Presidential History

A list of all blog posts and videos reflecting on historical events from The Water's Edge. 

Sunday is the Fourth of July—TWE’s favorite holiday. To mark the occasion, here is the annual TWE Fourth of July trivia quiz. There are thirteen questions in honor of the thirteen colonies that threw off the yoke of British tyranny. If you want to further test your knowledge of Independence Day, check out the questions from the 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020 quizzes. Have a fun and safe Fourth of July!  You can find the answers to the quiz here [PDF]. Note: If the quiz is not displaying in your browser, please click here. Margaret Gach and Anna Shortridge assisted in the preparation of this post.

Today is Presidents’ Day. It is a TWE tradition to recognize the forty-five men—and they have all been men—who have been president on Presidents’ Day with the following essay, which has been revised over the years as events have warranted. If you are lucky enough to have today off, enjoy it. American kids often say they want to be president when they grow up. You have to wonder why. True, a few presidents have loved the job. Teddy Roosevelt said “No president has ever enjoyed himself as much as I have enjoyed myself.”  Most presidents, though, have found the job demanding, perhaps too demanding. James K. Polk pretty much worked himself to exhaustion; he died less than four months after completing his single term in office. Zachary Taylor, the hero of the Mexican-American War, found being president harder than leading men into battle. Dwight Eisenhower had a heart attack from the stress of leading the Free World. And many presidents expressed relief once they could be called “former president.” This trend started early. John Adams told his wife Abigail that George Washington looked too happy watching him take the oath of office. “Me–thought I heard him say, ‘Ay, I am fairly out and you fairly in! See which of us will be happiest!’” Andrew Johnson, who was impeached by the House but acquitted by the Senate, returned to Capitol Hill as a senator from Tennessee six years after leaving the White House. When an acquaintance mentioned that his new accommodations were smaller than his old ones at the White House, he replied: “But they are more comfortable.” Rutherford B. Hayes longed to escape what he called a “life of bondage, responsibility, and toil.” The only part of the job that Chester Arthur liked was giving parties. He apparently did that quite well. His nickname was the “prince of hospitality.” Grover Cleveland claimed there was “no happier man in the United States” when he lost his reelection bid in 1888. Time away from the White House apparently changed his mind. He ran again in 1892 and won, making him the only president to hold two non-consecutive terms. Donald Trump, like many modern presidents, blamed the media—or “Fake News” as he liked to call it—for making his job harder than it should have been. But complaints about journalists are as old as the Republic. Thomas Jefferson suggested that newspaper editors divide their papers “into four chapters, heading the 1st, Truths. 2d, Probabilities. 3d, Possibilities. 4th, Lies.” The Inaugural Address Any elected president’s first official act is to deliver an inaugural address. The expectations and stakes are high. So high in fact that many presidents-elect channel their inner undergraduate and labor late into the night wordsmithing their remarks. James Garfield didn’t finish his speech until 2:30 a.m. on Inauguration Day. Bill Clinton did him two hours better, fiddling with his speech until 4:30 a.m. Some presidents rise to the occasion on Inaugural Day with soaring rhetoric that rings through the ages. Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave us: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” John F. Kennedy gave us: “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” Alas, most inaugural addresses are forgettable. James Buchanan used his to complain that the country was so consumed debating slavery that it was ignoring more important issues. That address tells us a lot about why Buchanan tops virtually every list of the worst presidents in American history. Ulysses S. Grant, a far better general than a president, used his inaugural address to complain that his critics were treating him unfairly. Most presidents share this sentiment, but they find better venues to share it. Richard Nixon gave us the memorable line: “The American dream does not come to those who fall asleep.” Uh, okay. Some presidents get right to the point in their inaugural address. George Washington’s second inaugural address totaled only 135 words—or about the length of two recitations of the Lord’s Prayer. William Henry Harrison, the hero of the Battle of Tippecanoe, went to the other extreme. He took nearly two hours to deliver an 8,000-word speech. Despite the bitterly cold and wet weather, the sixty-eight-year-old Harrison gave his address outdoors without a coat or hat. It was long thought that he caught a cold while speaking, which turned into pneumonia, killing him just a month after taking office. The cause of his death, however, may have been enteric (typhoid) fever that he contracted by drinking contaminated water; the White House at the time drew its water supply just downstream from a sewage dump. Either way, he was the first president to die in office. (His death also made John Tyler the first vice president to finish out a president’s term.) Harrison holds two other distinctions. He was the last American president born as an English subject. And he was the first, and so far only president, to