Presidential History Research Articles

Joseph Smith for President: The Prophet, the Assassins, and the Fight for American Religious Freedom

Joseph Smith for President: The Prophet, the Assassins, and the Fight for American Religious Freedom

Trump and Children's Literature

Donald Trump has overlapped with children's culture since the early 1990s, yet since his presidency, his appearance has become ubiquitous in children's literature. To survey Trump's controversial presence throughout such literature is to witness the ways contemporary publishers grapple with American presidential history, indoctrination, politics, and even supply and demand.

The Presidents and the Constitution, Vol. One: From the Founding Fathers to the Progressive Era ed. by Ken Gormley

Reviewed by: The Presidents and the Constitution, Vol. One: From the Founding Fathers to the Progressive Era ed. by Ken Gormley Robert E. Ross (bio) Keywords U.S. Constitution, Executive power, Separation of powers, Constitutional politics The Presidents and the Constitution, Vol. One: From the Founding Fathers to the Progressive Era. Edited by Ken Gormley. (New York: New York University Press, 2020. Pp. 416. Cloth $22.00.) The president maintains a unique place in the American constitutional order. Unlike Congress, the nature and scope of executive powers are not determined by constitutional powers "herein" granted. The scarcity of constitutional text detailing the duties and powers of the president has resulted in strenuous efforts to reconcile ambiguities surrounding the exercise of executive power with a constitutional system containing a written constitution. Moreover, what constitutional text there is does little to clarify or settle the limits of executive power. A prime example of this controversy is the removal power. While Article II establishes the president's ability, with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint certain officials, the Constitution is silent on the power to remove these officers. Under what conditions can a president remove an appointed official, and does he need the Senate's advice and consent to do so? How these constitutional controversies get settled is a matter for politics, where presidents are not isolated actors. The Presidents and the Constitution, edited by Ken Gormley, ambitiously tries to navigate, and detail the uneasy relationship between the president and the Constitution by paying particular attention to historical context and development rather than focusing on a specific topic of presidential power or Supreme Court cases involving executive action. Given the sheer amount of historical material, this first volume covers the first twenty-six presidents, with the promise of a second volume to complete the historical analysis. Given the extensive list of contributors to the volume, great editorial effort was made to capture an "ongoing narrative" that highlights "constitutional issues that confronted the president, helped to shape the president's time in office, or gave birth to a piece of constitutional precedent during the president's tenure" (11). This broad sweep of presidential history emphasizes the importance of politics for an executive's constitutional authority. The Constitution is not [End Page 504] self-enforcing. In the arena of unsettled constitution meaning, the document requires interpretation and application. This creates a political battle over constitutional meaning, as ambitious executives (and their allies) seek constitutional legitimacy and presidential opponents insist on constitutional restraint. More importantly, political actors must acquiesce to these constitutional interpretations for any attempt to enlarge or restrain executive power to be successful. Rightfully so, this volume highlights the complicated relationship between the three branches of government, being "bound together inextricably in this saga" (10). The meaning of the Constitution comes to life by appreciating the historical development of an ever-evolving conflict between the president, Congress, and the Court. However, not all presidents are created equal, and the political conditions within and between presidencies are often in flux. While presidents come to office with ambition to shape the presidency and constitutional regime, they must also recognize the importance of maintaining political coalitions and function within the accepted constitutional and ideological commitments of a given political regime. The amount of "energy," to use a Hamiltonian term, that can be brought to the executive is closely connected to the strength of existing political values and constitutional attachments. Even if a president wants to enact change, if the other branches of government and the electorate are strongly attached to the status quo, the president's capacity for change is confined within boundaries of these accepted political and constitutional values. However, there is expanded opportunity for the president to shape the political and constitutional landscape if his election coincides with demand for change to the prevailing values and constitutional attachments. This view of executive powers being exercised within the context of larger political change (or lack thereof) lends itself well to a historical analysis of the presidency, and The Presidents and the Constitution explicitly and implicitly brings to light this political interaction between the president, other branches of government, and the electorate. For example...

