The “Debt Aggregation” Vector

In the “Insight” segment of my series on the Five “I”s of History, I briefly introduced the idea of a new “Vectors” feature in the PHR blog.  The basic theme I had in mind for this segment was that a proper study of history gives us “insight” into how the world around us came to be and the processes that govern how history is unfolding around us.

In that original post I also hinted that the first example of a “vector” that I would be discussing is what I call the “debt aggregation vector.” This “vector,” in my view, is a key mechanism governing how the ongoing global economic crisis is unfolding.  Here is what it is and why it matters, using the obvious and instructive example of Spain–one of the global dominoes that is now falling before the US, and whose fate will be determined by the precise implementation of the debt aggregation mechanism…

Let’s start with the official Spanish Debt-to-GDP.  This is the number that news agencies usually talk about when discussing the solvency of national governments.  As per this article, and countless others, it hovers somewhere around 75 to 80%.

Not bad–compared to the US anyways, which is now over 100%–or Italy, at 137%–or Greece, somewhere around 170%.

The problem with these figures is that they do not incorporate the reality that is debt aggregation.

Every country that has a debt problem–there are no major economies that don’t!–has layers of private and public debt residing below those of its federal government, which–when push comes to shove–are being aggregated to the federal level by some mechanism or other.

In Spain, we see the reality of this with recent news about Catalonia demanding a bailout from the Spanish government.

As discussed on Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis (which Powell History recommends) –the federal response has been to propose to collectivize/aggregate regional debt into  “hispanbonos,” or joint bonds, to facilitate debt financing.   This will allow local governments to continued to live beyond their means for some time, avoiding any more “austerity” (in the form of cutbacks in government spending) at a time when the Spanish economy is already in a depression, and where the spending of local governments provides jobs and nominal GDP that no one can accept dropping any further.

But the debt aggregation mechanism keeping the Spanish economy afloat does not just pertain to local governments being bolstered by national ones.  There is another axis of debt aggregation.  Recently Spain announced it would nationalize the third largest Spanish bank, Bankia.  This will add 24 Billion dollars or more to its debt–who knows, the figure increases almost daily.  In a refrain that is familiar to Americans, Bankia is considered “too big to fail,” and Spain’s socialization of its debt is characterized by government officials as an “investment.”

Following not long after this bit of news, it became evident that not just Bankia, but rather the entire Spanish banking system was in need of a bailout.  The latest of 19 EU emergency meetings on the European financial/debt crisis was focused precisely on the question of debt aggregation.   Indeed the entire trajectory of the European Union over the next two-to-three years depends on the answer to the question: to aggregate, or not to aggregate.

That really is the question.

If Germany agrees to issue so-called “Eurobonds” and to supranationalize the banks in the European Union, then the market will be fooled into thinking a solution has been found, and there will be a sense of normalcy returning to the financial world for perhaps a couple years.  What debt aggregation buys is time.  It is what a lot of commentators call “kicking the can down the road.”

Of course, if Germany does not agree, then it’s financial Armageddon for Europe.  Already, French journalist Pierre Jovanovic (sorry, it’s in French!) has been feverishly documenting the aggressive measures being taken by French banks to prevent bank withdrawals in that country.  The bank runs in Greece and Spain being well documented already, it will only take the slightest indication that the banks are on their own, for them all to face the kind of mayhem we all remember from the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life.”  It’s not just George Soros, who recently weighed in on Bloomberg, who thinks the Euro experiment is at the edge of a cliff.

The entire financial market is begging for debt aggregation.  Spain’s debt financing, which is the measure of the market’s willingness to deal with Spain one-on-one, is becoming untenable.  With yields on Spanish 10-year bonds reaching for 7%, Spain needs a bailout of its own.  In the EU context national debt must be aggregated into supranational debt.

This is one of the favorite themes of new French president Hollande for propping up the Eurozone.  In this theory, all European borrowers can benefit from lumping their debt together with Germany, as the core economic powerhouse whose debt financing capability is (relatively) solid.  That way, profligate regions and nations can continue to pile on debt, while not having to pay the rates they otherwise would have to while bankrupting themselves.