have his grandson become president. Benjamin Harrison, please take a bow. When George Washington first took the oath of office in New York City on April 30, 1789, only people within sound of his voice could hear what he had to say. Every president afterward until Woodrow Wilson also spoke without the benefit of amplification. Which prompts the question: How many of the people who spent two hours listening to William Henry Harrison drone on in the bitter cold actually heard him? Warren Harding was the first president to deliver his inaugural address into a microphone. Calvin Coolidge was the first president to deliver his inaugural address over the radio. Harry Truman was the first to deliver his on television. Bill Clinton was the first to do so over the internet. Presidents typically take the oath of office while laying their hand on a Bible. Joe Biden took his oath of office on a Bible that had been in his family since 1893. Barack Obama used Abraham Lincoln’s bible. It is sometimes said that Franklin Pierce declined to use a Bible. But in fact, he did. Pierce’s inauguration is, however, unique in one respect. When presidents take the inaugural oath, which is set forth in the Constitution, they begin it by uttering the words, “I solemnly swear.” Pierce is the one exception. He chose to begin the oath by saying, “I solemnly affirm.” That is an option the Constitution allows. Whatever reasons led Pierce to opt for “affirm” over “swear” have been lost to time. Changes in technology have been matched by changes in fashion. Today we expect that the president will wear a suitcoat with matching pants. However, the first five presidents—George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe—all wore knee britches. John Quincy Adams was the first to wear long pants, so he was a fashionista of a sort. COVID-19 forced a break with many inaugural traditions in 2021. One victim was the gala balls on the evening of Inauguration Day. Presidents and their First Ladies would go from Washington hotel to Washington hotel, dancing briefly and inspiring their supporters. In the early nineteenth century, festivities were more intimate and boisterous. Andrew Jackson once threw a party for his well-wishers at the White House. Things got out of hand, however, in an Animal House kind of way. The White House was saved only when tubs of ice cream and liquor were carried out onto the lawn to lure people out of the mansion. While Joe Biden didn’t get to go to any galas or throw a party for his supporters, he did get to watch an awesome fireworks display that exploded some 35,000 shells. Landing on Mount Rushmore All presidents on Inauguration Day imagine that their presidency will be a great one. A poll released last Friday found that Americans think that Barack Obama tops the list of best presidents, followed by Abraham Lincoln and Donald Trump. A poll run by the same outfit last year also had Barack Obama at number one, but with Donald Trump second and Abraham Lincoln third. A decade ago, Americans said that Ronald Reagan was the greatest president, followed by Abraham Lincoln and Bill Clinton. Historians and political scientists scoff at these rankings. They are so obviously biased in favor of recent presidents. The professionals instead typically name George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and FDR as the three best presidents, though not necessarily in that order. Alas, far too many presidents fail to impress either the public or the professionals. The saddest case may be Millard Fillmore. He couldn’t impress even his own father, who said that he belonged at home in Buffalo and not in Washington. The poster child for presidential failure, however, is Herbert Hoover. He was a golden boy before becoming president. Born in West Branch, Iowa to humble origins, he was orphaned at a young age. He eventually became a member of the first class to enter Stanford University, where among other accomplishments he badgered former president Benjamin Harrison to pay the twenty-five cents he owed for admission to a Stanford baseball game. He graduated with a degree in geology, became a mining engineer, lived in Australia and China (where he learned Mandarin Chinese), survived the Boxer Rebellion, and became a wealthy man. During World War I, he entered public service and distinguished himself with his management of the European relief effort after the war ended. A young FDR marveled that Hoover “is certainly a wonder, and I wish we could make him President of the United States. There couldn’t be a better one.” The irony of that statement, of course, is that FDR ended up running against and defeating Hoover. FDR won because Hoover presided over the worst economic collapse in American history. The Great Depression may not have been Hoover’s fault, but he got the blame. So what does it take for a president to succeed? One key is to be attuned to public opinion. It is perhaps wise, though, not to be as attuned to public opinion as William McKinley, of whom it was said kept his ear so close to the ground that it was full of grasshoppers. A president also needs to know how to work with Congress. That was one skill that escaped Jimmy Carter, even though his fellow Democrats controlled both the House and Senate. “Carter,” said one lawmaker, “couldn’t get the Pledge of Allegiance through Congress.” To succeed, a president needs to know when to compromise. The example to follow here isn’t Woodrow Wilson. He once said, “I am sorry for those who disagree with me, because I know they are wrong.” Wilson’s reluctance to compromise led to the demise of his great project, the Treaty of Versailles. Successful