Maligned Presidents: The Late 19th Century

The Late 19th Century

M. Skidmore

• Publisher: Palgrave Pivot
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781137438003
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: European Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Certain 19th Century presidencies contrast common perceptions of the office's authority and strength. These presidents were a strong group and were anything but insignificant. They fought substantial battles with Congress, and often won. This book seeks to provide more substantive analysis of maligned presidencies, and the legacies left behind.

1

Introduction

Abstract: The reputation of the “Gilded Age,” the years from the end of the Civil War to the century’s end, is dismal. The stereotypes are wrong. Recent work demonstrates that they misrepresent Reconstruction and exaggerate corruption while maligning the period’s presidents (especially Grant), most of whom were strong and able leaders (including Grant). The misinformation began early, coming from reformers who resented leaders who did not recognize their superior wisdom, from former Confederates with axes to grind, and from misreading the works of Woodrow Wilson and Lord Bryce. Theses such as the “modern presidency” and “rhetorical presidency” contributed, making too many scholars too quick to assume that there was a sharp divergence between recent presidents and their predecessors, or that earlier presidents avoided political rhetoric.

Skidmore, Max J. Maligned Presidents: The Late 19th Century. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2014. DOI: 10.1057/9781137438003.0002.

Why have so many written so much for so long that is so wrong?

There is no serious doubt about the powerful presence in American history of Abraham Lincoln, nor about his contributions to the presidency as well as to the nation. Similarly, the enormous energy that Theodore Roosevelt—the first president to serve entirely in the twentieth century—brought to the executive, and to the government overall, should be obvious to any observer of the period.

In between, though, we find a time generally portrayed as the Dark Ages of the Republic. Whatever the merits of that view, and more recent scholars have raised substantial questions about its accuracy,¹ presidents of the period have been besmirched with the same historical brush. The presidency in the Gilded Age, we are told, was at its lowest ebb, and as a result presidents of the late nineteenth century have tended to be the targets of scorn—when they receive any notice at all. We hear that Congress overshadowed them, that they were of marginal competence and were virtually indistinguishable. Perhaps most damning to postmodern American scholars, they seem to blur together as bewhiskered white men, now dead.

Thomas C. Reeves, the major biographer of one of those presidents, Chester A. Arthur, said in that biography, “the politics of late nineteenth-century America have attracted few historians in recent years.” He wrote that long ago, in 1975. Now, there has been some change, but too little. “Polemicists of the Progressive Era and the Great Depression,” Reeves noted perceptively that “amplifying the shrill condemnations and oversimplifications of such contemporary critics as Henry Adams and Lord Bryce, were profoundly influential in persuading succeeding generations of scholars that the Gilded Age required little study.” He proceeded to say that “even the Presidents of the era have been generally ignored and forgotten. Chester A. Arthur? The name brings smiles. One might as well consider Rutherford B. Hayes or Benjamin Harrison. ... ”²

It is interesting to note that enlightened biographers of Gilded Age presidents—Reeves among them—are not necessarily any better informed about them all than the conventional wisdom has been. Ari Hoogenboom, who produced one of the best books on Rutherford B. Hayes, displays no more understanding of Grant than any pedestrian writer. “Grant’s attitude,” he wrote, was “that the presidency was a reward—a semi-retirement to be enjoyed—when coupled with his political ignorance, created a weak and passive president who was easily influenced and manipulated by friends, congressmen and cabinet members.” A statement as absurd as this demands at least a citation, but he provides none.³ Hoogenboom would hardly, one hopes, accept such writing about Hayes, but with regard to Hayes, he writes about a subject he knows. To be fair, when he does make similar statements about Grant earlier, he provides a citation, which is (unsurprisingly) to Allan Nevins, an anti-Grant historian of the “Revisionist” school.⁴

Reeves, himself, as indicated, seems hardly more well-informed about Grant, than were the bulk of others who were writing at the time Reeves produced his book. He could note with approval Grant’s efforts to establish a merit-based civil service, saying that Grant supported establishment of a civil service commission, and that Grant required the commission to adopt rules providing that applicants for federal service be able to speak English and to provide evidence of good character, as well as ensuring that “political assessments under any guise were strictly forbidden.”⁵

When discussing Grant’s renomination, though, Reeves said that “Republicans were keenly aware that he possessed a sorry record,” and that his Reconstruction policies “had earned intense hatred throughout the South” (which might have been expected for any such policy if it were to be all effective, and thus would not necessarily have been a criticism), that “rumors of corruption were persistent, and that the reform wing of the party was disgusted by his disposition to turn over patronage to a coterie of bosses who shamelessly manipulated public offices to their own advantage.”⁶ Reeves is not exactly contradicting himself directly, although the shift in tone ignores and obscures the fact that Grant had made an effort to reform the civil service, and that the political dynamics of the time might have made it impossible for any president to have succeeded.

