Review of James Buchanan by Jean Baker

James Buchanan, the fifteenth president of the United States, was the third of a hapless trio of presidents who, for their lack of creative efforts to attempt to stave off secession and Civil War, consistently rank among in the bottom ten in historians’ rankings of US presidents.  Buchanan, more often than not, ranks dead last. Why was Buchanan, who entered into office as one of the most experienced US statesmen and diplomats in American history, such a failure as a president?

Many historians of the past have claimed that Buchanan’s failure was due primarily to his indecisiveness and his lack of assertiveness as a leader.  In James Buchanan, part of the “American Presidents” series of brief presidential biographies, historian Jean Baker argues just the opposite.  Baker claims that even though he did occasionally suffer from indecision, just as any leader does, Buchanan was normally a highly decisive and assertive leader.  These qualities, normally positive in a leader, proved to be negatives in Buchanan’s case, because in him they were wedded to a dogged pro-Southern orientation and an intense hatred for abolitionists and Republicans.

Among Buchanan’s many pro-Southern decisions, Baker especially highlights two.  The first is Buchanan’s support of the so-called “Lecompton Constitution” of 1857, which was approved by a minority of Kansas voters, all of whom who were pro-slavery, and some of whom did not even reside in Kansas. Although the Lecompton Constitution ultimately did not stand, Buchanan’s support of it emboldened southern “fire eaters” while simultaneously adding credence to the “Slave Power Conspiracy” held by an increasing number of northerners.  It was a clear failure to support fairness and legal procedure.

Another of Buchanan’s pro-Southern decisions that Baker views as key was his ordering Major Robert Anderson, the commander of Fort Sumter, to relocate the fort’s garrison to Fort Moultrie.  Due to Fort Moultrie’s location on South Carolina’s mainland, the fort and its garrison would easily have been captured by South Carolina forces.  Anderson knew this and wisely chose to disobey Buchanan’s orders, leading to the famous confrontation at Fort Sumter that began the Civil War.  As Baker points out, Buchanan’s order seems to indicate that he wanted the garrison to be captured.

Not only this, but Buchanan (willingly or not, we will likely never know) allowed certain of his cabinet officials to take measures that assisted the South and thereby made the Confederacy harder to defeat after war broke out.  Most notorious were the actions of Secretary of War John Floyd, who distributed cannon and small arms throughout the South immediately after secession.  If these actions occurred without Buchanan’s knowledge, he must be considered barely competent; if they occurred with his knowledge, he is guilty of treason.  In any case, Buchanan’s failure to stand up to the South prior to or after secession, clearly makes him one of the worst, if not THE worst, American presidents.

James Buchanan is well-written and persuasive.  Baker has provided students of American history with an excellent introduction to our fifteenth president.

Review of Franklin Pierce by Michael Holt

“Franklin Pierce was arguably the most handsome man ever to serve as president of the United States.  He was certainly one of the most amiable and congenial men to hold that office.”  So begins Michael Holt’s biography of Pierce, which is part of the “American Presidents” series.  Holt goes on to chronicle Pierce’s entry into politics and his rapid rise through the ranks of state legislator, U. S. Representative, U. S. Senator, Brigadier General in the Mexican-American War, and, ultimately, President of the United States.  During his life, Pierce overcame many struggles, including a proclivity toward excessive drinking, a difficult wife, and a series of embarrassing injuries during the war that disabled him and caused some to unfairly accuse him of cowardice.  Pierce’s charming character, together with his perseverance in the face of so many struggles, would seem be ingredients that would equip him to be a good president.  Regrettably, they did not, and today Pierce is generally ranked among one of our five or ten worst chief executives.

Why, despite his positive qualities, was Pierce such a failure as a president? In positing an answer to this question, Holt points out the complete dominance of the Democratic Party in Pierce’s home state of New Hampshire during the 1830s, 1840s and 1850s.  The lack of a viable opposition to the Democrats, as is often the case in politics, weakened Democratic unity and led to the threat of division.  Pierce, a loyal Democrat, desired above all else to keep the party unified.  As Holt argues, “For Pierce, the unity of the Democratic Party, both within the state and within the nation as a whole, was a fixation, a shibboleth, virtually a be-all and end-all.  His obsession with obtaining that unity would help wreck his presidency” (22-23).

