennessee senator was, for a time, a “favorite son” presidential candidate. He was even a prospective vice presidential possibility on a national Democratic ticket. Still, Johnson cheerfully supported Vice President John C. Breckenridge’s candidacy. When Lincoln won and the South rumbled with secession, Andy Johnson declared to a packed Senate gallery that although he, too, had fought against Abraham Lincoln, his blood and his very existence was with the Union and he would be loyal to it. He was the only Southern senator to refuse to secede. Even though many of his original Eastern Tennessee mountain constituents shared his unionist views (most were too poor to own slaves), many did not.
While traveling back to Tennessee, he was twice removed from his train by angry mobs who wanted to hang him. It almost happened on the second occasion, but an old man in the crowd shouted that hanging was something that his constituents should have the right to do, so the crowd let him go back to Tennessee for hanging. Once at home, he faced down angry constituents at a meeting. He began his speech by asserting, as he placed his own pistol on the table in front of him, that if anyone proposed to shoot him it ought to be the first order of business in that day’s meeting. No one shot at him. Andy Johnson was a very brave man.
On March 4th, 1862, his Senate term having run out, Johnson was appointed Military Governor of Tennessee with the rank of Brigadier General by President Lincoln. That meant that Andy possessed all of the military, legislative, executive and even judicial power necessary to establish union civil government throughout the state. Grant had just freed Nashville from rebel control and a brave, experienced, and capable man was needed to complete the task of removing the rebel blight and replacing it with a healthy local Union civil government. Thus, for the next three years, Governor Johnson removed rebel public office holders, arrested Confederate teachers and preachers, shut down rebel newspapers, and taxed sufficiently to raise needed revenue for the war effort. Governor Johnson successfully requested that Tennessee be exempted when the Emancipation Proclamation was issued. The request was granted and, for the rest of the war, Tennessee, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware could keep their slaves.
Once he’d gained the nomination for a second term at the June 1864 Republican National Convention, President Abraham Lincoln asked the convention to nominate Andrew Johnson for Vice President. This was three months before the strategic fall of Atlanta and President Lincoln thought he’d need a Union southerner to sufficiently unite northerners behind his appeal for a second presidential term. Thus Republican Vice President Hannibal Hamlin of Maine was out and Democrat Andy Johnson of Tennessee was in.
On March 4th, 1865, Vice President-Elect Johnson was recovering from an attack of Typhoid Fever. He entered the Senate chamber on the arm of outgoing Vice President Hamlin. Feeling faint in the stuffy chamber, Johnson had several drafts of brandy. When he arose to take the oath and give his (then traditional) Vice Presidential address, he was well under the brandy’s influence and proceeded to give a long rambling address about his humble origins. Normally an excellent orator, he delivered an oration that was a disaster and everyone (some insisted President Lincoln as well) was embarrassed for him. The occasion gave Johnson the undeserved reputation of being a “drunkard.”
One of the last people President Lincoln saw on Friday, April 14th, 1865, the final day of his life, was Andy Johnson. The new Vice President carried from that meeting the knowledge that all was well between himself and the man who, as it turned out, would be martyred within about five hours.
Had things gone according to plan on the night of April 14th, 1865, Vice President Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward would have been killed along with President Lincoln. George Atzerodt, who, with his mother Mary, would be hung for taking part in John Wilkes Booth’s conspiracy, lost his nerve after stalking Johnson. Atzerodt had taken a room in Kirkwood House just below Johnson’s and failed to even attempt to kill the Vice President.
Awakened from a sound sleep and told of President Lincoln’s shooting, Johnson hurried to Petersen’s Boarding House where Lincoln lay totally comatose diagonally (due to his great height) across a bed. The President breathed his last at twenty-one minutes and fifty-five seconds after seven on the morning of Saturday, April 15th. Chief Justice Salmon Portland Chase, who wanted to be President much more than Andy Johnson, administered the oath to Johnson at Kirkwood House at ten that very morning.
When he became President, Andrew Johnson was fifty-six years old. He stood five feet ten inches tall, possessed a stocky build, had a broad forehead, black eyes guarded by bushy eyebrows, a rather large nose, a square jaw and cleft chin, and thick black, but graying hair. He often suffered from kidney stones throughout his presidency, but his health was generally good. Andrew and Eliza Johnson were the parents of two daughters, Mary and Martha, and three sons, Charles, Robert, and Andrew Johnson Jr. (Robert was the president’s private secretary before dying of alcoholism just after Johnson’s presidential term ended.) Andy Johnson, always a tailor in his own mind, dressed neatly, usually in black.