Aggregation to this level in Europe is difficult, however, because the United States of Europe are not the federal equivalent of the United States of America.  Germans don’t want so-called “Eurobonds.”  Which is why different forms of more stealthy debt aggregation have been used already and will continue to be used.  The EFSF (“European Financial Stability Facility”) is supposedly morphing into the ESM (“European Stability Mechanism”), which will runs alongside the ELA (“Emergency Liquidity Assistance”) and LTRO (“Long Term Refinancing Operation”), and other sundry mechanisms concocted by central banking philosopher kings that the general populace cannot possible keep track of.  (Don’t think it’s just a European problem! How many Americans know the difference between QE1, QE Lite, QE2 and the Fed’s “Operation Twist”?)

Regardless, at some point, even though you can fool most of the people most of the time, you can’t fake reality.   The games governments are playing with the debt they have accumulated and the debt they have encouraged others to accumulate which they are now socializing lead only to one place: default.

Right now this only seems to be a problem for Greece and Spain.  But I invite every reader out there to go a little debt comparison shopping between the four largest economies in the world–Europe, the US, China and Japan.  If you’re American, and you’re worried about America’s debt, think about what debt aggregation will do to that debt, and how quickly the situation in America could get out of control.  California just voted to aggregate its debt to the federal level, by means of a phantom monorail.  And America’s most cash-strapped cities are now proposing to pay your student loans for you!  These and all the past and present debt-aggregation mechanisms that will pile more debt onto the federal government will eventually reach a dramatic end point.

Watch for it.  You’ll know when the next phase of the financial crisis is coming when debt-aggregation ceases to work.

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Coming to Grips With the Rise of India and China

Yesterday, the first of 2500 American troops arrived in Darwin, Australia to engage in training with the Australian Defense Force.  The exercise is part of a new defense pact, the reasoning behind which is explained by Australian Defense Minister Stephen Smith:

“We see this very much as responding and reflecting the fact that the world is moving into our part of the world, the world is moving to the Asia-Pacific and the Indian Ocean…The world needs to come to grips with the rise of China, the rise of India, the move of strategic and political and economic influence to our part of the world.”

Here’s the full article in the NY Times.

One of the crucial themes of the upcoming First History for Adults, Part 5: Japan, China, and India will be the “balance of power” and why postmodernity makes this construct so disproportionately important.  (Full course descriptions and pre-registration will be available starting tomorrow!)

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The Five “I”s of History, Part 2: Inspiration

Although the instructional value of history provides a crucial underpinning of the American Revolution, it is not the only value that history provides that helped make the republic that is the United States and that can help those who still seek to keep it. “Without the classical example,” states historian Hannah Arendt “…none of the men of the revolutions on either side of the Atlantic would have possessed the courage for what then turned out to be unprecedented action.” In other words, history can empower us emotionally as well as intellectually by presenting actual, successful heroes who moved the world.

Literature and art, for their part, serve as inspiration when they present human beings as they could and ought to be: Michelangelo’s courageous David facing off against Goliath, the swashbuckling poet Cyrano de Bergerac questing for love, or Terrence Rattigan’s Arthur Winslow seeking justice for his son in the Winslow Boy. Although, due to the failing of modern historians, history is usually viewed as dry and devoid of such emotional fuel, one of the crucial functions of history is in fact to inspire, and to do so in a way that only it can.

The unique source of inspiration that a proper study of history can provide is the sight of man as he actually has been and can be again.

The incomparable heroism of King Leonidas of Sparta, defending Greece to the death at Thermopylae, the unbending integrity of Galileo in his pursuing of scientific truth in defiance of the nearly monolithic power of the Catholic Church, the genius and poise of Washington crossing the Delaware to victory against the Hessians at Trenton; these examples are not invention. They are the truth of human beings at their greatest. It’s no wonder that a young history student of mine from Norway once exclaimed, history “…keeps me more thrilled than any movie.”

