A Bit of Optimism - Obscure Presidential History with Jeremy Deutsch

Episode Date: February 22, 2022

We all know a bit about Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, but which President was drunk at his inauguration?  Who was the first gay president?  And what kind of parent would name their kid “Millard Fillmore”?For this Presidents' Day, I called the brilliant Jeremy Deutsch, the king of presidential history, to drop some obscure presidential knowledge and give a couple hints about our presidential future as well.This is…A Bit of Optimism. For more on Jeremy and his work check out: https://www.capitolventurellc.com/ 

I met Jeremy Deutsch a whole bunch of years ago, and one thing which you will soon find out, he is wonderful. He's a character. He is also a bottomless pit of American presidential information and trivia. So for this President's Day, I thought to bring my friend Jeremy on to teach us all a thing or two about our past presidents and some of their strange habits. This is a bit of optimism. I can't tell you how excited I have been to talk to you. You're one of my favorite people to talk to because you have an encyclopedic brain, an encyclopedic knowledge of obscure things in American history and our presidents. And I always learn something every time I talk to you. So I thought I should not be

selfish with these conversations. I should share you and your knowledge. Tell me about John Quincy Adams. He's your favorite, right? Oh, yeah. I get excited about this guy because he, if you read what he wrote in his inauguration speech, it was like very progressive things. You know, he was talking about ending slavery in the territories. This is 1824. Please know that if you look at the first eight presidents or so, and you look at our founding fathers, and John Quincy Adams is not a founding father. His father was John Adams. But of the eight, John Adams and John Quincy Adams were the only ones that did not own slaves.

Now, think about that. Sure, they're from the North, but they were big abolitionists. And Abigail Adams was probably the strongest voice in the Adams family there on a very, very strong anti-slavery platform. So he, you know, in his inauguration wanted to talk about abolishing slavery, you know, in the territories, like kind of a containment strategy that we see later with President Lincoln, you know, certainly adopted earlier by the Whigs. But he also talked, Simon, about a national school system and a national road system. I mean, again, 1824, we didn't see a

national road system until Eisenhower in 56, right, in the interstate. So this was a person who was a big academic like his dad, just an intellectual giant, arrogant like his dad. He wanted to make certain everybody knew he was the smartest guy in the room. And unlike his dad, who had a little bit of a sense of humor, John Quincy Adams, no sense of humor at all. So like a really tough time. What happened to him after his one term presidency? Well, this is where it gets really cool. And hopefully we still have your listeners. Okay. He was really devastated. I think they would during his presidency and afterwards, I think some would probably say there's clinical depression, very sad. What is he going to do? His parents were very tough on him. Okay. And he started writing a biography about his dad

and working on some other things. He's like, nah, I'm not fulfilled. And then he found his why. And it was this. It was getting elected to Congress. Yeah, that was a tactical thing. But he was like kind of our first single issue candidate. And that was to end slavery. Wait, he went from being the president to going to Congress? Correct. Wow. That doesn't happen very often. No, they're the only one to do it. And actually, Simon, he served 18 years in the House. And many would probably say the impact that he had was super significant. And here's where I get super excited about John Quincy Adams. There was a gag order, I believe it was in fact, for 16 years, where you were not allowed to mention the word

slavery, not on the House floor, not in committees. And if you did, you could be censured, right? There would be some type of rebuke towards you. You could potentially be expelled from the House and thrown out of Congress if you mentioned the word slavery. Well, you know, John Quincy Adams, I'm the former president of the United States, who is going to kick me out? Okay. And he actually does something quite brilliant. He drafts like a resolution. And he mentions the word slavery as many times as you can humanly mention it in one document. as many times as you can humanly mention it in one document. And now he's going to be censured, potentially expelled from the House. But here's the beautiful thing.

He had unlimited time to defend himself. So he spent two weeks giving these speeches on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives talking about how horrible slavery was, how it needs to be ended. And that day, his supporters would take his speeches and they would turn them into pamphlets and they would distribute the pamphlets to citizens because they were trying to change the tide on public opinion on slavery. And this was all driven by John Quincy Adams. And in fact, it took him eight years, but he defeated the gag rule. And once again, the word slavery was allowed to be mentioned in the house. I'll tell you the other thing.

