{"id":94,"date":"2015-05-19T10:14:05","date_gmt":"2015-05-19T10:14:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/conservativehistorian.com\/?page_id=94"},"modified":"2020-11-11T19:58:05","modified_gmt":"2020-11-11T19:58:05","slug":"current-columns","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativehistorian.com\/columns\/current-columns\/","title":{"rendered":"Current Columns"},"content":{"rendered":"

Selected History of Presidential Election Defeats<\/strong><\/p>\n

November 2020\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

In an essay for the History News Network entitled, \u201cJohn Adams Knew When to Go Home,\u201d political science professor R.B. Bernstein writes, \u201cn 1801, John Adams did something just as momentous, just as reaffirming of democratic constitutional principle. After losing the presidential election of 1800 to his former friend and political rival Thomas Jefferson, Adams decided that losing an election, even one for the presidency means what it says. Adams went home.\u201d And though the election of 1800 was just the fourth time the American people went to the polls to elect the president, this one was different. The two leading candidates, Aaron Burr and Thomas Jefferson had the same number of electoral votes meaning that the House of Representatives would decide the election.<\/p>\n

Adams, after a bitterly fought campaign, came in third. \u201cNor did he listen to hints by fellow members of his Federalist party that he let them keep him in office as a caretaker president while the House of Representatives wrestled with resolving the electoral deadlock between Jefferson and Aaron Burr.\u201d Adds Bernstein. So what happened to Adams after his time in the White House (in fact, the first to occupy that structure because Washington held his presidency in New York)? Bernstein writes, \u201cHe never left Quincy again. For twenty-five years, he read, wrote, argued, reflected, and philosophized about politics, government, history, religion, and his life and career. He carried on a bitter quarrel in print with a foe long dead, Alexander Hamilton. He entertained himself by exchanging dozens of letters with such old friends as Benjamin Rush and Benjamin Waterhouse, and revived an old friendship by exchanging more letters with Thomas Jefferson.\u201d<\/p>\n

In some regards, Adams\u2019s best presidential decision was the one at the end of his presidency. If Washington set the standard for the peaceful transition of power and established the precedent for a limited presidency, Adams ceding of power in 1800 was equally important. Washington chose not to run again, but even in that choice, did so with the knowledge that had he run for a third term, he would have won. John Adams was not just the second president of the United States; he was the first one defeated in reelection. How Adams managed the transition of power provided an essential precedent for future presidents. It is one thing to cede power after two terms: Jefferson, Jackson, and Barack Obama. It is quite another to cede control after a single term after a stinging defeat.<\/p>\n

Contrast Adam\u2019s behavior with that with his contemporary, and due to a certain musical from Lin-Manual Miranda, the now-famous Aaron Burr. After serving as Jefferson\u2019s vice-president, Burr realized that Jefferson would run again in 1804 but would not feature Burr as a running mate. Burr then conducted an unsuccessful run for New York Governor. Whatever his plans after this loss, he died along with Alexander Hamilton on the plain of Weehawken, New Jersey.\u00a0In 2020 politics can seem vitriolic, but this would be the equivalent of Mike Pence gunning down Obama era Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew. After killing Hamilton, Burr engaged in a series of misadventures, resulting in a treason trial. He fled the United States, got married at 77, and died in relative peace in New York.\u00a0Burr is one of the few individuals on this list whose post-presidential run life was more exciting than the preceding years.<\/p>\n

Some Presidents choose not to run because they were not interested in a second term, as was the case with Chester A. Arthur and James K. Polk. Others know the outcome, so do not even try as was the situation with John Tyler, James Buchanan, and Andrew Johnson. But most of those who serve one term usually run again, and in the history of the presidency, nine of them, including Adams, ended on the losing side.<\/p>\n

