“I am not aware of ever having used a profane expletive in my life …”
Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs, Volume 1, Chapter 7
Category: Greatest American
Benjamin Franklin
. . . was born on this date in 1706*.
As one biographer, Walter Isaacson, states:
[Franklin] was, during his eighty-four-year-Iong life, America’s best scientist, inventor, diplomat, writer, and business strategist, and he was also one of its most practical, though not most profound, political thinkers. He proved by flying a kite that lightning was electricity, and he invented a rod to tame it. He devised bifocal glasses and cleanburning stoves, charts of the Gulf Stream and theories about the contagious nature of the common cold. He launched various civic improvement schemes, such as a lending library, college, volunteer fire corps, insurance association, and matching grant fund-raiser. He helped invent America’s unique style of homespun humor and philosophical pragmatism. In foreign policy, he created an approach that wove together idealism with balance-of-power realism. And in politics, he proposed seminal plans for uniting the colonies and creating a federal model for a national government.
But the most interesting thing that Franklin invented, and continually reinvented, was himself. America’s first great publicist, he was, in his life and in his writings, consciously trying to create a new American archetype. In the process, he carefully crafted his own persona, portrayed it in public, and polished it for posterity.
Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
__________
* Actually it was January 6, 1705, when Benjamin Franklin was born. The calendar was changed in the American Colonies in 1752, adding 11 days and making January 1st the beginning of the year.
Best lines of the past 305 years
- The use of money is all the advantage there is in having money.
- He is not well-bred, that cannot bear ill-breeding in others.
- You may talk too much on the best of subjects.
- A good conscience is a continual Christmas.
- All would live long, but none would be old.
- One today is worth two tomorrows.
- Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.
- Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.
- Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
- Certainty? In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.
- Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.
- Many people die at twenty five and aren’t buried until they are seventy five.
- I should have no objection to go over the same life from its beginning to the end: requesting only the advantage authors have, of correcting in a second edition the faults of the first.
- If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing.
- I wake up every morning at nine and grab for the morning paper. Then I look at the obituary page. If my name is not on it, I get up.
Above by Benjamin Franklin.
The Gettysburg Address
President Abraham Lincoln, 147 years ago today:
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate — we cannot consecrate — we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Strong as a Bull Moose
While campaigning for the presidency as the Bull Moose Party candidate, former president Theodore Roosevelt was shot in the chest in Milwaukee on this date in 1912. He went ahead with his scheduled speech.
Milwaukee, Wis., October 14 — A desperate attempt to kill Col. Theodore Roosevelt tonight failed when a 32 caliber bullet aimed directly at the heart of the former president and fired at short range by the crazed assailant, spent part of its force in a bundle of manuscript containing the address which Co. Roosevelt was to deliver tonight, and wounded the Progressive candidate for President.
Col. Roosevelt delivered part of his scheduled address with the bullet in his body, his blood staining his white vest as he spoke to a huge throng at the auditorium. Later, he collapsed, weakened by the wound, and was rushed to Emergency hospital.
HistoryBuff.com had the above from a contemporary newspaper account. There’s more.
Roosevelt survived the wound. He died in January 1919, age 60. The Bull Moose Party was officially the Progressive Party.
Black Jack
In all of American history, only two generals have held the rank General of the Armies, George Washington and John J. Pershing.*
Pershing was born on September 13 in 1860. He graduated from West Point, 30th in a class of 77, and was stationed at Fort Bayard, New Mexico Territory (near Silver City), serving with General Miles in the last capture of Geronimo. Then he served in the Dakotas at the time of Wounded Knee. Pershing fought in Cuba during the Spanish-American War, and successfully (from the U.S. standpoint) controlled an insurrection while serving in the Philippines.
Still a captain, Pershing was promoted to Brigadier General by order of President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906. That is, he skipped major, lieutenant colonel and colonel. The fact that Pershing’s father-in-law was a U.S. senator and the president had attended the Pershings’ wedding had no bearing on this, of course.
Pershing’s wife and three daughters were killed in a fire in 1915 at their home at the Presidio in San Francisco while Pershing was commander of the Eighth Brigade there. A son survived.
In 1916-1917 Pershing led 12,000 American troops into Mexico in a failed attempt to capture Pancho Villa after his raid on Columbus, New Mexico.