It’s not me, it’s you: perceptions of others and attitudes toward a female nominee in the 2020 New Hampshire democratic primary

ABSTRACT While the 2020 Democratic field was touted as one of the most diverse in presidential nomination history, a white, male, heterosexual candidate ultimately won the nomination. This is, on its face, surprising, as we might expect less sexism and more enthusiasm for diverse candidates among Democratic voters. To help explain this outcome, we refocus attention on the “third-person effect” and the anticipated reactions of others to a female candidate, rather than voters own individual beliefs in two ways. First, we demonstrate that attitudes about female presidential candidates still follow third-person effect predictions; individuals attribute socially desirable attitudes to themselves and less so more distant others (i.e. “Americans”). Second, we analyze how voters take into account perceived potential gender bias by others, which in turn influences female candidates’ perceived electability (likely support from other voters). Gendered electability then has measurable impacts on preference for female candidates, as they strategically choose the more electable candidate. Overall, these results demonstrate looking at the anticipated gender bias of others, rather than just an individual’s attitudes, can be helpful in explaining the continued perception of female presidential candidates as less electable and, ultimately, why women have not yet broken the highest glass ceiling.

New Presidential History

New Presidential History

The Man of the People: Political Dissent and the Making of the American Presidency by Nathaniel C. Green

Reviewed by: The Man of the People: Political Dissent and the Making of the American Presidency by Nathaniel C. Green Edward J. Larson (bio) Keywords Dissent, Presidency, Accountability, Presidential history The Man of the People: Political Dissent and the Making of the American Presidency. By Nathaniel C. Green. (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2020. Pp. 408. Cloth, $50.00.) To the extent that current events shape questions asked and answers found, a history can be as much about the present as about the past. This need not reduce these works to whiggish narratives. Current events can help historians to understand the past. This applies to The Man of the People by Nathaniel Green. For Green, Donald Trump—whose “vile nationalism” he condemns in his Prologue (xviii)—informs how he sees the presidency and what he called “Trump’s nation.” Although about the early presidency, Green’s book begins and ends with Trump. The intervening chapters relate episodes in the administrations of five of the first seven presidents, from Washington’s popular inauguration to Jackson’s populist bank veto, plus one on framing and ratifying Article II. Perhaps more than any president, Trump laid bare what the presidency could become—the realization of antifederalists’ fears for an office without enforceable limits. This Trumpian presence animates Green’s book. [End Page 483] Green depicts the presidency as the defining institution of the United States as a republic of and by the people. The president is the focus of popular attention; offers a model for popular emulation; reflects and reinforces popular values; and serves to unify the American populace. This is the standard Rooseveltian narrative applied to the early presidents, which is nothing new for Washington, Jefferson, and Jackson. At times straining at the effort, Green applies it to episodes from the administrations of John Adams and Madison as well. Fitting an era of a Trump rather than a Roosevelt, however, Green gives the other side of this coin for his five early presidents. All became focal points of popular dissent, from the moment Washington endorsed Jay’s Treaty to when Madison’s ineptitude led to the burning of the capitol. As with assent, Green argues, dissent serves to model, shape, encourage, and reflect American values. It can even unify. Think of how popular resistance to Adams’s Sedition Act helped Americans to understand their freedoms better. For good and for ill, the people hold their presidents to account. By presenting as much popular dissent to it as he could muster, Green tries to apply this approach to Jackson’s violent treatment of Native Americans and Black slaves—that the people found virtue from their president’s vices—but ultimately he leaves this sorry tale on the other side of his populist ledger. Jackson was the people’s president even in his racism, Green concludes in the chapter titled “A Violent Man for a Violent Nation.” Readers can almost hear Green grappling with Trump when he writes, “Praise for Jackson took the form of an expression of popular dissent from politics as usual” (273), as if to explain away their popularity. Although “dissent” features in his book’s subtitle, Green balances chapters and episodes with offsetting examples of presidential adulation and contempt, with both helping to forge the American republic. “The breathless appropriation of private citizens broke down local divisions to define every citizen’s Americanness according to his or her support for the president,” Green writes about the response to Washington’s election. (54) After Jay’s Treaty, however, he notes, “Arguing that the president was subject to public scrutiny at all times, not just during elections, critics made the presidency the cultural touchstone of a more democratic and even contentious political culture. . . . This perpetual public accountability, they insisted, was foundational to a healthy, lasting American nation” (79). [End Page 484] Green organizes his book chronologically and episodically by narrating various public episodes in the presidencies of Washington, John Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Jackson in temporal order but skipping other events in their presidencies and omitting any from those of Monroe and John Quincy Adams. Some of these episodes support his theme better than others do, and some are better stories. The...