The controversy that would bring President Johnson within one vote of removal as President in May 1868 was largely not of his making. Radical Republicans led by Pennsylvania Congressman Thaddeus Stevens and Senate President Benjamin Wade of Ohio (who stood to succeed Johnson were he convicted during the trial) found it politically and financially profitable to punish rather than peaceably reconcile with the South.
Andy Johnson, who’d placed his very life and that of his family on the line as a Union man was, after all, a man of the South. (All three of his sons, his two sons-in-law and even his older brother William—then living in Texas—opposed secession.) Although he’d never owned a slave and even favored partial equality for “educated” blacks, nevertheless he sympathized with white resentment resulting from the oppressive laws passed over his veto. These laws not only enfranchised blacks, they in many ways subjugated Southern whites to a status as unworthy of American citizenship. Even more, as Johnson knew, these laws meant congressional patronage plus railroad and building contract kickbacks to important Republican leaders. Reconstruction, as it came to be called, wasn’t about the Republican Party’s righteous moral indignation over slavery, not really. It was about political and financial advantages. So, President Johnson vetoed and the Republicans passed laws over his veto. One law in particular, the Tenure of Office Act, forbade the President to fire a Cabinet member without permission of the Senate. After all, the Republicans reasoned, the Senate had to approve all original presidential appointments under the constitution.
President Johnson, who was sure the new law was unconstitutional, wanted to test this matter in the courts. He fired Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton who was clearly sympathetic to the congressional radical Republican leadership.
On February 24th, 1868, by a vote of 126 to 47 in the House of Representatives, a Bill of Impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors was passed against Andrew Johnson for firing Stanton and thereby violating the Tenure of Office Act.
The President, who asked for forty days to prepare his defense, was granted only ten. His trial began on March 5th, 1868 and lasted two months.
There were 54 senators at the time representing 27 states. Twelve senators were Democrats and firmly for the President. Since it takes a two-thirds majority to remove a President from office, the Republicans needed 36 votes. As the trial moved along, however, it became clear that seven Republicans (William Fessenden of Maine, Joseph S. Fowler of Tennessee, James W. Grimes of Iowa, John Henderson of Missouri, Edmund Ross of Kansas, Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, and Peter Van Winkle of West Virginia) had serious doubts. None of them personally liked President Johnson. However, they saw the controversy for what it was: a partisan attack on the President, not a legal question or matter of moral principle. Furthermore, the seven realized that if a President could be hounded from office merely because he opposed Congress on a matter important to Congress, the delicate and essential checks and balances built into the constitution by our forefathers would be forever destroyed.
On Saturday, May 16th, 1868, the crucial vote was taken and President Andrew Johnson was found not guilty. Though he hated living in the White House, Johnson had considerable pride. He sought the Democratic presidential nomination that July and received 65 votes on the first ballot, but despite loud and generous speeches of support for the president, the Democratic nomination went to Horatio Seymour of New York.
In March 1875, exactly seven years to the month after his impeachment trial opened in the Senate, Andy Johnson was back in that great chamber, this time as a member rather than as a defendant. It wasn’t easy. He’d lost an 1869 Senate bid and an 1872 Congressional election, but now he was back. Fourteen of his new colleagues who stepped forward to applaud and shake his hand that day had once sat in senatorial judgment of him. Now, however, there was mutual satisfaction. The twelve senators present, who had shouted “guilty” on that May Day of seven years ago, seemed pleased to make amends. Also eager to make amends was that most honorable and courageous of men—Andy Johnson.
It was a good thing, for only a little short of five months later, the former President was dead of a stroke. He was buried on a hilltop in Greenville that August. His winding cloth was an American flag and his eternal pillow was -- you guessed it -- a copy of the United States Constitution.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
CHRISTMAS—-A TIME OF ESSENTIAL INNOCENCE
By Edwin Cooney
It’s true. There’s no use denying it. I’m a sucker for Christmas. I always have been and expect that I always will be.
It isn’t that I have any better handle on how to attain “peace on earth and goodwill toward men” than those who would assume a position of world leadership—Barack Obama included. It’s just that there’s something to be said, at least in my view, for innocence.