Because of the power of the \u201cVirginia Dynasty,\u201d elections after 1800 consisted of names that only a real history geek would love. This list includes Charles Pinkney and Rufus King. It is doubtful that the talented Manual Miranda will be featuring a lavish Broadway musical called \u201cPinkney!\u201d any time soon.<\/p>\n

DeWitt Clinton was the loser in 1812 to James Madison. Yet his fame is ensured through his efforts as Governor of New York to drive the Erie Canal construction. This accomplishment greatly impacted the region\u2019s entire economy and helped New York cement its status as the Union\u2019s 1st city. Clinton\u2019s historical impact is far more relevant for this than as a name in Madison\u2019s biography. In 1820, the Dynasty, and its standard-bearer of that year, James Monroe, ran unopposed and received 76% of the popular vote. This election was the first time and the last time this has happened in 58 presidential elections, and 200 years after Monroe and his \u201cEra of Good Feelings\u201d that situation seems increasingly anachronistic.<\/p>\n

During his years in the early Republic, Andrew Jackson made so much history, good, bad, and heinous, that it is challenging to pick which issue to focus on. But fortunately, this piece guides us to the elections of 1824, the first time that a loser in a presidential election would run again and win the White House. John Quincy Adams, like his father, only served a single term. But unlike his father, Quincy Adams went on to a prominent career in the House of Representatives. As Margaret Hogan writing for the Miller Center notes, \u201cAdams served nine post-presidential terms in Congress from 1830 until he died in 1848, usually voting in the minority. He supported the Bank of the United States\u2019 rechartering, opposed the annexation of Texas and the war with Mexico, and struggled for eight years to end the House\u2019s notorious \u201cgag rule,\u201d which tabled without debate any petition critical of slavery. Adams attempted to read into the record at every opportunity the hundreds of anti-slavery petitions that abolitionists around the country sent him regularly. The House finally relented and repealed the rule in 1844.\u201d Adams\u2019s career is one of the many examples that puts paid to the conjecture of individual progressive writers of this day that whites were somehow tolerant of slavery. It also should be noted that neither Adams nor his father attended their successor\u2019s inaugurations.<\/p>\n

Martin Van Buren became president in 1836 upon the success of the Democratic machine he had built and the popularity of his predecessor and patron, Andrew Jackson. But like many one-term presidents, he also inherited an economic debacle. In 1992 political operative James Carville famously intoned that \u201cIt\u2019s the economy stupid.\u201d In this pithy phrase lies the kernel of wisdom and presidential success. It is not a coincidence that Van Buren, Hoover, and H.W. Bush all had either a recession or depression occurring that affected their electoral chances and made them one-term presidents.<\/p>\n

After his defeat in the 1940 election, Van Buren remained active in politics but took on an increasingly anti-slavery position, an exciting policy given his patron was a slaveholder. In 1848 Van Buren became the rare presidential loser who tried to run again but in this case, not the Democratic Party he had built, but running for the Free Soil party whose central plank was abolition. A canny veteran of politics, Van Buren probably knew he had no chance but was instead making a political statement. As it happened, the Free Soil Party garnered 10% of the popular vote but lost to Whig Zachery Taylor, as did Lewis Cass, the Democratic candidate. Cass was the first harbinger of the decline of the dominance of the Democratic Party. He was the first non-incumbent Democrat to lose and the first who did not succeed another Democrat. Cass later went on to a Senate seat and in 1857 at 75, Secretary of State.<\/p>\n

Between Jackson, who won a second term in 1832, and Abraham Lincoln, who won his 2nd term in 1864, no president could win a second term. Some of them had the misfortune to die in office, such as William Henry Harrison and Zachery Taylor.\u00a0Others, such as James Polk, who might have won a second term, chose not to run again. Since he passed away shortly after leaving office, it was probably best that he did. That leaves a who\u2019s who of one-termer, including Martin Van Buren, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan. In the latter case, his popularity was at such low ebb that he declined to even try for the second term. John Tyler was one of those presidents whose popularity was such that a run was out of the question for a term in his own right.<\/p>\n

