FROM ABE TO TEDDY

Just like we had between Quincy and Abe, there were nine presidents between Abe and Teddy, all of them either failed or undistinguished. Still, a couple of them deserve a special mention, and although this entry is not to be considered especially dedicated to either of them, each one is going to be treated with a comment of his own.

They are, of course, Ulysses Grant and Grover Cleveland. The first was a popular, almost venerable general of the Civil War, albeit a poor president. The other is unique in the history of American Presidency, having been elected to the office twice non-consecutively, thus counted both as President #22 and President #24. It can be reasonably said that a man like Cleveland simply cannot be ignored in our Presidential series.

Concerning Grant, he was a profoundly honest man but his presidency was weak and unluckily drowning in corruption. The high point of Grant’s career was his military service. As a young lieutenant he fought in the infamous Mexican War which he later commendably called “one of the most unjust [wars] ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation.” As the brilliant Commander of the Union armies against the Confederate South, he was ruthless in his strategy and tactics and victorious as a result, which instantly made him a hero and the Republicans’ best bet to recapture the White House from the Democrats, who got there via Andrew Johnson, in the wake of the Lincoln assassination. And sure enough, Grant did become President, and even managed to stay in the White House for two full terms despite his glaring incompetence as a civilian leader. There was blatant thievery going on around him, of which he had no part. At one time, when he wizened up to it, his good-intentioned, but inept actions created a financial panic, followed by a depression lasting for a few years.

The name of Grover Cleveland dominated the American national political scene for over twelve years, but it was not on account of Cleveland’s special talents, although he was known as a hard-working and honest man. He was essentially a mackerel among minnows, and for this reason he, a Democrat, was tolerated in a thick Republican environment.

He’s sort of famous for standing up to the Congress and had a record-breaking record of exercising his veto power, but other than that he was not an activist President, undistinguished by a single legislative initiative, and otherwise intellectually inconsistent and even bizarre in his conduct of foreign policy.

The Cleveland era was distinguished by the first major salvos of the Marxian class struggle. The President, although praised as a supporter of the middleclass America, sided with the big business against labor, and at the end of his political career was accused of being in the pocket of the robber barons, although he had little or no gain at all from his stand with the rich and powerful. It can be said, furthermore, that in that era, it was the big capitalist who had all the political power, making the role of the President virtually inconsequential.

In times like those, America needed a strong leader, and fortunately for her, she got herself one. In fact, the next consequential president after Abe was Teddy.

(See my Teddy Roosevelt series of entries, posted on this blog on June 14^th, 2011, under the collective title: Rooseveltiana: World Domination As A Good Thing.)