Who was America’s Greatest President?

So, today is President’s Day, the day when Americans honor the institution of the presidency and ask that time honored question: “Who is America’s greatest President?” Really? What a waste of time. It reminds me of the classic kid/parent argument:

Kid: “Why is there a Mother’s Day and a Father’s Day but not a Kid’s Day?”

Mom & Dad: “Because everyday is Kid’s Day.”

Do we really need to give high-ranking politicians their own holiday? Good lord, no. I prefer to celebrate a different type of president today, namely entrepreneurs like Nikola Tesla, Henry Ford, and Steve Jobs.

But since the rest of the country is debating the likes of Lincoln and Washington, we might as well add our two cents to the issue. So, who is America’s greatest president? Regardless of political affiliation, scholars almost always rank Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt as America’s three greatest presidents in no particular order.

That means they’re the greatest right? It depends on how you define “great.” Here’s a different view from Lew Rockwell at LewRockwell.com.

There have been four huge surveys taken of historians’ views on the presidents: in 1948, in 1962, in 1970, and in 1983. Historians were asked to rank presidents as Great, Near Great, Average, Below Average, and Failure. In every case, number one is Lincoln, the mass murderer and military dictator who is the real father of the present nation. His term was a model of every despot’s dream: spending money without Congressional approval, declaring martial law, arbitrarily arresting thousands and holding them without trial, suppressing free speech and the free press, handing out lucrative war contracts to his cronies, raising taxes, inflating the currency, and killing hundreds of thousands for the crime of desiring self-government. These are just the sort of actions historians love…

Most historians value power accumulation when ranking the greatest presidents. Charisma and crisis confrontation are also considered important. Practically no one values minimal government or the ability to avoid crises. And yet some presidents did fairly well in these areas. These libertarian-type presidents were usually dull and didn’t spend years fighting wars or recessions. Instead, their terms were marked by peace, prosperity, and the respecting of individual liberties. Their ranks include Grover Cleveland as well as Rutherford B. Hayes. Using this definition of greatness (peace, prosperity, and the respecting of individual liberties), the greatest president of all time just might be the little-known John Tyler:

John Tyler was the 10th President of the United States. He was known as “His Accidency,” on account of the fact that he took over after William Henry Harrison’s untimely death. Most of his cabinet resigned during his term and his own party expelled him from its membership. According to Wikipedia, an aggregate of various scholarly polls rate Tyler as one of the worst presidents of all time. Heck, even the extremely controversial George W. Bush outranks him. Who would possibly consider President John Tyler #1?

(See the rest right here at Guerrilla Explorer)

Calvin Coolidge: Did he save the U.S. Economy?

Amity Shlaes is out with her latest book, Coolidge, a new take on the controversial presidency of Calvin Coolidge. Conservatives love Silent Cal, giving him full credit for the Roaring Twenties. Liberals hate him, believing his free market policies caused the Great Depression. Shlaes falls firmly in the former camp. Personally, I think he’s partly responsible for both. That’s because the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression were caused by the same thing…rapid expansion of the money supply.

From mid-1921 to mid-1929, the money supply grew 61.8%, with much of that coming during Coolidge’s terms in office. All that money fueled a boom as businesses raced to invest it (aka the Roaring 20s). Eventually, too much money chased too few worthy investments. Poor businesses failed. The economy crashed and the money supply contracted. The Federal Reserve, just like today, mistakenly tried to reinflate the bubble in 1932 only to find itself unable to do so.

Still, Coolidge wasn’t a bad president. He cut the national debt and reduced tax rates. He avoided wars in Latin America. For more on Calvin Coolidge, see this interview with Amity Shlaes conducted by Ed Driscoll at PJ Media:

MR. DRISCOLL:  The Forgotten Man helped to place FDR into context by focusing on many personal histories of the 1930s, beyond the palace intrigue of Capitol Hill. These days, whatever collective history we have of the 1920s seems to come from The Great Gatsby, The Untouchables,and TV shows like HBO’s Boardwalk Empire.  How badly do people today misremember the decade of the 1920s ?

MS. SHLAES:  We really misremember it and then you want to ask why.  So Forgotten Man was about the misremembering of the 1930s.  Coolidge is about the misremembering of the 1920s.

So the cliches you describe, and they’re fun and amusing, are that it was all a lie or about guns and alcohol, something illegal and contraband, corruption resulting from prohibition.  Or it was all a lie; Gatsby wasn’t real wealth.  He was an illusion.  He was a shimmer in a champagne glass.  Right?

