John Adams

Conservative Argument That America Is A “Christian Nation” NOT True!

Ronald 9 Comments

The right wing loves to say that Americans are a “Christian nation”, but that assertion is NOT true!

It is true that a majority of Americans are born to the Christian faith, whether Catholic or any of the many Protestant sects, or Eastern Orthodox.

But our Founding Fathers, while born Christian, were in many cases skeptics about organized Christianity, and certainly had no mission to promote a church-state combination, a theocracy, as they knew of the turmoil and sufferings of such combinations in European history, including Great Britain, France, the German states, and Czarist Russia, along with the effects of Islam on the Middle East, Asia, and Africa.

Therefore, the Constitution of the United States made clear to keep separation of church and state separate, and there is no statement of America as a “Christian nation” by the Founding Fathers.

There are plenty of statements by many Founding Fathers, including Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, John Adams and others that advocated separation of church and state, and a sense of skepticism about organized Christianity being part of government.

We also have evidence that conservative Christian pastors condemned the Constitution after its adoption because of the fact that it was a document which, clearly, was secular in nature, and some called the Constitution an atheistic document, which shows how hard the Founding Fathers had worked to undermine the creation of a theocracy, which would allow persecution of non Christians or non believers in religion itself.

After the Civil War, the right wing Christian pastors tried repeatedly to amend the Constitution to make America a Christian nation and make references to Jesus Christ, but those attempts failed, and the only religious reference that would become normal was to say “In God We Trust” on American coinage.

The deleterious effect of this movement among right wing Christian pastors, however, led to anti Catholic and anti Jewish practices and laws locally, discriminating against the immigration of so called “undesirable” groups.

Additionally, for a long period of time, commerce was limited by “Blue Laws”, which banned economic activities on Sundays, finally overcome about 50 years ago, as if someone does not wish to do shopping or other commerce on the Christian Sabbath, that is their choice, but should not be imposed on others, one of the examples of what happens when theocracy and its narrow mindedness is allowed to take hold.

So America is NOT a “Christian nation”, but rather a nation of a diverse number of religious groups, with a majority of Christian sects, including Catholicism, something the majority Protestants did not wish to acknowledge!

Statesman Jimmy Carter Reaches Age 90, Fourth President In A Row To Reach That Magical Age!

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Today, October 1, is the 90th birthday of former President Jimmy Carter (1977-1981), making him one of four Presidents in a row to reach that magical age.

Presidents Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush all reached the age of 90, Bush just this past June, and Ford and Reagan dying at age 93, with Ford being six weeks older than Reagan.

Now six Presidents, including John Adams and Herbert Hoover, have reached that age, and it is clear that modern medicine and sanitation have helped the Presidents in office from August 1974 to January 1993 to have accomplished this massive achievement!

Carter also has set an ongoing record of nearly 34 years out of office, and shares that with his Vice President, Walter Mondale, as the longest surviving team in the White House in American history!

Carter has long been vilified, and called a “failure”, “the worst President of modern times”, and other insulting terms by people who are ignorant, lacking in knowledge of what makes a President significant.

No one is going to assert that Carter was a highly successful President in the top ten or fifteen, and the fact that he was soundly defeated by Ronald Reagan in 1980, harms his historical reputation, as Presidents who lose reelection never stand high in polls of Presidents in history.

But this man was decent and honest, humble and sincere, and accomplished the following:

The Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, the most outstanding accomplishment in Middle East diplomacy of any President before or since.

The negotiated return of the Panama Canal, to its rightful owners, the nation of Panama, righting the wrong done by Theodore Roosevelt early in the 20th century.

The strong principle of human rights as an important goal in American diplomacy.

The third best record of any President on environmental reform, and creation of public lands, only behind Theodore Roosevelt and Richard Nixon, and more amazing, since Carter only had one term in the White House.

The establishment of the Health and Human Services Department, the Education Department, and the Energy Department, all added to the President’s cabinet.

Out of office, Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, for his human rights record; his promotion of fair elections around the world and the advancement of health care and education through his Carter Center; and his building of housing using his own and his wife Rosalynn’s hands, as part of Habitat For Humanity.

He also wrote 28 books, making him the most prolific President of modern times, and competing with Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Richard Nixon for his extensive writings.