HISTORY THROUGH ART – History can inspire in many ways.  In its basic narrative form, it can mimic literature.  But its power to inspire can also arise in other forms, including film and painting.  One of the unique features of the Powell History pedagogical approach is the use of visual art to both facilitate students’ grasp of history and to help students draw inspiration from the past.

The benefits of this approach are manifold.  From an instructional perspective, visual art concretizes the abstract narrative of the past, providing us with a past that can be seen.  By means of the compositional or thematic integration of the art itself, it also helps to integrate the meaning of the past.  (For instance, in the painting below, the symbolic inscriptions in the bottom left tie the events of Napoleonic history to an ancient past, evoking crucial comparisons and themes.)  Looking at great art, as in the images below, one need hardly elaborate on its power to inspire as well.  Challenges sometimes arise about the objectivity of the inspirational themes involved, but when instruction and inspiration are connected to genuine values, the final product is invaluable.  This will be a theme that we aggressively pursue in the new PHR!

Great historical art can inspire and instruct at the same time. Look for a complete analysis of David's Bonaparte Crossing the Alps in an upcoming issue of PHR.

The unique ability of visual art to instruct and inspire will be regularly featured in upcoming issues of PHR, including Jacques-Louis David's amazing Death of Socrates.

The ultimate example of thematic historical visualization: Emmanuel Leutze's Washington Crossing the Delaware (closeup by Lee Sandstead). More on this painting coming up in PHR!

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The Five “I”s of History, Part 1: Instruction

In the preface to his immortal work The History of the Peloponnesian War, the ancient Greek historian Thucydides enjoined his readers to seek “an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to the interpretation of the future, which in the course of human things must resemble if it does not reflect it.” Thucydides understood that the careful crafting of the factual record into an instructive narrative would generate what he called a “possession for all time,” i.e. a story containing abstract lessons applicable to similar contexts in any era.

The important instructive value of history was upheld by Plutarch, a Greek historian writing in Roman times. In his Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, Plutarch explained that the purpose of biography was to instruct by example, that under the influence of proper history, the student would “pursue and make after the best and choicest of everything, that he may not only employ his contemplation, but may also be improved by it.“

After Roman times the instructive value of history was corrupted by its subordination to Christianity.  History became the handmaiden of theology, its only acceptable purpose to demonstrate the unfolding of a divine purpose or to glorify the Christian rulers supposedly enacting it.

The gradual overthrow of the religious monopoly on the intellect during the subsequent Renaissance and Enlightenment brought about a commensurate shift in the expectations of the instructive value of history.  However, a new corruption crept into the study of the past.  History was no longer to serve religion. Instead, it was to serve “reason.”  Unfortunately, this meant a kind of providential force that in the mind of Enlightenment thinkers had naturally overcome the  irrationality of the Dark Ages and revealed itself with an everlasting triumph of science and social progress.   Any  instructive value to be derived from studying history was marred by this obvious oversimplification.

Despite the failings of medieval and Enlightenment historiography, a generation of intellectuals benefiting from the freedom of learning during the Age of Reason was able to see through to the actual instructive value of history, and put the theoretical views of Thucydides and Plutarch into practice.   Not surprisingly, it was precisely the lessons of Greek and Roman history that this unique generation of intellectuals, the Founding Fathers, turned to when creating the first modern constitutional republic.  When, for example, James Madison and the federalists proposed to unify the separate states into a more perfect union, it was the failure of ancient Greece to do so and the resulting cultural disintegration, as illustrated in the work of Thucydides, upon which many of their calculations were based.  When the Founders devised the “checks and balances” of the federal system, it was the institutions of Athens, Rome, and even Sparta, which guided their deliberations.

The Founders were so convinced of the timeless  instructional value of ancient history that Thomas Jefferson proposed a law that all American children be taught Greek and Latin and the histories of Greece and Rome.  Benjamin Franklin had explained to a woman on the street of Philadelphia upon leaving the constitutional convention that the Founders had created “A Republic, if you can keep it.” To do so, Jefferson reasoned, would require that Americans keep the lessons of ancient history that had helped make the republic alive in their minds.