So when you go back and look at the ’20s — this is the era of Coolidge, you see a lot of real growth.  Things we would envy, we wish we could have, such as employment was often below five percent.  When you wanted a job you got one.  Wages rose in real terms.  Not a lot but consistently.  You can go back and look at that, even for unskilled workers.  Well, what else — interest rates were pretty low.  The budget was in surplus.  We didn’t have a deficit.  The federal debt was huge from World War I.  We were bringing it down reliably…

(See the rest at PJ Media)

Battle of the Presidents: Obama vs. Hayes?

Who’s the better U.S. President? Barack Obama? Or the little-known Rutherford B. Hayes?

Battle of the Presidents: Barack Obama vs. Rutherford B. Hayes?

In what promises to be the strangest President vs. President battle of 2012, President Obama knocked President Rutherford B. Hayes (1877-1881) yesterday over his apparent dislike of the telephone.

“One of my predecessors, President Rutherford B. Hayes, reportedly said about the telephone: ‘It’s a great invention but who would ever want to use one?’ That’s why he’s not on Mt. Rushmore. He’s looking backwards, he’s not looking forward. He’s explaining why we can’t do something instead of why we can do something.” ~ President Barack Obama

Whew! Pretty low blow there by President Obama, going after someone who can’t exactly defend himself. There’s just one problem…it’s not true. According to Nan Card at the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center, there’s no record of Rutherford B. Hayes ever saying that particular quote about the telephone.

“I’ve heard that before, and no one ever knows where it came from, but people just keep repeating it and repeating it, so it’s out there.” ~ Nan Card, Curator of Manuscripts

Furthermore, an article from the June 29, 1877 edition of the Providence Journal records a very different reaction by President Hayes

The President listened carefully while a gradually increasing smile wreathed his lips, and wonder shone in his eyes more and more, until he took the little instrument from his ear, looked at it a moment in surprise, and remarked, “That is wonderful.”

Rutherford B. Hayes – Was he one of America’s Greatest Presidents?

Rutherford B. Hayes was the first president to have a telephone, the first one to use a typewriter, and invited Thomas Edison to the White House to demonstrate the phonograph. Rather than being some kind of technophobe, President Hayes appears to have been the exact opposite.

As for President Obama’s slight about Mount Rushmore, I’d point to Ivan Eland’s excellent work, Recarving Rushmore. According to Eland, the four presidents who should be depicted on Mount Rushmore are John TylerGrover Cleveland, Martin Van Buren, and…you guessed it, Rutherford B. Hayes. In contrast, he ranks Mount Rushmore’s current occupants as follows: George Washington #7, Thomas Jefferson #26, Teddy Roosevelt #21, and Abraham Lincoln #29.

Eland takes a unique approach to evaluating presidents. Instead of ranking them on the usual stuff, he ranks them on how well they achieved peace, prosperity, and liberty. Presidents earn points for avoiding “wars of choice,” pursuing economic freedom, and respecting individual freedoms as well as limits on presidential powers.

Guerrilla Explorer’s Analysis

President Hayes resisted going to war with Mexico, pursued anti-inflationary policies, avoided intervening in employer/labor disputes, and advocated for voting rights for African Americans. The biggest knock against him is he continued the U.S. government’s shabby treatment of Native Americans. Still, based on the ideals of peace, prosperity, and liberty, (and contrary to President Obama’s opinion), there is a strong case to be made that President Hayes deserves to be recognized as one of the greatest presidents in American history.

Teddy Roosevelt vs. Bigfoot?

In 1893, Teddy Roosevelt published The Wilderness Hunter. In that tome, he told a strange story about an encounter with an “unknown beast creature” that walked on two legs. Did Teddy Roosevelt do battle with the mysterious Bigfoot?

Did Teddy Roosevelt Battle Bigfoot?

First, thanks to Sean McLachlan over at Civil War Horror for providing the idea for this piece. Second, sadly, the answer is no. Teddy Roosevelt never battled Bigfoot. But his account (reproduced below) is intriguing all the same. Many of you know we’re pretty skeptical about Bigfoot here at Guerrilla Explorer. If megafauna cryptids exist, they’re far more likely to be in the ocean than on land.

