In discussing Washington's problems with Jay's Treaty, Beschloss destroys the myth that Washington's eight years were a time of idyllic national unity, and that Washington could have had a third term had he wanted it. Washington's first term had already been marked by considerable dissension, wtih frequent bickering between his Cabinet members Hamilton and Jefferson, who became the leaders of the two emerging parties, the Federalists and the anti-Federalists, later called the Republicans. Washington urged them to get along, but Jefferson resigned as Secretary of State in disgust after the first term and went home to Monticello.
But it was in 1794, duirng his second term, when things really blew up. In an attmept to avoid another war with Great Britain, which had been intefering with US shipping as well as arming Indians and spurring them to atack settlers in present-day Ohio and Michigan, Washington sent Chief Justice John Jay to Britain in May of 1794 to negotiate a treaty to settle the issues. Although Hay had negotiated a treaty by November, due to communication delays it didn't reach Washington until the following Spring.
Washington disliked the treaty but he sent it to the Senate anyway, taking seriously the Senate's "advise and consent" duties under the constitution. The Senate barely approved it in a party-line vote, the Federalists approving and the anti-Federalists disapproving. The outcry againt the treaty was furious. A Philadelphia throng burned a copy of the treaty along with an effigy of John Jay, and there was even talk of impeaching Washington.
Ultimately Washington decided to sign the treaty, but a House vote was necessary to obtain the funds needed to implement it. After a bruisng debate, the House voted 49-49. The tiebreaking vote then went in favor of the treaty.
All the controversy and mean-spirited party politics so discouraged Washington that he decided not to seek a third term. Beschloss writes that "The struggle over Jay's Treaty had destroyed Washington's dream that America might forever be governed by national consensus--no parties, no factions, just patriots. By the fall of 1796, the country was bitterly divided between Federalists, derided by their foes as 'the British party', and Republicans, lampooned as 'the French party'. Washington's final Cabinet included not a single Republican. He scarcely spoke to his old Founding brother Thomas Jefferson."
Beschloss offers this thoughtful conclusion of the Jay's Treaty battle: "The precedent Washignton set with his leadership on Jay's Treaty was that a president should not merely preside. He must use his unique standing--even if it made him unpopular or cost an election--to convince Congress and the American people to accept unpopular notions that may be in their long-term interest."
Jay's Treaty ultimately did work well, and contributed to the peaceful settlement of the Northwest Territory. By the time that John Adams took office in 1797, the issue was imminent war with France. Adams fought this battle throughout his term, and to his credit he was able to avert war with France.
The irony is that word of the peace treaty settling what came to be called the "quasi-war" came a month too late to save his presidency, as the voting in the 2000 election had already taken place, resulting in Jefferson winning comfortably over Adams. Beschloss concludes that "Adams deserves lasting credit for his political sacrifice...Adams's personal tragedy was that he did not need to forgo a second term to make peace with France. Had he handled his Cabinet, Congress, his rivals and the public with more finesse, he could have saved his career...Just as he had once described Jefferson, Adams was more talented as political philosopher than working politician. His inability to fathom complex men like 'Washington and Hamilton would have been comic were the result not so painful."
I have serious problems with Beschloss's third crisis, the matter of Andrew Jackson and his opposition to the Second Bank of the United States. This was a bold action that to me is more foolhardiness and stubbornness than it is courageous. It does not belong in this book. Jackson ultimately succeeded in killing the bank, but at what cost?
Indeed, Beschloss himself seems to agree with me when he writes in conclusion: "By destroying Biddle's Bank without some more accountable replacement, Jackson peddled the dubious notion that America did not need a central bank to preserve a sound currency. Through eighty years of boom and bust, until Congress established the Federal Reserve in 1913, millions of Americans suffered."
I also have problems with the fourth crisis, the matter of Lincoln's re-election for a second term in 1864. The war was going badly and all signs were that Lincoln would be defeated. Lincoln himself was certain that he was going to lose the election. Then, on September 1st, Sherman took Atlanta and everything changed. Lincoln ended by winning easily.
I'm not sure what the basis is for claiming this was an act of "courage". Lincoln was simply being realistic, an admirable quality certainly but different from courage.
Perhaps the courage to the author lies in Lincoln's being unwilling to negotiate a peace with the Confederacy as a way of saving his presidency. To me a peace would have been preferable, and I emphatically disagree with Lincoln's war on the Confederacy, and his continuation of it for four long years. Decisiveness is not necessarily "courage", and it is not a good thing of any kind if undertaken for wrong ends.
Beschloss adroitly pivots to his fifth crisis, that of Teddy Roosevelt, by noting that TR's Secretary of State, John Hay, is the same John Hay who served as Lincoln's secretary during his presidency. The "courage" attributed to Roosevelt was his purusit of his trust-busting activities even when they threatened to derail his nomination for a full term in 1904. Ultimately his antagonist, Mark Hanna, died and Roosevelt cruised to the nomination, with the convention balancing the ticket by nominating a McKinley conservative for the VP slot.
And next we come to FDR and the 1940 election. Again, I am hard-pressed to udnestand what the suppsoed "courage" was here. He did run and win, showing remarkable politial skill and using his considerable charm to good advantage. But is this courage?
Beschloss conludes: "One danger in Roosevelt's approach was his deception and secrecy. By vowing in 1940 that Americans would fight in no 'foreign war' and that he had no 'secret understanding' with Churchill, he made himself vulnerable to the Tyler Kents and Joe Kennedys who had powerful evidence to the contrary. Any president with dangerous secrets is hostage to those who know them. Kent and Kennedy both came close to tattling everything they knew. Had they done so, FDR might have been voted out of office."
The next crisis was the Harry Truman decision on whether to recognize the new state of Israel. Truman was as anti-Semitic as the country as a whole, but he studied the issue with an open mind and eventually came around to the idea that recognizing Israel was the right thing to do. And it proved to be crucial to the survival of the new state. It would have been easy to sit back and wait to see what would happen after the partition, so Truman deserves much credit here for his courageous leadership.
The next crisis was the civil rights crisis that JFK faced. JFK gradually came around to supporting the civil rights movement, even though it imperiled his re-election chances in 1964. Indeed, he told a group of civil rights leaders that "I may lose the next election beecause of this. I don't care."
One interesting thing I learned from this section was that JFK had a taping system for White House conversations. Indeed, Nixon's was far from the first such system. I see now that FDR, Truman, Ike, JFK and LBJ all taped their White House conversations.
And last we have Ronald Reagan, whose courage was in seeking detente and arms reduction with the Soviet Union.
I still take issue with the author's emphasis on "courage". I submit that "Presidential Leadership" would be a better title, leadership being a broader term that could encompass all nine of the crises described in this remarkable book.
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