Because William Henry Harrison died so early in his presidency (the first such succession in American history), Tyler served a nearly full term. His post-presidency did not cover him in glory as he later became a Congressman in the Confederate Legislature during the Civil War.<\/p>\n

Andrew Johnson experienced one of the most tumultuous presidencies in the Republic\u2019s history, overseeing a pro south version of Reconstruction, getting impeached and nearly convicted, and failing to secure his party\u2019s nomination 1868. After his presidency, he returned to his native Tennessee. Once a pariah in that state due to his pro-union stance, his position on Reconstruction was such that white Tennesseans saw him as a hero, and in 1875, he became the only former president elected to the Senate.<\/p>\n

U.S. Grant was unique as one of the few presidents never to have served in an elected office before his election. Other members of that group include William Taft, Herbert Hoover, Dwight Eisenhower, and Donald Trump. In an era where close elections would become the norm, Grant won both his elections easily besting Horatio Seymour and Horace Greeley. Seymour never ran for office after his loss.<\/p>\n

Grover Cleveland was a great president. He reversed many of the destructive policies of the Harrison Administration. He was pro-business, pro-gold standard, anti-tariff, and anti-trust busting. One of my favorite political sayings of all the presidents comes from him, \u201c\u201cThough the people support the government, the government should not support the people,\u201d in response to the Panic of 1893.\u00a0His hands-off attitude meant that the subsequent depression was over in about three years. FDR\u2019s differentiated response, massive government intervention meant the Great Depression was not over after eight years of the New Deal, and even then, World War II had to bail out the nation. Unfortunately, Cleveland is not remembered for any of this.\u00a0Instead, he is remembered, if at all, as the only presidential loser to run again and win and a second term.<\/p>\n

There have been many economic recessions and even depressions in our history. It was one such calamity that did in Martin Van Buren\u2019s reelection.\u00a0Had Cleveland not already served the first term, it would have been difficult to see him winning an election after the panic of 1893. George H.W. Bush had a presidential approval rating of nearly 90%. This was so high, prominent democrats of the era looked to 1996 for their chances. Little did they know that a brief economic recession would so impact the election of 1992 that H.W. Bush would become a one-term president and that a little known Governor of Arkansas would take the oval office.<\/p>\n

Of all the presidential losers, arguably, none had a greater post-presidency than William Taft. The salient personality of Taft\u2019s presidential elections was the borderline narcissist Theodore Roosevelt. TR was one of the presidents, such as Washington, Jackson, and Reagan, who were so popular that they could nearly designate their successor. The problem is that all of these successors ended as one-term presidents. Indeed there were circumstances around these defeats. Van Buren had the Panic of 1837 on his watch, and Taft faced a split party.\u00a0 But part of the problem with these presidents is that they were not their predecessors. In 1988 Republicans elected a third Reagan term, but the president was H.W. Bush.<\/p>\n

TR\u2019s backing was instrumental in Taft\u2019s 1908 win. Unfortunately, Roosevelt was also the architect for his loss.\u00a0Such was the power of the Republican coalition after the elections of 1894 and 1896 that they could win any election (until the Great Depression and 1932). The exception was 1912, when the egomaniacal Roosevelt broke the Washingtonian precedent and ran for a third term. This entry split the Republican vote and ushered Woodrow Wilson into office as one of the worst presidents. Though embittered by the loss, Taft did not run for office again, instead accepting a teaching post at Yale and giving paid speeches. In 1921 President Warren G Harding nominated Taft to the Supreme Court for the role of Chief Justice. The Senate confirmed Taft by a vote of 61-4.<\/p>\n