Despite Pierce’s “making the bureaucratic administration of the executive branch more honest and efficient than it had been under his Whig predecessors” (52), Pierce’s obsessive desire to maintain the unity of the national Democratic Party, more than anything else, led to his adoption of an extremely pro-Southern domestic policy.  Pierce’s most significant pro-Southern act was signing the Kansas-Nebraska Act (which Holt calls “the biggest mistake of Franklin Pierce’s political career”), a law that wiped away the restrictions on the spread of slavery spelled out in the 1820 Missouri Compromise.  Pierce also did nothing to stop the actions of the pro-slavery “Border Ruffians”, residents of Missouri who crossed into Kansas to fight anti-slavery settlers and to vote for Kansas’ admission to the Union as a slave state.  Finally, Pierce attacked abolitionists, condemning them as fanatics and laying much of the blame for the civil strife of his time at their feet.  By the end of his term, Pierce was “damaged goods,” so much so that his own party refused to nominate him for a second term.

Franklin Pierce is an excellent brief biography of our fourteenth president.  Holt has succeeded admirably in presenting an account of Pierce’s life and career that is balanced and brief, yet surprisingly thorough.  Readers who are interested in an introduction to the sad story of Pierce could do no better than to read Holt’s biography.

Review of Millard Fillmore by Paul Finkelman

Good biographies are characterized by a compelling and engaging account of the subject’s life that is not hagiographic, but takes seriously the subject’s flaws.  At the same time, biographers should resist the urge to condemn their subjects, except in rare cases where the subject is an obviously evil person like a Stalin or a Hitler.  Finally, a good biography should provide just enough information about significant events of the day to place the subject’s actions in their proper context, but no more; the life and thought of the subject must remain the central focus. 

Paul Finkleman’s Millard Fillmore, part of the “American Presidents” series of brief presidential biographies, certainly steers clear of overly praising Fillmore, but it fails the other tests, for three main reasons  First, while the book is generally well-written, it is not particularly engaging.  Worse, it is highly repetitive.  Finkleman often repeats the same information two or even three times, without any qualifying verbiage like “as we have seen…”  For example Finkleman mentions three times that Fillmore was personally opposed to slavery but never took a public stand on the issue.  He mentions the Priggs v. Pennsylvania court case once and then later mentions it again as if the reader had never heard about it.  Other examples abound.  In a biography limited to 130 or 140 pages, such repetition is inexcusable.

A second major flaw of Finkleman’s work is that he devotes too much time to current events, so much so that Fillmore himself is often pushed to the side.  Finkleman seems virtually obsessed with the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, devoting approximately 30 of the book’s 137 pages to it.  Fillmore is absent during much of this discussion.  While there can be no doubt that the Fugitive Slave Act had an enormous impact on antebellum American history and on the presidency and legacy of Fillmore, it does not merit nearly 25% of a Fillmore biography.  While reading this biography, I sometimes felt I was reading a history of the Fugitive Slave Act, with a brief introduction and conclusion about Fillmore.

A third flaw of the biography, and by far the most significant one, is the lack of balance.  Finkleman has very little good to say about Fillmore and much bad.  When narrating Fillmore’s actions and statements, Finkleman often uses highly pejorative language, verbiage that one would expect from an internet discussion thread rather than a scholarly biography.  Fillmore did not simply “state” things or “speak”; rather, Finkleman would have us believe, he “blustered” or “grandly declared.”  In another instance, Finkleman compares Fillmore to a “petulant teenager.”  Finkleman’s biography is more of a hit piece than an objective, scholarly biography.

In Finkleman's defense, the book is not completely without merit.  For example, his explanation of the controversy about slavery in the territories (THE most important issue in American politics from 1846-1861) is insightful and concise; in fact, it may be the best I have ever read.  Still, this and the few other positives are greatly outweighed by the negatives.

There is little doubt that Millard Fillmore, our second “accidental” president and the first of three “doughfaces” (northern men with pro-Southern principles), hardly ranks among our top presidents and probably deserves to be counted among the 10 worst.  Still, he deserves a better biography than this.  Readers wanting a more objective narration of Fillmore’s life will need to read Robert Rayback’ 1959 biography, dated and difficult to read as it is.  Or better yet, perhaps someone will write a new one.   How about you?