(The truth of Jefferson’s thesis is tragically illustrated in the fact that Americans are now thoroughly ignorant of history, and the republic created based on the Founders unique historical awareness has been continually in decline for over a hundred years, and may well be approaching a terrible tipping point.)

Powell History takes Jefferson’s vision seriously and advocates a return to a “Thucydidean” approach to history.  (For those of you who may have wondered, that is indeed Thucydides in the PHR logo.)  In our present context this means promoting a rebirth of the study of ancient history along side a proper study of European, American, and even Middle Eastern and Asian history.

This is a tall order, since we live in a society that has all but given up on history.  But it can be done.   Powell history supports adults who are seeking to make up for lost time by its “first history for adults” series, and it provides homeschoolers and afterschoolers with all the tools necessary to provide a complete history education to children from 2nd to 12th grade. These are the first steps required to rebuild history as an instructive science that supports ongoing progress within a free, scientific, secular civilization.

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Powell History Recommends Returns!

The past year has been an incredibly busy time for me, with the launch of new products and a trip around the world, but I’m back, with some exciting announcements for the coming months!

For both those of you new to Powell History and those who’ve been around from the start, let me get you caught up on the history of Powell History, as well as recent goings-on.

For over five years Powell History has provided an unmatched educational experience for history students of all ages.  In 2006, the first sessions of “A First History for Adults, Part 1 (The Story of America)” were offered to students across the United States and the world.   A year later, History At Our House—the ultimate history resource for homeschoolers—was launched, making live professional history instruction available to homeschooled children of elementary grades everywhere.

Both products have grown by leaps and bounds.  Over the the past four years, A First History for Adults has expanded to include:

Part 2 – Europe: Context and Foil
Part 3 – The Islamist Entanglement
Part 4 – The Ancient Background,

…and European History Through Art for adults!

HistoryAtOurHouse has grown even more rapidly along side, as a fully integrated curriculum, offering a three-year program rotation of ancient, European, and American history for students from second to twelfth grade.

In 2010, the HistoryAtOurHouse model was adopted to begin making a wider range of homeschooling products available with the launch of MusicAtOurHouse, a music history and appreciation program taught by composer M. Zachary Johnson.

ScienceAtOurHouse was added to the growing array of programs available in 2011, and is currently enjoying great success thanks to work of curriculum director Dr. John Krieger of VanDamme Academy and life science instructor Rachel Miner.  Based on early progress in this venture, we plan to expand ScienceAtOurHouse into a three-year program rotation of life science, physical science, and earth science for students from 2nd to 9th grade.

2012 promises to be the best year yet with new curriculum offerings for children and adults alike.  Plans are in the works for literature, math, and physics in the coming years.   And for students of history — both homeschoolers and life-long learners — the coming year will be extremely exciting:  our focus will shift to the history of Asia.  A First History for Adults, Part 5: Japan, China and India – will begin this summer! — exploring the theme of the subordination of the major eastern cultures to western civilization and the evolving responses of each of them, which will play a crucial role in shaping the world we live in.

History At Our House will also focus on Asia in the coming year, breaking from its fundamental three year program rotation of ancient, European, and American history for a unique spectrum of courses on Asia, including units on the history of India, China, Japan, and the Middle East.

2012 is also the year when Powell History’s product lines will move to a new on-line platform developed by Cando.Com.

The new PHR blog and newsletter will serve as the vehicle for news on these exciting developments. It will also serve the broader purpose of promoting the unique value of history using Powell History methods.  Please look for the upcoming feature articles on The Five “I“s of the Powell History philosophy of history, and a stream of articles in which that philosophy will be put into action!

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Ranking America’s Presidents: The “Punters”

In opening post for this series I indicated what I would use as the two fundamental yardsticks for the ranking of presidents. The first was foreign policy, with principled national self-interest as the ideal and standard of measurement. The second was domestic policy, with respect for the individual’s rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness serving as the standard of judgment.

The challenge in asserting and using such a standard is that it embodies truths only ever clearly enunciated by philosopher Ayn Rand in the twentieth century. It is thus all too easy to take such a standard and apply it anachronistically.