United States Supreme Court Chief Justice was the role that Taft coveted even more than the presidency.\u00a0In an article entitled \u201cChief Justice, Not President, Was William Howard Taft\u2019s Dream Job\u201d writer Erick Trickey notes, \u201cWilliam Howard Taft never really wanted to be president. Politics was his wife\u2019s ambition for him, not his own. Before he was Secretary of War or governor of the Philippines, Taft, an intellectual son and grandson of judges, spent eight blissful years as a federal appeals court judge. \u201cI love judges, and I love courts,\u201d President Taft said in a speech in 1911. \u201cThey are my ideals that typify on earth what we shall meet hereafter in heaven under a just God.\u201d Trickey adds, \u201cs chief justice, Taft rejoiced in his reversal of fortune. On the bench, wrote journalist William Allen White, he resembled \u201cone of the high gods of the world, a smiling Buddha, placid, wise, gentle, sweet.\u201d To manage his declining health and reduce his famous girth, Taft walked three miles to work at the Supreme Court\u2019s chamber in the U.S. Capitol building. Soon he was down to 260 pounds, a near-low for him. He rarely looked back at his years as a politician, except to bid them good riddance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because many presidents, and party nominees, have received their opportunities into their middle years, post-presidential life is often measured in years but not decades. There are two 20th century exceptions to this \u2013 Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter.\u00a0Of Hoover, historian Daniel Hamilton writes, \u201ctill a relatively youthful man upon his defeat in 1932, the fifty-eight-year-old former President lived another thirty-two years before his death on October 20, 1964. Immediately after the inauguration of Franklin Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover retreated to his home in Palo Alto, California. For much of the 1930s\u2014and, indeed, for decades to come\u2014the public, and especially the Democratic Party, blamed Hoover for the Great Depression. Likewise, few Republicans in the 1930s wanted Hoover involved in party politics because of his negative standing in the popular mind. Wealthy and generous, Hoover did not need to work, but even the fishing that he loved could consume only so many hours of the week. From his home in Palo Alto, Hoover launched a series of bitter attacks on the New Deal in letters and essays.\u201d Hoover spent much of these years getting foreign policy wrong.\u00a0 Though no fan of Hitler he opposed American entry into World War II, using the Atom Bomb, and the Cold War.<\/p>\n

It has now been 40 years since James E. Carter lost his reelection bid in 1980.\u00a0 His opponent in that race and both Vice Presidential nominees have all passed. Unlike many presidents, after their term officially ended, Carter has kept his profile relatively high working through his<\/p>\n

As Carl Cannon has noted, writing for RealClearPolitics, \u201cOstensibly, Carter\u2019s 2002 award was given for \u201chis decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.\u201d Few would quarrel with that description; and if one were to consider only the Carter Center\u2019s work to eradicate a disease known as river blindness, Jimmy Carter would have been a deserving recipient.\u201d Of course, the Nobel Committee being what it is, \u201cpolitics is never far from the surface of human affairs, and in 2002 Norwegian Nobel Committee Chairman Gunnar Berge sullied Carter\u2019s award by blurting out in an interview that it \u201cshould be interpreted\u201d as a \u201ckick in the leg\u201d to George W. Bush.\u201d Many thought Carter should have been awarded much earlier for his work on the 1978 Camp David Accords.<\/p>\n

Not as worthy has been Carter\u2019s virulence on the Palestinian Israeli conflict.\u00a0\u201cThe bottom line is this: Peace will come to Israel and the Middle East only when the Israeli government is willing to comply with international law, with the Roadmap for Peace, with official American policy, with the wishes of a majority of its citizens \u2014 and honor its previous commitments \u2014 by accepting its legal borders. All Arab neighbors must pledge to honor Israel\u2019s right to live in peace under these conditions.\u201d \u2013 An excerpt from Carter\u2019s book, \u201cPalestine: Peace Not Apartheid.\u201d The title, provocative in itself, tells all one needs to know on Carter\u2019s stance. The Palestinian leadership does not want peace, for their legitimacy rests not on their ability to lead, but instead, the power to fight Israel is lost on Carter.\u00a0Carter lost the presidency for several reasons, not the least because the job was too big for him.\u00a0His post-presidency often shows the same lack of judgment and awareness.<\/p>\n