Review of Zachary Taylor: Soldier, Planter, Statesman of the Old West by K. Jack Bauer

“He was and remains an enigma.”  So writes the late historian K. Jack Bauer of Zachary Taylor, the twelfth president of the United States.  Taylor, Bauer elaborates, “was a man of limited emotional and intellectual capacity who appears to have developed a nearly impenetrable mask.”  Despite this, Bauer in the mid-1980s decided to attempt to peel back the mask of this little-known and often forgotten president.  The result is Zachary Taylor:  Soldier, Planter, Statesman of the Old West, a now-classic biography of “Old Rough and Ready.”

Given that Taylor was the first president to have been a solider for nearly all of his adult life, it is not surprising that Bauer devotes 210 of 327 pages (64%) of the book to Taylor’s long military career.  Prior to the Mexican War, Taylor spent much of his time helping protect America’s western frontier, and like most such soldiers, his service was characterized mostly by tedium punctuated by occasional fighting, including action in the Black Hawk and Seminole Wars.  Taylor’s competent service as a junior officer led to him reaching the rank of brigadier general in 1838 and being placed in command of the Army’s Western Division three years later.

When the United States annexed Texas in 1845, Taylor and his army were ordered to the Nueces River and then to the Rio Grande, which the Mexican government believed to be solidly within Mexico’s boundaries.  This led to the outbreak of hostilities in May of 1846.  Over the next nine months, Taylor won four straight battles against Mexican forces, although Bauer argues that none of these battles were a result of Taylor’s great prowess as a military commander. For Bauer, Taylor was a generally competent, but not outstanding, commander whose success was the result of able subordinates, terrible decisions by Mexican commanders, and just plain luck.  After his victory at Buena Vista in February, 1847, Taylor’s force was essentially put on hold for the rest of the war, even as a large portion of it was stripped away to augment General Winfield Scott’s attack on Veracruz and his subsequent march toward Mexico City.

Taylor’s military success led to him being touted as a potential presidential candidate for the 1848 election, although it was not sure which party’s ticket he would lead.  Taylor, perhaps the least politically-minded candidate to that time, had never voted in any election.  Ultimately, he was persuaded to run as a Whig, due to his having a nationalist viewpoint at a time when the Democratic Party was increasingly under the domination of pro-slavery elements.  Prior to the election, the Democrats split, leading to a Taylor victory.

Despite being a slaveholding southerner, President Taylor pursued a nationalist agenda, strongly opposing the spread of slavery into the territories won from Mexico.  He also worked to improve relations with Great Britain, including acknowledging Britain’s right to establish a colony (modern-day Belize) in Central America while relinquishing any American claims to Latin American territory.  In this, he surprised many, for as Bauer writes,

few presidents have proven in practice to be as different from their expected roles as Zachary Taylor…it is doubtful that many Americans in 1848 would have predicted that the slaveholding planter from Louisiana would emerge as the champion of exclusion of slavery from the territories or that the victorious solider of the Mexican War would have presided over the renunciation of Manifest Destiny and the curtailing of the Monroe Doctrine. (320)

What further contributions President Taylor may have made will, of course, be forever a mystery, since only 16 months after becoming president, Taylor died of a stomach ailment, the cause of which is still not completely understood.

Zachary Taylor:  Soldier, Planter, Statesman of the Old West is a serviceable and generally readable story of the life of Zachary Taylor.  Bauer’s descriptions of Taylor’s Mexican War battles, along with the brief narrative of his presidency are the book’s greatest strengths, while the parts that deal with Taylor’s pre-Mexican War military career and the 1848 election are a bit tedious.  Bauer presents a balanced portrait of Taylor, being neither too complimentary nor too critical.  For someone who wants to learn in some depth about Taylor and his times, Bauer’s biography is an excellent choice.

Review of Polk: the Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America by Walter R Borneman

James Knox Polk, the eleventh president of the United States, is generally known for two things:  for being a “dark horse” presidential candidate (the first in American history), and for being the president who presided over the Mexican-American War and the subsequent addition of hundreds of thousands of square miles of territory to the United States. In Polk: the Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America, historian Walter R Borneman argues two main points: that candidate Polk was anything but a “dark horse”, and that President Polk was one of the most successful and influential Chief Executives not only of the nineteenth century, but of all time.