It started when I was very young, of course. I remember lying in bed one night in early December of 1953. I was an eight-year-old student at the New York State School for the Blind in Batavia, New York. From the room on the floor below mine came the sound of pipe organ music playing Christmas carols. There was “Joy to the World”, “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” and “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” – which, along with “From the Eastern Mountains (a State School standard carol) and “O Holy Night”, are my five favorite Christmas carols.
“It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” has a special significance. Somehow, I saw myself on that night long ago with the Shepherds in the field at midnight seeing the star overhead, beckoning all of us towards Bethlehem. My eight-year-old mind imagined the shepherds and me beginning our journey to see the baby Jesus for ourselves, with generous supplies of tasty Christmas cookies, fruit juice, and hot chocolate. Exactly what happened when we got there or what life was like upon our return was, and still is, beyond my comprehension—but anticipation of a long exciting hike through forests under history’s brightest star brought forth in me fifty-five years ago a sense of euphoria, the power of which lingers with me today. That glorious energizing song linked, for me, an occasion of two thousand years ago, with my childlike anticipation of a happy adventure.
Christmas as a concept of a fresh start in life is, to say the very least, invigorating. The very idea that a Being exists who translates to us as “almighty God,” who is strong enough and will at some point in all of our futures begin maintaining us forever in spiritual safety and security, is invariably reassuring in the wake of earthly pain and uncertainty.
Then, of course, there is that other side of Christmas, the Christmas of sharing and receiving all of the material things one can perceive. In that world, cookies, juice, hot chocolate, eggnog, fruit cake and brandy are the realities that can launch us into flights of fantasy we thought we left behind as children. Inevitably, Jesus and Santa Claus meet and merge into one incredible entity or being. Ultimately, both are so extraordinary that they are compellingly real.
Like everyone else, I’ve experienced Christmases that were real bummers. Nineteen eighty-seven, the year my marriage broke up, was a definite downer and I can remember a couple of Christmases as a teen when I was somewhere at “Yuletide” where I didn’t want to be. It’s also true that Christmases are a bit of a struggle without a love partner with which to share them, but overall I still see Christmas as a time of nurturing.
Many, of course, complain about the “over commercialization” of Christmas, but it seems to me that such criticism is poorly placed. Why blame Christmas rather than advertisers for “over commercializing” Christmas. I never let George Steinbrenner ruin the Yankees for me and I never let a national administration of an opposing party (regardless of policy) ruin America for me. My love for my country, the Yankees, and my two sons isn’t predicated on perfection. So, why should I let a bunch of greedy advertisers destroy Christmas? Were I to do that, I’d be giving them far more power than they’ve ever deserved.
Let’s see now:
Every Valentine’s Day we celebrate romance, every Easter we celebrate rebirth, every Memorial Day we celebrate victory over slavery, every Fourth of July we celebrate independence and liberty, every Labor Day we celebrate working and workers, every Halloween we celebrate adventure through ghoulish fantasy (note: have you ever heard anyone complain about the over commercialization of Halloween?), every November 11th we celebrate our veterans and our freedom, every Thanksgiving we celebrate gratitude itself and every Christmas we celebrate Christ’s greatest gifts—loving, sharing and innocent joy. We celebrate these things because through our own commitment and dedication to the joy and satisfaction of these concepts and achievements, we live in a nurturing society.
Part of celebrating Christmas, or a similar holiday of another faith, is, after all, a celebration of our capacity to believe the incomprehensible. In order to believe the incomprehensible we must be free of regimentation and innocent enough to leap doctrinaire and even spiritual boundaries.
Dear Santa, if Christmas is for the innocent, an annual ticket to a place of innocence is precisely what I want sticking out of the top of my Christmas stocking!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
It’s true. There’s no use denying it. I’m a sucker for Christmas. I always have been and expect that I always will be.
It isn’t that I have any better handle on how to attain “peace on earth and goodwill toward men” than those who would assume a position of world leadership—Barack Obama included. It’s just that there’s something to be said, at least in my view, for innocence.
It started when I was very young, of course. I remember lying in bed one night in early December of 1953. I was an eight-year-old student at the New York State School for the Blind in Batavia, New York. From the room on the floor below mine came the sound of pipe organ music playing Christmas carols. There was “Joy to the World”, “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” and “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” – which, along with “From the Eastern Mountains (a State School standard carol) and “O Holy Night”, are my five favorite Christmas carols.