presidents need to know how to say one thing and do another. Republicans today hail Ronald Reagan as a tax-cutting, deficit-busting, champion of smaller government. His actual record was different. He signed eleven tax increases into law, saw the national debt more than double on his watch, and left America with a larger federal workforce than the one he inherited from Jimmy Carter. But what people remember him doing matters more than what he actually did. Presidents should also know how to deal with temperamental Cabinet secretaries. Few have faced a harder time than James Monroe. He once had to use a pair of fireplace tongs to fend off his cane-wielding secretary of the Treasury. Monroe also used his sword once to break up a fight at a White House dinner between the French and British ambassadors. All presidents should be prepared to hit some bumps along the road. As a political science professor once told me, the people love you on the way in, they love you on the way out, and they grumble in between. The difference between the highs and lows can be breathtaking, as President George W. Bush discovered. He set the record for both the highest public approval ratings and the lowest. The inherent difficulties of being president and the consequences of failing are no doubt why Joe Biden said of his new job shortly after being sworn in that “I hope to God I live up to it.” The Men Who Held the Office With public popularity a fleeting thing, Harry Truman may have gotten it right when he laid down the cardinal rule of Washington political life: If you want a friend, get a dog. Most presidents have lived by that maxim. At least half them had dogs. Their dogs’ names included Sweetlips (Washington), Satan (John Adams), Fido (Lincoln), Grim (Hayes), Veto (Garfield), Stubby (Wilson), Oh Boy (Harding), Fala (FDR), and J. Edgar (LBJ). Donald Trump was the first sitting president since fellow Republican William McKinley not to have a dog. Joe Biden has two German shepherds, Champ and Major.  Some presidents dare to be different when it comes to companion animals. Andrew Jackson had a parrot named Pol that he taught to swear. Martin Van Buren briefly had two tiger cubs. Benjamin Harrison had opossums named Mr. Reciprocity and Mr. Protection. William McKinley had a parrot named Washington Post. Theodore Roosevelt had his own menagerie, including a garter snake named Emily Spinach, a rat named Jonathan, a macaw named Eli Yale, and a badger named Josiah. Calvin Coolidge apparently wanted to start his own zoo. His pets included a donkey, a black bear, a pygmy hippo, a wallaby, lion cubs, an antelope, raccoons, and a bobcat. Everyone knows that John F. Kennedy was the first Roman Catholic president and that Barack Obama was the first African American president. But neither was our tallest president. Abraham Lincoln holds that distinction at 6’ 4”, with Lyndon Baines Johnson just a half inch behind. If you want to win a bet, ask a Republican friend: Who was taller, Ronald Reagan or George H.W. Bush? No, it wasn’t the Gipper. A fair share of our presidents would have strained their necks looking up at Abraham Lincoln. James Madison, the father of the Constitution, is our shortest president. He was 5’ 4”. Martin Van Buren and Benjamin Harrison stand just behind him (above him?) at 5’ 6.” James K. Polk was called “the Napoleon of the stump” and “a short man with a long program.” Barack Obama was among our thinnest presidents. The distinction for the heaviest president goes to William Howard Taft, who weighed between 300 and 350 pounds. He was so heavy that the White House had to install a special bathtub to accommodate his girth. Taft was also the last president to sport facial hair, in his case a handlebar mustache. Being a former president seems to have done wonders for Taft; he lost 80 pounds the year after he left the White House. The weight loss undoubtedly prolonged Taft’s life. It also allowed him to enjoy his favorite job—Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He remains the only person ever to have been both president and chief justice. That means he both took the oath of office as president and administered it to a president, in his case to both Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. TWE’s Favorite Readers who have read this essay closely know that I have mentioned every president but one: Gerald Ford. He holds a unique distinction among the forty-five men—and so far they have all been men—to be president: He was not elected either president or vice president. He is also the only president to have graduated from a Big Ten university. In his case, he attended the University of Michigan, where he played on two national championship football teams and was named the Most Valuable Player his senior year. That alone makes him TWE’s official favorite president. Hail to the Victors! A bibliographic note. Many of the stories in this post come from Paul F. Boller Jr.’s wonderful book, Presidential Anecdotes. It is a great read. His other equally engaging books include: Presidential Campaigns: From George Washington to George W. Bush and Congressional Anecdotes. I highly recommend all three books. Anna Shortridge assisted in the preparation of this post.

Monday is Presidents’ Day. To get you in the proper celebratory mood, TWE presents its tenth annual Presidents’ Day quiz. If you are feeling up to it, you can try the quizzes from 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020 as well. You can find the answers to the quiz here [PDF]. Note: If the quiz is not displaying in your browser, please click here. Anna Shortridge assisted in the preparation of this post. 