Evolution of U.S. Presidential Discourse over 230 Years: A Psycholinguistic Perspective

Much of recent research on U.S presidential discourse has focused on the nexus between language forms and their underlying social processes and psychological states. However, little work has been done to shed light on how these latent characteristics have evolved over time. This study investigated the evolution of three psychological states (authenticity, affect, and time orientation) underlying U.S. presidential discourse over approximately 230 years (1789–2016). Based on one of the most comprehensive corpora of presidential speech transcripts, Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) 2015, a text analysis software, was utilized to explore these psychological states. To see the overall trend of these states across U.S. presidential history as a whole, initial analysis was based on LIWC indices, which showed that, 1) overall, authenticity level is on a steady increase in U.S. presidential discourse; 2) in the presidents’ speeches, positive emotions invariably outweigh negative emotions, and both types of emotion remain relatively constant in the long run; 3) the discourse of “focus on present” consistently outweighs the discourse of “focus on future”, which outweighs the discourse of “focus on past”. To see whether the general trend holds across different parties, a series of independent samples t-tests were first performed to check for significant difference. The results indicated that in all the three psychological states, there was no significant difference between the Democratic presidents and the Republican presidents, and that the trend in different parties is in agreement with the overall trend. Subsequent visualization of the LIWC indices according to party generally corroborated these results, with only one exception: authenticity levels are on a steady increase in the discourse of the Democratic presidents, but in the Republican presidents, there was a sharp increase in recent years.

When the World Seemed New: George H. W. Bush and the End of the Cold War

One-termers are the jilted lovers of presidential history. While nominees who never won the presidency are spurned and forgotten, those who blew reelection bids are scorned—and often underestimated. Fortunately for George H. W. Bush—alas not for his country—his successors' many failures are causing many to appreciate his many achievements. Bill Clinton's roguish behavior made some Americans miss Bush's dignity. George W. Bush's and Barack Obama's fidgety foreign policies made many miss the elder Bush's steady strategy. And Donald J. Trump's Trumpiness made many miss Bush—along with every other predecessor. Jeffrey A. Engel's book comes at the right time—boosting Bush's presidential stock for the right reason. The founding director of Southern Methodist University's Center for Presidential History, Engel has written a well-researched, well-organized, well-argued analysis that, ever so elegantly, does not sacrifice objectivity while demonstrating that, in foreign policy terms, this “underappreciated president” was the right man at the right place at the right time (p. 8).

Integrating Presidential History into Middle School Physical Education Class

This article builds on existing research on cross-curricular methodology and outlines a teaching technique that integrates presidential history during physical education class for middle school students.

The Changing Electoral Landscape of the Western United States

The Western periphery constitutes one of the primary electoral sections of the United States in presidential history. The Western periphery, although at times volatile, emerged as a Republican stronghold beginning with Dwight Eisenhower's regional electoral sweeps in the 1950s. This electoral epoch of Republican popularity in the West has been referred to as the new Western normal vote. Despite long-sustained presidential successes, since the 1988 presidential election, Democratic presidential candidates have been able to win certain states in the Republican-dominated region. This research examines the historical dynamics of Republican support in the West by identifying shifts in voting behavior between past and present epochs. We attempt to explain recent changes by exploring the historical character of the West, its demographic dynamics, and the recent turbulence within the Republican Party. County-level election returns from 1952 to 2016 are used, along with traditional and folded T-mode factor analysis, spatial regression modeling, and cartographic analysis. We conclude that the region's normal vote is deteriorating, a new electoral pattern is emerging, and these developments correspond with increasing volatility within the Republican Party.

