Presidential Legacies: Civil War and Reconstruction

This next grouping is intimately tied to the Civil War and Reconstruction. The war began in 1861 and ended in 1865 consuming Lincoln’s Presidency. Lincoln toyed with Reconstruction in the occupied South. However, he died before being able to start Reconstruction in the South. The Reconstruction issue dominated Johnson’s Presidency and led to his impeachment. In the North, Reconstruction waned as an issue in the Grant Years before ending with the election of Rutherford B. Hayes.

Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865): We know the story. The South left the Union and Lincoln brought them back. Lincoln knew he had the edge, but could not find a general to win the war. They all wanted to be Napoleon. Instead, he got guys like Ambrose Burnside. Eventually, he found Grant and the South was pounded into submission.

While on the way to reunification, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Technically, this freed no one, but Lincoln turned the war into a battle against slavery. This undercut the South. They were now the bad guys and the Civil War became a moral war. Lincoln worked on the 13th Amendment to end slavery. He died before it passed.

Andrew Johnson (1865-1869): At first, Johnson appeared to be the right man to punish the South. He talked tough and announced tough policies. Then, he worked to get the Southern states readmitted as quickly as possible with the pre-war status quo. This angered the Republicans. A war between the executive and legislative branches began.

During the 1866 Congressional Elections, Johnson went campaigned against the GOP. Presidential campaigning was unheard of. They were supposed to sit at home and rest on their records while others campaigned. People were suspicious. He compounded his miscalculation by giving the same speech from stop to stop. It was reprinted in the papers. The audience in Cleveland recited the speech as Johnson tried to give it. He melted down. The Republicans won a decisive victory and Johnson was irrelevant.

The Republicans worked to help blacks in the South while Johnson worked to undermine their rights. The two branches of government continued to collide and Johnson was finally impeached. He survived conviction in the Senate. Johnson’s interference in Reconstruction gave a defeated South new life. It helped lead to the Ku Klux Klan, Night Riders, and other paramilitary terror groups in the South. The country remained at war despite the peace at Appomattox. As a result of Johnson’s actions, the South continued to resist and eventually reclaimed the South and instituted Jim Crow. Perhaps if Lincoln had survived, a second Reconstruction in the 1960s would not have been needed.

U.S. Grant (1869-1877): Grant’s Administration avoided Reconstruction where possible to concentrate on economic development. As money flowed from the Feds, a series of scandals rocked the Grant Administration. Grant’s presidency suffered from the most presidential scandals until the Clintons came to town.

While the administration dealt with scandal, it dealt with a destabilizing force in the South. The Klan was running wild. Grant sent in the troops, declared martial law, and crushed the Klan. The KKK would not be a problem again until the 20th century. However, once the economy tanked, and Northerners decided it best to let the South decide their own fate, Grant was powerless to stop Klan-like groups from emerging in Mississippi and spreading throughout the South.

Rutherford B Hayes (1877-1881): Rutherford B. Hayes lost the popular vote in 1876. However, three states had suspicious returns. Without Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina, Samuel Tilden was one electoral vote short of the presidency. Hayes needed all three states to be president. Democrats worked hard in these states to suppress the vote and stuff the ballot box. Republicans cried foul. Eventually, the two parties cut a deal. Hayes would be president. In return, the military occupation of the South would end. This is a case where the president’s legacy is tied directly to something out of his control. Hayes was a good president and became a hero in Paraguay. However, he is best remembered as Rutherfraud B. Hayes and the Compromise of 1877.

Sweet 16: Greatest American

Early America
1. George Washington vs. 5. James Madison (GW wins)
2. Thomas Jefferson vs. 3. Alexander Hamilton (Jefferson wins)

Antebellum through Civil War
1. Abraham Lincoln vs. 13. John Quincy Adams (Lincoln wins)
2. John Marshall vs. 3. Andrew Jackson (Jackson wins)

Recon through WW2
1. FDR vs. 12. Albert Einstein (Einstein wins)
6. Henry Ford vs. 7. Theodore Roosevelt (TR wins)

Modern
1. MLK vs. 4. Dwight Eisenhower (MLK wins)
2. Ronald Reagan vs. 14. Richard Nixon (Reagan wins)

Greatest American Bracketology Round 2

Round 2

Early America
1. George Washington- 8. Lewis and Clark (Washington wins)
2. Thomas Jefferson- 7. John Adams (TJ wins)
3. Alexander Hamilton - 6. Thomas Paine (Hamilton wins)
4. Ben Franklin - 5. James Madison (Madison wins)

Antebellum through Civil War
1. Abraham Lincoln- 9. William Lloyd Garrison (Lincoln wins)
2. John Marshall-10. Frederick Douglass (Marshall wins)
3. Andrew Jackson - 6. Henry Clay (Jackson wins)
13. JQ Adams - 12. Joseph Smith (Adams wins)

Recon through WW2
1. FDR- 9. Andrew Carnegie (FDR wins)
2. Thomas Edison - 7. TR (TR wins)
14. JP Morgan - 6. Henry Ford (Ford wins)
4. JD Rockefeller - 12. Albert Einstein (Einstein wins)

Modern
1. MLK - 9. LBJ (King wins)
2. Ronald Reagan- 10. Robert Oppenheimer (Reagan wins)
14. Richard Nixon - 6. Jonas Salk (Nixon wins)
4. Dwight Eisenhower - 12. George Marshall (Ike wins)

The Average Joes

Continuing my categorization of the 42 (43 if you count Cleveland twice) presidents. These are the Average Joes. They did not do a bad job, but were not great either. As a result, they are lumped together here. Once again, they are listed chronologically.