Joe Biden gave the nation a much-needed civics lesson today in the guise of an inaugural address. His message was impossible to miss—America’s strength lies in American unity. It is a simple, almost banal, truth. It’s also one we risk losing sight of, and with it, most everything we cherish. It attests to the parlous state of American politics that Biden felt compelled to open his address by reminding us “that democracy is precious. Democracy is fragile. And … democracy has prevailed.” Just two weeks ago a mob attacked Capitol Hill seeking to overturn the results of a free-and-fair election. They were egged on by a president who refused to concede that he had lost and who actively promoted baseless charges of widespread election fraud. “The will of the people has been heeded,” as Biden put it, but only after considerable political damage was done. Biden wisely chose not to try to match the poetic elegance of Lincoln’s two magisterial inaugural addresses or the inspirational vision of John F. Kennedy’s in his twenty-one minute speech. Instead, he spoke conversationally, talking like a man who has seen a lot—and learned a lot—during his half century in the upper reaches of American political life. He cautioned us about what we too often forget as we vent on Facebook and Twitter: “Without unity there is no peace, only bitterness and fury. No progress, only exhausting outrage. No nation, only a state of chaos.” Facing an inauguration audience thinned by coronavirus concerns and an unprecedented security lockdown, Biden openly acknowledged that the nation is set against itself. He admitted that his talk about “unity can sound to some like a foolish fantasy these days. I know the forces that divide us are deep and they are real.” No doubt in the back of his mind was the daunting political reality that his predecessor boycotted his inauguration and that three-quarters of Republicans believe he was not legitimately elected. It is hard to lead when people deny your right to do so.     Nor did Biden sugarcoat the challenges country faces: We face an attack on our democracy and on truth. A raging virus.  Growing inequity. The sting of systemic racism. A climate in crisis. America’s role in the world. Any one of these would be enough to challenge us in profound ways, but the fact is we face them all at once, presenting this nation with one of the gravest responsibilities we’ve had. Now we’re going to be tested. Are we going to step up, all of us?  It’s time for boldness, for there’s so much to do.   He wisely left it there, resisting the temptation to begin listing draft bills, policy initiatives, and executive orders that his administration will pursue. He knows he has ample time in the future to talk specifics about his plans for addressing the issues the country faces at home and abroad. Biden instead stuck to his theme: that our greatest challenge is to recover the magic of our democracy. He stressed the centrality of truth to the health of any democracy, warning that “there are lies, lies told for power and for profit.”  No speech, of course, no matter how well written or deftly delivered, can heal a nation. But a speech can mark a start. And that’s what Biden tried to do in calling on Americans to look to what unifies them rather than fixate on what divides them. In the weeks and months to come Americans will argue about whether Biden is living up to his vow to champion unity. But the cure to our current democratic distress doesn’t lie in the actions of one president or one administration. Rather it lies in what we as a people do. In an implicit invocation of Kennedy’s famous line asking “what you can do for your country,” Biden called on all Americans to “begin to listen to one another again. Hear one another, see one another, show respect to one another. Politics doesn’t have to be a raging fire destroying everything in its path.” That is the fundamental civics lesson that Biden delivered. Only time will tell whether we as citizens are ready to heed that wisdom and to seek an end to what the forty-sixth president rightly called our “uncivil war.” Anna Shortridge assisted in the preparation of this post. 

In two days, Joe Biden gets to do what only thirty-nine other Americans have ever done: deliver a presidential inaugural address. It is a tough task to do well under any circumstance. It’s even tougher when it comes against the backdrop of a pandemic that has killed 400,000 Americans and two weeks after a mob ransacked the U.S. Capitol. It’s appropriate then that the theme of Biden’s inauguration is “America United.” Unity over division was the core message of his campaign from the start. In the words of the Presidential Inaugural Committee, Biden hopes his inauguration will spark “the beginning of a new national journey that restores the soul of America, brings the country together, and creates a path to a brighter future.” That is a tall order. You don’t need to read the polls to know that Americans are deeply split. No single speech, however well written or delivered, can sweep away those differences—or the legacies they have created. But words matter. They can set a tone. They can make us think. They can give us hope. As Biden and his speechwriters fashion his remarks, they would do well to seek inspiration from what past presidents have said as they came to office in critical times. On that score, seven inaugural addresses stand out for their eloquence, their wisdom, and their vision. Perhaps Biden’s speech could join this list. 1. Thomas Jefferson (1801). Jefferson took office as the nation’s first political parties were taking shape. His election marked the first time that the presidency passed from one party to another. The man he defeated, John Adams, was so bitter over the election results that he skipped the inauguration. But Jefferson understood the moment. He reminded his fellow citizens that more united than divided them: But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. 