Jimmy Carter set a new standard for former Presidents giving their service to the nation, as Bill Clinton has done, and Carter is often called the best former President of the United States for his contributions in the 34 years since he left office.

Jimmy Carter had obvious shortcomings, but he has lived long enough to be regarded as a statesman, and be given the respect he deserves!

So Happy 90th Birthday, Mr. President!

Significant Fourths Of July, And The Most Important One Of All!

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It has been 238 years since the Declaration of Independence, declared in Philadelphia on this day in 1776.

Some of the Fourth of Julys that have followed have been more significant than others.

In 1801, the 25th anniversary, the nation celebrated the first turnover of government to the opposition being conducted successfully four months earlier, as Thomas Jefferson succeeded John Adams.

In 1826, the 50th anniversary, Presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, both intimately involved in the document’s formulation, died, during the administration of Adams’ son, John Quincy Adams.

In 1831, the 55th anniversary, President James Monroe died, marking three of the first five Presidents dying on Independence Day, but it has never occurred since then. This death occurred during the administration of Andrew Jackson.

In 1876, the nation celebrated its first century of independence during the administration of Ulysses S. Grant.

In 1901, the 125th anniversary, the nation celebrated the new century, during the administration of William McKinley.

In 1976, the bicentennial was celebrated during the administration of Gerald Ford.

In 2001, the 225th anniversary was celebrated during the administration of George W. Bush.

But none of these anniversaries mattered as much as July 4, 1863, the 87th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, as the Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania, fought the three previous days, and won on July 3 by the Union Army over the Confederacy, insured that the Union would be preserved, the ultimate purpose of Abraham Lincoln leading the nation into the Civil War in 1861. The last real chance of the South to win independence was lost, although the war continued for another 21 months.

So July 4, 1863 is more to be celebrated than any other July 4, and we must remain thankful that those who wanted to break up the United States were overcome. We must be ready to react against any threat of further secession put forth by right wing propagandists who want America to lose its whole purpose of creation, the establishment of a democracy which would be the beacon for people all around the world, who would want to come here and be part of the American experiment in freedom. It is immigration that makes, and has made, America the great nation that it is!

47 Vice Presidents, But Only Nine Have Had Two Terms, Including A First, The Last Three Vice Presidents!

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America has had 47 Vice Presidents, but only nine have had two terms of office, including the last three, once Joe Biden completes his term in January 2017!

In fact, NEVER have three Vice Presidents in a row had two terms of office until Al Gore, Dick Cheney, and now Joe Biden, assuming he completes his second term.

Before these three, the only Vice Presidents to have two complete terms were John Adams under George Washington; Daniel Tompkins under James Monroe; Thomas Marshall under Woodrow Wilson; John Nance Garner under Franklin D. Roosevelt; Richard Nixon under Dwight D. Eisenhower; and George H. W. Bush under Ronald Reagan.

Two others–George Clinton under Thomas Jefferson and James Madison (dying in the last year of the second term), and John C. Calhoun under John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson (resigning with three months left in the Jackson term), nearly finished eight years.

Happy 90th Birthday, President George H. W. Bush!

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Today is the 90th birthday of former President George H. W. Bush, whose wife, Barbara Bush, celebrated her 89th Birthday just four days ago! Bush is the third of four recent Presidents to reach the age of 90, along with Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan, and when Jimmy Carter reaches 90 on October 1, it will mean four consecutive Presidents have reached that magical age. Only John Adams and Herbert Hoover, of earlier Presidents, reached that age!

The Bushes are the longest lasting marriage of all Presidential marriages in history, and will reach 70 years early next year!

President Bush seemed close to the end just 19 months ago, at Thanksgiving 2012, but miraculously overcame the crisis, and now, despite being in a wheelchair full time, the 41st President remains active with family and intellectual matters!

Bush has now been out of office for 21 plus years, and his time in office began a quarter century ago in 1989!

Bush has become much respected and loved as the years have gone by, even though he suffered a bitter defeat to Bill Clinton in 1992, the second worst performance of an incumbent President running for reelection in American history.

The Bush Presidency continues to be an area of growing interest and debate, but Bush has become an elder statesman, much admired and appreciated.

So Happy Birthday, Mr. President!