In 1917, Pershing was named commander of the American Expeditionary Force — ultimately 2-1/2 million men. In his memoirs he wrote that his two biggest problems were keeping the British and French from incorporating the American army into theirs and getting the supplies he needed for such a large force.
Pershing was welcomed home a hero in 1919, became army chief of staff, and retired from active duty in 1924.
He died in 1948.
Pershing was nicknamed “Black Jack” as a result of his time as an officer in the 10th Cavalry, a unit of African-American or “Buffalo” soldiers.
* Pershing was awarded the rank General of the Armies in 1919 while still in the Army. Washington was promoted to the rank in 1976 as part of the Bicentennial. Grant, Sherman and Sheridan were four star generals of the army. Marshall, MacArthur, Eisenhower, Arnold and Bradley were five star generals of the army. Washington wore three stars, but by law is the highest ranking army officer. Pershing is second; he wore four gold stars.
Redux post of the day
I posted this a year ago, the day after Walter Cronkite died.
I’ve seen a few “celebrities” including politicians, met a couple of former presidents, and seen [five actual U.S. presidents], talked to Lady Bird Johnson more than once, had a meeting in the West Wing, seen Dylan, and Benny Goodman, and Edward G. Robinson playing cards, attended a reception with Edward Kennedy in the crowd, another with John Glenn mingling, went to a movie premiere with two of the Apollo 13 astronauts.
But I’ve always considered two people I’ve seen in person in a class above all the others.
Earl Warren and Walter Cronkite.
Hey, he’s important, don’t shoot him
English and American troops under British Major General Edward Braddock were routed by French and Indian forces near Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh) on July 9th in 1755. The leading colonial officer, George Washington, had two horses shot out from under him, his coat torn by bullets and his hat shot off, but — as you may have heard — he survived.
April 27th
Jack Klugman is 88. Casey Kasem is 78.
Ulysses Grant was born on this date in 1822.
He had previously rejected requests to write about his experience as a Civil War general. Now he desperately needed the money. Mark Twain offered him 75 percent of the profits if Grant would publish with Twain’s newly started publishing house.
But by that time, Grant had also been diagnosed with throat cancer and his health deteriorated rapidly. He realized that he didn’t have long to live, and wrote his memoirs as fast as he could. In extreme pain, and in a daze from pain medication, he still managed to write 275,000 words in less than a year. In the last few weeks of his illness, he couldn’t even speak, but he kept writing and revising, and checking everything he wrote against the official records to make sure it was all factual. He finished his memoirs in July 1885, and died four days later.
Grant’s book did not appear in bookstores, but was sold by subscription, and it was Mark Twain’s idea to send out former Union soldiers, in uniform, to sell the subscriptions door to door across the country. The book eventually sold more than 300,000 copies. It provided Grant’s family with $450,000 in royalties, the largest amount of royalties that had ever been paid out for a book at that point in history.
Critics and writers of the time were shocked at how well Grant wrote. His book Personal Memoirs (1885) is one of the few books ever written by an American president that qualifies as great literature.
[I]t will be seen that Grant was a modest man, a simple man, a man believing in the honesty of his fellows, true to his friends, faithful to traditions, and of great personal honor. When the United States District Court in Richmond was about to indict Gen. Lee and myself for treason, Gen. Grant interposed and said: “I have pledged my word for their safety.” This stopped the wholesale indictments of ex-Confederate officers which would have followed. He was thoroughly magnanimous, was above all petty things and small ideas, and, after Washington, was the highest type of manhood America has produced.
James Longstreet
Quotation from obituary in The New York Times
Walter Lantz was born 111 years ago today (1899). Lantz was the creator of such animated characters as Andy Panda, Chilly Willy, Wally Walrus and the greatest cartoon character of them all, Woody Woodpecker. Lantz was nominated for the Academy Award 10 times. He received the Academy’s Life-Time Achievement Award in 1979.
Click on the image above to visit The Walter Lantz Cartune Encyclopedia for audio and video clips and lots of other goodies.
Samuel F. B. Morse was born on April 27, 1791.
When a scarcity of commissions led Samuel Morse to reconsider his career as an artist, he turned from painting to pursue his earlier interest in inventing. In 1832, he conceived a plan for an electromagnetic recording telegraph and dedicated his energies to developing a working model for his invention.