Presidential Libraries as Performance: Curating American Character from Herbert Hoover to George W. Bush by Jodi Kanter

Reviewed by: Presidential Libraries as Performance: Curating American Character from Herbert Hoover to George W. Bush by Jodi Kanter Jennifer Carpenter Presidential Libraries as Performance: Curating American Character from Herbert Hoover to George W. Bush. By Jodi Kanter. (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2016. Pp. 179. Photographs, notes, bibliography, index.) Visitors to presidential libraries expect to discover a president’s early influences, journey with him on his rise to power, evaluate his domestic and international policies, relive his political struggles, and delight in touching personal stories about life in the White House. What they perhaps do not expect to encounter is a lens through which to understand how to be an American. Presidential Libraries as Performance by Jodi Kanter demonstrates the myriad ways these museums define and influence cultural identity and suggests how they can better mirror the nuanced realities of the Oval Office, its place in a period’s unique social and political climate, and the complexities of American character. Presidential libraries, whose records are administered by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), but whose exhibits are often managed in partnership with private foundations, are—and should be—more than static chronicles of the commander in chief’s time in office. Kanter evaluates narrative themes and exhibition techniques employed at these sites and considers how they affect visitors’ understanding of both the library’s namesake and their own role in public life. The approach is wholesale, moving beyond the exhibit space to consider how the entire museum site and its architecture convey certain messages. Case studies and comparisons reveal critical tensions. Presidential family in-fighting, funding, and issues of artifact selection and curation reveal a constant negotiation that results in different institutional arrangements and types of exhibits. There is no off-the-shelf plan for presidential libraries. Kanter keeps readers’ interest and challenges them to become more observant and critical visitors by helping them understand the stories behind the libraries’ creations, their strengths and shortcomings, and the differences among them. Kanter debunks the myth of presidential individual agency and calls for [End Page 118] forthcoming and inclusive exhibits that better resonate with visitors and honor their own political voices. Some of this work has already begun. Several sites have redone displays to include omitted and controversial topics (for example, the Watergate scandal exhibit at the Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, California, opened in 2011) and to invite meaningful visitor participation (such as the 9/11 gallery at the George W. Bush Presidential Library in Dallas, Texas). Kanter urges museum professionals to continue this work by offering suggestions ranging from the practical to the creative, but as an interdisciplinary analysis, her book will appeal to scholars of modern presidential history, politics, cultural identity, and American Studies. Presidential Libraries as Performance includes descriptive vignettes and assessments of Texas’s own Lyndon B. Johnson, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush Libraries’ exhibits. One museum feature excluded from the study is the gift shop, which, though beyond the scope of Kanter’s focus, could provide an interesting look at performance (presidential and generally American) vis-à-vis consumerism. Still, in the age of 24/7-news-cycle-and-Twitter-fueled political theater, the suggestion that the presidential library could recast itself as a place for open, critically honest discourse instead of as a final word on executive legacy, as many presidents may hope, is a refreshing thought. Jennifer Carpenter Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Copyright © 2017 The Texas State Historical Association

State of Nations: Barack Obama's Indigenous America

ABSTRACTFrom his “adoption” by a Crow Nation family while on the campaign trail in 2008, to his renaming of Mt. McKinley to Denali—the mountain's Koyukon Athabascan name—Barack Obama has enjoyed a relationship with Indigenous Americans that is unique in presidential history. He has spent more time in “Indian country,” as it is officially known by the federal government, than any other president. Moreover, he has implemented an annual Tribal Nations Conference to facilitate consultation between the federal government and Indigenous leadership. In this article, the author argues that Obama's discourse of Indigenous issues is marked by a particular form of rhetoric, constitutive rhetoric, through which he calls into existence a new, inclusive relationship between the United States and tribal governments. Focusing primarily on his speeches at Tribal Nations Conferences, the author identifies a “nations-within” concept adhered to by Obama that contrasts markedly with past presidential rhetoric concerning Indigenous Americans.

William Howard Taft, the 1908 Election, and the Future of the American Presidency

Although the first presidential election where both major party candidates (William Howard Taft and William Jennings Bryan) hit the campaign trail, the election of 1908 is a neglected election. When scholars do address it, they typically focus on retiring incumbent president Theodore Roosevelt and his role therein. This article turns the focus away from Roosevelt, and also Bryan, and places it firmly on Taft, a reluctant candidate. Taft's role in 1908 is important because his very reluctance to embrace the changing expectations of the presidency helps to highlight the tensions between the old and new ways of campaigning and, more broadly, the traditional and modern presidencies.The article first addresses Taft's decision to abandon his “front-porch” campaign. Taft's initial inclination toward a front-porch campaign reveals well his more traditional approach to the election and to the presidency in general, just as his decision to abandon this plan and “stump” for votes reflects his submission to developing trends and expectations. Second, the article examines the changing role of technology, this election being the first to feature phonograph recordings of the candidates, which would then be sold—and played—across the country. Third, the tours and speeches of Taft in the 1908 general election take center stage. The spectacle of these tours offers further evidence of the changing contours of American politics and presidential leadership, especially in elevating the personalities of the candidates. Finally, the 1908 election is examined from the standpoint of American political development and presidential history.