Presidential Retirement Years And Constructive Post Presidencies

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All of our Presidents, except for eight who died in office, have had periods of retirement after their years in the Presidency.

Some have had very short periods of retirement, periods of less than ten years, including George Washington, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, James K, Polk, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, Chester Alan Arthur, Benjamin Harrison, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Calvin Coolidge, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Lyndon B. Johnson.

So fully half of our Presidents either died in office or had periods of retirement less than ten years.

On the other hand, the following Presidents had particularly long periods of retirement of fifteen or more years: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Grover Cleveland, William Howard Taft, Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and George H. W. Bush.

The following Presidents had between ten and fifteen years of retirement: Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Rutherford B. Hayes, and Ronald Reagan.

Bill Clinton has had 13 years out of office, and George W. Bush has had five years out of office at this time.

With the retirement periods of all of these Presidents listed above, the question that arises is which Presidents made major contributions in their post Presidency years.

That list is a short one:

John Quincy Adams
Martin Van Buren
Theodore Roosevelt
William Howard Taft
Herbert Hoover
Richard Nixon
Jimmy Carter
Bill Clinton

Adams served nearly eighteen years in Congress.

Van Buren ran for President on the Free Soil Party line in 1848.

Roosevelt ran for President on the Progressive Party line in 1912, and went on an African safari, and explored the Amazon River basin in Brazil.

Taft served as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court for nine years.

Hoover wrote books and served as an adviser to President Truman on reorganization of the executive branch of government.

Nixon wrote about ten books and remained an adviser on diplomacy in his nearly twenty years in retirement.

Carter has written nearly twenty books, and engaged in diplomacy, promotion of democracy, fought diseases, and built housing through the Carter Center and Habitat for Humanity.

Clinton has done similar good deeds through his Clinton Initiative, and also worked on relief for the Haitian earthquake and the Pacific Tsunami with George H. W. Bush.

The contributions of these former Presidents have had a major impact on America, and are worthy of remembrance!

The Vice Presidency: Not Fertile Ground For Election To The Presidency!

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The office of the Vice Presidency has NOT, historically, been a place that promotes elevation to the Presidency by election.

We have had 14 Vice Presidents become President, but only five by election–John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Van Buren, Richard Nixon (eight years later), and George H. W. Bush.

Until the last half century, the thought of a Vice President being the nominee for President in the next or future terms was unthinkable, and only five Vice Presidents have actually been the nominee of a party for President, other than the five mentioned above who won the Presidency, and two of them actually ran on a third party platform.

The five Vice Presidents who ran for President and lost are:

John C. Breckinridge (Southern Democrats 1860)
Henry A. Wallace (Progressive Party 1948)
Hubert Humphrey (Democrats 1968)
Walter Mondale (Democrats 1984)
Al Gore (Democrats 2000)

So these bad odds make it even tougher for Vice President Joe Biden, as he plans a campaign to run for President, with Hillary Clinton standing in his way!

Religion And The Presidency

Ronald 1 Comment

The right wing in America tries to tell us we are a Christian nation, rather than a nation of a majority of the Christian faith.

The fact that the Constitution does not have a religious test, that we have separation of church and state, is ignored, as the right wing promotes its propaganda.

So they tell us the Founding Fathers were “good Christians”, when in fact, in many ways, they were not!

And they fail to accept that many of our Presidents have doubted organized religion entirely, or have been Deist, Unitarian or Quaker , which are seen as a few steps away from atheism by many experts.

For the record:

The following Presidents had NO specific religious affiliation:

Thomas Jefferson
Franklin Pierce
Abraham Lincoln
Andrew Johnson
Ulysses S. Grant
Rutherford B. Hayes
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Barack Obama

Deist Beliefs

George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
James Madison
James Monroe
John Tyler

Unitarianism

John Adams
John Quincy Adams
Millard Fillmore
William Howard Taft

Quaker

Herbert Hoover
Richard Nixon

That makes 18 Presidents who do not fit the mold of a typical religious person.

At the same time, some Presidents have been very devout, including:

James A. Garfield
Benjamin Harrison
William McKinley
Woodrow Wilson
Jimmy Carter

The other half of our Presidents were irregular church goers, and in many cases, they were not very committed to their faiths, but would identify with a faith that was considered Christian, with John F. Kennedy the only Catholic President..

