CELEBRATING THE REPUBLIC: PRESIDENTIAL CEREMONY AND POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY, FROM WASHINGTON TO MONROE Review

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CELEBRATING THE REPUBLIC: PRESIDENTIAL CEREMONY AND POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY, FROM WASHINGTON TO MONROE ReviewIn CELEBRATING THE REPUBLIC author Sandra Moats presents a highly engaging and entertaining narrative that explores the initial development of Presidential ceremony while simultaneously underscoring the continuities of American political life that remain with us to this very day.
Moats focuses her attention most closely upon the ceremonial approaches of three of the first five Presidents of the United States: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Monroe. While these early chief executives were all concerned to establish and enhance the inherent dignity of the Presidency, their differing styles are clearly illustrated in Moats's highly detailed and authoritative work. Beginning with Washington's preference for a more monarchic approach to the office complete with levees and official tours, turning to Jefferson's more austere republicanism that shunned aristocratic elements to such an extent that there was talk of war with the scandalized British, and concluding with Monroe's efforts to synthesize the most effective aspects of the contrasting styles of his two great predecessors, Moats presents a thorough litany of the banquets, receptions, and travels through which these men interacted with the sovereign citizens of the nation.
Moats, however, goes far beyond mere Presidential itineraries to explore the reactions of various elements of the US populace to their Presidents' ceremonial efforts. In doing so, she reminds us that the occasionally bitter partisan and regional debates that often define American politics in our time have in fact been an integral part of the political landscape of the United States since its earliest days. If perhaps more subtly engaged in the late Eighteenth and early Nineteenth Centuries, nonetheless rancorous political conflict was certainly not unknown to the newspaper editors, officeholders, and political party operatives in the first decades of the nation's existence. Through her focus upon Presidential ceremony and its consequences in American public opinion, Moats reminds us that vigorous political debate and the inflamed passions that often accompany it are nothing new.
As such, Sandra Moats has written a most excellent book that can be appreciated both as an exploration of the foundations of the Presidential ceremonial we see today and as proof that the style of our modern, party-based politics does indeed have its roots in the era of the Founding Fathers. Regardless of whether primary interest is found in Presidential protocol or politics, any American history enthusiast will thoroughly enjoy this volume.CELEBRATING THE REPUBLIC: PRESIDENTIAL CEREMONY AND POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY, FROM WASHINGTON TO MONROE Overview

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Party Over Section: The Rough and Ready Presidential Campaign of 1848 (American Presidential Elections) Review

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Party Over Section: The Rough and Ready Presidential Campaign of 1848 (American Presidential Elections) ReviewIf, as Ralph Waldo Emerson prophesied, the conquest of Mexico in 1848 acted like a poison to the United States, then the first signs of its effects can be seen in the presidential election of 1848. In that year, as the Democratic and Whig parties maneuvered to claim the office, the question of slavery in the territories newly acquired from Mexico threatened to create sectional schisms within national politics. The failure of the two political parties to address the divisive issue led anti-slavery activists to form a new political party, the Free Soil Party, which sought to harness disaffected voters and elect former president Martin Van Buren to the White House on a platform of opposing the extension of slavery into the new territories. This issue and the role it played in the presidential campaign is at the core of Joel Silbey's book, which offers readers a history of a campaign that was in many ways a harbinger of the conflicts to come.
Silbey begins with a description of the political scene in the 1840s, one in which the "Second American Party System" was in full force. Having fully matured after their formative period in the early 1830s, Whigs and Democrats fought each other for office along well-established ideological lines, offering competing visions of national development and political power. The election of 1844 brought James Polk to the presidency, a Democrat of great determination whose controversial policies rapidly polarized public opinion. Though he declined to run for another term, the 1848 presidential election was fought in Polk's shadow, as it was his expansionist program which brought the issue of extending slavery to the forefront of national politics. Despite the best efforts of the Free Soilers, however, Silbey argues that longstanding partisan affiliations proved in the end to be more enduring than anti-slavery passions, with the Southerner Zachary Taylor emerging triumphant in the end.
A longtime historian of the period, Silbey provides a brisk and informative narrative account of the 1848 presidential election. Though lacking the insightful analysis of some of the other volumes in the University Press of Kansas's "American Presidential Elections" series, this is nonetheless a useful addition, one that makes a convincing case for the resiliency of the party system. Yet as Silbey points out in his conclusion, the Free Soil supporters would gain their own victory down the road, as Abraham Lincoln would win election a dozen years later on what was essentially the Free Soil platform. In this sense, the lasting significance of election of 1848 was as just one of the initial stages in the long, drawn-out crisis that would ultimately lead to secession and civil war, one that the two parties' policy of avoidance did nothing to address.Party Over Section: The Rough and Ready Presidential Campaign of 1848 (American Presidential Elections) Overview

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Vindicating Andrew Jackson: The 1828 Election and the Rise of the Two-Party System (American Presidential Elections) Review