2. Abraham Lincoln (1861). As the United States stood on the brink of Civil War, Lincoln held out hope for his nation. He urged North and South to settle their differences within the Union rather than break it apart. His call went unheeded, but not for a lack of eloquence. I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature. 3. Abraham Lincoln (1865). Lincoln had good reason to be bitter as he took the oath of office for the second time. Thousands of his countrymen had died on the battlefield, and many thousands more had seen their lives uprooted. Many of his supporters wanted him to be unsparing in his treatment of the soon-to-be-defeated Confederacy. Rather than speaking of punishment and revenge, however, Lincoln delivered a speech of incredible generosity and wisdom. With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. 4. Theodore Roosevelt (1905). TR took the oath of office just as the United States was coming into its own as a global power. He encouraged his fellow citizens to recognize their good fortune, and he called on them to undertake the hard work necessary to keep the United States a great power. In all, it was the inaugural address one would expect from a man who wouldn’t let a bullet stop him from giving a speech. Never before have men tried so vast and formidable an experiment as that of administering the affairs of a continent under the forms of a Democratic republic….Upon the success of our experiment much depends, not only as regards our own welfare, but as regards the welfare of mankind. 5. Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933). FDR took office during the depth of the Great Depression. Facing a country gripped with uncertainty and self-doubt, he knew he needed to restore not just the public’s confidence in the economy but also in themselves. He succeeded. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself–nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. 6. John F. Kennedy (1961). As the 1960s dawned, Americans worried that their epic victory in World War II was being eclipsed by the inexorable march of global communism. JFK responded to these fears with a sweeping pledge that America would bear any burden in the defense of liberty. He added in an unforgettable call for Americans to support their country. And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you–ask what you can do for your country. 7. Ronald Reagan (1981). The 1970s were a tough decade for the United States. It lost in Vietnam. The economy sagged. Interest rates, unemployment, and deficits all soared. Reagan promised to get America’s mojo back by dismantling big government. His inaugural address ushered in what in retrospect was a new, conservative era in American politics. The economic ills we suffer have come upon us over several decades. They will not go away in days, weeks, or months, but they will go away. They will go away because we, as Americans, have the capacity now, as we’ve had in the past, to do whatever needs to be done to preserve this last and greatest bastion of freedom. In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. No list of the best inaugural addresses ever would be complete without mentioning which president delivered the worst one ever. You might think that the winner in this category would be William Henry Harrison. He took nearly two hours to deliver an 8,000-word speech outdoors, without a hat or coat, on a bitterly cold and snowy day. Pity the poor crowd that had to listen to that. (Or tried to listen to it. This was eighty years before loudspeakers were used for the first time.) But no, that performance only earns William Henry Harrison third place. The two worst inaugural speeches ever given were by James Buchanan and Donald Trump. Buchanan used his 1,857-word speech to complain that the country was so consumed in debating slavery that it was ignoring other, more important issues. Trump’s 1,433-word speech railed against “American carnage” and painted such a dystopian picture of the United States that a former president in the audience remarked, “That was some weird sh*t.” Perhaps the quality of an inaugural address says something about the quality of the presidency to follow. Buchanan tops virtually every list of the worst presidents in American history. Trump is likely to join him there. Anna Shortridge assisted in the preparation of this post.

By now you no doubt have heard that President Donald Trump will skip President-Elect Joe Biden’s inauguration next Wednesday. Given Trump’s role in inciting last week’s mob attack on the Capitol Building, that decision is no doubt for the best. However, it breaks a tradition that has come to symbolize a core democratic principle, namely, the orderly and peaceful transfer of power. The good news on that front is that Vice President Mike Pence will attend the inauguration. Trump’s decision makes him the first president in more than 150 years, and just the fifth president in history, to skip his successor’s swearing-in for reasons other than ill-health. The other four were John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, and Andrew Johnson. The two Adamses lost bitter elections to their successors, Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson respectively. (The elder Adams eventually reconciled with Jefferson; the younger Adams never reconciled with Jackson.) No one seems to know why Van Buren didn’t attend William Henry Harrison’s inauguration; there doesn’t appear to have been any rancor between the two men. Johnson did not run for reelection—remember, he was the first president to be impeached. However, he and his successor, Ulysses S. Grant, detested each other. Indeed, Grant said he would not ride in the same carriage with Johnson to the inaugural ceremony when it looked like Johnson might attend. The only president since 1869 not to attend the inauguration of his elected successor was Woodrow Wilson. He had a good reason for missing the swearing in: a stroke had left him too infirm to climb the stairs to where the ceremony was being held. Even then, he rode with President-Elect Warren Harding to Capitol Hill. And if you wish to be hyper-technical, Richard Nixon did not attend the swearing-in of Gerald Ford. But then again, Ford wasn’t elected. This Inauguration Day will be far more somber and tense than usual—with Washington observing unprecedented security measures and the traditional parade going virtual. But it is still a day worth celebrating. In that spirit, here are ten lesser-known facts about presidential inaugurations. 