In particular, when judging American presidents, one must respect the fact that a president is  not a philosopher. It is not a president’s job to discover and validate fundamental truths about the “human condition.” I would characterize a president’s job as that of an intellectual technologist, whose responsibility it is to apply the best political principles available to him in the cultural context of his era in the act of governance. To be qualified for such a position, a president should be appraised of fundamental philosophy as well as its cognate fields in the humanities, especially history, law, political science and economics. In particular, he must be fluent in the particular application of the principles derived from these disciplines in the constitutional apparatus that defines his purpose and legitimate activities.

For an American president, this consists in the very least of a strong grasp of the political philosophy of John Locke and the Founding Fathers, but should also include an awareness of the works of other thinkers of note, such as Montesquieu and William Blackstone, ultimately going back to Plato & Aristotle. In terms of historical knowledge, I would also say that no president would be qualified for the post without a working knowledge of the history of the Ancient Greek city-states, the Roman republic, and the British constitutional monarchy.

Of course, as an intellectual, a president would also have the responsibility of monitoring the “state of the art” in each of these major fields and working with other intellectuals to determine if and how new developments should be integrated with previously accepted principles, and–where applicable–they might contradict and supercede already accepted views.

It is with considerations such as these in mind that I generally rate the presidents after Monroe less and less highly. As national leaders they by and large defaulted on their responsibility as intellectuals, resulting in an almost continual decline in the American republic.

As for the group I call the “punters”, the intellectual challenge they faced, in a word, was slavery. Once the threat of expanding European colonization in the Americas had dissipated–on a practical level, it was settled by British acquiescence to the Monroe Doctrine–every passing decade, every 100,000 square mile expansion of territory, and every million increase in the population shifted the political landscape away from the question of independence. By the mid nineteenth century, there can be no arguing that America had become a viable independent state. At the same time, the intellectual landscape of Western civilization was shifting. The evil of slavery was finally being recognized. Britain had adapted to this change, and was leading the charge to abolish slavery worldwide. In America the abolitionist movement grew stronger with every passing year. In light of these developments, it became the fundamental obligation of every president to address the incompatibility of slavery with the principles of individual rights and to establish a program for eradicating the former in order to fully embrace the latter.

Which is not to say it would have been easy, but as the expression goes, “If you can’t stand the heat…”  A proper president would have had to find a way to be a conciliatory moral leader–like Lincoln managed to be during the Civil War.  That was the job, and the “punters” basically failed at it.

On the other hand, it was not the responsibility of the presidents of this era to ferret out all the problematic premises that permeated the evolving political-economic framework known as mercantilism. This was the responsibility of professional philosophers, historians, political scientists and economists, who should have passed on their insights to the politicians. Without strong moral and economic alternatives to contradict the nationalist/protectionist concepts in mercantilism, its continuation and even its metastasis was inevitable. It took the intellect of Adam Smith to begin to break down this perspective, with the later contributions of the Austrian school of economics helping to create a complete scientific alternative, and it took until the twentieth century for philosopher Ayn Rand to identity the moral truths embodied in free trade.

For this reason I do not judge presidents of the nineteenth century primarily for their views on such issues as central banking, tariffs, or “internal improvements.” To the extent, for instance, that presidents promoted the establishment or expansion of a national bank or of other rights-violating instruments of the department of the treasury, they were wrong. But what were their options? The Agrarians of the Jeffersonian era and the so-called “states-rights” advocates who pragmatically supported “free trade” offered no real alternatives. The so-called supporters of “states rights” were all defenders of slavery, which makes the use of the term “free trade” a terrible perversion. They only wanted open trade with Britain in order to perpetuate an unjust social system. There was no virtue in it.

The pressing problem of the Era of the Growth and Decline of the Union that required presidential leadership, but instead met with default and evasion, was slavery. Every year that passed made this point clearer, and every time that presidents “punted” on this issue only made the situation worse.  Consequently, one might be inclined to say that the difficulty level of each successive presidency got higher as the nineteenth century unfolded, and that this should be taken into account when judging the presidents in question.  However, the issue is moot, because not one of the presidents in question ever did anything particularly impressive that would allow someone who is ranking them to even consider how hard it was for them to do the right thing.