Still, Teddy’s story is one of the earliest accounts of a Bigfoot-like creature recorded by a non-Native American. It was told to Teddy Roosevelt by a mountain hunter named Bauman decades before the famous discovery of large footprints at Bluff Creek, which for all intensive purposes launched Bigfoot into the public eye. According to Bauman, he and a companion were trapping game when they ran into the strange creature. Things got progressively worse until…well, let’s let Teddy Roosevelt tell you in his own words.

Frontiersmen are not, as a rule, apt to be very superstitious. They lead lives too hard and practical, and they have too little imagination in things spiritual and supernatural. I have heard but few ghost stories while living on the frontier, and these few were of a perfectly commonplace and conventional type.

But I once listened to a goblin story which rather impressed me. It was told by a grizzled, weather-beaten old mountain hunter, named Bauman, who was bom and had passed all his life on the frontier. He must have believed what he said, for he could hardly repress a shudder at certain points of the tale; but he was of German ancestry, and in childhood had doubtless been saturated with all kinds of ghost and goblin lore, so that many fearsome superstitions were latent in his mind; besides, he knew well the stories told by the Indian medicine men in their winter camps, of the snow-walkers, and the spectres, and the formless evil beings that haunt the forest depths, and dog and waylay the lonely wanderer who after nightfall passes through the regions where they lurk; and it may be that when overcome by the horror of the fate that befell his friend, and when oppressed by the awful dread of the unknown, he grew to attribute, both at the time and still more in remembrance, weird and elfin traits to what was merely some abnormally wicked and cunning wild beast; but whether this was so or not, no man can say.

When the event occurred Bauman was still a young man, and was trapping with a partner among the mountains dividing the forks of the Salmon from the head of Wisdom River. Not having had much luck, he and his partner determined to go up into a particularly wild and lonely pass through which ran a small stream said to contain many beaver. The pass had an evil reputation because the year before a solitary hunter who had wandered into it was there slain, seemingly by a wild beast, the half-eaten remains being afterwards found by some mining prospectors who had passed his camp only the night before.

The memory of this event, however, weighed very lightly with the two trappers, who were as adventurous and hardy as others of their kind. They took their two lean mountain ponies to the foot of the pass, where they left them in an open beaver meadow, the rocky timber-clad ground being from thence onwards impracticable for horses. They then struck out on foot through the vast, gloomy forest, and in about four hours reached a little open glade where they concluded to camp, as signs of game were plenty.

There was still an hour or two of daylight left, and after building a brush lean-to and throwing down and opening their packs, they started up stream. The country was very dense and hard to travel through, as there was much down timber, although here and there the sombre woodland was broken by small glades of mountain grass.

At dusk they again reached camp. The glade in which it was pitched was not many yards wide, the tall, close-set pines and firs rising round it like a wall. On one side was a little stream, beyond which rose the steep mountain-slopes, covered with the unbroken growth of the evergreen forest.

They were surprised to find that during their short absence something, apparently a bear, had visited camp, and had rummaged about among their things, scattering the contents of their packs, and in sheer wantonness destroying their lean-to. The footprints of the beast were quite plain, but at first they paid no particular heed to them, busying themselves with rebuilding the lean-to, laying out their beds and stores, and lighting the fire.

While Bauman was making ready supper, it being already dark, his companion began to examine the tracks more closely, and soon took a brand from the fire to follow them up, where the intruder had walked along a game trail after leaving the camp. When the brand flickered out, he returned and took another, repeating his inspection of the footprints very closely. Coming back to the fire, he stood by it a minute or two, peering out into the darkness, and suddenly remarked: “Bauman, that bear has been walking on two legs.” Bauman laughed at this, but his partner insisted that he was right, and upon again examining the tracks with a torch, they certainly did seem to be made by but two paws, or feet. However, it was too dark to make sure. After discussing whether the footprints could possibly be those of a human being, and coming to the conclusion that they could not be, the two men rolled up in their blankets, and went to sleep under the lean-to.

At midnight Bauman was awakened by some noise, and sat up in his blankets. As he did so his nostrils were struck by a strong, wild-beast odor, and he caught the loom of a great body in the darkness at the mouth of the lean-to. Grasping his rifle, he fired at the vague, threatening shadow, but must have missed, for immediately afterwards he heard the smashing of the underwood as the thing, whatever it was, rushed off into the impenetrable blackness of the forest and the night.

After this the two men slept but little, sitting up by the rekindled fire, but they heard nothing more. In the morning they started out to look at the few traps they had set the previous evening and to put out new ones. By an unspoken agreement they kept together all day, and returned to camp towards evening.