When Morse applied for a patent in 1840, he had succeeded in devising a relay system for transmitting messages over long distances and had created the practical transmission code that bears his name.
Rogers Hornsby was born in Winters, Texas, on this date in 1896.
Perhaps the game’s most proficient right-handed hitter, Rogers Hornsby captured seven batting titles — including six in a row — topping .400 three times. A complete player with a fierce passion for the game, Hornsby’s .424 mark in 1924 is a National League record for the 20th century and his career average of .359 is the highest ever in the National League. The Rajah, a two-time MVP and two-time Triple Crown winner, was the player-manager of the Cardinals’ first World Championship team in 1926 and was the first National League player to hit 300 home runs.
Still my favorite ‘what if?’
Had Booth missed, Lincoln could have risen from his chair to confront his assassin. At that moment the president, cornered, with not only his own life in danger but also Mary’s, would almost certainly have fought back. If he did, Booth would have found himself outmatched facing not kindly Father Abraham, but the aroused fury of the Mississippi River flatboatman who fought off a gang of murderous river pirates in the dead of night, the champion wrestler who, years before, humbled the Clary’s Grove boys in New Salem in a still legendary match, or even the fifty-six-year-old president who could still pick up a long, splitting-axe by his fingertips, raise it, extend his arm out parallel with the ground, and suspend the axe in midair. Lincoln could have choked the life out of the five-foot-eight-inch, 150-pound thespian, or wrestled him over the side of the box, launching Booth on a crippling dive to the stage almost twelve feet below.
But Lincoln had not seen Booth coming.
From James L. Swanson’s Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer, a great read.
Go try that thing with an axe or other long-handled tool.
Above first posted here five years ago today; minor edits.
Benjamin Franklin
. . . died on this date in 1790. He was 84.
In his twenties Franklin had written an epitaph for himself:
The body of
B. Franklin, Printer;
(Like the cover of an old book,
Its contents worn out,
and stripped of its lettering and gilding)
Lies here, food for worms.
But the work shall not be lost:
For it will, (as he believed) appear once more,
In a new and more elegant edition,
Revised and corrected
By the Author.
B. Franklin, Printer;
(Like the cover of an old book,
Its contents worn out,
and stripped of its lettering and gilding)
Lies here, food for worms.
But the work shall not be lost:
For it will, (as he believed) appear once more,
In a new and more elegant edition,
Revised and corrected
By the Author.
By the age of 84 he wished for something simpler. The marble over his grave simply reads: Benjamin and Deborah Franklin.
Information from Walter Isaacson’s superb biography of Franklin.
April 14, 1865
Abraham Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth on this date in 1865. Lincoln died the next morning.
As Atzerodt and Paine fanned out to seek their targets, Booth, a celebrated actor, familiar to everybody who worked at Ford’s Theatre, had no trouble in slipping upstairs during the performance of Our American Cousin. Moving quietly down the aisle behind the dress circle, he stood for a few moments near the President’s box. A member of the audience, seeing him there, thought him “the handsomest man I had ever seen.” John Parker, the Metropolitan policeman assigned to protect the President, had left his post in the passageway, and the box was guarded only by Charles Forbes, a White House footman. When Booth showed Forbes his calling card, he was admitted to the presidential box. Barring the door behind him, so as not to be disturbed, he noiselessly moved behind Lincoln, who was leaning forward, with his chin in his right hand and his arm on the balustrade. At a distance of about two feet, the actor pointed his derringer at the back of the President’s head on the left side and pulled the trigger. It was about 10:13 P.M.
When Major Rathbone tried to seize the intruder, Booth lunged at him with his razor-sharp hunting knife, which had a 7¼-inch blade. “The Knife,” Clara Harris reported, “went from the elbow nearly to the shoulder, inside, — cutting an artery, nerves and veins — he bled so profusely as to make him very weak.” Shoving his victim aside, Booth placed his hands on the balustrade and vaulted toward the stage. It was an easy leap for the gymnastic actor, but the spur on his heel caught in the flags decorating the box and he fell heavily on one foot, breaking the bone just above the ankle. Waving his dagger, he shouted in a loud, melodramatic voice: “Sic semper tyrannis” (“Thus always to tyrants” — the motto of the state of Virginia). Some in the audience thought he added, “The South is avenged.” Quickly he limped across the stage, with what one witness called “a motion…like the hopping of a bull frog,” and made his escape through the rear of the theater.