1.  Joe Biden will be sworn in as the forty-sixth U.S. president, but he will be only the fortieth person to give an inaugural address. John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, Chester Arthur, and Ford were all vice presidents who ascended to the presidency after the death or resignation of a president. They never won an election on their own, so they never gave an inaugural address. Grover Cleveland held two nonconsecutive terms as president, and as a result, he is counted as the twenty-second and twenty-fourth president of the United States. 2.  All but two elected presidents took the oath of office in Washington. Washington, DC, did not become the nation’s capital until 1800, just before Thomas Jefferson was sworn in president. George Washington was sworn into office for his first term in Federal Hall in New York City in 1789, because what we know today as the Big Apple was the first home of the U.S. government. The capital moved to Philadelphia the next year, so Washington was sworn into office for his second term in the Senate Chamber of Congress Hall in the City of Brotherly Love in 1793. John Adams was sworn in as president in the House Chamber in Congress Hall in Philadelphia in 1797. (Several vice presidents have taken the oath of office outside of Washington, DC, after the death of the president.) 3.  The presidential oath of office is written into the U.S. Constitution. Article II, Section I of the Constitution stipulates: “Before he [the president] enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:—“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Even though the oath is only thirty-five words long, presidents and chief justices can get it wrong. Just ask Barack Obama and John Roberts. 4.  One person has taken the presidential oath of office and administered it. William Howard Taft was sworn in as America’s twenty-seventh president on March 4, 1909. A dozen years later he was sworn in as the tenth chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. During his nine-year stint as chief justice, he issued the oath of office to Calvin Coolidge (1925) and Herbert Hoover (1929). Taft holds two other distinctions. He was America’s heaviest president, tipping the scales at more than 300 pounds. He was also the last president to sport facial hair, in his case, a handlebar moustache. 5.  More presidents have been inaugurated in March than in January. Thirty-six inaugurations have been held in March. With Biden’s inauguration, twenty-two will have been held in January. Until 1937, presidents were inaugurated on March 4. (The public inaugural ceremonies were generally moved to March 5 when Inauguration Day fell on a Sunday.) The Twentieth Amendment moved Inauguration Day to January 20 (the public ceremony can be moved to January 21 in years that Inauguration Day falls on a Sunday, as happened with Ronald Reagan’s second inaugural in 1985). FDR’s second inauguration was the first to be held in January. The only elected president not to be inaugurated in either January or March was George Washington. His first inaugural took place on April 30, 1789. 6.  John F. Kennedy was the last president to wear a top hat to his inauguration. Wearing top hats to the inauguration ceremony used to be tradition. Presidents from Franklin Pierce through Harry Truman donned them. Dwight Eisenhower broke the trend by opting for the less formal homburg. JFK went back to the stovepipe hat for his inauguration, though he took it off while he swore his oath of office and gave his inaugural address. No president since has donned a top hat on Inauguration Day. Biden isn’t likely to break that streak. 7.  Lyndon B. Johnson was the first president to ask his wife to hold the Bible while he took the oath of office. Before LBJ, the executive secretary of the Joint Congressional Inaugural Committee traditionally held the Bible while the president swore his oath. Johnson asked his wife, Lady Bird Johnson, to do it. Every president since has followed suit. 8.  The inauguration of James Buchanan on March 4, 1857, is the first one known to have been photographed. Other technological firsts for presidential inaugurations include the first to be filmed (William McKinley in 1897), the first to use loudspeakers (Warren Harding in 1921), the first broadcast on radio (Calvin Coolidge in 1925), the first broadcast on television (Harry Truman in 1949), the first broadcast in color (John F. Kennedy in 1961), and the first delivered over the internet (Bill Clinton in 1997). 9.  The coldest Inauguration Day was Ronald Reagan’s second inauguration. The temperature at noontime in Washington, DC, on January 21, 1985, was 7 degrees—or 62 degrees colder than on the day of Reagan’s first inauguration. It was so cold that Reagan took the oath of office indoors at the U.S. Capitol—he had already taken the oath of office in a small, private ceremony at the White House the day before—and the traditional inaugural parade was canceled. The forecast for Washington next Wednesday is partly cloudy with temperatures in the mid-forties. 10.  The shortest inaugural address was a lot shorter than this blog post. George Washington’s second inaugural address ran just 135 words—or about the length of two recitations of the Lord’s Prayer. This blog post, by comparison, runs 1,273 words. Anna Shortridge assisted in the preparation of this post. 