On nearing it they saw, to their astonishment, that the lean-to had been again torn down. The visitor of the preceding day had returned, and in wanton malice had tossed about their camp kit and bedding, and destroyed the shanty. The ground was marked up by its tracks, and on leaving the camp it had gone along the soft earth by the brook, where the footprints were as plain as if on snow, and, after a careful scrutiny of the trail, it certainly did seem as if, whatever the thing was, it had walked off on but two legs.

The men, thoroughly uneasy, gathered a great heap of dead logs, and kept up a roaring fire throughout the night, one or the other sitting on guard most of the time. About midnight the thing came down through the forest opposite, across the brook, and stayed there on the hillside for nearly an hour. They could hear the branches crackle as it moved about, and several times it uttered a harsh, grating, long-drawn moan, a peculiarly sinister sound. Yet it did not venture near the fire.

In the morning the two trappers, after discussing the strange events of the last thirty-six hours, decided that they would shoulder their packs and leave the valley that afternoon. They were the more ready to do this because in spite of seeing a good deal of game sign they had caught very little fur. However, it was necessary first to go along the line of their traps and gather them, and this they started out to do.

All the morning they kept together, picking up trap after trap, each one empty. On first leaving camp they had the disagreeable sensation of being followed. In the dense spruce thickets they occasionally heard a branch snap after they had passed ; and now and then there were slight rustling noises among the small pines to one side of them.

At noon they were back within a couple of miles of camp. In the high, bright sunlight their fears seemed absurd to the two armed men, accustomed as they were, through long years of lonely wandering in the wilderness, to face every kind of danger from man, brute, or element. There were still three beaver traps to collect from a little pond in a wide ravine near by. Bauman volunteered to gather these and bring them in, while his companion went ahead to camp and made ready the packs.

On reaching the pond Bauman found three beaver in the traps, one of which had been pulled loose and carried into a beaver house. He took several hours in securing and preparing the beaver, and when he started homewards he marked with some uneasiness how low the sun was getting. As he hurried towards camp, under the tall trees, the silence and desolation of the forest weighed on him. His feet made no sound on the pine-needles, and the slanting sun-rays, striking through among the straight trunks, made a gray twilight in which objects at a distance glimmered indistinctly. There was nothing to break the ghostly stillness which, when there is no breeze, always broods over these sombre primeval forests.

At last he came to the edge of the little glade where the camp lay, and shouted as he approached it, but got no answer. The camp-fire had gone out, though the thin blue smoke was still curling upwards. Near it lay the packs, wrapped and arranged. At first Bauman could see nobody; nor did he receive an answer to his call. Stepping forward he again shouted, and as he did so his eye fell on the body of his friend, stretched beside the trunk of a great fallen spruce. Rushing towards it the horrified trapper found that the body was still warm, but that the neck was broken, while there were four great fang-marks in the throat.

The footprints of the unknown beast-creature, printed deep in the soft soil, told the whole story.

The unfortunate man, having finished his packing, had sat down on the spruce log with his face to the fire, and his back to the dense woods, to wait for his companion. While thus waiting, his monstrous assailant, which must have been lurking nearby in the woods, waiting for a chance to catch one of the adventurers unprepared, came silently up from behind, walking with long, noiseless steps, and seemingly still on two legs. Evidently un- heard, it reached the man, and broke his neck by wrenching his head back with its fore paws, while it buried its teeth in his throat. It had not eaten the body, but apparently had romped and gambolled round it in uncouth, ferocious glee, occasionally rolling over and over it; and had then fled back into the soundless depths of the woods.

Bauman, utterly unnerved, and believing that the creature with which he had to deal was something either half human or half devil, some great goblin-beast, abandoned everything but his rifle and struck off at speed down the pass, not halting until he reached the beaver meadows where the hobbled ponies were still grazing. Mounting, he rode onwards through the night, until far beyond the reach of pursuit.

Grover Cleveland: The Greatest President?

Who was the Greatest President in U.S. history? Most historians tend to share common ground when it comes to ranking U.S. presidents. George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, or Franklin Delano Roosevelt receive the top honor in practically every single poll. However, recent attention has fallen to a far more unusual candidate…Grover Cleveland.

Who was Grover Cleveland?

Grover Cleveland was the 22nd and 24th President of the United States, making him the only President to serve nonconsecutive terms. He is largely remembered for the economic meltdown that took place during his second term, including the second-worst depression in U.S. history as well as a series of vicious labor strikes. While not ranking as low as President John Tyler, he fares no better than 19th in Wikipedia’s aggregate of various scholarly polls. Who in the world would possibly consider Grover Cleveland to be the greatest President in history?