And do you remember, did you see the movie Amistad? Yes. Yes. Okay. Well, so he was the one, okay, who defended the slaves and the mutiny that occurred on that ship. And he did a pro bono. He didn't charge. And he gave two days of oral arguments. The case made it all the way to the Supreme Court. He gave two days of oral arguments. He was victorious. And that was the type of guy John Quincy Adams was. One of the things that I don't think a lot of people realize is how the debate and the discomfort of slavery, how much it has been present throughout the history of this nation, that it was contentious for our whole history to the point where they banned the mention of the word on the House floor is astonishing because they just didn't even want to talk about it. How do you get enough votes to

restrict a word that needs to be talked about on the House floor where they're, you know, and it takes the courage of John Quincy Adams to put his career on the line. And maybe someone else couldn't have done it. He just happened to have been a former president. I'd have to go back and look, but I think the gag order was in effect for 16 years. And I think this tension that you talk about, well, that also created the rift between Jefferson and Adams. You know, if you famously hear about that, they were friends and then they weren't friends. You look at the tension. And I think historians would say Jefferson became very envious of Adams because Adams really believed in the horrors of slavery and that people should not be slaves, period, full stop. Right. And, you know, Thomas Jefferson wrote about all men

are created equal. But did he really believe that? All? A lot of former presidents, when they passed away, they freed their slaves. But Thomas Jefferson didn't do that. I think you're spot on since before a country was founded and certainly all the way through the Civil War, and then even after the Civil War. This nation has a complicated history. And we're in a period now where one side romanticizes our history and the other side demonizes it. And I think both are right. There are some progressive and romantic ideals that come from our history, but there's some darkness as well. We have a checkered past that make us who we are. One of the reasons I like talking to you is, sure, it's fun to talk about obscure presidents and all the kooky things that happen, but I think it reminds us just of the fragility of a nation

and the fragility of the people who lead it. Alcoholics and murder and intrigue and subterfuge and back office deals, these are not new things and they are part of our history. I think the important thing is not to necessarily weigh in on it, but rather to know about it. Because I think knowing about the past informs how we deal with the current state. You're absolutely right. And there's a checkered past and it's important that we study it. And it's important that we lift up the heroes that, again, I come back to John Quincy Adams, and there's many more that had the courage to say, no, this is wrong. This is 1824. Look where they were. Look how visionary they were in calling it out. Those heroes risked their careers to do something that they believe

was the right thing to do. You know, like LBJ, Lyndon Johnson lost the South. The Democrats ruled the South, and he did what the right thing to do was for civil rights, knowing he would completely destroy his own political career, but he would also lose the South. And I don't know of a politician now who'd risk the party's presence in any area in this country because it was the right thing to do. And he was a complicated figure as well. Very complicated. I mean, we can talk hours about LBJ, who's fascinating, and he was one of the most effective majority leaders ever. What he was able to accomplish, and certainly the tragic passing and assassination of Kennedy, but in the first six months, he accomplished more legislatively than the Kennedys did in three years, right? I mean, you can go on and on and that's spot on.

I think it's the courage to stand up and the willingness to know that this may not be popular and I may lose everything that I have. And if you study our first impeachment, Andrew Johnson, so- He was impeached and only survived the Senate vote of conviction by one vote, right? Correct. And he was a Democrat. Lincoln was a Republican. Johnson, not many people liked him. In fact, when he was sworn in as vice president, he was so drunk at the inauguration, he barely could take the oath. And he was asking, like, who's the secretary of war? Who are these other cabinet members? And they had to do this whole thing to kind of cover up. And they said, no, no, no, his back, he was in pain. He was on medicine.

He wasn't drunk. And in fact, it was such an embarrassing period that he left D.C. for like 100 days. And they had to go and find him after Lincoln was assassinated. I believe he was drunk again. It was like a really bad situation. He was not popular. Congress couldn't stand this guy. votes. They had two thirds of the votes to impeach him. I think they had like 13. They had a buffer of 13. And guess what, Simon? 13 stood up and did not vote to impeach him. And all those Republicans who did not vote to impeach the Democrat, they all essentially lost and never came back to the Senate. They stood up. They did what they thought was right. This is where I talk about one of the golden episodes of the Senate. The Senate protected the presidency because Congress passed a law basically saying, hey, listen, guy, if you want to fire somebody, even though you appointed them and we may have consented to them, well, if you want to fire them, you have to get our permission to fire anybody.

And Johnson's like, nah, forget it. No, come on. I'm the president. I don't have to get our permission to fire anybody. And Johnson's like, nah, forget it. No, come on. I'm the president. I don't have to listen to this. And I don't have to follow that. And that kind of really egged him on. But really, those Republicans stood up. They did the right thing.

And they protected. Because think about this. If that went the other way, we could be impeaching presidents left and right because of their HR issues, who they hire and fire. And that was really a principal stand. So who's the most obscure president that most people have forgotten about, that history's forgotten about? There's a few, and there's actually a professor who's studied this since 1970, and he's asked college students to list all the presidents. And there's typically a couple that are at the top of the obscure list. A guy named Chester Arthur, who typically comes in around 7% or so, served after Garfield was assassinated.