“It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” has a special significance. Somehow, I saw myself on that night long ago with the Shepherds in the field at midnight seeing the star overhead, beckoning all of us towards Bethlehem. My eight-year-old mind imagined the shepherds and me beginning our journey to see the baby Jesus for ourselves, with generous supplies of tasty Christmas cookies, fruit juice, and hot chocolate. Exactly what happened when we got there or what life was like upon our return was, and still is, beyond my comprehension—but anticipation of a long exciting hike through forests under history’s brightest star brought forth in me fifty-five years ago a sense of euphoria, the power of which lingers with me today. That glorious energizing song linked, for me, an occasion of two thousand years ago, with my childlike anticipation of a happy adventure.
Christmas as a concept of a fresh start in life is, to say the very least, invigorating. The very idea that a Being exists who translates to us as “almighty God,” who is strong enough and will at some point in all of our futures begin maintaining us forever in spiritual safety and security, is invariably reassuring in the wake of earthly pain and uncertainty.
Then, of course, there is that other side of Christmas, the Christmas of sharing and receiving all of the material things one can perceive. In that world, cookies, juice, hot chocolate, eggnog, fruit cake and brandy are the realities that can launch us into flights of fantasy we thought we left behind as children. Inevitably, Jesus and Santa Claus meet and merge into one incredible entity or being. Ultimately, both are so extraordinary that they are compellingly real.
Like everyone else, I’ve experienced Christmases that were real bummers. Nineteen eighty-seven, the year my marriage broke up, was a definite downer and I can remember a couple of Christmases as a teen when I was somewhere at “Yuletide” where I didn’t want to be. It’s also true that Christmases are a bit of a struggle without a love partner with which to share them, but overall I still see Christmas as a time of nurturing.
Many, of course, complain about the “over commercialization” of Christmas, but it seems to me that such criticism is poorly placed. Why blame Christmas rather than advertisers for “over commercializing” Christmas. I never let George Steinbrenner ruin the Yankees for me and I never let a national administration of an opposing party (regardless of policy) ruin America for me. My love for my country, the Yankees, and my two sons isn’t predicated on perfection. So, why should I let a bunch of greedy advertisers destroy Christmas? Were I to do that, I’d be giving them far more power than they’ve ever deserved.
Let’s see now:
Every Valentine’s Day we celebrate romance, every Easter we celebrate rebirth, every Memorial Day we celebrate victory over slavery, every Fourth of July we celebrate independence and liberty, every Labor Day we celebrate working and workers, every Halloween we celebrate adventure through ghoulish fantasy (note: have you ever heard anyone complain about the over commercialization of Halloween?), every November 11th we celebrate our veterans and our freedom, every Thanksgiving we celebrate gratitude itself and every Christmas we celebrate Christ’s greatest gifts—loving, sharing and innocent joy. We celebrate these things because through our own commitment and dedication to the joy and satisfaction of these concepts and achievements, we live in a nurturing society.
Part of celebrating Christmas, or a similar holiday of another faith, is, after all, a celebration of our capacity to believe the incomprehensible. In order to believe the incomprehensible we must be free of regimentation and innocent enough to leap doctrinaire and even spiritual boundaries.
Dear Santa, if Christmas is for the innocent, an annual ticket to a place of innocence is precisely what I want sticking out of the top of my Christmas stocking!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, December 15, 2008
STEADY, DON’T FRET, LITTLE EDDIE!
By Edwin Cooney
It’s all true, of course. While growing up, everyone called me Eddie. I was the youngest of three Eddies who attended our residential School for the Blind. One Eddie (Edgardo) was little, chunky, and very, very smart. The second Eddie (your standard Edward) was tall, skinny, and musically very, very talented.
Finally, there was me: Edwin. I was the youngest and the least smart or talented, and was even called by some “Little Eddie”. I discouraged all of that when I was twelve. Now that I’m a bit long in the tooth and silver around the temples, Eddie just doesn’t fit. However, there’s still some little kid in me.
One aspect of my personality, especially noted by my sons, is that I often over analyze people and events. “Dad, you think too much!” they frequently accuse me.
Well, from a purely political standpoint, I haven’t been this pleased since Jimmy Carter was President-Elect thirty-two years ago. For the most part, it has been a gratifying time. However, my reading and conversational habits have lately gotten in the way.