Was Grover Cleveland the Greatest President in History?

In his book, Recarving Rushmore, Ivan Eland argues that the reason most historians overlook presidents like John Tyler and Grover Cleveland is because of flawed ranking systems. He points out four particular biases exhibited by historians:

  1. Effectiveness: Scholars tend to focus on a president’s ability to enact an agenda without considering the positive or negative results from that agenda.
  2. Charisma: Historians place undue emphasis on exciting personalities at the expense of dull ones.
  3. Service during a Crisis: Many historians will only rank a president highly if he served during a great war or financial crisis, giving little credit to those who avoided war or kept crises from happening in the first place.
  4. Activism: Presidents who did a lot are ranked higher than those who preferred minimal government.

Eland takes a unique approach to evaluating presidents. Instead of ranking them on the usual stuff, he ranks them on how well they achieved peace, prosperity, and liberty. Presidents earn points for avoiding “wars of choice,” pursuing economic freedom, and respecting individual freedoms as well as limits on presidential powers.

His analysis leads to some interesting conclusions that differ wildly from most polls. George Washington is still fairly high at #7. But he ranks Abraham Lincoln (#29) and FDR (#31) far lower than pretty much any other historian. His top five are John Tyler, Grover Cleveland, Martin Van Buren, Rutherford B. Hayes, and Chester A. Arthur. These presidents are barely remembered by most Americans today which, in a way, is the point. Their terms were boring, thanks to their decisions to avoid wars and pursue policies that led to economic success as well as personal freedom.

Guerrilla Explorer’s Analysis

So what about Grover Cleveland? Well, he refused to annex Hawaii and avoided war with Spain over the Cuban rebellion (a policy that would later be reversed by President McKinley). He restored sound currency and avoided the New Deal style programs that lengthened the Great Depression. He was “relatively benevolent” to Native Americans.

As for the depression that marred his second term, it was largely caused by the actions of his predecessor, Benjamin Harrison. During his term of office, President Harrison instituted the McKinley tariff, increased federal spending, and supported the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, which increased the money supply while reducing the government’s gold reserves.

President Grover Cleveland’s record wasn’t perfect. He signed the Interstate Commerce Act which “provided the underpinning of the Progressive movement.” To get lower tariffs, he agreed to bring back the income tax. He also “backed segregation as constitutional.” That being said, in terms of promoting prosperity, peace, and liberty, Grover Cleveland outranks nearly every other President, with the possible exception of John Tyler.

Shortly after his second term ended, the Democratic Party underwent a sea change, abandoning the classical liberal ways of President Grover Cleveland and his fellow Bourbon Democrats. The Bourbons fled the Democratic Party when FDR instituted the New Deal and were eventually absorbed into the Old Right. The Old Right, in turn, largely collapsed in 1952 when Eisenhower effectively stole the Republican nomination from Robert Taft. Since then, President Grover Cleveland’s legacy has appeared all but dead. However, the rising popularity of Dr. Ron Paul – who counts Grover Cleveland among his heroes – seems to be changing that. Will future historians cast a kinder eye on President Grover Cleveland? Only time will tell…

Grover Cleveland was a principled classical liberal. But even while serving as president, his own Democratic Party was deserting him as the forces of statism and unlimited democracy, unleashed by the death of states’ rights in 1865, were beginning to dominate American politics. He was the last American president in the Jefferson/Andrew Jackson/John Tyler tradition, and the last good Democrat to serve in that office. For the most part, his successors (in both parties) have ranged from pathetic panderers to dangerous, megalomaniacal warmongers, or both.” ~ Thomas DiLorenzo, The Last Good Democrat

Who was the Richest President?

Mitt Romney’s net worth is estimated at $190 to $250 million. If he ends up defeating Barack Obama in the 2012 Presidential election, how would his wealth rank against other presidents? Would he be the richest president of all time?

Who was the Richest President of all Time?

It turns out that Romney’s wealth falls well short of the richest president of all time. Adjusted for inflation, George Washington was worth a whopping $500 million! JFK would’ve beaten that record but he didn’t live long enough to inherit his father’s massive $1 billion fortune. The figures were compiled by 24/7 Wall Street so I can’t verify them. And frankly, the article’s commentary sheds some light on the author’s stunning historical and economic ignorance.