But it's typically a tie between Chester Arthur, who owned 80 pairs of pants, by the way, which is a lot of pairs of pants. 80 pairs of pants, by the way, which is a lot of pairs of pants. There was this General Zachary Taylor. You know, it's 1849. They're dedicating the Washington Monument. Not complete yet, but it's the dedication. Zachary Taylor, by the way, that's the only monument in D.C. Please know that. Everything else is a memorial, that's the only monument in D.C. Please know that.

Everything else is a memorial, but there can only be one monument. So this guy, you know, they do the ribbon cutting. He goes back to the White House and he talks about how he drinks like ice milk and eats cherries. And then he dies, you know, a few days later. And they thought he was actually poisoned. I don't think he was. And Millard Fillmore becomes president of the United States. I don't think he was. And Millard Fillmore becomes president of the United States. He signs the compromise of 1850 and the whole entire cabinet resigns. And Fillmore goes down as the most obscure president. He was from New York. They were farmers in upstate New York, not good agriculture. His father basically sends him into indentured servitude, if you will. He saves as much money as he can, and he buys his freedom. And then he ends up walking 100 miles back to his house, not all in one day. The only book he read up until the age 17 was the Bible. He educated himself. He was a very dashing, very handsome guy.

Queen Victoria said she thought he was the most handsome man she's ever seen. And, you know, lo and behold, he becomes president. And it's a very forgotten, really, really tough, tough time. He was the one who created the White House Library. Isn't that cool? Here's a person who educated himself and knew the value of education and we created that. And then that gets you right into like 1856, another obscure president named James Buchanan. You and I have talked about this. Like everybody was talking about, oh, Mayor Pete, like if he gets the nomination, if he becomes president, he's gonna be our first gay president. Wrong. James Buchanan. James Buchanan was our only bachelor president. He was roommates with the only single vice president. There was a guy before Buchanan. He was president. He was Franklin Pierce. Very, very, very difficult presidency. Drank a lot before he

was sworn in. His law school friend died. They were going to a funeral. The train derails. One person dies, and that's his baby. And he sees his baby's head, his skull crushed right in front of him. And Franklin Pierce thought he was cursed. This was God's punishment. And he really turned into an alcoholic. And it was a very, very tough period. But Pierce had a vice president named Rufus King. And Rufus King was our only single vice president. And Rufus King and James Buchanan were roommates for like 10 years. I mean, look, I know it was a different time. And the discussion of being gay was not an open thing, but do we have good evidence that Buchanan, rather than just because he was a single guy, you know, do we have good evidence that he was in fact gay? There's a note

he wrote to his house mother. So Rufus King is appointed to like ambassador of France going overseas, you know, somewhere. Right. They called them prime ministers or ministers at the time to Europe. And here's a letter in the 1840s or so where he, Buchanan writes his house mom and says, you know, I'm looting other men and they're not taking my advancements. I don't know. Do you want more evidence than that? I mean, this was,

but Simon, no one, no one made an issue of it. You know, you think about... I think that's so fascinating. I mean, yeah, Andrew Jackson called him Mr. Fancy and Aunt Nancy, the pair. Homosexuality, I don't believe that word wasn't coined. I think it was coined in Germany in the 1860s or so. So they didn't make it a campaign issue. I know the parties, their names remain the same sometimes, but their politics change. And we've had different names for the parties. But can you discern the basic two points of view? Because the way I like to describe politics, which is, you know, we have this thing called the Declaration of Independence, all men are created equal and endowed with these unalienable rights,

amongst which include life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And we have a constitution that lays out a structure for how we're going to advance that vision. And the difference between the two political parties is an interpretation of how we're going to advance that vision. That's all it is. It's a debate on should we do it this way or should we do it that way? And depending on the culture or the tastes of the day, parties go in and out of favor because there are points of view go in and out of favor. And that's sort of how I try to explain the two-party system. It should be a debate. It's not about right or wrong, but it's like we believe that the vision should be advanced this way. No, no, no, no. We believe it should be advanced this way, but they should both share the same vision. That's why they should

find common ground, right? Because they both believe and agree on the vision, just they disagree on how to get there. And so throughout American history, we've had the Whigs and we've had the Democratic Republicans and all of these different names for the parties. Are there two basic points of view that have always remained regardless of what the parties have been called? That's a great question. Maybe it's the scope and size of government. And I say maybe because, look, you know my background and I'm a Republican and you could say that, you know, the limited government, the smaller government, right? That goes back to Washington, that debate.

