[Sidenote: Number of Presidents.]
Between 1789, when the government organized by the constitution
began its functions, and 1886, the people of the United States have
twenty-five times chosen a President; and of the Presidents, seven have
been chosen for a second term. Four of them, having died in office, were
succeeded by Vice Presidents. While the number of terms, therefore,
has been twenty-five, the executive chair has been filled by twenty-two
individuals. In referring to the line of Presidents, and scanning the
names of those who have exercised powers more extensive than those
of English royalty, we are struck by the fact that very few of our
Presidents have ranked first, in point of intellect, in their own
generation. It may be said, indeed, that Jefferson alone of them all was
without dispute the foremost statesman of his day.
[Sidenote: Presidential Ability.]
Comparing our elected chief magistrates with the various lines of
hereditary sovereigns of Europe, we find that pre-eminent ability is
scarcely more frequent among them than is presented by the houses of
Romanoff, Hohenzollern, and Hapsburg. When, however, we consider their
moral qualities as rulers--their patriotism and purity, their freedom
from a too grasping ambition, the fidelity and zeal with which they
have served the country as best they knew how--we are perhaps not
unreasonable in judging them superior, as a line of rulers, to any royal
house of which history affords record. Very rarely has it been that
a President has been even suspected of craving increased power for
himself, or of using his office for unworthy personal ends. Some have
been weak, some perverse and obstinate; but as the clouds of party
passion, which have sometimes obscured the motives and the acts of our
chief magistrates, pass away, we may recognize in their action honest
though now and then ill directed efforts to use their high office for
the general weal.
[Sidenote: The Ablest Men not Presidents.]
Our intellectually ablest men have not, with the exception of Jefferson,
attained the Presidency, though many of them have aspired to it. No one
can doubt that Hamilton was a greater political genius than the first
two Presidents. It can scarcely be questioned that Webster, Calhoun,
and Clay were greater in this respect than the three Presidents who
succeeded Jefferson. Madison was a man of culture, clear vision, and
political learning, but he was the disciple of Jefferson, and did not
reveal qualities of originality and constructiveness in statesmanship.
Monroe was a man of yet more limited capacity, unless Polk be excepted,
Monroe was the least able of all our Presidents. But he had a large
experience in public affairs, he was judicious and cool-tempered, and
thoroughly honest and simple-minded. He was personally liked, and after
Washington was the only President who was the unanimous choice of the
country.[1]
[Sidenote: Monroe.]
[Sidenote: John Quincy Adams.]
John Quincy Adams, a trained statesman, who had been an ambassador,
a Senator, and a Secretary of State, was still inferior in point of
political intellect to Clay, his own Secretary of State, and to Calhoun,
the Vice-President; and there were several others at that time who might
justly be competed with him. So, although Andrew Jackson was perhaps the
greatest of our Presidents in executive vigor and stern force of will,
as a political figure his most devoted admirers would scarcely rank him
with Clay or Webster. Van Buren was rather a shrewd politician than an
eminent statesman; but he was a politician in a higher sense, and no
stain of dishonor attaches to his career, while his presidential term
was an honest and able one.
[Sidenote: Later Presidents.]
Many public men might be named who, living at the time of Harrison's
elevation, were very much his political superiors; in his very cabinet
were at least three, Webster, Crittenden, and Ewing; and John Tyler was
very far from being in the front rank of American statesmen, though his
political capacity has sometimes been underrated.
Polk was the weakest of all our later Presidents, and he too presided
over at least three secretaries who were intellectually larger men, in
Marcy, Robert J. Walker, and Buchanan. The same may be said in comparing
General Taylor with his advisers, and Fillmore, Pierce, and Lincoln
with theirs; for while no one can fail to revere the grand moral
and practical qualities which make Lincoln illustrious, in purely
intellectual eminence he was excelled by Seward, Chase, and perhaps
Stanton.
[Sidenote: A Conservative Republic.]