The largest number of Presidents (12) were Episcopalians; 8 were Presbyterians; 4 Methodists; 4 Baptists; 3 Disciples of Christ; 2 Congregationalists; and 2 Dutch Reformed Church.

Presidents And Alcohol Issues

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There are many ways that scholars and Presidential “junkies” evaluate Presidents, and one not often thought about is the problem of alcohol issues, Presidents who have had problems of drunkenness that affected their ability to do their job.

Three are well known for having major alcohol problems, and at least for two of them, it affected their performance in office.

Franklin Pierce (1853-1857) had a massive alcohol problem, made worse by the fact that his last and only child was killed in a train accident shortly before the inauguration in 1853. His Presidency is seen as one of the absolute worst, and his signing of the Kansas Nebraska Act in 1854 was a major step toward the Civil War.

Ulysses S. Grant (1869-1877) was a great General who won the surrender of Robert E. Lee, and yet, it was well known that he drank too much, although it was claimed that he made better military decisions when drunk. But this massive drinking problem undermined his ability to do his job, and his Presidency became one of massive scandals, generally known as the Credit Mobilier Scandals, which along with the Panic of 1873, undermined his historical reputation.

George W. Bush was also a certifiable alcoholic, although it seems as if he had stopped drinking after his wife, Laura, threatened to leave him in 1986, when their twin daughters were still very young. But some have wondered about whether some of his decision making was influenced either by “stealing” a drink, or the damage done by the alcohol dependency that he had become captive of in earlier years.

Additionally, there are many who think that the following Presidents may have had too much dependency on liquor, while not maybe at the level of Pierce, Grant, and George W.

John Adams (1797-1801)
Martin Van Buren (1837-1841)
James Buchanan (1857-1861)
Chester Alan Arthur (1881-1885)
Grover Cleveland (1885-1889, 1893-1897)
William Howard Taft (1909-1913)
Warren G. Harding (1921-1923)
Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1969)
Richard M. Nixon (1969-1974)

The strongest cases would be Cleveland and Taft, both of whom were very overweight, and evidence of their extensive drinking is found in different sources about their lives. Also, it was known that Harding drank liquor every day in the White House, despite Prohibition being in effect

The evidence against Adams, Van Buren, Buchanan and Arthur is less extensive, but all three were known to be drinking a lot more than would be safe for one’s health.

The situation of Johnson and Nixon is more based on their personality traits, that under stress, they were likely to drink excessively, but not apparently an habitual problem.

At the same time, those who would be seen as least likely to lean on alcohol would include Rutherford B. Hayes, whose wife was infamously known as “Lemonade Lucy” for banning alcohol at White House gatherings; Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover, who were vehement in their enforcement of Prohibition of liquor; and Jimmy Carter, who avoided alcohol, although his brother Billy was an alcoholic.

Most Influential First Ladies In American History

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The role of First Lady, the wife of the President, has evolved over time, and in recent decades, it has been extremely difficult for a First Lady to conduct herself as Jane Pierce or Bess Truman did, which was, basically, to avoid the public spotlight and any major duties.

First Ladies have had their own causes in recent decades, and a few earlier First Ladies had a major impact on their times and their husbands.

So if we were to list 15 First Ladies who had a major role in American history, we would list the following in a chronological list:

Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams
Dolley Madison, wife of James Madison
Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of Abraham :Lincoln
Lucy Webb Hayes, wife of Rutherford B. Hayes
Frances Folsom Cleveland, wife of Grover Cleveland
Edith Bolling Galt Wilson, second wife of Woodrow Wilson
Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of Franklin D. Roosevelt
Jacqueline Kennedy, wife of John F. Kennedy
Lady Bird Johnson, wife of Lyndon B. Johnson
Betty Ford, wife of Gerald Ford
Rosalynn Carter, wife of Jimmy Carter
Nancy Reagan, wife of Ronald Reagan
Barbara Bush, wife of George H. W. Bush
Hillary Clinton, wife of Bill Clinton
Michelle Obama, wife of Barack Obama

If one was asked to list the five most powerful and significant First Ladies in ranked order, a good list would be as follows:

Eleanor Roosevelt
Hillary Clinton
Betty Ford
Lady Bird Johnson
Michelle Obama

This author welcomes discussion of the lists mentioned above!