In the U.S., today is a national holiday, Presidents’ Day. Originally designed to be a celebration of Washington and Lincoln’s birthdays (February 22 and February 12 respectively), it has become a more general day to recognize our presidents.
I find history to be fascinating, especially when learning or being reminded of tidbits from the past. Some are not pleasant.
Did you know?
John Tyler, the 10th president (1841-1845) was universally reviled. He started as vice-president to William Harrison, who died after only 31 days in office. (Harrison gave a 90-minute inaugural speech in cold rain, fell sick, and never recovered. By the way, his grandson, Benjamin Harrison, became the 23rd president.)
Tyler was kicked out of his own political party (the Whigs), all but one of his presidential cabinet members resigned over his policies, and he was the first to face potential impeachment. After vetoing two bills to establish a national bank, supporters of the rebuffed senators stormed the White House and burned Tyler’s effigy on the front porch. When Tyler passed away in 1862, Lincoln refused to fly the flags at half-mast and The New York Times called him “the most unpopular public man that had ever held any office in the United States” in his obituary.
If you ever think modern political rhetoric is mean-spirited, be reminded of the rancor between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson in the 1800 election campaign. Adams’s campaign called Jefferson “a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father.” Jefferson’s campaign accused Adams of having a “hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.”
They both died on the same day: July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
Lest you think they were the only ones, in 1860 the opposition wrote of Abraham Lincoln, “A horrid-looking wretch he is!—sooty and scoundrelly in aspect; a cross between the nutmeg dealer, the horse-swapper, and the nightman.” (The nightman was someone who emptied toilets at night.)
In 1866 the opposition called Ulysses S. Grant “a man of vile habits, and of no ideas” and “nothing more than a drunken trowser-maker.”
Rutherford B. Hayes, in 1876, lost the popular vote by 250,000 but won the electoral college by one single vote. He thus gained the nicknames of Rutherfraud and His Fraudulency.
So, other than a fascination for presidential campaign trivia, I couldn’t help but think that we are still fallen creatures in need of God’s grace. If we let our words become weapons of destruction, they can be wicked. If, instead, we use our words as weapons of Truth (with a capital T) and for the building up of one another, they can be blessed.
