"When he woke up a few hours later and was told in no uncertain terms that he had won the election and was to be the twentieth president of the United States, he was, one reporter noted with astonishment, the 'coolest man in the room.' Later that day, Garfield gave his election to the presidency little more mention in his diary than he had the progress of his oat crop a few weeks earlier. 'The news of 3 a.m.,' he wrote, 'is fully justified by the morning papers.' In the days that followed, surrounded by celebrations and frantic plans for his administration, Garfield could not shake the feeling that the presidency would bring him only loneliness and sorrow. As he watched everything he treasured—his time with his children, his books, and his farm—abruptly disappear, he understood that the life he had known was gone. The presidency seemed to him not a great accomplishment but a 'bleak mountain' that he was obliged to ascend. Sitting down at his desk in a rare moment to himself, he tried to explain in a letter to a friend the strange sense of loss he had felt since the election. 'There is a tone of sadness running through this triumph,' he wrote, 'which I can hardly explain.'"
I'm rereading "Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President" (commission earned) to go along with the Netflix series — "Death by Lightning" — that's based on the book.
Why change the title to something factually inaccurate? Garfield once said "Assassination can no more be guarded against than death by lightning; it is best not to worry about either."
The series is very visual, conveying information only impressionistically. Great sets, costumes, actorly finesse in the delivery of short emotional lines, but there is so much more going on in the book. That's just a typical book-is-better-than-the-film observation, not a rejection of the adaptation, which is excellent.I'm interested in the Presidents who have not wanted to be President, who have felt bad about winning. I asked Grok to list them in the order of how much they did not want to have to do it and got this:
Posts
46 comments:
What a great part of American history to retell. The post-Civil War years deserve more attention, and may even offer us some hope for the present. They were extremely difficult and violent years, not only from a mad man assassin, but through cruel racial retribution as attempt to overthrow the outcome of the war were widespread.
Make sure to give attention to the PBS documentary about the American Revolution.
Spending a bit of time with America’s difficult history should give us some hope for the present.
Yes, things are much better than the Revolution and post-CW periods. Women can vote, there's nor slavery nor Jim Crow, and we're not overrun with immigrants who riot and reject our cultur....oh well, still not perfect....CC, JSM
Garfield, as a brigadier general was Rosecrans chief of staff at Chickamauga. Reportedly he did a good job and performed better on the field than Rosecrans did.
There's a old saying that ambition to be President should be a disqualification for the job.
I just watched the show. Nick Offerman and Betty Gilpin alone are worth it. Lucretia Garfield, played by Gilpin, was an interesting, if forgotten person. It's rare that the northern bloc of Tammany Hall officials are the subject of a post-Civil War story. It's a weird sartorial time in America, as men's hair and clothes are extreme and women more restrained. I've never seen such a long list of clothes and hair stylists. Of course there are other reasons to watch it.
"There's a old saying that ambition to be President should be a disqualification for the job."
The ambition to be a political leader and the ambition to accomplish laudable and historic goals through political leadership are not the same.
Garfield went to bed at 3am, and dreamed of Lasagna
Any list of people who didn't want to become president and doesn't include Donald Trump is missing the most obvious and well-documented case, probably intentionally. DJT was interviewed thousands of times in his very public life before 2015 and asked hundreds of times if he would run for president and he always declined and stated his reasons very clearly. I do believe that Althouse has posted at least one of those interviews from a talk show in which Trump explains why he had no interest or desire to become president of the USA. He only chose to sacrifice his enviable Billionaire lifestyle because he saw how much danger our nation was in after 8 years of Purple Lips and his shitbag wife destroying everything America was founded on.
"Garfield, as a brigadier general was Rosecrans chief of staff at Chickamauga. Reportedly he did a good job and performed better on the field than Rosecrans did."
The guy he replaced, Julius Garesche, lost his head in his first combat experience at Stones River.
An excellent biography by Millard, one of my favorite biographers. I'm not sure about watching the show. I'll probably skip it.
I watched. Meh. Played up the woke…
…just started season 2 of Palm Royale. Carol Burnett, Kristen Wiig, Allison Janney. Delicious! A cameo by Mar-A-Lago…
Where is George Washington on this list?
I don’t consider Truman to be in the same grouping as the others on the list since he was not actually seeking the Presidency, like the others were, when he made that statement.
Garfield was a very interesting man. And so was Coolidge who would've won in a landslide it ran again in 1928. Probably another reluctant POTUS was Taft. He really wanted to be Chief Justice not POTUS, but his wife wanted him to take the R nomination which was served up by TR on a silver platter in 1908.