The Individualization of American Warfare

Abstract: Since 9-11, the United States has embarked on a decade of doctrinal and technical innovations focused on defeating networks and individual combatants rather than formations. This article examines this evolving model of individualized warfare within the context of current debates over the appropriate role of military landpower in an age dominated by persistent threats from non-state actors and unconventional adversaries. ********** In late 2014, the United States reached a milestone of the 500th non-battlefield strike. (1) Beyond the numbers, this event is notable as one example of a new mode of state warfare based on military power being applied directly against individual combatants rather than formations. These so-called targeted killings are perhaps the most vivid example of the individualization of American warfare, particularly the Commander-in-Chief routinely reviewing and approving strikes against named combatants, a phenomenon without precedent in presidential history. (2) However, this operational trend is by no means limited to high-level counterterrorism efforts. It represents a more systematic disaggregation of national security threats and the adoption of an individualized approach to military targeting that has dramatically transformed the American way of war. Within this paradigm, the targeting of value and networks has replaced conventional force engagement as the driving force of recent doctrinal change and technical innovation. As the defining operational experience for a generation of junior leaders, this new mode of warfare reflects the culmination of a decade of tactical lessons, doctrinal adaptations, technical advances, and changes to the institutional cultures of the US military. Indeed, since 9-11 the US armed forces have developed the fusion of operations and intelligence for the purpose of hunting high-value targets into a high art. (3) Yet even as these methods have been widely applied, there remains insufficient analysis as to their effectiveness and utility as an element of US military power. (4) This article describes the catalysts driving the individualization of American warfare and considers the implications for future national security strategy and the Army. A Post-Westphalian Logic of Warfare The rise of individualized warfare stands in stark contrast to the preceding Cold War era where focus of operational planning, intelligence analysis, and doctrine centered primarily on the conduct of large-scale conventional warfare against nation-state adversaries. The transition is even more profound as a departure from the foundational presumptions of the system that defined the context of state warfare for over three hundred years. The end of the Thirty Years War was notable as the transition point from the age of private mercenary conflicts towards a modern construct of warfare in which combatants became instruments of the state, acting on behalf of political sovereigns rather than fighting for individual gain. (5) This period also marked the depersonalization of conflict as soldiers assumed collective identities as members of professional armies. Jean-Jacques Rousseau's seminal treatise on political power articulated the significance of this transition, noting modern warfare was no longer a between one man and another, but a relationship between one state and another, in which individuals are enemies only by accident, not as men, nor even as citizens, but as soldiers. (6) This shift provided the intellectual foundation for legal categorizations supporting the concept of lawful combatancy and the treatment of prisoners, wounded soldiers, and civilians on the battlefield. As the Westphalian system depersonalized warfare, soldiers became generic members of their national armies in terms of legal status and appearance. Geo-political boundaries and national affiliations determined the application and scope of wartime protections, while uniforms emerged to distinguish soldiers from civilians and to provide the operational context for lawful targeting. …

President Taft Is Stuck in the Bath by Mac Barnett (review)

