A Question of Greatness

Alright, four presidents in, and I feel it's about time to ask: when is anyone going to be any good at being president?

The four biographies we've read so far, without an exception, point out that their subjects were better at whatever they were doing beforehand than being the chief executive. Jefferson himself even goes so far as to keep being president off of his tombstone, opting instead for his roles in writing the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Statutes of Religious Freedom, as well as founding the University of Virginia.



Washington does a decent job as president, but nothing special; his job as Commander-in-Chief is to hold the country together in its fragile newness. Adams not only signs the Alien and Sedition Acts--pretty indefensible, no matter how hard any biographer might try--but he also manages to become the first one-term president. Jefferson violates his party's principles (no advocate of small government is going to be OK with buying a whole lotta territory without Congress's approval); not to mention the fact that Jefferson hates being president so much he essentially bails four months before the end of his second term, leaving Madison (the president-elect) to run the country (oddly enough, Wills's biography of Madison points this, but Bernstein's biography of Jefferson doesn't mention it at all). And you don't get to be a great president if the nation's capital gets burned to the ground on your watch (again, a Republican has to realize that one of his party's platforms--no standing army--might not be without its disadvantages).

And these are the Founding Fathers! The guys we look up to as Paragons of Presidential Prestige!

Maybe it's because of the newness of the whole thing; they're making it up as they go along. After all, no one was campaigning for the post--such a thing was considered disgraceful then--but they did do enough backchannel work to get the jobs. Perhaps, with only a few people to talk to about being president and very little American history to learn from (not to mention how little republican democracies had ever existed), we should expect some stumbles.

Garry Wills points out something interesting about Madison in the closing chapter of his biography; that despite the bungling of the War of 1812--despite the fact that "he accomplished not a single one of the five goals he set out for the war to succeed"--Madison still managed to hand the reins over to James Monroe, a member of his own party.

"Given all these factors," Wills writes, "historians have not boosted Madison, considered as president, out of the average rank. On the other hand, they do not count him a failure--and they cannot. He was too popular at the end of his second term. He must have been doing something right." The emphasis is mine--if you're considering Madison as a Founding Father, he does pretty well.

Wills continues: "Despite the problems and setbacks of his chosen course, he never panicked. He was coolest at the darkest times. Admittedly, he was helped in this by his very flaws. In his provincialism and naivete he continued to underestimate the British, thinking they must have been badly harmed by his embargo."

What's more American than taking your flaws and turning them into advantages for you? Madison may not have been a great president, but he got the country through its first official war, rebounded from the burning of Washington, and managed to secure a peace with England that's lasted since. And that's good enough to get you on some currency.