Spinning History in Service to the State

When the American history profession produces one of those rankings of American presidents their criteria always seem to be geared toward giving the highest rankings to whomever ignores the Constitution the most, over-spends and over-taxes the most, kills the most people in wars, drives up the national debt the most, passes the most freedom-destroying laws, and grows government while shrinking individual liberty the most. That’s why Lincoln, FDR, and Woodrow Wilson are always ranked at the top.

In sharp contrast, several years ago Ivan Eland published an “alternative” presidential ranking in the form of his book, Recarving Rushmore, in which his criteria were based on how good a job presidents have done in preserving “peace, prosperity, and liberty.”  His number one ranking went to John Tyler, who served as president from April 4, 1841, to March 4, 1845.  Tyler “exhibited restraint in dealing with an internal rebellion, a bloody Indian war, and a boundary dispute with Canada.”  He “supported a sound policy of limiting the money supply, and he generally opposed high tariffs, a national bank, and federal welfare to the states.”

“glories” of war.  He was also “full of advice about the best way to fight the Indians,” write the Heidlers, although the only real “fighting” experience he had was fighting hangovers.  He remained a warmonger to the end despite the fact that his brother-in-law, Captain Nathaniel Hart, was captured by the British who handed him over to Indians who shot and scalped him (p 105).

Once again, rather than accurately portraying Clay as a walking disaster of a warmonger – an early-day Dick Cheney – he is praised to the treetops by the Heidlers and most other historians because he participated in the committee that worked out the peace treaty that ended the disastrous (for America) war that he, more than anyone else, was responsible for.

In addition to heaping mountains of phony praise on Henry Clay’s statist, plunder-seeking, and imperialistic behavior, the Heidlers viciously smear Clay’s foremost opponent in the debate over the war, John Randolph.  They describe Randolph as “fearlessly nasty” in the way in which he opposed “the war hawks”; “uncontrollable under the best circumstances”; “a tireless Cassandra”; “a peculiar character”; “irritable”; “vicious”; “quick to anger” with “a hair-trigger temper”; and the most shocking of all (to the Heidlers), “he took an instant dislike to Henry Clay” (p. 87).  Randolph was obviously an astute judge of character.

For his part Randolph, who fought a duel with Clay (both missed), said of him:  “He is a man of splendid abilities but utterly corrupt.  He shines and stinks, like a rotten mackerel by moonlight.”

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