Moderately annoyed at the mythologizing, I tried to draft a comment about Jocasta having Oedipus's greatness thrust upon her (bonus points for working in an allusion to Malvolio) but that was a fail, my reach very much exceeding my grasp (no chance of a nod to Robert Browning, here, genuine buffoon that I am).
So another tack. I googled: "What did the explorers of the new world call the condemned prisoner who was forced to make first contact with the native population?" Wow! Talk about a guy not wanting to assume an awesomely important responsibility!!!
So, . . . what did I get? Zip. Absolute zip. And now we are all the poorer for the experience.
Garfield, as a brigadier general was Rosecrans chief of staff at Chickamauga. Reportedly he did a good job and performed better on the field than Rosecrans did.
That may be damming with faint praise. A lot of generals at Chickamauga and later at Chattanooga performed much better than Rosecrans. Rosecrans had a good campaign against Bragg to get to Chattanooga but most of his victories seem to be defense battles where some Confederate general assaulted strong positions.
Kak, I refuse to ignore your historical ignorance. It was a transformational time for America. Read a book sometimes.
Rehajm: there was very little woke, and some of it wasn't woke but real. And I hate Woke.
Jackson's wife died about the time of his victory. There was little left of his ambition in his grief. He told friends he had no interest in going to DC, but off he went--on horseback.
"So another tack. I googled: "What did the explorers of the new world call the condemned prisoner who was forced to make first contact with the native population?" Wow! Talk about a guy not wanting to assume an awesomely important responsibility!!!"
How about conquistadores? According to the eyewitness account of Bernal Díaz del Castillo, many members of Hernán Cortés' expedition had been jailbirds in Cuba condemned to forced labor by the colonial governor. Cortés did not need to be eloquent to convince those men to escape their dreary lives of raising crops and clearing forests to go a-warring against the fabled golden empire to the west. Being malcontents by nature, Cortés made sure of their loyalty to the enterprise. After landing at Vera Cruz and building their primary fort, he set fire to his ships.
"They were extremely difficult and violent years, not only from a mad man assassin, but through cruel racial retribution as attempt to overthrow the outcome of the war were widespread."
1870s = Sad times. Blacks and women hardest hit.
I'm rather dubious of those I didn't want to be president claims. False modesty, more likely. The job isn't easy, and its ceremonial aspects are far from glorious, nevertheless we've never been without a chief executive due to a lack of volunteers, nor have we ever resorted to press gangs to obtain a tenant for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
William Howard Taft was a strange fat duck. He longed to become chief justice of the Supreme Court and was disappointed when he become president. Years later he would get his wish.
I thought Washington told Adams or Adams told Jefferson during the transfer of power “Ay! I am fairly out and you fairly in! See which of Us will be happiest," but that was what Adams believed Washington was thinking in his last days in office.
It was the fashion among our early presidents to act like they didn't want the office. Washington felt it was his duty to become president. Adams had a sour disposition about everything. Jefferson was conflicted -- he was ambitious but thought ambition was unseemly.
You can only tell how leftists hate white america, because when anyone tries to talk about America before 1 BCR (before Civil rights) they always go "What about black people, huh? What about them? They weren't doing so well."
Its like Jewish Billionaires donating zillions to the Jefferson and Washington hisotrical residences on the condition they post exhibits and signs about the blacks who lived there. Never forget Who cooked George washington breakfast!
Well the 1873 depression certainly had big impact
I find t easy to imagine that Eisenhower took the office out of a sense of duty, given the unpopularity of the Korean War, and the widespread.view, bolstered by Truman’s firing of MacArthur, that the war was being mismanaged.
We have a recent example that the holder of the office need not be bothered to participate in its execution.
You know right
Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry
Philadelphia May 13. 1797.
"
When I retired from this place and the office of Secretary of state, it was in the firmest contemplation of never more returning here. There had indeed been suggestions in the public papers that I was looking towards a succession to the President’s chair. But feeling a consciousness of their falsehood, and observing that the suggestions came from hostile quarters, I considered them as intended merely to excite public odium against me. I never in my life exchanged a word with any person on the subject till I found my name brought forward generally in competition with that of Mr. Adams. Those with whom I then communicated could say, if it were necessary, whether I met the call with desire or even with a ready acquiescence, and whether from the moment of my first acquiescence I did not devoutly pray that the very thing might happen which has happened. The second office of this government is honorable and easy. The first is but a splendid misery."
did they answer the important questions?
WHY? did Garfield love lasagna so much?