About a month ago, I decided that, as a student of history, I hadn’t read enough about the notorious Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Had someone asked me about him and “what made him tick” as they say, I couldn’t have told them much. So, I consulted my local library. I’ve been reading not only the latest Stalin biography, but I’ve also just finished a book comparing and contrasting Joseph Stalin and Adolph Hitler.
Such reading can hurriedly transform the most full-throated optimist into a quivering cynic. To read once again how Adolph Hitler transformed his rejection as an art student by the University of Vienna and his subsequent squalid Vienna existence into hatred of undeserving peoples is mind-boggling. Then, to read how Joseph Stalin used his alcoholic father’s abuse and the bullying he received by bigger kids in the neighborhood into a lifelong determination to achieve revenge through power and dominance is almost enough to surrender to the ideological Conservatives’ insistence that men, especially ambitious men, are basically evil.
One of the finest men I know is a devout ideological Conservative and Christian gentleman. He insists essentially that men are fallen and not trustworthy, especially when it comes to the establishment of government. He believes that America, “endowed by her creator” as it says in our Declaration of Independence, having been founded as a Christian nation, is an exception as long as it conforms to the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount. Okay, fair enough -- but my friend, who is also a devoted capitalist, doesn’t seem to acknowledge evil when it comes to the accumulation of “capital”, or if you prefer, money. Government, he acknowledges (the more local, the better, of course) rightfully controls crime, but it should never attempt to regulate the “free market”. Thus, America, as long as it lives up to the basic Ten and doesn’t regulate capital, is a special place reasonably devoid of evil and certainly far more worthy than the rest of God’s creation which contains men and women of other faiths and political systems.
Notice I said above, nearly devoid of evil. There is of course a most vexing American “evil”. You guessed it: it’s called “Liberalism”. Liberalism, after all, is almost devoid of all principle -- with the exception of class envy, of course, and a tendency to worship at the troth of relativism and secularism, where people too often try to figure things out rather than simply accepting the teachings of St. Paul and Milton Friedman.
I’ve endorsed most of the tenants of Liberalism in recent years. I do believe that everyone has an obligation to share through both charity and taxation. I also strongly support equality of opportunity. (Note: As for America being a “Christian” nation, President John Adams’ State Department informed the Moslems of Tripoli in 1797 that America officially endorsed no religion including Christianity.) I believe that people’s individual backgrounds do dictate not the excuses but the reasons for people’s behavior. However, just as I get comfortable with that conclusion, someone throws me a curve that nearly drives me to my Conservative friend’s point of view.
This week it was Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s alleged attempt to sell President-Elect Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder. If the highly regarded Chicago-based Federal Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is to be believed, the government
has proof of the deed obtained through an authorized wiretap. The Senate and the President-Elect have both properly distanced themselves from the beleaguered governor. Conservative talk show hosts are sporting genuinely happy smiles for the first time since November 4th, believing as they do that there’s just got to be a link between Blagojevich and Barack Obama.
So, you ask, what’s the point of all this? The answer is simple—Eddie’s incredulity! I just don’t get it. I’m repelled, of course, by both Hitlerism and Stalinism. I don’t, as I once did, buy ideological Conservatism. Even more, I’m almost just as repelled by the lesser sins of Governor Blagojevich. It’s hard to believe that Governor Blagojevich would even consider subjecting President-Elect Obama’s name to such shabby behavior. The little kid in me, once called Eddie, wants to kick and scream at Governor Blagojevich, even more than at self-satisfied Conservative talk show hosts and personal friends.
Throughout our lives, most of us seek to identify and establish the boundaries between right and wrong, good and evil. We do this for the most part because we try not to step over those lines.
Occasionally, however, someone who is too close for comfort to someone special does step over one of those lines -- and Eddie starts fretting again!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
It’s all true, of course. While growing up, everyone called me Eddie. I was the youngest of three Eddies who attended our residential School for the Blind. One Eddie (Edgardo) was little, chunky, and very, very smart. The second Eddie (your standard Edward) was tall, skinny, and musically very, very talented.
Finally, there was me: Edwin. I was the youngest and the least smart or talented, and was even called by some “Little Eddie”. I discouraged all of that when I was twelve. Now that I’m a bit long in the tooth and silver around the temples, Eddie just doesn’t fit. However, there’s still some little kid in me.