President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden are set to debate tomorrow night in Nashville. Belmont University is hosting the event, and NBC White House correspondent Kristen Welker will moderate. She has named six debate topics: fighting COVID-19, American families, race in America, climate change, national security, and leadership. So there should finally be discussion of foreign policy, which has largely been missing in the campaign so far. That’s understandable. Events overseas are not a high priority for most Americans right now. But whoever takes the oath of office next January 20 won’t have the luxury of focusing only on the country’s domestic problems. He will need to tackle a range of foreign policy challenges as well. Whether those challenges are met or flubbed will go a long way toward shaping the security and prosperity of the United States. Biden and Trump, however, will be thinking short term rather than long term tomorrow night. Their objective will be to move undecided voters in their direction. Sometimes what a candidate says about foreign policy can help on that score. But sometimes it can hurt. Here are seven memorable moments from past debates when presidential candidates took on foreign policy.   1976: Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford Gerald Ford entered his second debate with Jimmy Carter hoping to regain momentum. He ended up doing the opposite. Ford concluded an answer about his policy toward the Soviet Union by saying: “There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford administration.” The perplexed moderator gave Ford an opportunity to revise his comment, but he only dug a deeper hole, insisting that Yugoslavians, Romanians, and Poles didn’t consider themselves dominated by the Soviets. Ford said after the debate that he was arguing that the Soviets couldn’t crush Eastern Europe’s indomitable spirit. But the political damage had been done.    1980: Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan The lone 1980 presidential debate is best remembered for Ronald Reagan derailing Jimmy Carter’s criticisms by saying, “There you go again.” But Carter also hurt himself when he said: “I had a discussion with my daughter, Amy, the other day, before I came here, to ask her what the most important issue was. She said she thought nuclear weaponry.” The vision of the leader of the free world discussing matters of state with his thirteen-year-old daughter handed Republicans an applause line. They ran with it. At one campaign stop the crowd roared when Reagan joked, “I remember when Patty and Ron were little tiny kids, we used to talk about nuclear power.” 1984: Walter Mondale and Ronald Reagan Reagan looked tired and slow during his first debate against Walter Mondale. Pundits began to write his political obituary. At the second debate, however, Reagan was asked whether he had the stamina to handle a major national security crisis. The seventy-three-year-old replied: “I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” The quip brought down the house. The “Gipper” was back and Mondale’s momentum was gone.  1992:  George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Ross Perot Three decades ago Ross Perot made news by becoming the first, and so far only, third-party candidate to qualify for the presidential debate stage. He made his appearance memorable. He warned that if Congress approved NAFTA that Americans could expect to hear a "job-sucking sound going south" as companies moved to Mexico to cut costs. Perot was wrong on the merits—while NAFTA created losers as well as winners on the job front, on the whole it was a net benefit to the U.S. economy. But the Texan’s vivid phrase, which morphed in the retelling into “a giant sucking sound,” entered the American political lexicon as a pithy way to summarize the case against free trade.   2008: John McCain and Barack Obama Barack Obama looked vulnerable on foreign policy when he ran against John McCain. The Arizona senator was a U.S. Naval Academy graduate who had spent six years as a POW in North Vietnam. In the first debate, McCain accused Obama of having spoken recklessly about striking al-Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan. Obama responded: “You’re absolutely right that presidents have to be prudent in what they say. But, you know, coming from you, who, you know, in the past has threatened extinction for North Korea and, you know, sung songs about bombing Iran, I don’t know, you know, how credible that is.” In a single sentence Obama shifted the debate from his judgment to McCain’s temperament. 2012: Mitt Romney and Barack Obama Barack Obama and Mitt Romney had similar views on most foreign policy issues, so instead of debating specific policy measures, the two tried to prove who was better equipped to be commander in chief. During the third debate, Romney claimed that the U.S. Navy was at its smallest since 1917. Obama responded: "You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military’s changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go under water, nuclear submarines." The line sparked a frenzy on Twitter and the phrase “horses and bayonets” became the top rising search term of the night on Google. 2016: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump Some debates produce moments of soaring rhetoric. Others generate moments reminiscent of a schoolyard playground. One example of the latter came during the third debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. When the reality TV star claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin did not respect either Clinton or Obama, the former secretary of state responded: “Well, that's because he would rather have a puppet as president of the United States.” That got Trump’s dander up and led to the following exchange:     Trump: No puppet, no puppet.  Clinton: And it's pretty clear—  Trump: You're the puppet.  Clinton: It's pretty clear you won't admit—  Trump: No, you're the puppet.   Clinton closed the exchange by arguing that Russia was clearly meddling in the election and that Trump had encouraged it. Biden and Trump both would love to land a knockout punch tomorrow night like Reagan did in 1984. But they could end up stumbling like Ford in 1976 or Carter in 1980. Either way, a debate success or a misstep will likely matter far less than in past elections. As of this morning, forty million Americans have already voted. That number will be even higher by the time the curtain goes up on the debate tomorrow night. None of this, however, will stop pundits from arguing over the next two weeks about who got the better of the exchange. Only Election Day will settle that question. Anna Shortridge assisted in the preparation of this post.