Certainly there was much disapproval of Grant, but suggesting some doubt about Reeves’s assertion that it was widespread, is that Grant, of course, won re-election overwhelmingly, in both the electoral college and the popular vote. In fact, his popular vote margin of victory was the highest for any president between Jackson’s first election in 1828, and Theodore Roosevelt’s record-setting total in 1904.⁷ Regardless, Reeves then proceeded to condemn Grant’s second term in language demonstrating that he had absorbed much of the scurrilous commentary from the anti-Grant school, but he cites no authority for the most sweeping judgments, or for the most snide assertions.

Grant’s administration, he said, “quickly degenerated into one of the most sordid periods in American political history.” Whatever the merits of that claim—undoubtedly there was corruption at the time, unquestionably it was sordid, but assuredly this is an overstatement—how could Reeves profess to be objective when he comments that “Grant could barely comprehend what was going on about him?”⁸

Another treatment of Arthur, also gratuitously and erroneously, condemns President Grant in the course of considering Arthur. Michael Gerhardt understandably includes Arthur in his volume, Forgotten Presidents, and since Arthur figures prominently in laying the foundation for the merit-based civil service, Gerhardt quite naturally discusses Arthur’s role in civil service reform. When he throws Grant into the mix, though, his statements become not only erroneous, but also illogical.

At least Reeves gives Grant credit here. Gerhardt, on the other hand, seems clearly to be confused. “The three Republican presidents who immediately preceded Arthur,” he wrote, “did little to reform the civil service system.” That is technically accurate, because Grant, Hayes, and Garfield accomplished nothing. Grant, though, did make the attempt, and only ceased when he concluded that Congress would never provide funding for the commission that Congress had established at his urging.

Gerhardt, however, seems to think that the commission was something that Congress forced on Grant. “Grant generally appointed people who were not the best qualified but who were loyal to him,” he wrote without giving a source. “In response,” he said, “Congress authorized Grant to set regulations for federal employment and to appoint an oversight body. By the end of Grant’s administration, the commission was defunct since Congress had not funded it.”⁹ This is simply silly, and especially astonishing in that it appears in an otherwise rather good book. It makes no sense that Congress would force Grant to establish a merit-based scheme for appointments because members were unhappy with his nominees: the Senate had to approve them, regardless of what system was in place. Moreover, opposition to merit appointments was strong in Congress, but if Congress decided it wanted a merit system, why did the legislature permit it to languish, and refuse funding?

Similarly, just as deep knowledge of one Gilded Age president does not guarantee understanding of other presidents in the period, so too does expert knowledge of the Progressive period—so near in time to the Gilded Age—fail to carry with it any assurance that there will be any expertise at all with regard to the presidents immediately preceding Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson. Peri Arnold, for instance, so astute in analyzing the Progressive presidents, ventures not at all beyond the conventional wisdom when referring to those who had held the office in the decades just past. He explains his concern for the Progressives as growing from the need to explain just how Theodore Roosevelt and Wilson could have “gained iconic status in presidential history,” inasmuch as they “served in a time of relatively modest and unmemorable presidencies.”¹⁰ He especially contrasts Roosevelt with McKinley. “Is the salient difference between McKinley and Roosevelt merely a difference in personality”? he asks.¹¹ The question is understandable. Theodore Roosevelt was unique; he would have been in sharp contrast to virtually anyone else. Yet recent scholarship on McKinley suggests that underneath these obvious differences there may actually have been more similarity than appears on the surface.¹² McKinley, this research concludes, may indeed have paved the way for the Bull Moose dynamism.

Our concentration here will be primarily on presidents and the presidency, and only secondarily on the period. With regard to the presidency, was the period really one of nothing but reaction against the power in the executive that Lincoln had amassed, a reaction that submerged the presidential office so much that the best candidates hardly ever sought it? Was there nothing in the three decades or so after Lincoln that set precedents, or laid the groundwork, for the vigorous innovation of the first Roosevelt? Might the assumption that Reconstruction was so corrupt and inexcusable that it tainted an entire period have discouraged scholars from d...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1  Introduction
• 2  Ulysses S. Grant
• 3  Rutherford B. Hayes
• 4  James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur
• 5  Grover Cleveland, I
• 6  Benjamin Harrison
• 7  Grover Cleveland, II
• 8  William McKinley
• 9  Conclusion
• Index