Ike was offered the POTUS slot by Truman in 48, with Harry accepting the VP slot. In 52, the Republican establishment presssured him to run. But he only agreed to enter the contest after he decided taft was too "isolationist" on NATO. A big deal to Ike, since he was head of NATO.
Well, in Truman's case, FDR had died in office, and so he had no choice but to step in.
(John) Calvin Coolidge’s nomination for HIS own term as was carried live via radio. His son died during the convention, radio listeners heard weeping over the airwaves. When Cal’s name was put forth as candidate, it was approved unanimously. Silent Cal declined a second full term, and Hoover received the GOP nod. Coolidge left DC with a broken heart. He was a very good president, but a better person. While in the White House the family kept a menagerie of animals on the grounds. POTUS 30 was the real deal. Oh, he’s the only president to be born on July 4th and was sworn into office by his father, a justice of the peace
Here endeth the lesson.
I'm rather dubious of those I didn't want to be president claims. False modesty, more likely.
Well, the Republican convention deadlocked for 33 ballots. Garfield voted for another guy on all 33 of 'em, and tried to object when people started voting for him.
He still accepted the nomination, but it would be genuinely difficult to decline in that situation.
When I began to read this post. my mind went here:
At 3:00 AM on the morning of November 3, with the nation still anxiously waiting to learn who its next president would be, Garfield the Cat went to bed as cats often do.
Sorry!
It's a great book. He did not want to be president.
Watched the first episode. Garfield and his assassin look alike, and I takes a minute to place who's who. Here's an interesting thought: They're putting out the idea of killing the President. They don't seem to be glamorizing the killer. They don't need to. They just need to make him famous and consequential, and somewhere some madman will whisper why not me. Social contagion......They don't publicize school suicides because such suicides inspire other suicides. I think the same dynamic is as work with school shootings, but, of course, those get widely publicized. They help in the cause of gun control so it's important to get the story out.......I don't think this is a conscious decision on anyone's part. It's the way the cookie crumbles and the photons in the zeitgeist rotate.
Rcoke: life back then was hard for all races. With the exception of a small number of white men and a smaller number of white women and a smaller number of black men in.positions of power thanks to Reconstruction, people actually starved to death on their tenant farms; diseases were rampant; industrial work was life-destroying, and people regularly committed suicide from tooth pain.
Our biggest health problem now is obesity among the lower classes.
Nashville to DC on horseback anytime from November to March would have been quite a trek for a young man, much less an old one. Not fun for the horse, either.
TR probably dreaded being appointed VP candidate. We were told it was designed to get him out of the NY governor's chair and sideline him in DC. LBJ probably had similar dread.
You do wonder if Truman was told or realized how ill FDR really was. I assumed Kamala would take over in 2021--why didn't she even think about it? Speaking of the King's death was a capital crime in Tudor England, but here? There's a lot that will come out one day, but all the witnesses sacrificed their credibility long ago, so we may never know the truth.
Its like Jewish Billionaires donating zillions to the Jefferson and Washington hisotrical residences on the condition they post exhibits and signs about the blacks who lived there.
Are you doing self-parody now?
Macfadyen as assassin is a little jarring as he was introduced to me as heroic but tragic tom quinn in mi 5
Tina Trent said... the northern bloc of Tammany Hall officials
Conklin was a republican, Tammany was democrats. They fought each other for the spoils.
I only saw the first show. It was pretty good, but I don't know whether I want to continue. My understanding is that Garfield will go on to die a slow, painful death. At my age, that's not an entertaining premise......I prefer fantasy shows like GOT where things like death and gravity are negotiable. Still, the production values are excellent. I don't know if iit's CGI or what, but they do seem to have recreated a 19th century Chicago. I particularly admire the verisimilitude of the streets. There horse shit everywhere. Horse shit was a real problem back then.
I’m only concerned with the return of Landman tonight.
- Krumhorn
Michael Fitzgerald, Trump ran for the Reform Party presidential nomination in 2000 but was unsuccessful. Why did you not spend half a minute to check the Internet?
theres also the question, of having had a very contested election four years before, that led the devils bargain that put
Hayes in office, and pulled the troops out of the South, ending reconstruction
Post a Comment
Please use the comments forum to respond to the post. Don't fight with each other. Be substantive... or interesting... or funny. Comments should go up immediately... unless you're commenting on a post older than 2 days. Then you have to wait for us to moderate you through. It's also possible to get shunted into spam by the machine. We try to keep an eye on that and release the miscaught good stuff. We do delete some comments, but not for viewpoint... for bad faith.