Presidents and Change - Page 2 - Historum

monsieurdl · April 2nd, 2012, 07:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tjadams

Jackson is one of those presidents that can always create a waterspout of discussion, pro or con.

You said it... few Presidents were as divisive as he.

I read a great book on the era that I haven't mentioned before here:

Amazon.com: What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 (Oxford History of the United States) (9780195078947): Daniel Walker Howe: Books

The chronicles of events mentioned here are well discussed. When I get back home, I'll find some choice passages

**beetle** · April 5th, 2012, 07:41 AM

Here's my list:

Jefferson: that Louisiana purchase
Jackson: 1st westerner elected Prez
Polk: Manifest Destiny

Lincoln: Enpowered the office of Chief Exec like none before him.
McKinley: (perhaps the most overlooked Prez of all) During his Presidency the US emerged as a world power

FDR: obviously
Truman: Established the course of US post-war policies

Nixon: Before him the 20th-century press and media always cut US Prez's some slack. For examples, the press never made public FDR's disability and they overlooked JFK's pecadillos. After Nixon, the press and media became much more severe, critical and less trusting.

Reagan: the Reagan Revolution

Clinton: another overlooked and underestimated Prez. He presided over the US during globalization, and his policies which included things from early in his first term such as NAFTA and GATT treaties to things late in his second term such as the deregulation of banking and investment procedures have had a massive impact on US society ever since.

Edit: Sorry I left out TR, but how many of his policies endured?

monsieurdl · April 5th, 2012, 08:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by beetle

Edit: Sorry I left out TR, but how many of his policies endured?

Food and Drug Act
Meat Inspection Act
Sherman Anti-Trust Act
United States Forest Service
Yosemite National Park control by the federal government, and 4 others
Bureau of Labor Statistics
Department of Commerce

Other policies which were not implemented until after he left office were the income tax, child labor laws, conservation efforts, and strengthening the ICC, all which were eventually accomplished that would not have been sooner had it not been for TR's promotion of it all.

**beetle** · April 5th, 2012, 09:21 AM

Terrific! I admit to baiting a hook in order to catch a fish

. I hope you don't mind, as it gave you an opportunity to expand on TR. He got that progressive ball rolling, didn't he? FDR would build on TR's accomplishments.

I also failed to include LBJ. What has had more of an impact on modern US society than his Great Society programs?

Thanks for listing TR's accomplishments. It's your avatar, ya know.

monsieurdl · April 5th, 2012, 10:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by beetle

Terrific! I admit to baiting a hook in order to catch a fish

. I hope you don't mind, as it gave you an opportunity to expand on TR. He got that progressive ball rolling, didn't he? FDR would build on TR's accomplishments.

I also failed to include LBJ. What has had more of an impact on modern US society than his Great Society programs?

Thanks for listing TR's accomplishments. It's your avatar, ya know.

I find it extremely interesting that it took a foreign-born writer to write a definitive biography of Theodore Roosevelt, and I am extremely grateful beyond words to Edmund Morris. His three volume masterpiece is like a great novel that you dare not set down for you want to know what happens next.

Often times I do not expand upon my thoughts as some others regrettably, but one of these days I'll prioritize myself better and start writing some essays here. My problem also is perfection, and if I produce an essay it will be combed over so many times as some would consider it obsessive!

Here is a passage that I find to be deeply moving, of his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee. Morris, Edmund. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (2001). Random House Trade Paperbacks, pp. 232-233.

Quote:

With the exception of two brief, written valedictories to Alice- one private, one for limited circulation among family and friends- there is no record of Roosevelt ever mentioning her name again. The first of these memorials was entered into his diary a day or two after the funeral:

Images of his diary entry are below... and we continue...

There were one or two oblique, involuntary references to Alice in conversation during the months immediately following her death, but before the year was out his silence was total. Ironically, the name of another Alice Lee- his daughter- was sometimes forced through his lips, but even this was quickly euphemized to "Baby Lee." Although the girl grew to womanhood, and remained close to him always, he never once spoke to her of her mother. When, as ex-President, he came to write his Autobiography, he wrote movingly of the joys of family life, the ardor of youth, and the love of men and women; but he would not acknowledge that the first Alice had ever existed.

Others close to Roosevelt naturally took on the same attitude. After his death, their hands went methodically through his correspondence, and all love-letters between himself and Alice- with four trivial exceptions- were destroyed. Whole pages of his Harvard scrapbook, presumably containing souvenirs of their courtship and marriage, were snipped out. Photographs of Alice were torn out of their paper frames. Here and there, handwritten captions that doubtless referred to her are erased so fiercely the page is worn into holes. Only by some miracle did five private diaries, and a handful of letters written to friends, survive to testify to his love for the yellow-haired girl from Chestnut Hill.

**beetle** · April 6th, 2012, 09:09 AM

Now you've got me interested in TR!

Thanks for posting that very personal aspect of TR. It's unfortunate so much of his corrrespondence, etc., regarding her was destroyed.

If I remember correctly, I think Ronnie Reagan wrote a lot of letters to his wife (#2) including love letters.

monsieurdl · April 6th, 2012, 09:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by beetle

Now you've got me interested in TR!

Thanks for posting that very personal aspect of TR. It's unfortunate so much of his corrrespondence, etc., regarding her was destroyed.

If I remember correctly, I think Ronnie Reagan wrote a lot of letters to his wife (#2) including love letters.

You're welcome! Regrettably, I wish I did have more time to respond to posts with sourced material like this. These are the sorts of examples that make history a never-ending quest for knowledge and understanding- human beings don't really change from century to century... some bounce back, some are crushed forever, some never are fully the same, etc. Events shaped historical figures personally just like you or I.

Shinobu Sensui · April 7th, 2012, 05:52 PM

I think it has too be FDR for me.

He expanded the federal government to almost maximum levels than any previous administration before him, left us with inept knowledge necessary to fight Depressions, or Recessions, paved the way for future socialistic policies, defined and set the standard for the rest of the Imperial Presidency for future Commanders-In-Chief, and our interventionist foreign policies for generations to come.

Well, ok maybe the last one isn't totally his fault.

Robespierre · April 7th, 2012, 06:18 PM

Jackson has a period named after him. Anyone in history who gets a period named after him is substantial. The Jacksonian Period.

This thread is mostly about change, good or bad. It's hard to deny Jackson that. He changed the Presidency, created the modern Democratic Party and Platform (big business is the enemy).

As for Indian Removal, I am very sympathetic towards Native Americans (see some of my other posts where I was branded a radical), but you have to be realistic. Jackson knew what others knew. Indians were going to get removed, one way or another. I don't see Jackson as someone way out of the norm here (other than Adams). Removal would've taken place without him, at some point.

As for expanding power to the President that is true. But, like Indian removal, it was destined to happen. We have a balance of power. If Jackson took it too far then you have to blame the other two branches for not reigning him in. The history of federal power is mostly one where Congress has let it happen over and over again. Further, most of the ways Jackson extended federal power were not in the constitution. Anger directed towards him is mostly based in tradition. He broke tradition, not law.