1. John Tyler (1841-1845): Tyler took over when Harrison died after one month. He had two major accomplishments. Firstly, Tyler was the first Veep to assume the presidency upon the death of his predecessor. He asserted the right of a Vice President to be President and not just serve as an interim president. This was highly controversial. Second, he annexed Texas on his way out of office. On the downside, Tyler ran as a Whig, but was really a Democrat. When the Whigs passed legislation and sent it to him, he vetoed it. His cabinet resigned and he became a man without a party. After leaving office, he supported the Confederacy during the Civil War.

2. Zachary Taylor (1849-1850): Taylor did not do much in office. He died about a year and a half into office. When California wanted to enter the Union a free state, he supported their petition which caused a firestorm. Despite owning slaves, he opposed the expansion of slavery and the Compromise of 1850. Taylor also threatened to hang anyone that threatened secession from the Union.

3. Rutherford B Hayes (1877-1881): Due to the nature of his elevation to the presidency, he did not get much done and promised to serve only one term. He ended Reconstruction as part of the deal to get the White House, busted the Railroad Strike of 1877, signed a bill to allow women to argue cases before the Supreme Court, and arbitrated the end of The War of Triple Alliance between Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay against Paraguay. His decision made him a hero in Paraguay.

4. Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929): After the corrupt administration of Warren Harding, Coolidge was a breath of fresh air. He kept spending down and cut taxes. Coolidge also signed immigration reform measures. Additionally, he gave citizenship to American Indians and oversaw the first regulations on transportation and radio. Coolidge's Secretary of State, Frank B. Kellogg, negotiated the Kellogg-Briand Pact which renounced and outlawed war. He was elected in his own right in 1924, but declined to run again in 1928.

5. Gerald R. Ford (1974-1977): Ford entered office as a result of Watergate. He started out with a very high approval rating, but decided to pardon Nixon which ended his honeymoon. His rationale was two-fold. First, he feared Nixon's health would continue to deteriorate and he'd die if the pressure was not released. Second, he felt it was better to spare the country the pain of a trial. It was a profile in courage, but cost him the 1976 election. For this, he is known as the "Great Healer." During his term, the economy faltered as a result of government welfare programs and an end of the Vietnam War. Ford's WIN program attempted to fix inflation, but it raised unemployment. Ford admitted it was "too gimmicky." The Vietnam War came to a crashing end as the Communists illegally entered Saigon and the US mounted a day and night rescue mission (you can see the ladder to the helicopter at the US embassy at the Ford Museum). Most importantly, he got the USSR to sign the Helsinki Accord which bound the Soviets to maintain human rights. This treaty sparked Solidarity and signalled the beginning of the end for the Soviets.

The Compromise of 1877 and End of Reconstruction

After eight scandal ridden years and a great depression, Grant was done. The Republican Party feared they would lose the 1876 election and searched high and low for an honest candidate to be the standard bearer. They found Rutherford B Hayes of Ohio. He was a solid, honest governor with no ties to the corruption in Washington D.C.
The Democrats also searched for an honest man and found Samuel Tilden. As governor of New York, he destroyed one of the most corrupt political machines in history. With the American voter tired of the corruption in Washington and the continuing Southern issue, the Democrats felt confident going into the general election.
In 1876, the American voter was sick of Reconstruction. Reconstruction was the period after the Civil War in which the North attempted to reform the South and give African-American freedmen their rights. The White South resisted fiercely. Parts of the South were so violent, it makes 2008 Iraq look safe. By 1876, Northerners wanted to live and let live. They were sick of the South, sick of the violence, sick of the corruption in Washington and wanted the troops home.
In this environment, Tilden won the popular vote 51%-48%. However, two sets of returns came in from Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina. Under fair (i.e. safe) voting conditions, the GOP should have won those states easily. However, Democratic shenanigans and violence resulted in disputed results. A committee was established to determine a winner.
The committee had 15 members. Each party had seven members. The fifteenth member was an independent. That independent quickly resigned. The Democrats and Republicans cut a deal. The independent was replaced by a Republican and Hayes was president. In return, Hayes would pull the troops from the South.
The Compromise of 1877 left the Southern African-American population to the Democrats. In short order, their lives became even harsher than under slavery. It would be a century before the Second Reconstruction of the 1960s.

Grant Takes Command: 1868 and 1872 Elections

The 1868 election was up for grabs. Abraham Lincoln was dead. Incumbent President Andrew Johnson was politically dead. The Republican Party was in a bit of trouble. They overstepped their authority in Congress and impeached Johnson. He escaped removal as public opinion was against impeachment. Despite escaping, Johnson was not popular in the North.
Northerners did not like Johnson, but they disliked Reconstruction as well. The Democrats attempted to feed into this. Their candidate was Horatio Seymour. Seymour had the worst name of any nominee before 2008. He also ran as a white supremacist.
The Democrats won the White Vote by a fraction, but lost the Black Vote by a wide margin. The Republicans nominated U.S. Grant. Grant was moderate, not tied to the Radicals in Congress, and the most popular man in the country. He defeated the South in the Civil War and defeated them again for the White House.
Four years later, Grant won re-election 56% to 44%. The economy was good and he was still the popular war hero. His opponent, Horace Greeley, had the second worst name for a presidential candidate ever. He also died before the election ended. Six different candidates split Greeley's electoral votes up.
Grant turned out to be a lousy president. This kept him from being nominated for a third term in 1876. However, he was probably superior to the alternatives offered up by the Democrats of the time.