If Carter\u2019s post-presidency was somewhat controversial, George H.W. Bush was a model of what a post president can accomplish. In addition to focusing on his library, the Miller Center states, \u201cBush also joined with former President Bill Clinton after a tsunami from the Indian Ocean struck Southeast Asia in December 2004. The two former Presidents created the Bush-Clinton Houston Tsunami Fund, a national fundraising campaign to assist damaged communities throughout the region.\u201d This was to become one of four projects that the two joined in for assistance to other nations. George W. Bush noted of his father, \u201cHe has two favorite 62-year-olds, myself and Bill Clinton.\u201d<\/p>\n

As of this writing, Joe Biden has won the presidential election of 2020. I supported Trump in 2016 and again in 2020 but not based on his personality but rather his policies. Knowing the limitations of his character, it is not easy to believe he will go gently.\u00a0 As noted above, neither Adams attended their successor\u2019s inaugurations. John Quincy did not see the advent of a Jackson presidency in the most favorable light, \u201cHe wrote in his diary that \u201cThe sun of my political life set in the deepest gloom.\u201d Filled with sadness for the nation, Adams stayed in Washington for a few months before returning to his hometown of Quincy, Massachusetts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hard to predict but to think about speeches, a radio show, and a possible TV program. But the looming question for Republican presidential hopefuls running against President Harris in 2024 (you read that right) will be twofold: who will Trump support, and maybe, just maybe, will he do what only one other of the 46 presidents has done. Run again and win.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Lamentations of Our Times\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

October 2020<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lamentation: the passionate expression of grief or sorrow; weeping.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it were possible to cure evils by lamentation and to raise the dead with tears, then gold would be a less valuable thing than weeping.\u201d Sophocles, Greek Playwright<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no harm in patience, and no profit in lamentation.\u201d Abu Bakr, Arab Caliph<\/p>\n

In a recent TikTok video, a young woman can be seen screaming that she wished she had never been born because of her whiteness. The daughter of a close friend of mine stated on Facebook that what happened to Jacob Blake made her \u201csick, absolutely sick to my stomach.\u201d I should note this friend is a multi-millionaire, the daughter has a well-paying role in a giant insurance company, and has never wanted for anything in terms of physical sustenance in her life.<\/p>\n

Upon hearing the death of Ahmad Aubrey at the hands of white racists, one of 223 (2015 stats) murders of blacks by whites, or about .00001% of the population of 43 million, Los Angeles Laker basketball player Lebron James, an African American, stated that it is not even safe for him to go outside. Notwithstanding, the hundreds of millions of dollars do not seem sufficient for Mr. James to afford the necessary security to avoid the 1 in 187,000 odds. Lebron should immediately fill in his Olympic sized, lushly decorated, swimming pool, which he photographed himself in for his Instagram account, because the odds of him drowning are about 1 in 1,190. He is more likely to die of a dog attack than to die at the hands of a white human being.<\/p>\n

Breonna Taylor and Jacob Blake lawyer, Benjamin Crump, says about America in 2020. \u201cThe unjust verdict in Breonna Taylor\u2019s case affects the mental health of Black people in Louisville and nationwide. 1\/3 of new mental health clients said Bre, not getting justice, was their reason for needing treatment.\u201d The evidence for this? A TMZ article using a sample of 30, of which 10 of them said that the Breonna Taylor judgment was the reason for their mental illness the day after the decision. How Mr. Crump extrapolates that to \u201cand nationwide\u201d which would comprise about 100 million people, is a little opaque. Still, like the Taylor family lawyer, who presumably lost his lawsuit, it sounds like good copy for Twitter.<\/p>\n

The lamentation of being African American in the United States in 2020 is just one of many laments extolled in America. Another is around the COVID-19 virus that emanated from China.<\/p>\n