In his brief narration of Polk’s early life and political career prior to the election of 1844, Borneman stresses Polk’s great intelligence and ambition.  Polk, a protégé of Andrew Jackson, became a US congressman at the age of 30, Speaker of the House at 40, and governor of Tennessee at 44. Polk was given serious consideration for the Democratic vice presidential nomination in 1840.  Fortunately for him, however, the party chose someone else.  Had Polk been the nominee, his party’s crushing defeat might have ended his presidential aspirations. 

Borneman’s narration of the 1844 campaign, with all its twists and turns, is thorough and entertaining.  The divided Democrats at first could not agree on a single candidate, with each region of the country supporting its own “favorite son.”  Eventually, Polk emerged as an alternative candidate that all regions could get behind (his being supported by Jackson certainly did not hurt his cause, either).  Borneman repeatedly argues that Polk, although he was initially not seen as a serious candidate, was nonetheless not a “dark horse.”  His having been Speaker of the House, Governor of Tennessee, and a much-talked-about possible vice presidential candidate in 1840 meant that he was hardly unknown in 1844.

Borneman devotes the second half of the book to Polk’s presidency, which he sees as a strong one.  He gives Polk high praise for being the only president to keep all of his campaign promises, which in Polk’s case were to acquire Texas, acquire Oregon, lower tariffs, and establish an independent Treasury.  While there is no doubt that President Polk did indeed achieve these goals, Borneman gives Polk perhaps too much credit for the first two, downplaying the work that Polk’s predecessor John Tyler and his administration did to prepare the way.  Borneman also gives Polk much credit for acquiring the Mexican Cession, which greatly increased the size of the United States, but he leaves aside the dubious morality of that action and its impact on Mexicans, Indians, and other non-whites.

Borneman’s portrait of Polk is highly positive, almost to the point of being hagiographic.  In spite of this, it is a very engaging read and an excellent overview of Polk’s life, his presidency, and the events of the 1830s and 1840s.  For readers seeking an introduction to these topics, Borneman’s biography is a great place to start.

Review of John Tyler: The Accidental President by Edward Crapol

Like his predecessor William Henry Harrison, John Tyler is unknown to most Americans, even many educated ones.  He receives scant attention in a typical U. S. History course, and when he is mentioned, he is credited with little more than being the first vice president to succeed to the White House upon the death of the sitting president.  Tyler is often portrayed as a caretaker president who accomplished little of significance.

In John Tyler: the Accidental President, historian Edward Crapol argues that while Tyler may not deserve to be counted among one of our greatest or most significant presidents, the traditional view of Tyler is far from the truth.  Crapol discusses several of Tyler and his administration’s significant achievements, while at the same time not shying away from pointing out the flaws of “His Accidency.”

Like many of his presidential predecessors, John Tyler was born to wealth and privilege.  The son of a wealthy planter, judge and member of the Virginia House of Delegates, Tyler entered politics as a young man. He was voted to the House of Delegates at age 21, the US House of Representatives at 26, the Governorship of Virginia at 35, and the US Senate at 37, and finally the Vice Presidency of the United States at 50.  When President William Henry Harrison died after only a month in office, Tyler took the unprecedented step of assuming both the title and the responsibilities of president. 

With such a long career in public service, Tyler was well-prepared for the presidency, and his future must have seemed bright indeed.  But one inconvenient fact helped ensure that Tyler would be a one-term president.  Politically, Tyler was a disciple of the Jeffersonian small government and states’ rights tradition; as such he naturally joined the Democratic Party when it was founded.  Due to his opposition to some of Andrew Jackson’s policies, however, Tyler left the party and joined the Whigs, despite having little in common with them philosophically.  Upon becoming president, Tyler made it clear he was a Whig in name only; as a result, the party expelled him.  Tyler tried to make common cause with the Democrats and to gain their nomination for president in 1844, but the party, still heavily under the influence of Jackson, rejected Tyler’s overtures.