One aspect of my personality, especially noted by my sons, is that I often over analyze people and events. “Dad, you think too much!” they frequently accuse me.
Well, from a purely political standpoint, I haven’t been this pleased since Jimmy Carter was President-Elect thirty-two years ago. For the most part, it has been a gratifying time. However, my reading and conversational habits have lately gotten in the way.
About a month ago, I decided that, as a student of history, I hadn’t read enough about the notorious Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Had someone asked me about him and “what made him tick” as they say, I couldn’t have told them much. So, I consulted my local library. I’ve been reading not only the latest Stalin biography, but I’ve also just finished a book comparing and contrasting Joseph Stalin and Adolph Hitler.
Such reading can hurriedly transform the most full-throated optimist into a quivering cynic. To read once again how Adolph Hitler transformed his rejection as an art student by the University of Vienna and his subsequent squalid Vienna existence into hatred of undeserving peoples is mind-boggling. Then, to read how Joseph Stalin used his alcoholic father’s abuse and the bullying he received by bigger kids in the neighborhood into a lifelong determination to achieve revenge through power and dominance is almost enough to surrender to the ideological Conservatives’ insistence that men, especially ambitious men, are basically evil.
One of the finest men I know is a devout ideological Conservative and Christian gentleman. He insists essentially that men are fallen and not trustworthy, especially when it comes to the establishment of government. He believes that America, “endowed by her creator” as it says in our Declaration of Independence, having been founded as a Christian nation, is an exception as long as it conforms to the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount. Okay, fair enough -- but my friend, who is also a devoted capitalist, doesn’t seem to acknowledge evil when it comes to the accumulation of “capital”, or if you prefer, money. Government, he acknowledges (the more local, the better, of course) rightfully controls crime, but it should never attempt to regulate the “free market”. Thus, America, as long as it lives up to the basic Ten and doesn’t regulate capital, is a special place reasonably devoid of evil and certainly far more worthy than the rest of God’s creation which contains men and women of other faiths and political systems.
Notice I said above, nearly devoid of evil. There is of course a most vexing American “evil”. You guessed it: it’s called “Liberalism”. Liberalism, after all, is almost devoid of all principle -- with the exception of class envy, of course, and a tendency to worship at the troth of relativism and secularism, where people too often try to figure things out rather than simply accepting the teachings of St. Paul and Milton Friedman.
I’ve endorsed most of the tenants of Liberalism in recent years. I do believe that everyone has an obligation to share through both charity and taxation. I also strongly support equality of opportunity. (Note: As for America being a “Christian” nation, President John Adams’ State Department informed the Moslems of Tripoli in 1797 that America officially endorsed no religion including Christianity.) I believe that people’s individual backgrounds do dictate not the excuses but the reasons for people’s behavior. However, just as I get comfortable with that conclusion, someone throws me a curve that nearly drives me to my Conservative friend’s point of view.
This week it was Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s alleged attempt to sell President-Elect Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder. If the highly regarded Chicago-based Federal Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is to be believed, the government
has proof of the deed obtained through an authorized wiretap. The Senate and the President-Elect have both properly distanced themselves from the beleaguered governor. Conservative talk show hosts are sporting genuinely happy smiles for the first time since November 4th, believing as they do that there’s just got to be a link between Blagojevich and Barack Obama.
So, you ask, what’s the point of all this? The answer is simple—Eddie’s incredulity! I just don’t get it. I’m repelled, of course, by both Hitlerism and Stalinism. I don’t, as I once did, buy ideological Conservatism. Even more, I’m almost just as repelled by the lesser sins of Governor Blagojevich. It’s hard to believe that Governor Blagojevich would even consider subjecting President-Elect Obama’s name to such shabby behavior. The little kid in me, once called Eddie, wants to kick and scream at Governor Blagojevich, even more than at self-satisfied Conservative talk show hosts and personal friends.
Throughout our lives, most of us seek to identify and establish the boundaries between right and wrong, good and evil. We do this for the most part because we try not to step over those lines.
Occasionally, however, someone who is too close for comfort to someone special does step over one of those lines -- and Eddie starts fretting again!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, December 8, 2008
ZACHARY TAYLOR—A MAN AMONG PRESIDENTS!
By Edwin Cooney
“Stop your nonsense and drink your whiskey,” General Zachary Taylor is said to have responded to the Whig Party politician who first broached the idea of his running for President of the United States.