Yeah, because it's Hamilton and Jefferson, right? Because Washington also warned about his farewell speech, you know, avoid the political parties, right? And you had somebody who was a Jeffersonian, Thomas Jefferson, who believed in a certain size and a limited size of the government. And then you had Hamilton, not president, but very influential, who, you know, believed in a bigger, larger role of the government. And that's probably historically been the tug of war all the way to Reagan,

maybe Bush. But there's also been significant, I guess, expansions under Republicans in current times. Regardless of what the parties have been called, whether it was the Whigs or the Democratic Republicans or Republicans or Democrats, regardless of the names that they've taken, there've been two basic interpretations of how to advance towards the vision that is the United States. One party has always generally believed that government's role is to intervene and help as many people as possible achieve that vision. And the other party has basically believed that government's job is to do the basics, collect taxes, defend the country, and basically let people figure it out themselves and sort of

stay out of the way as much as possible. And regardless of what the parties were called, that's basically our two-party system. Yeah. And the challenge is, it's kind of like Fiddle on the Roof when the two sides are fighting. And remember, Tevye says, well, yeah, he's right. And then he hears the other argument and says, well, he's right. And then the other guy says, well, they both can't be right. And it's like, you're right, right? But both sides are right. And it's just like, how do you right? But both sides are right. And it's just like, how do you bring them together to do more things and solve problems? Final question for you. What, in your mind, are some of the key lessons that we can take

away from some of these obscure pieces of our history that will inform or help us improve modern day tensions in our politics? There were certainly very uncivil times, but I think you can look throughout history where there were civil relationships in a good way and in positive. And I'll give you maybe two examples. Certainly the presidential transition of power is so important to our country, right? And I mean, James Buchanan during Lincoln's inauguration right before says, you know, if you're as happy as I am leaving this place, as you are, Mr. Lincoln coming in, then you,, I think seven or eight states left the union, even before Lincoln was sworn in. And Buchanan didn't do a thing. And Lincoln inherited a big mess from Buchanan. And if you look at all of Lincoln's speeches and everything he said, how many times did he blame James Buchanan for all his problems? And the answer is

zero. And I think that's really important. We've certainly seen it with President Trump. We see it with President Biden. And it's blaming the others for the problems that they have now. And I think, again, being inspired to paint a positive forward looking agenda, not looking back. Yes, studying the past, but looking forward. I think that's really important. And I think we can draw a lot from Lincoln on that. I'll close with our guy who messed up the numbering system, Grover Cleveland, the two non-consecutive terms. I made this comment recently.

I was comparing President Obama to Grover Cleveland, which I don't think anybody has done. This is probably a first on your podcast. And I was just talking about, wow, we haven't seen anybody's political career go up so fast since Grover Cleveland. And Barack Obama went from state senator to US senator to president of the United States. Grover Cleveland goes from like mayor of Buffalo to governor to president in three years. Beat that. Okay. But okay. So Grover Cleveland loses to a guy, Benjamin Harrison, who, oh, by the way, has an addiction to cucumbers. We won't get into that today. His dad, yeah, Harrison's dad writes and he's like, hey, man, you got to lay off the cucumbers.

OK, they were worried about it. He said his two vices were cucumbers and cigars. You got to lay off of it. But he was the grandson of William Henry Harrison. William Henry Harrison was the at that time the oldest president sworn in. He gives the longest inaugural speech. He rides like back to the White House without a hat on to show how youthful he is. And he dies like 30 days later. Pneumonia, it may have been.

Shortest presidency. His grandson becomes president. Oh, by the way, his grandson gives Simon the shortest inaugural speech. Okay. It's inauguration and it's raining. And you can look at the photos and you can see the former president, Grover Cleveland, is holding an umbrella over Benjamin Harrison's head while he's getting sworn in.

And Grover Cleveland says it's the duty of the former president to make certain that the current president isn't rained on. Isn't that something? Wow. These are leaders, and whether they're president or members of Congress or on the town council, they have a platform, how bigger than they've ever had before, to inspire, to be positive, to do good things, and to have meaningful impact and change. So if I can sum up the lessons that you so eloquently shared, that to look to our past, the lessons that

we can learn in our modern day is play the hand you're dealt. Like, don't worry about who dealt it. Do the best you can with the tools you've got and act with civility. Amen. We can't create the future by clinging on to the past. Jeremy, I love talking to you. It's always such a joy. I appreciate you taking the time and helping me and anyone who stayed listening learn a little more about some of our obscure American history and some of the checkered past. I really appreciate it. If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more, please subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcasts. Until then, take care of yourself. Take care of each other.