Lessons From History Biographies

  Racism is a disease that eats away at all our best core principals.   There are times in this blogging project when I have had the opportunity to revisit older books, courtesy of my school library asking me to review their collection, and that is wh ere I stumbled across Edward Crapol’s 2006 study of John Tyler: The Accidental President . Tyler was in a large group of fairly anon ymous post-Jackson/pre-Lincoln presidents, and I knew little about him beyond the most basic details of his life and presidency. Tyler’s entire presidency feels like a footnote almost by design, as the 1840 presidential campaign of “Tippecanoe” William Harrison invented the concept of a major presidential campaign, with “Ty ler Too” being the tag-along vice presidential candidate (seriously everyone, listen to and fall in love with the They Might Be Giants rendition of that legendary campaign song). Tyler’s incredible importance to presidential history is most defined by his creating the standar...

  Answering political disagreements with political violence poisons the entire system.             We live in a time when political violence is greatly feared across the country, and we especially feel it weigh down upon us with a presidential election imminent. From one side’s candidate getting shot at, to another side remembering the trauma of the January 6 th Riot, the national mood right now is sour and fearful, with many people believing a victory by the other side will result in permanent national degradation. It is a climate very similar to the 1850’s, when the growing power of the free North over national politics terrified and enraged the slaveholding South, and eventually the nation tore itself apart and embraced a bloody Civil War. One of the defining acts of that era was The Caning of Charles Sumner, an event that author Stephen Puleo wisely makes as the centerpiece of his excellent new book The Great Abolitionis...