Reviewed by: President Taft Is Stuck in the Bath by Mac Barnett Amy Atkinson Barnett, Mac. President Taft Is Stuck in the Bath; illus. by Chris Van Dusen. Candlewick, 2014. 32p. ISBN 978-0-7636-6317-9 $16.99 R 4–7 yrs. “So, did President Taft actually get stuck in the bath? Maybe. Maybe not. But more than a century later, this is the story we’re still telling. And to people like me, that’s all that matters.” So reads the author’s note for this delightful, smart, and silly story about the most famous bathtub misadventure in U.S. presidential history. Chris Van Dusen’s bold gouache illustrations make eager use of double-page spreads, creating the scene and capturing the sly jokes and apt personifications within Barnett’s rhythmic prose. These larger-than-life renderings and the no-nonsense dialogue perfectly suit the occasion, juxtaposing the grandeur of the White House with the exposed Taft and the rosacea-tinged government bigwigs surrounding him as they suggest butter, dynamite, and deep-sea divers to help the hefty leader (a amusing running gag has the vice president quite ready to assume office). Fleshy, funny, and fact-checked, this perfect Inauguration Day readaloud will plump up any presidential collection. Copyright © 2014 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Take Up Your Pen: Unilateral Presidential Directives in American Politics. By Graham G.Dodds. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013. 309 pp.

Take Up Your Pen: Unilateral Presidential Directives in American Politics. By Graham G. Dodds. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013. 309 pp. Writing in the Notre Dame Lawyer in 1963, a young law student by the name of Robert B. Cash observed that history of executive orders is, to a great extent, a narrative of the evolution of presidential power. Graham G. Dodds' impressive book, Take Up Your Pen: Unilateral Presidential Directives in American Politics, shows how correct Cash was. Over the past two decades there has been no shortage of scholarly attention to unilateral presidential directives. During President George W. Bush's tenure, four fine books by political scientists were published: Kenneth Mayer's With the Stroke of Pen: Executive Orders and Presidential Power (Princeton University Press, 2001), Phillip Cooper's By Order of the President: The Use and Abuse of Executive Direct Action (University Press of Kansas, 2002), William Howell's Power without Persuasion: The Politics of Direct Presidential Action (Princeton University Press, 2003), and Adam Warber's Executive Orders and the Modern Presidency: Legislating from the Oval Office (Lynn Rienner, 2006). However, each of these books, in keeping with most presidency research, focuses on the post-Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) presidency. What sets Dodds' book apart is the careful attention he gives to the development of unilateral directives from the founding era through FDR. Of Dodds' six substantive chapters, only one is devoted to what most political scientists think of as the modern presidency: the post-WWII era to the present day. Of course, anyone with even a passing knowledge of American history has heard about the most famous nineteenth-century unilateral directives: Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, Andrew Jackson's Nullification Proclamation, and George Washington's Neutrality Proclamation. But Dodds' in-depth history takes us far beyond these well-known episodes of unilateral presidential action. In Chapter 3 (Judicial Sanction), he recounts the many unsung nineteenth- and early-twentieth century cases in which courts placed their stamp of approval on unilateral presidential directives--and in which they sometimes placed limits on what a president could do via executive action. The many cases that Dodds recounts occasionally make for tedious reading, but they amply support Dodds' contention that the judicial sanction of unilateral presidential directives helped pave the way for presidents' more expansive use of executive orders in the early twentieth century. Chapter 4 (Early Unilateral Presidential Directives) provides a fascinating sojourn through nineteenth-century presidential history. Dodds shows that on a wide range of domestic policy issues, including Reconstruction, the management of public lands, the treatment of Native Americans and Mormons, and labor disputes and domestic unrest, nineteenth-century presidents--especially after the Civil War--frequently resorted to unilateral executive action. Dodds' account is particularly helpful in dispelling the notion that these presidents were mere clerks (p. 119). Many of the executive orders were, of course, mundane--more housekeeping than policy making. But a number of the confrontations over executive orders have a decidedly modern ring. Take, for instance, Grover Cleveland's end-of-term proclamation in 1897 that set aside 21 million acres for forest in six western states, a move so unpopular in the West that Congress affixed a rider to an essential government funding bill to undo the president's action. Forced to choose between funding the federal government or preserving his forest reserves (p. 100), Cleveland opted for a government shutdown and pocket-vetoed the bill. Among William McKinley's first acts as president was to call Congress into session to repeal Cleveland's forest reserves. Not that McKinley objected to rule by executive action: in fact, by Dodds' count, McKinley issued executive orders more frequently than any of his predecessors, including Cleveland (p. …