Up to this point the audience was not sure what had happened. Perhaps most thought the whole disturbance was part of the play. But as the blue-white smoke from the pistol drifted out of the presidential box, Mary Lincoln gave a heart-rending shriek and screamed, “They have shot the President! They have shot the President!”
From David Herbert Donald’s outstanding biography of Lincoln.
On April 26, Booth and co-conspirator David Herold were surrounded while hiding in a tobacco shed in Port Royal, Virginia. Herold surrendered to Union troops, but Booth held out and was shot while the shed burned down around him.
Click on the image to see a larger version of the poster. Photo at top is from a Library of Congress exhibit showing the content of Lincoln’s pockets that evening plus a newspaper report of the assassination. Click image for larger version.
Read The New York Times story from the day after the assassination, headlined Awful Event.
April 13th ought to be a national holiday — no, really!
Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13th in 1743. [It was April 2nd on the calendar when he was born, but it’s that old Julian-Gregorian thing again.]
Eight-three years later, at the end of his remarkable life, he wished to be remembered foremost for those actions that appear as his epitaph:
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Author of the |
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At a White House dinner honoring 49 Nobel laureates in 1962, President Kennedy remarked, “I think this is the most extraordinary talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”
Despite serious flaws, Jefferson remains one of the most remarkable Americans.
In addition to being a writer, Jefferson was also a hard-nosed politician, lawyer, naturalist, musician, architect, geographer, inventor, scientist, paleontologist, and philosopher. Jefferson filled his house with scientific gadgets and inventions, collected mastodon bones, and kept detailed notes on the most obscure details of his life, including the daily fluctuation of the barometric pressure. After he missed the start of the solar eclipse in 1811, he designed his own more accurate astronomical clock. He composed all his papers in later life with a device that allowed him to write with two pens at the same time, so that he could keep copies of all the papers he produced.
It seems to NewMexiKen that the country could use a federal holiday during that long spell from Washington’s Birthday to Memorial Day — for shopping and sales and stuff. I propose that April 13th, Jefferson’s birthday, would be ideal.
Click on the image of the document to view Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration of Independence. The photo of Jefferson’s tomb above taken by NewMexiKen, 2001. Click to enlarge.
I do solemnly swear
Harry Truman takes the oath of office at 7:09 PM (Eastern War Time) on this date 65 years ago. Franklin Roosevelt had died just over two hours earlier at his retreat in Warm Springs, Georgia, the “Little White House.” When called at the Capitol and told he should rush to the White House, Truman is reported to have exclaimed, “Jesus Christ and General Jackson.” Once at the White House, Truman was told of FDR’s death by Mrs. Roosevelt.
The following day, Friday the 13th, is when Truman told several reporters: “Boys, if you ever pray, pray for me now. I don’t know whether you fellows ever had a load of hay fall on you, but when you told me yesterday what had happened, I felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me.”
Information and quotations from David McCullough’s outstanding biography of Truman. Photo from the National Archives via the White House web site.
FDR
… died on this date in 1945.
The New York Times had re-published its obituary, written by Arthur Krock with an April 12 dateline, President Roosevelt is Dead; Truman to Continue Policies
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, War President of the United States and the only Chief Executive in history who was chosen for more than two terms, died suddenly and unexpectedly at 4:35 P. M. today at Warm Springs, Ga., and the White House announced his death at 5:48 o’clock. He was 63.
The President, stricken by a cerebral hemorrhage, passed from unconsciousness to death on the eighty-third day of his fourth term and in an hour of high-triumph. The armies and fleets under his direction as Commander in Chief were at the gates of Berlin and the shores of Japan’s home islands as Mr. Roosevelt died, and the cause he represented and led was nearing the conclusive phase of success.
There is an interesting and prescient remark in the article concerning Truman: “He is conscious of limitations greater than he has.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
. . . was assassinated while standing on the balcony outside his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on this date in 1968.