So here’s my quick run down of what the “punters” did, and how I rank them:

John Quincy Adams (one term: 1825-29)
Rank Among Punters: 1st (out of 10) — overall rank: pending

Adams was the only president of this era who was unequivocally opposed to slavery.  For this reason he automatically gets the first rank.  He also gets the first rank for his non-presidental activity, re: his key role in the formulation of the Monroe Doctrine.  Unfortunately, his presidency was dominated by factional strife over the the 1824, which he won despite not winning the popular vote.

Andrew Jackson (two terms: 1829-1837)
Rank Among Punters: 2nd (out of 10) — overall rank: pending

I don’t want to like Jackson, because of his attacks on John Quincy Adams over the 1824 election, but I can’t help myself because he stood up to John C. Calhoun in the nullification crisis.  Jackson’s willingness to send troops into South Carolina forced it to back down over the tariff (i.e. its slavery-related trade complaints) for a brief time.  Sadly, Jackson was not the kind of president who could follow through and begin work to dismantle slavery.  Indeed, he even attempted to stifle the growing tide of anti-slavery publications, including by allowing his postmaster general to prevent anti-slavery publications from being distributed via the mail in the South.

Martin Van Buren (one term: 1837-41)
Rank Among Punters: 3rd (out of 10) — overall rank: pending

The overriding crisis that dominated the president of Martin Van Buren, and which arguably excuses him from having taken a more active role to begin dismantling slavery was the Panic of 1837 and the economic depression that followed.  In this difficult context, Van Buren refused to great deal of pressure to alter the economic course of the country by government power by some kind of “stimulus plan.”  Van Buren had previously voted against the admission of Missouri into the Union as a slave state.  Had he served under different circumstances, he might have done more, but because he stood on principle, he (like John Quincy Adams) was willing to be unpopular, he was not re-elected.

William Henry Harrison (one month, 1841)
Rank Among Punters: 4th (out of 10) — overall rank: pending

There is no way to rank Harrison.  He was president for a month.  Giving him the benefit of the doubt means putting him in the middle between the better presidents of this era–Adams, Jackson, and Van Buren–and the bad ones.  Speaking of which…

John Tyler (one term: 1841-45)
Rank Among Punters: 5th (out of 10) — overall rank: pending

John Tyler was a follower of slavery and states rights advocate John C. Calhoun, which is enough to condemn him in my book.  He favored the annexation of Texas, which according to Calhoun would “uphold the interests of slavery, extend its influence, and secure its permanent duration.”  Thankfully Calhoun was wrong, but it’s the thought that counts.  When the Senate refused to annex Texas, Tyler lobbied for a joint resolution to incorporate the new state into the nation without a formal treaty.

James Polk (one term: 1845-49)
Rank Among Punters: 6th (out of 10) — overall rank: pending

When Polk entered office, the annexation of Texas was a “fait accompli.”  His job was to try to settle the boundary disputes with Mexico in a civilized way and find ways to carve up Texas to limit the growth of slavery–that is, if he intended to be a leader among men.  Whether diplomacy could have worked with Mexico in this context is arguable.  Eventually it became clear that Mexico’s intransigence would have to be met by force, and Polk’s presence in the White House at a time when America’s soldiers performed so admirably seems to rub off on his reputation, though probably undeservedly.  Obviously, he deserves no credit for the entry of California into the Union as a free state.

Zachary Taylor (partial term: 1849-50)
Rank Among Punters: 7th (out of 10) — overall rank: pending

A soldier, with no particular intellectual qualifications, Taylor opposed the expansion of slavery and the idea of states rights on non-essential grounds.  I rate Taylor, and all presidents of this time forward even lower than Tyler and Polk because of what was possible, as evidenced by the standard set by statesman William Seward.  For my money, Seward was the best man in America (including Lincoln) up to and after the Civil War.  He was against the expansion of slavery at every turn, explaining,  “All measures which fortify slavery or extend it, tend to the consummation of violence; all that check its extension and abate its strength, tend to its peaceful extirpation.”  Taylor on the other hand coasted along as a slave holder until he died, showing no evidence of moral leadership when others, like Seward, certainly did.