“(For the first 75 years after Washington’s election)…because there was no central banking system and no commodities regulatory framework, markets were subject to panics.”

Clearly, this writer has never heard of the Bank of North America or the First Bank of the United States or the Second Bank of the United States. And even more clearly, the writer has no understanding of the lessons taught by the Austrian Business Cycle. With that said, here’s more on the richest presidents of all time from 24/7 Wall Street:

The net worth of the presidents varies widely. George Washington was worth over half a billion in today’s dollars. Several presidents went bankrupt.

The fortunes of American presidents are tied to the economy in the eras in which they lived. For the first 75 years after Washington’s election, presidents generally made money on land, crops, and commodity speculation. A president who owned hundreds or thousands of acres could lose most or all of his property after a few years of poor crop yields. Wealthy Americans occasionally lost all of their money through land speculation—leveraging the value of one piece of land to buy additional property. Since there was no reliable national banking system and almost no liquidity in the value of private companies, land was the asset likely to provide the greatest yield, if the property yielded enough to support the costs of operating the farm or plantation…

(See the rest on the richest presidents at 24/7 Wall Street)

George Washington: General, President…Zombie?

On December 14, 1799, George Washington died. A few days later, William Thornton – the architect who designed the U.S. Capitol – visited the widow Martha Washington. Did Thornton offer to turn President Washington into a zombie?

Did President George Washington almost become a Zombie?

Yes, in a manner of speaking. Richard Thornton did offer to reanimate the deceased President, in effect turning him into a zombie. Specifically, he proposed to thaw Washington’s frozen body and then warm it up by rubbing it with blankets. Next, he wanted to perform a tracheotomy on the neck of George Washington and insert a fire bellows into it. This would, he believed, allow him to pump air back into Washington’s lungs. Finally, he would give George Washington a blood transfusion. But not just any transfusion. He wanted to use lamb’s blood which at the time was considered to have special healing properties. The procedure was never performed however, as Washington’s friends and family declined.

Here’s more on George Washington almost becoming a zombie from io9:

George Washington may have been America’s first president, but was he nearly America’s first zombie-in-chief? If William Thornton, 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.

…But Washington’s body was not buried immediately after his death. The president may not have feared death, but he did fear being buried alive. Before he died, he commanded his secretary, Tobias Lear, to make sure that he would not be entombed less than three days after he died. In accordance with Washington’s wishes, his body was put on ice until it could be moved to the family vault.

That’s where the story gets a little strange.

(See the rest on George Washington almost becoming a zombie at io9)

President John Tyler and Ron Paul?

In 1841, John Tyler became the tenth President of the United States. Now, more than 170 years later, his grandson has stepped into the political limelight. So, what does the Tyler family think of today’s politicians?

John Tyler Reenters the Public Eye?

The fact that John Tyler still has living grandsons is amazing in its own right. In 1853, at the age of 63, John Tyler gave birth to Lyon Gardiner Tyler. Lyon, in turn, gave birth to Lyon Gardiner Tyler, Jr. in 1924 and Harrison Tyler in 1928 (Lyon was 71 and 75, respectively, when they were born!).

So, the other day, Harrison Tyler was interviewed by the media. Although he considers himself a conservative, he doesn’t think much of the current crop of Republican candidates. In particular, he singled out Newt Gingrich for criticism, calling the former Speaker, “a big jerk.”

John Tyler…the Original Ron Paul?

One candidate Harrison Tyler might find interesting is Dr. Ron Paul, who espouses a political philosophy quite similar to that of his grandfather. Although mainstream historians like to rank John Tyler as one of the worst Presidents of all time, he’s recently gotten a lot of attention for something else…being the most libertarian President of all time. Here’s more on John Tyler from us at Guerrilla Explorer:

Eland takes a unique approach to evaluating presidents. Instead of ranking them on the usual stuff, he ranks them on how well they achieved peace, prosperity, and liberty. Presidents earn points for avoiding “wars of choice,” pursuing economic freedom, and respecting individual freedoms as well as limits on presidential powers.

His analysis leads to some interesting conclusions that differ wildly from most polls. George Washington is still fairly high at #7. But he ranks Abraham Lincoln (#29) and FDR (#31) far lower than any historian I’ve ever read. His top five are John Tyler, Grover Cleveland, Martin Van Buren, Rutherford B. Hayes, and Chester A. Arthur. These presidents are barely remembered by most Americans today which, in a way, is the point. Their terms were boring, thanks to their decisions to avoid wars and pursue policies that led to economic success as well as personal freedom.

