Our Presidents and How We Make Them
Alexander Kelly McClure
9781465600912
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
The crux of American politics is the quadrennial election of President. In the ebb and flow of our political activity the flood-tide comes in the Presidential contests. There are often tumultuous struggles and decisive events in the intervals, but their political effect and all the issues and movements of parties crystallize in the recurring conflict for the possession of the chief executive power. Our American system makes the President the centre and focus of political life. He is at once Prime Minister and independent executive. He blends the functions of what in parliamentary government is the head of the Cabinet, and what in other government is the head of the State. He is a vital part of the legislative power without being amenable to its control or dependent on its life. He is the framer of policies and the arbiter of parties. All this makes the election of President the central chord and the arterial force of our broad political action. The history of Presidential elections, if not the history of the nation, is at least the history of its determining periods. The successive epochs of our national progress, with their passionate struggles and controlling influences, are fully reflected in these contests. After the retirement of Washington the battles from 1800 for a quarter of a century, which gave the succession of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, marked the reaction from federal authority and the rise of the democratic impulse in the young Republic. Then came the period running through the three contests and two elections of Jackson, the heirship of Van Buren, and the cyclonic reversal under “Tippecanoe and Tyler too” in 1840, which turned on practical questions of internal polity and signalized the transition from the formative stage of the government to the inevitable clash between the sections. This was followed by the long political and moral contention between freedom and slavery, which began with the success of Polk and the Texas annexation policy in 1844 and ended with the defeat of the divided Democracy and the election of Lincoln in 1860, when the political combat culminated in the armed and colossal struggle of the civil war. Since its conclusion and its settlements the nation has been engaged in the mighty work of internal upbuilding, never equalled anywhere else in the world, and the elections have involved the contending theories. The narrative of these elections, with the rise and fall of parties, their divisions and their creeds, presents the outlines of the national development. For this work Colonel McClure, by experience, taste, and special knowledge, is peculiarly and pre-eminently fitted. It is doubtful if any other living American has borne so active and so intimate a part in so many Presidential elections. Not yet of age, but already a zealous and eager observer of political movements as a young editor, he attended the Whig National Convention of 1848 in Philadelphia, and witnessed the nomination of General Taylor. From that time he has been personally familiar with the inner workings of every national convention and campaign. Including this year, there have been twenty-nine Presidential contests in our history. Colonel McClure has actively participated in fourteen, or practically one-half of the entire number. He was born at Centre, Perry County, Pennsylvania, on the 9th of January, 1828. Spending his youth on his father’s farm, he became a tanner’s apprentice at fifteen, and remained at this trade for three years. His schooling was very limited, and his mental equipment was almost wholly the rich endowment nature had given him and the attainments which his extraordinary intellectual force brought in after-years.