The evening before King concluded his speech with:
And they were telling me, now it doesn’t matter now. It really doesn’t matter what happens now. I left Atlanta this morning, and as we got started on the plane, there were six of us, the pilot said over the public address system, “We are sorry for the delay, but we have Dr. Martin Luther King on the plane. And to be sure that all of the bags were checked, and to be sure that nothing would be wrong with the plane, we had to check out everything carefully. And we’ve had the plane protected and guarded all night.”
And then I got to Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers?
Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
Who’s Buried in the History Books?
RONALD REAGAN deserves posterity’s honor, and so it makes sense that the capital’s airport and a major building there are named for him. But the proposal to substitute his image for that of Ulysses S. Grant on the $50 bill is a travesty that would dishonor the nation’s bedrock principles of union, freedom and equality — and damage its historical identity. Although slandered since his death, Grant, as general and as president, stood second only to Abraham Lincoln as the vindicator of those principles in the Civil War era.
Historian Sean Wilentz goes on to explain. Click and give it a read.
“I expect that before too long Grant will be returned to the standing he deserves — not only as the military savior of the Union but as one of the great presidents of his era, and possibly one of the greatest in all American history.”
145 years ago today
“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.”
Second Inaugural Address of Abraham Lincoln, March 4, 1865.
77 years ago today
“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.”
From the First Inaugural Address of Franklin D. Roosevelt, March 4, 1933.
Hear FDR speak the first part of the famous line.
The Father of Our Country
… was born 278 years ago today on February 11, 1731*.
To describe George Washington as enigmatic may strike some as strange, for every young student knows about him (or did when students could be counted on to know anything). He was born into a minor family in Virginia’s plantation gentry, worked as a surveyor in the West as a young man, was a hero of sorts during the French and Indian War, became an extremely wealthy planter (after marrying a rich widow), served as commander in chief of the Continental Army throughout the Revolutionary War (including the terrible winter at Valley Forge), defeated the British at the Battle of Yorktown, suppressed a threatened mutiny by his officers at Newburgh, N.Y., then astonished the world and won its applause by laying down his sword in 1783. Called out of retirement, he presided over the Constitutional Convention of 1787, reluctantly accepted the presidency in 1789 and served for two terms, thus assuring the success of the American experiment in self-government.
…Washington was, after all, a magnificent physical specimen. He towered several inches over six feet, had broad shoulders and slender hips (in a nation consisting mainly of short, fat people), was powerful and a superb athlete. He carried himself with a dignity that astonished; when she first laid eyes on him Abigail Adams, a veteran of receptions at royal courts and a difficult woman to impress, gushed like a schoolgirl. On horseback he rode with a presence that declared him the commander in chief even if he had not been in uniform.
Other characteristics smack of the supernatural. He was impervious to gunfire. Repeatedly, he was caught in cross-fires and yet no bullet ever touched him. In a 1754 letter to his brother he wrote that “I heard Bullets whistle and believe me there was something charming in the Sound.” During the Revolutionary War he had horses shot from under him but it seemed that no bullet dared strike him personally. Moreover, when the Continental Army was ravaged by a smallpox epidemic, Washington, having had the disease as a youngster, proved to be as immune to it as he was to bullets.
— Forrest McDonald in his review of Joseph J. Ellis’ His Excellency: George Washington.
__________
* By the Julian calendar, George Washington was born on February 11, 1731. Twenty years later Britain and her colonies adopted the Gregorian calendar, the calendar we use today. The change added 11 days and designated January rather than March as the beginning of the year. As a result, Washington’s birthday became February 22, 1732.
Black Jack
In all of American history, only two generals have held the rank General of the Armies, George Washington and John J. Pershing. 1
Pershing was born on this date in 1860. He graduated from West Point, 30th in a class of 77, and was stationed at Fort Bayard, New Mexico Territory (near Silver City), serving with General Miles in the last capture of Geronimo. Then he served in the Dakotas at the time of Wounded Knee. Pershing fought in Cuba during the Spanish-American War, and successfully (from the U.S. standpoint) controlled an insurrection while serving in the Philippines.
Still a captain, Pershing was promoted to Brigadier General by order of President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906. That is, he skipped major, lieutenant colonel and colonel. The fact that Pershing’s father-in-law was a U.S. senator and the president had attended the Pershings’ wedding had no bearing on this, of course.