He was sixty-four years old when he was elected America’s twelfth president and he’d never voted in his life -- let alone run for any political office. He wasn’t particularly famous until he was sixty-one when, during the Mexican War, he prevailed at the Battle of Palo Alto on May 8th, 1846. Despite being outnumbered two to one, using superior firepower, he overwhelmed Mexico’s General Mariano Arista thus driving him well south of the Rio Grande, our demarcation of the American Mexican border.
For that spectacular victory he was made a Brevet Major General and received a formal letter of thanks from Congress for “the enterprise, skill and courage” he demonstrated in operations on the Rio Grande.
However, although he drove Mexican General Pedro de Ampudia’s superior forces from the city of Monterey, on September 25th, 1846, he was severely reprimanded by the Polk Administration for allowing the Mexicans to get away with all of their sidearms and even some artillery in exchange for occupying the city. Even more, he’d agreed not to pursue de Ampudia for eight weeks. Taylor replied that the United States had an obligation to limit bloodshed as well as show magnanimity when it could even during wartime. The Polk Administration subsequently stripped Taylor of about two-thirds of his forces and turned them over to General Winfield Scott. Taylor, rather than resigning his command as he believed he was being pressured to do, continued on with a much reduced army. Still he continued to conquer.
On February 23rd, 1847 at the Battle of Buena Vista, “Old Rough and Ready” (as he had long been called) defeated the infamous General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. Santa Anna, you’ll recall, was the Mexican general who had slaughtered Colonel Travis, Jim Bowie, and the legendary Davy Crockett at the Battle of the Alamo in 1836. As he had done eleven years previously, Santa Anna warned Taylor (who was outnumbered four to one) that if he didn’t surrender, he and all of his men would be slaughtered. Like Colonel Travis before him, Taylor refused to surrender, but unlike Travis, Taylor prevailed and Santa Anna retreated. Thus a genuine war hero, Zachary Taylor became a leading Whig Party candidate for President of the United States.
Nominated on the fourth ballot at the June 1848 Whig Party Convention, candidate Taylor inadvertently refused to accept the letter sent him by the convention’s chairman notifying him of his nomination. Back then, postage was often paid by the recipient rather than the sender of letters. As a Mexican War hero, Taylor was getting so many unpaid letters from all over the country that he requested that unpaid mail should not be delivered to him. Hence, official notification that he was the Whig presidential nominee landed in the dead letter office. Finally, the Whig Convention chairman realized what had happened and sent General Taylor a postage paid notification of his nomination which he, of course, accepted. That November 7th, Taylor defeated Lewis Cass of Michigan, the Democratic nominee, by collecting 1,260,101 popular votes to Cass’s 1,220,544. In the Electoral College, General Taylor defeated Senator Cass 163 to 127. Taylor and Cass each carried fifteen states. Although Zachary Taylor became the fourth president elected from a state other than his native state, he became the first president to be elected while losing his native state (Virginia) to his opponent. By 1848, Taylor was a resident of the state of Louisiana.
Zachary Taylor’s presidency would last for only sixteen months and four days—March 5th, 1849 to July 9th, 1850. His presidential achievements were few in number and small in consequence.
In December 1849, he signed a Treaty of Amity with the Hawaiian Islands. Less than three months before Taylor’s untimely death, the Senate ratified the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty with Great Britain in April 1850 which declared that any canal built through Central America would be open to all shipping and would be the property of no nation. (It would be abrogated by the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty in 1901.)
That was it. The Taylor Presidency would mostly reflect the person of the president.
Zachary Taylor, named after his paternal grandfather, was born on November 24th, 1784 in Montebello, Orange County, Virginia. His parents, Richard and Sarah (Sally) Dabney Strother Taylor, had stopped at Montebello on their way west to their new home near Louisville, Kentucky.
Richard Taylor was a well-to-do planter who owned some 10,000 acres of land in Kentucky. The elder Taylor had served in the Continental Army during the Revolution and eventually served as a Justice of the Peace and as a county magistrate in northern Kentucky.
President Taylor’s mother, Sally Taylor, a well-educated woman for her time, suffered from a disabling injury when molten led was spilled on her hands while she was helping make bullets—perhaps during the American Revolution. She would give birth to eight children, Zachary being her third child.