So what about John Tyler? Well, he ended the Second Seminole War and exhibited restrained responses to an internal rebellion and a border dispute with Canada. He also vetoed his own party’s wishes to enact high tariffs and create a national bank, which ultimately cost him a second term. His record on preserving individual liberty is considered “very good.”

(See more on John Tyler right here at Guerrilla Explorer)

Did Eisenhower Steal the Presidency?

According to popular legend, Dwight Eisenhower was a shoo-in for the Presidency in 1952. He won the Republican primary on the first ballot by a large margin. He then proceeded to crush Adlai Stevenson in the general election. But in truth, he came very close to losing the primary race and only prevailed thanks to some questionable tactics. Did Eisenhower steal the nomination and thus, the Presidency?

General Eisenhower versus “Mr. Republican”?

In the aftermath of World War II, General Eisenhower was immensely popular with Americans and both parties courted him as a Presidential candidate. Initially, “Ike” showed little interest. However, that changed when he met Robert Taft, aka “Mr. Republican.”

Taft was the leader of the Old Right wing of the Republican Party (a mantle now carried by Dr. Ron Paul). He believed in reducing the size of government and supported a policy of non-interventionism. But his opposition to the Cold War didn’t sit well with Eisenhower. At the same time, the Democrats looked particularly vulnerable thanks to public disgust with corruption in President Truman’s administration. Many people thought that the Republican nominee, regardless of who it was, would easily win the Presidency.

Although Eisenhower had yet to commit to the race, his name was put forth on the New Hampshire ballot by Thomas Dewey, Taft’s arch rival. He didn’t campaign. He hadn’t even expressed his opinion on political issues. And yet, he won convincingly. Shortly afterward, Eisenhower decided to throw his hat into the ring.

The Race for the Republican Nomination?

The campaign that followed was one of the most bitter and hotly contested races in history. Eisenhower enjoyed tremendous popularity and attracted tons of new voters to the party who were derisively referred to as “Republicans for a Day.” But Taft was popular as well. In addition, he faced a structural advantage. Back then, the majority of convention delegates were chosen by caucuses. And most of those caucuses were controlled by Taft supporters. As the Republican Convention neared, Taft had 530 delegates to Ike’s 427. Still, although Taft was in control, he was short of the 604 delegates needed to secure the nomination.

Eisenhower’s team swiftly accused Taft of stealing delegates from Texas, Louisiana, and Georgia. Supposedly, Taft supporters had kept Eisenhower voters from participating in these caucuses. The voters proceeded to form their own pro-Eisenhower delegations, which resulted in conflicting delegations being sent to the Republican Convention. Taft’s team offered a compromise split of the delegates but Ike’s people refused, believing that they could use the issue to their advantage at the Convention.

The 1952 Republican Convention?

In July 1952, the Convention opened. Taft had every reason to be optimistic. Besides his lead in delegates, the committees were largely controlled by his team. But Ike’s people were prepared. They quickly proposed the “Fair Play” rule, which would forbid contested delegates from participating in roll call votes. Taft’s team badly mishandled the parliamentary issue and as a result, lost the fight. This vote remains controversial today as many people believe that third-place candidate Earl Warren’s decision to support “Fair Play” was influenced by Eisenhower offering him a position on the Supreme Court.

With Taft’s delegates forced to sit on the sidelines, Eisenhower had the numerical advantage for the remainder of the roll call votes. This led to a series of votes in which Taft’s contested delegates were rejected and Eisenhower’s were approved. Still, Taft thought he had a chance. Even with the newfound delegates, Eisenhower seemed likely to garner just 560 votes, well short of 604. But during the first roll call vote, Ike took 595 votes to just 500 for Taft thanks to the support from several uncommitted delegations. Recognizing a patronage opportunity, Minnesota party leaders quickly switched their 20 votes to Eisenhower and the battle was over. Others followed suit and Eisenhower ended up winning on the first ballot by a vote of 845 to 280 (with an additional 77 delegates supporting Earl Warren).

Guerrilla Explorer’s Analysis

So, did Eisenhower steal the primary election and thus, the Presidency? He didn’t do anything illegal. Still, his victory can be attributed largely to parliamentary trickery that kept Taft’s delegates from having a voice at the Convention. It’s possible that Eisenhower deserved those delegates in the first place although Taft vigorously denied any wrongdoing. It should also be noted that Taft won the popular vote handily, with 2.8 million votes to just 2.1 million votes for Ike. Still, he wasn’t the clear favorite since this represented just 35.8% of all votes.