Despite being a virtual lame duck president for nearly his entire term, Tyler and his administration made several important contributions to our nation’s history.  First, he “moved to strengthen and modernize the American navy,” beginning the process of shifting to a steamship navy.  Second, he helped reduce tensions with Great Britain (which were high in 1841), presiding over the signing of the 1842 Webster-Ashburton Treaty, which, among other things, permanently set the northeastern boundary between the U. S. and Canada.  Third, Tyler expanded U. S. contact with the Pacific, bringing Hawaii into the American sphere of influence and establishing trade relations with China for the first time.  Fourth, Tyler and his administration did most of the work to bring Texas into the U. S., making it relatively simple for his successor James Polk to complete the process.  For all of these accomplishments, Crapol argues, Tyler should be seen as a strong president, not the caretaker that many take him to have been.

Despite these important accomplishments, Tyler had several flaws and contradictions.  Despite being ideologically a Jeffersonian, committed to states’ rights and a weak central government, he strengthened presidential power and occasionally undermined that of the states.  And even though he had qualms about the morality of slavery, he defended the “peculiar institution” with vigor, going as far as to eventually join the Confederacy and thus become the only former U. S. president to be branded a traitor and to not have his death acknowledged by the U. S. government.

John Tyler: the Accidental President is an engaging and highly informative read.  In only 283 pages, Crapol succeeds admirably in bringing to life not only John Tyler the man, but also his accomplishments and failures, as well as the key happenings in late antebellum America.  Anyone interested in gaining an understanding of American politics in the early 1840s could hardly to better than to begin with this outstanding book.

Review of William Henry Harrison by Gail Collins

If you ask 100 average Americans who William Henry Harrison was, it is likely that 98 or 99 will have no idea.  Even among historically-minded Americans, most remember Harrison primarily (if not exclusively) as the only president whose inaugural address was almost as long as his entire presidency.

In William Henry Harrison, historian Gail Collins gives a brief yet solid overview of the life of our ninth president.  Collins’ biography of Harrison is part of the “American Presidents” series, a collection of very brief overviews of the lives of each of our chief executives. 

Given that the book only encompasses 125 pages, Collins obviously has had to pick and choose which parts of Harrison’s 68-year life to highlight.  She focuses on three main themes: Harrison’s dealing with the Indians, the ironies in Harrison’s life and career, and the theatrical, dramatic extravaganza that was the 1840 presidential campaign.  Rather than being distinct, these three themes constantly intersect with each other.

In a key passage on Harrison’s interactions with Indians, Collins points out that

Harrison is famous for things he didn’t actually do. He didn’t win a big military victory at Tippecanoe—it was a minor fight against an outnumbered village of Indians, and because Harrison screwed up the defense of the camp the white Americans suffered most of the casualties…but his real impact on history arguably came from the work he did in the Grouseland years—acquiring several states’ worth of territory from the Indians in deals that cost the federal government only pennies per acre (4).

Collins is perhaps a bit too critical in her assessment of Harrison’s dealing with the Indians.  By the standards of the time, Harrison was actually relatively kind to Indians—much more so that many other nineteenth-century military leaders.

In addition to her account of Harrison’s military career, Collins presents a relatively lengthy and entertaining account of the “Log Cabin and Hard Cider” campaign of 1840, a masterpiece of political “spin” that would make modern-day campaign managers like James Carville and Karl Rove proud.  Despite Harrison’s being the scion of Virginia gentry, complete with a father who signed the Declaration of Independence and served as Governor of Virginia, his publicists transformed him into a rustic “man of the people” who lived in a log cabin in the woods and preferred hard cider over the effeminate beverages of his opponent Martin Van Buren.  The campaign was one of the first in American history to have a circus-like atmosphere, with songs, rallies, copious amounts of hard cider, and the rolling of giant paper mache balls from town to town.  It was a masterpiece of political theatre, and it worked.

Collins’ work has only one major downside: her extremely casual writing style.  She often resorts to slang terms (such as “screwed up”) that are not proper for a formal historical work.  I especially found her constant use of contractions to be annoying.  If she had submitted this work to me as an assignment in one of my classes, she would have lost points for this.  Despite this, Collins has done an excellent job (in a very small number of pages) of presenting an overview of the life of “Old Tippecanoe.” Readers who want a good introduction to Harrison will be satisfied.