[Sidenote: Origin of the Presidents.]
Ours has always been a conservative Republic. The French Republicans
of '93 and '48, the Communards of '71, did not derive their wild and
visionary fanaticism from our example, although there can be no doubt
that our Revolution had not a little influence in hastening that
of France. When the people have been called upon to choose a chief
magistrate, therefore, they have not sought men of extreme views, nor
have humble birth and limited education often been recommendations of
candidates. It is notable that the first six Presidents were selected
from the class which in England is called the "gentry." Washington,
indeed, belonged to the high rural aristocracy of Virginia; Mount Vernon
was as much a patrician manor-house as are the "halls," "priories," and
"manors" of rural England; and he lived there in the style of a country
magnate, John Adams belonged to the sturdy New England yeomanry sprung
from the Pilgrims, and, as the descendant of John Alden, had some
reason to pride himself upon good blood. The three succeeding Virginia
Presidents were sons of gentlemen-farmers, and belonged to the
cultivated gentry of the Old Dominion. Jackson was the first of the
plebeian Presidents, and then came Van Buren, of the gentry by birth;
Harrison, the son of a signer of the Declaration, and thus well born,
and Tyler, another Virginia gentleman, the lord of Sherwood Forest. Polk
belonged to the same rural condition. Fillmore was the next President
of humble beginnings, and Lincoln the third; while Andrew Johnson,
who learned to read after he was married, and began life as a country
tailor, was the most lowly born of all our chief magistrates.
[Sidenote: Military Presidents.]
Those young men who, having a taste for and ambition in politics,
adopt the law as a stepping-stone to political honor, may derive
some encouragement from the classification of the Presidents by their
professions; for out of the twenty-two Presidents, no less than eighteen
were at some period of their lives practising at the bar. The four
who were not lawyers were the four military Presidents, Washington,
Harrison, Taylor, and Grant. Three other Presidents, however, derived
something of their fame from military careers--Monroe, Jackson, and
Pierce. Monroe was a revolutionary colonel, Jackson the hero of New
Orleans, and Pierce a brigadier in the Mexican War. But Monroe owed
his political eminence to diplomatic successes and the friendship of
Jefferson and Madison: while Pierce certainly did not win the presidency
by his Mexican exploits.
[Sidenote: Presidential Succession.]
No man has ever yet passed directly from the United States Senate to the
White House. Of the Presidents, Monroe, J.Q. Adams, Jackson, Van Buren,
Harrison, Tyler, Pierce, Buchanan, and Johnson had been senators; while
John Adams, Jefferson and Van Buren held the Vice-Presidency just
before their elevation by election to the higher office. The custom
of succession from the one office to the other, which prevailed in the
earlier years of the Republic, was broken when Madison was preferred to
George Clinton in 1808; and was revived only in the single instance
of Van Buren, whom the irresistible will of Jackson imposed upon the
Democrats as his successor. Washington, before becoming President, had
held the office of President of the Constitutional Convention. Polk had
only served in the lower House of Congress, over which he had presided
as speaker. Neither Taylor nor Grant ever held a state or national
office before being raised to the Executive Chair. Lincoln had served
a few years, with but little distinction, in the national House of
Representatives. The same may be said of Hayes, and of Fillmore before
he was chosen Vice-President.
[Sidenote: Presidents Contributed by the Various States.]
Virginia has had five Presidents, four of them having served in the
first quarter of a century of the national existence. Tennessee has had
three; Ohio, three; Massachusetts, two; New York, four; Illinois, two;
and New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Louisiana, each one. But Harrison,
though elected from Ohio, and Taylor, elected from Louisiana, were
both born in Virginia; and Lincoln, elected from Illinois, was born in
Kentucky. Therefore Virginia gave birth to seven of the Presidents. In
point of years, the ages of the Presidents have ranged from sixty-eight,
which was Harrison's age on his accession, to forty-six, which was
Grant's age when he became President; the average age being about
fifty-seven.