Rethinking Presidential Studies through Historical Research

When George Edwards first proposed that we put together a special issue of Presidential Studies Quarterly to feature research, we were skeptical. We are of an age when the appearance of scholars raising the flag, rallying the troops, drawing lines, or claiming turf seems tiresome, and in this case, we thought the risk of backfire was especially high. For one thing, no group of scholars has exclusive claim to the study of presidential history. History is the common reservoir of material used by all, and since there is no escaping history in presidential studies, it is hard to cordon off a historical from any other. By the same token, there are large and significant differences of approach even among the scholars who do delve deeply into the past to gain traction on this subject. The two of us use history very differently, and it can hardly be said that we cover the range of tastes and perspectives. No tidy compilation will. Any selection is inevitably a partial representation, and likely for that reason to foment more dissension than solidarity among those who otherwise share a broad interest in considering the long duree and thinking about the patterns of change over time. Nonetheless, we were curious. The key decision to come out of our early discussion of George's proposal was to look to political scientists only now coming up through the ranks, scholars whose recently published work had made new inroads into understanding of the presidency. We sent out feelers asking a number of them if they had any new projects that might speak to the uses of history in presidential studies or any programmatic ideas to convey how insights bear on what is going on in other precincts of the field. The responses encouraged us to think about this special issue less as a collective statement about the agenda than as a survey of possibilities from a group of scholars likely to play a prominent role in shaping the future of the field. Reading through the articles, one quickly sees that they are not all of a piece. They do not all engage the literature in the rest of field in the same way: some use history to complicate and question common assumptions in the larger literature; others use history to deepen familiar themes and to redirect the research that elaborates upon them. Differences among the articles extend even to the interpretation of particular figures, drawing somewhat different lessons, for example, from James Madison's use of war powers. But all these articles are attuned to the larger field of which they are a part, to the fact that everyone in presidential studies is relying on history in one way or another, and to the potential of research to pry open the research agenda. None look to history as a reservoir of examples to confirm the conventional wisdom; all find leverage in history for rethinking it. The six contributors delve into different periods and pursue different issues to leverage new insights about the presidency. Benjamin Kleinerman highlights the importance of a president's constitutional ideas. He suggests that the Constitution has been perceived by presidents not as a set of conventional rules within which to play for power and accomplishment but as a fluid framework that can be shaped by personal conceptions of proper conduct. Kleinerman's subject is America's preeminent constitutionalist, James Madison. Becoming convinced during the Federalist era that the greatest threat to the Constitution was not the legislature but the executive, especially in its incentives for and powers of war making, Madison approached the war of 1812 differently than modern understandings of presidential power would recommend. Though often criticized as an unassertive and feckless commander in chief, Madison was, Kleinerman argues, deliberately attempting to establish a model of presidential restraint, demonstrating through his conduct how a president might lead a nation at war without doing violence to the values of republican constitutionalism. …

Germans, Jubilee Singers, and Axe Men: James A. Garfield and the Original Front-Porch Campaign for the Presidency