Former Vice President and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden says he will announce his choice for his vice presidential nominee next week. That has spurred one last burst in the quadrennial exercise of speculating about who could be picked and why. I don’t have any particular insights to add to that handicapping conversation.  I do know that the position is heavily coveted. One might wonder why, though, given what the men who have held the job—and so far all forty-eight of them have been men—have said about it. (Yes, more men have been vice president than president, four more to be exact.)  John Adams, the first vice president in U.S. history, set the tone from the start. He wrote in 1793 to his wife Abigail that “my Country has in its Wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant Office that ever the Invention of Man contrived or his Imagination conceived."  Doubts about the benefit of being vice president persisted in the years that followed. Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster turned down the offer to be William Henry Harrison’s running mate in 1840, saying “I do not propose to be buried until I am really dead and in my coffin.” It was not a good career move. Harrison died just a month after taking office. But his death didn’t change Webster’s conviction that the job of vice president was beneath him. He reportedly declined the opportunity to be Zachary Taylor’s running mate in 1848. Like Harrison, Taylor died in office. Theodore Roosevelt didn’t give into his pride as Webster did. He agreed to be William McKinley’s running mate. But his enthusiasm for the job was limited. He offered that “I would a great deal rather be anything, say professor of history, than Vice-President.” Thomas Marshall, who served under Woodrow Wilson, compared being vice president to being “a man in a cataleptic fit; he cannot speak; he cannot move; he suffers no pain; he is perfectly conscious of all that goes on, but has no part in it.” Marshall also told the story of “two brothers. One ran away to sea; the other was elected vice president of the United States. And nothing was heard of either of them again.” As much as Marshall complained, he couldn’t have disliked the job that much. He served two terms. John Nance Garner, who served two terms as vice president under Franklin Delano Roosevelt—this after serving as speaker of the House—called his decision to accept the job “the worst damn fool mistake I ever made.” Cactus Jack, as he was known, didn’t stop there. He provided the world with perhaps the best known summary of what it means to be number two in the American political system: It’s “not worth a bucket of warm piss.” Publications worried about the sensitivities of their readers changed that to “a bucket of warm spit.” Garner also called the vice presidency “the spare tire on the automobile of government."  FDR went through three vice presidents. His last pick, Harry Truman, wasn’t any more enthusiastic about the job than Garner was. Surveying the history of the position, Truman said “Look at all the Vice Presidents in history. Where are they? They were about as useful as a cow's fifth teat." Vice President Spiro Agnew understood Truman’s point. The understudy to Richard Nixon put it this way: "It is a damned peculiar situation to be in, to have authority and a title and responsibility with no real power to do anything.” That gap between title and responsibility grated on Agnew’s successor, former New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller. He described his duties as: “I go to funerals. I go to earthquakes.” The inherent limits of the job are why Daniel Webster is not the only person to have respectfully (or otherwise) declined to be vice president. None described his reasons more colorfully than John McCain. He dismissed questions about his interest in serving as George W. Bush’s running mate—not that the then-nominee intended to offer McCain the spot—by saying: “The vice president has two duties. One is to inquire daily as to the health of the president, and the other is to attend the funerals of Third World dictators. And neither of those do I find an enjoyable exercise.” Of course, some vice presidents have been consequential. Dick Cheney may be the best example. He even got his own movie. And Biden himself goes to great pains to make the case that he was integral to the Obama administration’s decision-making, a point that President Barack Obama continually corroborates. And when Biden announces his pick, he likely will say that she—he has a pledged to pick a woman as running mate, something that is long overdue—will be an essential part of his governing team. Whether that is how things work out should a Biden administration come to pass remains to be seen.  The vice presidency comes with no substantive responsibilities besides breaking ties in the Senate, something that seldom happens. Any other tasks a vice president takes on risk upstaging the president or treading on someone else’s turf. That is perhaps why Hubert Humphrey, who found himself ostracized for a time by President Lyndon Johnson for providing unwanted advice, lamented: “You are trapped, vulnerable and alone, and it does not matter who happens to be President.” Or as Dan Quayle put it: “The job is just awkward, an awkward job.”  But for all that the job of vice president retains tremendous appeal, and not just because of the great residence that comes with it. Its appeal lies in the possibility it represents. As America’s first vice president recognized: “I am Vice President. In this I am nothing, but I may be everything.” And that potential to be everything is why Biden’s choice deserves the scrutiny it will inevitably get. Anna Shortridge assisted in the preparation of this post.