On May 3, 1808, young Taylor was assigned First Lieutenant of the Seventh Army Regiment in Indiana territory. For the next forty years, with only a brief interruption in 1815-16, he would be a soldier. A veteran of the War of 1812, the Black Hawk War 1832, the second Seminole War (1837-40), he would be known as an “Indian fighter.” What stands out most however is who he was.
By birth, he was the second cousin of President James Madison—who was also Virginia- born. That means that he and Madison shared a great grandfather. He was a fourth cousin once removed of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, which means that he and FDR’s great great great grandfathers were first cousins once removed.
In 1835, Zachary Taylor’s second oldest daughter, Sarah Knox Taylor, married Jefferson Davis who would go on to be the President of the Confederate States of America. Taylor opposed the match because he didn’t want his daughter to have to live the life of a military officer’s wife. It is even said that Davis and Taylor considered settling their differences in a duel, but that didn’t happen. The couple was married on June 17th, 1835 near Louisville, Kentucky and settled in Mississippi. Tragically, while visiting friends near St. Francisville, Louisiana in September of that year, both came down with malaria. Davis recovered, but Sarah died.
President Taylor was personally affable -- especially gallant around women – straight-forward in speech and when expressing his opinions, politically unsophisticated, and even occasionally naive. He stood about five feet eight inches and weighed about two hundred pounds as President. He had short bowed legs, long gangly arms, a long thin face with a long nose, all topped by thick graying hair. He habitually stood with one hand behind his back.
Although he was constitutionally required to take the presidential oath at noon on March 4th, 1849, that date fell on a Sunday for the second time in our history. President Taylor, perhaps out of respect for his extremely religious wife Margaret (Peggy) Mackall Smith, refrained from taking the presidential oath on the Sabbath. President James Knox Polk’s term ended at noon the day before. Thus, for twenty-four hours America was technically without a president. However, some believe that David Rice Atchison of Missouri, then serving as Senate President Pro Tempore during that twenty-four hour time period was in fact our twelfth president. When Atchison died in 1886 the state of Missouri paid $15,000 for his monument which states that Senator Atchison was President of the United States for one day. Under the Judiciary Act of 1792, the President Pro Tempore ranked behind the Vice President in order of succession to the presidency. (Note: The 1792 Judiciary Act was amended by the Judiciary Act of 1887 which placed the Secretary of State in line behind the Vice President. That was further amended by the Judiciary Act of 1947 which places the Speaker of the House, then the President Pro Tempore of the Senate behind the Vice President, followed by the cabinet largely in order of office seniority beginning with the Secretary of State.)
The major issue facing President Taylor, as it did all presidents at the time, was slavery. Although master of one hundred slaves, President Taylor opposed the expansion of slavery. He warned those congressmen who threatened to lead a secession movement that if they did, he’d hang them quicker than he’d hung deserters during the Mexican War. There was also a border dispute between slave-holding Texas and the free territory of New Mexico which President Taylor suggested should be settled by the Supreme Court. When Texans threatened to invade New Mexico, Taylor told them that if they did, he’d personally lead troops against them.
President Taylor believed it was unconstitutional for the government to involve itself in any way in the slavery question. He let it be known that he’d veto the “Compromise of 1850,” then being debated in Congress, which would admit California as a free state, end the slave trade in the District of Columbia, and institute the fugitive slave law. His position on the slavery issue was much like that of those who today oppose gay marriage. He insisted that if the government could make slavery lawful or unlawful it could dictate the relationship between husbands and wives—thus his opposition.
Thursday, July 4th, 1850 was, as usual, hot in Washington. President Taylor attended Independence Day ceremonies and laid the cornerstone at the newly constructed Washington monument. He listened to two hours of patriotic speeches before heading back to the White House. Hot and thoroughly exhausted, the President refreshed himself by wolfing down a bowl of cherries and a pitcher of ice milk. He was painfully ill within hours. His physician, Dr. Alexander S. Wotherspoon diagnosed cholera morbus which was common in summertime Washington, D.C. where unsanitary conditions often made it dangerous to consume locally grown fruit or dairy products.
The President recovered briefly on July 5th, but soon the illness took hold. On July 9th, the President knew he was dying. His last words around six p.m. were, “I’m dying and I expect the summons soon. I regret nothing, but I am sorry to be leaving my friends.”
It’s fitting somehow that Zachary Taylor, plain and always unpretentious, is remembered more as a man than as a president. It’s not hard, somehow, to believe that Zachary Taylor would prefer it just that way!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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