Germans, Jubilee Singers, and Axe Men:James A. Garfield and the Original Front-Porch Campaign for the Presidency Jeffrey Normand Bourdon (bio) James A. Garfield sometimes had a flair for the dramatic as a presidential candidate in the campaign of 1880. No presidential contestant had ever openly invited groups of people to visit him at his residence, but that is exactly what Garfield did in the summer of 1880. As the first “front-porch” campaign in American history unfolded, personal friends, unknown well-wishers, and different groups all traveled to Mentor, Ohio, to visit him at his Lawnfield home. The visits ranged from the mundane to the dramatic. On October 1, 1880, the Jubilee Club from Fisk College came to Lawnfield. The group was about to fulfill an obligation in Painesville, Ohio, and decided to stop at the home of Garfield. They gathered in Garfield’s living room in what his personal secretary, Joseph Stanley-Brown, later described as a “big living room” that was “well-filled.” As Garfield walked by Brown on his way into the room, he said, “My boy! I am going to say a word to them if it kills me.” Realizing that there were no reporters to record the potentially dramatic event, Stanley-Brown noted all the events he witnessed into a notebook. Before the group started singing, their leader gave an “effecting speech.” Once the group started singing old Negro spirituals, people watching became “increasingly emotional.” Stanley-Brown wrote that “Tears were trickling down the cheeks of many of the women, and one staid old man blubbered audibly behind a door.” Once they were done, Garfield rose and, “standing at ease besides the fireplace with his hand resting lightly on the mantle,” he began talking to the crowd in “low conversational tones” and employed “rhetorical periods,” which Southerners in his audience would be able to identify with. According to Stanley-Brown, Garfield said that he understood [End Page 112] the needs and desires of a “race out of place” and finished his talk with “clear, ringing tones,” stating, “And I tell you now, in the closing days of this campaign, that I would rather be with you defeated than against you and victorious.” Stanley-Brown wrote that immediately following Garfield’s remarks, there was a moment of complete silence followed by the sound of “human expirations in unison.” The story of the event appeared in newspapers in Cleveland, but Garfield’s closing statements were omitted from the paper.1 No matter how the event was reported, Garfield’s front-porch campaign undoubtedly produced some unique and dramatic moments such as this interlude with the Jubilee Club. Maybe most importantly, it does not appear that Garfield offended anybody during the contest. He actually proved to be one of the more active presidential candidates in the nineteenth century as he conducted a front-porch campaign, spoke at three military gatherings, kept up correspondence with his political backers, and managed to go on a stump speaking tour by train to New York State in early August. In what became the closest popular vote in American presidential history, the front-porch campaign certainly played a role in his victory. Republican candidates for the presidency emulated the trend during the Gilded Age. In 1888, Benjamin Harrison became the second Republican nominee to do it. Four years later, William McKinley successfully employed the tactic and became one of the most important presidents in American history. By 1904, presidential candidates abandoned the technique almost as quickly as it was taken up as front-porch campaigning came to be seen as disingenuous. In 1920, Warren Harding successfully ran the last front-porch campaign for the presidency.2 [End Page 113] Garfield started the first front-porch campaign because he simply did not want to upset his friends and prospective voters. Once he had said yes to a visit from one group of friends or small club of people, it became very difficult to say no to another. The process started snowballing until it became an integral part of the candidate’s strategy. Garfield allowed voters to come to his home to show them that he was willing to communicate with them personally...

Dedication of This Issue to the Late U.S. Senator, Ambassador, Democratic Candidate for President of the United States, and Tireless Worker for Peace and Against War and Poverty, The Hon. George S. McGovern

AbstractIn 1972, George McGovern challenged Richard M. Nixon for the presidency of the United States, and it went down as one of the greatest defeats in American presidential history. Years later, in response to a question whether he was embarrassed to have lost so badly, he said that everything had to be put into perspective. Many times, he said, he had met people who remarked, “I voted for Nixon. But if I had known then what I know now, I would have voted for you.” I doubt, he remarked, that Nixon ever met anyone who said, “I voted for McGovern, but if I had known then what I know now, I would have voted for you.”George McGovern died on October 21, 2012, at the age of 90. Somewhat more than two years previously, on April 7, 2010, the Norwegian Nobel Institute acknowledged receipt of a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize for Senator McGovern that Professor Robert P. Watson of Lynn University and I prepared. United States Representative Dennis Moore, then representing the Third Congressional District of Kansas, strongly endorsed, and submitted, the nomination.Unfortunately, the timing was not good, because an American, President Barack Obama, had received the prize the previous year; the prize has only rarely been awarded to recipients of the same country in two consecutive years. In his honor, we believe it appropriate to reproduce here our nomination of Senator McGovern, and the tribute that it includes.

대통령기록물 온라인 콘텐츠의 초등교육 활용방안

대통령제 국가에서 대통령은 매우 중요한 정치적 비중을 가지고 있지만, 대통령기록물에 관한 연구는 활성화되어 있지 못한 실정이다. 본 연구는 대통령기록물 온라인 콘텐츠를 초등교육에 활용하는 방안에 대해 살펴보고자 하였다. 초등학교 사회과를 중심으로 제시되는 대통령관련 기록물들은 인지발달이 가속화되는 시기인 초등학교 학령기(學齡期)에 대통령과 그를 둘러싼 정치적 사건, 나아가 한국 현대사를 기록이라는 프리즘을 통해 이해하는 단서를 제공해 주는 교육적 가치를 가지고 있다. 따라서 본 연구는 대통령기록관이 대통령기록물 온라인 콘텐츠를 구축하여 교사 및 학생들을 대상으로 제공함으로써 교육적인 활용방안을 높일 수 있는 방안을 탐색하는데 초점을 두었다.