Pershing’s wife and three daughters were killed in a fire in 1915 at their home at the Presidio in San Francisco while Pershing was commander of the Eighth Brigade there. A son survived.
In 1916-1917 Pershing led 12,000 American troops into Mexico in a failed attempt to capture Pancho Villa after his raid on Columbus, New Mexico.
In 1917, Pershing was named commander of the American Expeditionary Force — ultimately 2-1/2 million men. In his memoirs he wrote that his two biggest problems were keeping the British and French from incorporating the American army into theirs and getting the supplies he needed for such a large force.
Pershing was welcomed home a hero in 1919, became army chief of staff, and retired from active duty in 1924.
He died in 1948.
Pershing was nicknamed “Black Jack” as a result of his time as an officer in the 10th Cavalry, a unit of African-American or “Buffalo” soldiers.
1Pershing was awarded the rank in 1919 while still in the Army. Washington was promoted to the rank in 1976 as part of the Bicentennial. Grant, Sherman and Sheridan were four star generals of the army. Marshall, MacArthur, Eisenhower, Arnold and Bradley were five star generals of the army. Washington wore three stars, but by law is the highest ranking army officer. Pershing is second; he wore four gold stars.
Arthur J. Goldberg
… was born on this date in 1908. Goldberg was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Kennedy in 1962. He subsequently made one of the great sacrifices for his country:
Three years after Goldberg took his seat on the Supreme Court, President Lyndon Johnson asked him to step down and accept an appointment as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations. At first, Goldberg declined the offer, but after much prodding by Johnson, he finally accepted. Goldberg’s change of mind was prompted by his sense of duty to the country during the war in Vietnam. He said, “I thought I could persuade Johnson that we were fighting the wrong war in the wrong place, [and] to get out…. I would have loved to have stayed on the Court, but my sense of priorities was [that] this war would be disastrous” (Stebenne, 348). On July 26, 1965, Goldberg assumed the responsibilities of Ambassador to the UN.
The ambassadorship proved frustrating for Goldberg, involving many confrontations with Johnson concerning the war in Vietnam. Goldberg came to believe that he could affect American foreign policy better as a private citizen than through a governmental position, and on April 23, 1968, he resigned from the ambassadorship. He returned to the practice of law in New York City from 1968 to 1971 with the firm of Paul, Weiss, Goldberg, Rifkind, Wharton, & Garrison.
[Source: The Supreme Court Papers of Arthur J. Goldberg, Northwestern University School of Law]
Goldberg died in 1990. He is buried in Arlington Cemetery near his friend, Chief Justice Earl Warren.
Big man
NewMexiKen ran across this photo of Lincoln at Antietam taken just days after the battle in 1862. Look at those arms. If Lincoln lived in the present century, he wouldn’t have been president, but he would have been a great rebounder.
That’s Allan Pinkerton and General John McClernand with Lincoln, October 3, 1862.
Click photo for larger version.
President Lincoln
Just this evening I’ve finished reading William Lee Miller’s President Lincoln: The Duty of a Statesman, mentioned here last week. I have read any number of Lincoln books over the years, notably and most recently, Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals and David Herbert Donald’s biography Lincoln. Miller’s book deserves mention along with these.
The book is more an analytical than a narrative history. It takes a number of events and topics and explains in detail how Lincoln approached them. In so doing, Miller makes a persuasive case for Lincoln’s remarkable, yet almost disqualifying personal characteristics for a political leader, and Lincoln’s indispensable, perhaps single, ability to preserve the Union and end slavery. Anyone with an interest in the era or Lincoln will appreciate this book. It is instructive, provocative, occasionally amusing, and at times moving.
(I would only add that it might, in places, have been improved with tighter editing.)
I haven’t read Miller’s Lincoln’s Virtues: An Ethical Biography, despite owning a copy. It will be on the agenda soon.
Lincoln’s virtues
“I defy anyone to read just the last two chapters of ‘President Lincoln’—a passionate exegesis of the Second Inaugural Address and a straighforward sampling of the national and (surprisingly) global grief that followed the assassination—without tears. (Of course, it helps to have read the preceding nine hundred pages, as a reminder of the profundity of the loss.)”
Hendrik Hertzberg referring to Lincoln’s Virtues: An Ethical Biography and President Lincoln: The Duty of a Statesman, both by William Lee Miller.