The various Republican factions were clearly divided over their choices in 1952. But after the Convention, they joined forces and thus propelled Eisenhower to the Presidency in a landslide. As for Taft, he fell sick soon after the Convention and passed away in 1953. His death, coupled with Ike’s victory, marked the end of the Old Right wing of the Republican Party and the subsequent rise of the Conservative movement.

The Largest Mass Execution in American History?

On August 17, 1862, four Sioux Indians attacked and killed five white settlers while on a hunting expedition in Minnesota. A series of attacks known as the Dakota War followed until the U.S. Army quelled the unrest. In the aftermath, President Abraham Lincoln approved the largest mass execution in U.S. history, a record that still stands today. But why did the Sioux launch the Dakota War in the first place?

The Dakota War?

The origins of the Dakota War can be traced back to 1851 when the U.S. government forced the Sioux Indians to sign the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux and the Treaty of Mendota. These agreements required the Sioux to give up large parcels of land and move onto an Indian reservation near the Minnesota River. In exchange, the Sioux were given $1.4 million of money and goods. This amounted to about $0.03 per acre and the U.S. government profited handsomely by selling the land to white settlers for $1.25 per acre. In fact, it profited even more than you might expect since most of the promised compensation was never paid, was stolen by the corrupt Bureau of Indian Affairs, or was otherwise “lost.”

As the 1850s rolled on, the U.S. government continuously violated the two treaties and failed to make payments to the Sioux. The Sioux fell into a state of permanent debt with local traders and thus, the few payments that were made often went directly to the traders. At the same time, crop failure made the Sioux increasingly dependent on the payments. Hungry and angry about the very real possibility that they were being cheated by the Bureau and the traders, the Sioux demanded that the payments be made directly to them. But the Bureau of Indian Affairs agent refused to provide food or supplies under that condition.

Two days later, a Sioux hunting party attacked and killed five white settlers while on a hunting expedition. That night, the Sioux council effectively declared the Dakota War on the settlers. A series of attacks followed. After a few setbacks to U.S. forces, President Lincoln sent General John Pope to lead the counterattack.

“It is my purpose utterly to exterminate the Sioux if I have the power to do so and even if it requires a campaign lasting the whole of next year. Destroy everything belonging to them and force them out to the plains, unless, as I suggest, you can capture them. They are to be treated as maniacs or wild beasts, and by no means as people with whom treaties or compromises can be made.” ~ General John Pope

The Dakota War Ends…& Trials Begin

By December, the short-lived Dakota War was over. At least 500 U.S. soldiers and white settlers perished in the Dakota War. Sioux casualties are estimated about 70 to 100. In the aftermath, General Pope subjected hundreds of men, women, and children to five-minute military trials. 303 Indians were found guilty of rape and/or murder and sentenced to death. However, they were not given the opportunity to defend themselves and in any case, were condemned for participation in the Dakota War rather than for specific crimes.

President Lincoln Approves the Largest Mass Execution in History

General Pope and Minnesota’s representatives urged President Lincoln to approve the execution. However, Lincoln was still in the midst of the Civil War and was concerned that an execution of that size, based on no evidence and a heavily biased military tribunal, might anger European nations who would then throw their support to the Confederate States of America. So, he pared down the list to 39 names. In order to appease disgruntled settlers and Minnesota operatives, he promised to eventually kill or remove all Indians from Minnesota and offered $2 million in federal funds compensation.

On December 26, 1862, 38 Sioux Indians were hanged, marking the largest one-day execution in American history (one Sioux was granted a reprieve). Within the course of a year, Lincoln made good on his promise, driving the remaining Sioux out of Minnesota and into Nebraska and South Dakota.

Guerrilla Explorer’s Analysis

Thanks to the politically-motivated Emancipation Proclamation, Abraham Lincoln might just be the biggest sacred cow in all of U.S. history. Even this mass execution is viewed favorably by many Lincoln scholars, as they point out that he spared the lives of over 260 Sioux Indians. But the fact remains that he ordered the execution of 38 individuals, despite knowing that their individual guilt in the Dakota War could not be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

Unfortunately, their deaths didn’t bring an end to the violence. After the Civil War ended, General Sherman waged war against the Plains Indians, designed to bring about “the final solution of the Indian problem.” By 1890, his dream had become a reality – all of the Plains Indians had either been killed or placed on a reservation.

 

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