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Vindicating Andrew Jackson: The 1828 Election and the Rise of the Two-Party System (American Presidential Elections) ReviewThe presidential election of 1828 stands as one of the most important in American history, not just, or even primarily, because of the election of Andrew Jackson that year, but because, as Donald Cole argues in this book, it marked the beginnings of the party system in American politics. While on the surface a contest between Jackson and the incumbent, John Quincy Adams, this was only the culmination of years of political maneuvering and organizing by a host of talented politicians and newspaper publishers. Cole's book details the course of this development, looking at how the two sides struggled at both the national and local level to build a party organization that would ensure their candidate's victory.
Cole's begins his examination with the aftermath of the last presidential election, one of the most bitter and contentious in American history. Much of the controversy over Adams's election reflected the changes the nation was undergoing, as a "rising tide of democracy" was broadening the electorate and challenging the domination of political offices by the elite. Because of this, the quest for the presidency became a contest over who could mobilize this growing population of voters. To that end, both sides worked to create organizations at the national, state, and local level that could advocate their cause and turn out their supporters. Here Jackson's camp had the advantage; though their leading members were people from lower down the social scale than their counterparts, they were hungrier for office and better able to connect with the enlarged electorate. Yet for all of their handicaps Adams's main backers, ably organized by Henry Clay and others, were no less determined to hold onto office, and Cole demonstrates that the election ultimately proved much closer than the tally indicates.
A longtime historian of the antebellum period, Cole has written a perceptive account of presidential politics in the 1820s. While never losing sight of the main protagonists, he convincingly demonstrates the decisive role that organizing at the local level played in determining the outcome. He is careful never to overstate the impact of the election, noting that the formal establishment of the political parties of the period came later, yet he make a strong case for the role of the election in enhancing democracy in the nation through the emergence of organized political camps. This combination of balance and insight make this book an excellent study not just of the presidential election of 1828, but of the emergence of the modern political process, one that can be read profitably by anyone seeking to understand party politics in our nation today.Vindicating Andrew Jackson: The 1828 Election and the Rise of the Two-Party System (American Presidential Elections) Overview

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A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War and the Conquest of the American Continent Review

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A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War and the Conquest of the American Continent Review"A Country of Vast Designs" is an excellent reminder of how a well researched and well written book can illuminate what was an otherwise dark and often forgotten piece of the American landscape. Merry's detailed and colorful story telling add depth, perspective and entertainment. For example, his account of the Democratic nomination of 1844 reminds us how crafty our nineteenth century politician were - orchestrating power plays in whispers and back rooms - and how luck played a major role in one's nomination. Particularly gripping is the brief description of the removal of Polk's bladder stone under the anesthetic of the day - bourbon, an episode which more than likely left him impotent.
What most impresses me about this book is how faithful Merry is to Polk's character - for better or for worse. He manages to take a less-than-appealing historical figure and neither lionize nor villainize him. Instead we come to know a man who had a bigger impact on our nation's history than he is popularly given credit for. And whether or not the gains to our boarders were ill gotten does not change the fact that we are fundamentally a different place for all his work.
The book is a fascinating read for those looking to understand the generation of presidents that was born after the founding fathers - that second group of leaders who had the difficult job of stewarding the US through its early adolescence, and making manifest the aspirations of the founding generation. We all should understand more about Polk. Merry's book is an appealing and sophisticated way in.A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War and the Conquest of the American Continent Overview

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Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union Review

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Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union ReviewThe New York Times has called Robert V. Remini "our foremost Jacksonian scholar". No matter how one feels about Remini's scholarship or historical interpretations, he is undeniably the most prolific Jacksonian historian of our time - our any other time, for that matter.
In reading his celebrated three-volume biography of Andrew Jackson and other related works, I'd come to think of Remini as something of a "Jackson bigot." The reverence Remini has for Jackson practically oozes from the pages of his books, while the many injustices and dubious actions undertaken by the seventh president throughout his lifetime are treated as the unfortunate, but excusable episodes of a passionate and often impulsive man (some examples might include: the Treaty of Fort Jackson and other Indian treaties; the unauthorized invasion of Florida in 1818 and his conduct during that campaign; the forced removal of the Cherokees from Georgia; etc.). Indeed, I have often thought that had Remini lived in Jackson's lifetime he may have supplanted Francis Blair as editor of the pro-Jackson newspaper, the Washington Globe. Thus, given such an undisguised admiration for Jackson and his trenchant democratic principles, I was curious to see how Remini would treat his arch-villain: the indomitable Henry Clay of Kentucky.
To my great surprise and pleasure, Remini presents an exceptionally balanced and thorough account of "Prince Hal" and his feud with Andrew Jackson and the Democrats as nominal head of the Whig party. The author pays homage to Clay's tremendous oratorical and political abilities and openly laments the fact that Clay's overweening desire for the presidency ultimately deprived the nation of his services in that office.
Clay's career in national pubic service was long and extraordinarily influential from start to finish. Beginning in 1811, when he was sworn in as a freshman Congressmen, he was immediately elected Speaker of the House owing to his leadership position in a group of young, nationalistic and anti-British Republicans known as the "War Hawks." Remini credits Clay with single handedly changing the fundamental nature of the Speaker's position (which he held for longer than anyone in the 19th century), turning it from that of mundane legislative traffic cop to a leadership role of setting the political agenda and steering national policy. Clay reveled in the rough-and-tumble nature of the House, where his quick wit and speaking abilities were distinct competitive advantages, and openly preferred it to the more rarified and sedate proceedings of the Senate. And when circumstances ultimately brought Clay's talents to the US Senate, he again shaped that body in his own image, ushering in a period of great political debate that is still considered its "golden era."
In the end, Clay failed in his endeavor to shape national domestic policy to include federally funded internal improvements and, much to his chagrin and Remini's, he never had the opportunity to leave his imprint on the executive branch. Nevertheless, as Remini's superb biography makes clear, the legislative branch was Henry Clay's domain, and during his remarkable career in that body (off and on from 1811 to 1852) he did more to refine and redefine the tone, process and importance of Congress than any other American statesman in history.Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union Overview

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