Category Archives: History

Historic topics in general

The Death of George Washington in American Memory and in the Memories of his Successors

Miscellany, Presidential History

On the night of Saturday December 14, 1799, George Washington, 67 years old, died in his bed at Mount Vernon. His death was a family and medical drama, a source of endless controversy, and the opening act in a period of official and unofficial anguish throughout the United States. As the sad tidings spread, the country experienced a sense of collective and national loss never before known and rarely equaled since. The United States government, sitting in Philadelphia, received the news with reluctant incredulity and then began the long process of national mourning under the leadership of its president. Scattered across the country were other men who would one day succeed Washington as chief executive. Some were already national figures, while others remained in obscurity or in childhood, little dreaming that they would someday occupy the presidential office. Those of his successors who wrote in memory of him, as many of them eventually did, would find, in their reflections upon the life and death of Washington, that, for good or ill, their lives had been inextricably linked with his.

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This Most Interesting Moment: Legend, Fact, and Speculation in the death of William Henry Harrison and the Accession of John Tyler

History, Presidential History,

In this 2006 monograph, originally submitted as a seminar paper, I attempt to untangle the many strands of legend surrounding the United States’ first presidential vacancy, the 1841 death of the new president, William Henry Harrison, and Vice President John Tyler’s controversial claim that he was entitled to the whole of the presidential office.

On February 10, 1967, the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States was ratified. The amendment addressed a number of pressing though long-neglected issues that had become impossible to ignore in the nuclear age. Section 2 provided a means of filling a vacancy in the vice presidency, a problem that had gone unresolved for nearly two centuries despite more than a dozen such vacancies amounting to a total of nearly forty years. Sections 3 and 4 set forth methods by which presidential disability might be determined, either by the president himself or by others, and provided for the vice president to serve as “acting president” under specific circumstances. Compared to these critically important and timely provisions, Section 1 seems, at first glance, a curiosity. It reads, “In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.”[1]

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Recent Scholarship on Aristotelian and Scientific Views of Eclipses and Comets in the Seventeenth Century

History, History of Science

March 29 is the 363rd anniversary of the Great Eclipse of 1652, which, despite the relatively late date, terrified people in Europe. In this paper from 2007, I attempt to explain the persistence of this fear by examining the historiography of seventeenth century eclipse and comet lore. 

As the year 1651 neared its end, England was experiencing a small but steadily increasing panic. On March 29, 1652, there was to be a total solar eclipse. Fanning the flames of unrest were those who distributed pamphlets predicting that all manner of terror and disaster would accompany the inevitable darkening of the sun. The pamphlets forecast “darkness, sudden death and ‘great madness, raging and terrifying thousands of the people.’”[1] Workers stayed home; the poor begged God for deliverance. The fear was not confined to the lowly and downtrodden; the rich ran away. [2] The powerful and the would-be powerful engaged in a flurry of optimism, predicting the collapse of the religious and political institutions to which they were opposed.[3] The government issued rational-sounding opinions, assuring the public that there was nothing to fear, and “explaining that eclipses were natural events which could have no political effects.”[4] Continue reading Recent Scholarship on Aristotelian and Scientific Views of Eclipses and Comets in the Seventeenth Century →

The Ghost of the White House : Jane Appleton Pierce in the Shadows of Power

First Ladies, History, Presidential History, , ,

You are a shy, retiring woman, devoted to religion and intellectual pursuits, but your husband is an extrovert—smart, charming, and so very handsome. You have suffered crushing losses and want nothing more than a peaceful life centered on home, family, and, above all, your beloved and only surviving child. Unexpectedly, your country bestows upon your husband its greatest honor. You hesitate, but unwilling to deny him such a prize and recognizing what it could mean for your son’s advancement, you reluctantly embrace your spouse’s dream and with it a future of attention, fashion, protocol, criticism, and intrigue: all that you most hate.

Then, in an instant, before it has even begun,  it all turns to ashes.

Today marks the 209th birthday of Jane Means Appleton Pierce, the wife of President Franklin Pierce, First Lady of the United States from March 4, 1853, until March 3, 1857. First lady lore is full of tragedies and tragic figures. Mary Lincoln and Jacqueline Kennedy both lost children while residing in the White House and then saw their husbands murdered before their eyes, prematurely ending their tenures. Three first ladies, Letitia Christian Tyler, Caroline Scott Harrison, and Ellen Axson Wilson, died in the White House itself. Still, no president’s wife ever entered the Executive Mansion bearing more sorrow—and with less fortitude to endure it—than did Jane Pierce. Continue reading The Ghost of the White House : Jane Appleton Pierce in the Shadows of Power →

The First Wednesday in March Next: March 4 in American Presidential History

History, Presidential History, , ,

Today is March 4. Until about eighty years ago, this was an important date to the American people, and it is still of great historical importance.

March 4, 1789 was the date set by the “United States in Congress Assembled” (the “Confederation Congress”—the U.S. legislature that preceded the Congress of the United States) for the new Constitution of the United States to take effect.

On Sept 13. 1788, the Confederation Congress passed the following resolution:

Resolved That the first Wednesday in Jany next be the day for appointing Electors in the several states, which before the said day shall have ratified the said Constitution; that the first Wednesday in feby next be the day for the electors to assemble in their respective states and vote for a president; And that the first Wednesday in March next be the time and the present seat of Congress the place for commencing proceedings under the said constitution.

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Reflections on the Lindbergh Kidnapping

Historic crime, History

March 1.

Eighty-three years ago this day, at around 9:00 P.M., someone entered the grounds of a property known as Highfields, in the Sourland Mountains near Hopewell, New Jersey,  placed two sections of a strange-looking, homemade, three-stage extension ladder against a brand new white field stone house, and climbed to the top.

Of that much we can be reasonably certain.

Reading in the room below was the most famous man in the world, Charles Augustus Lindbergh, who in 1927 had flown the Atlantic alone, transforming himself, unwittingly and to his regret, into the first modern celebrity. Alone in his study, Lindbergh heard a “crack”—it sounded, he said, like something breaking apart an orange crate—but the night was windy and raw, and he thought nothing of it.

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A Life Nobly Spent or Sacrificed: John Quincy Adams Confronts Slavery, 1819-1848

History, Presidential History

On February 21, 1848, Congressman John Quincy Adams, representative of the Plymouth District of Massachusetts, collapsed from a stroke at his desk in the chamber of the House of Representatives. Adams was 80 years old and had endured a cerebral hemorrhage in 1846, which had left him frail and weakened. Now too ill to be moved farther, the fallen legislator was taken to an office just off the House chamber (now Statuary Hall), where he lingered for two days before dying there on February 23.

For seventeen years, this most unique of congressmen had exploited his combination of notoriety, fame, experience, talent, and unparalleled links to the Founding Fathers to fight against the institution of slavery, an institution that he feared might eventually destroy the Union.[1] For seven of those years, he struggled incessantly against the infamous “Gag Rule,” to restore and defend the right of members of Congress (and, by extension, their constituents) to openly discuss abolition petitions. He fought his final struggles against the annexation of Texas and against the Mexican War, because he saw within those issues more portents of national peril related to—again—slavery. Continue reading A Life Nobly Spent or Sacrificed: John Quincy Adams Confronts Slavery, 1819-1848 →