Millard Fillmore (partial term: 1850-53)
Rank Among Punters: 8th (out of 10) — overall rank: pending

The antislavery question was now undeniably the driving question of American politics.  With California’s entry into the nation cutting off the possibility of a continued western expansion of slavery, the battleground over this institution shifted.  Since it couldn’t go west, the South now pressed for the expansion of slavery northward.  The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 showed that the Constitution, as it stood, would make the North directly complicit in slavery, no matter what moral objections were voiced by its people.  Fillmore, for his part, was an appeaser. He is quoted as saying “God knows that I detest slavery, but it is an existing evil… and we must endure it and give it such protection as is guaranteed by the Constitution.”

Franklin Pierce (one term: 1853-57)
Rank Among Punters: 9th (out of 10) — overall rank: pending

One of two “doughface” presidents (active Northern appeasers of Southern slavery).  Pierce favored the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which overturned the Missouri Compromise, and thus would make possible the further expansion of slavery northward.  Pierce also voiced his support for the Confederacy during the Civil War.  I can’t think of anything good to say about him.

James Buchanan (one term: 1857-61)
Rank Among Punters: 10th (out of 10) — overall rank: pending

The worst “doughface” in American history. Buchanan advised admitting Kansas as a slave state, even against the principle of “popular sovereignty” upon which the Kansas-Nebraska Act was based. In other words, he was one worse than Pierce.  He was also zealous in trying to obtain more slave territory from Mexico, and to obtain Cuba for slavery as well.  Easily the worst president before the twentieth century.

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Ranking the Founding Presidents

In tackling the question of presidential rankings for just the Founding presidents I came to realize what an incredibly difficult thing it is to sort out even this small group, let alone all forty-three presidents so far.  With this group, the act of putting one person above another feels like an injustice to the one who is relegated to the next rank.  It’s such an amazing set of men that I almost feel like throwing my hands in the air and announcing a five-way tie!  But where would be the fun in that?!  I guess, no matter which way I rank ‘em, someone’s going to disagree, and that’ll be half the fun, so here goes…

1. George Washington (two terms: 1789-1797)

“First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.” — Henry Lee

Was there really any doubt?

Perhaps. If the question was: who is the greatest “Founding Father” then the issue would actually be more difficult, because that historical concept involves measuring a broader range of contributions to the founding of the United States. Given the importance of founding principles to a new nation, it would be hard to dispute placing Thomas Jefferson at the top of such a list, with John Adams and James Madison as close runners-up, but when it comes to a presidential ranking, then the honor of the highest rank must go to Washington.

To understand what Washington means to the United States as its first president, one must measure his accomplishment as the unifying figure of the Founding Era against the backdrop of The Critical Period that preceded it. I don’t think it can be overstated that there was no United States before Washington, and likely never would have been one without him. Historically-minded intellectuals like Jefferson and Adams might have understood the perils of disunity, as so tragically exemplified by the fate of the city-states of Ancient Greece, but no individual other than Washington had earned the kind of honor among men that overawes all factionalism and inspires them to embrace a  new national hope.

Concerning the policies he adopted as president, I think a couple deserve special mention for their salutary character.  Those are the Proclamation of Neutrality of 1793 and the Jay Treaty of 1795.   The former has generally been viewed positively, but the latter was not well-received.  Nonetheless, it also helped prevent the newly born United States from getting engulfed in wars that were of no essential connection to its national interest.  It was one thing for Americans to repel a poorly-executed attempt to stifle a Revolution, it was another altogether for a young nation to withstand an onslaught from the world’s most powerful empire while its national institutions were still in an embryonic state.  In principle, Washington advised in his Farewell Address that “the great rule of conduct for…” the United States “…in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connexion as possible.”  This crucial idea made its way into the Monroe Doctrine, which became the statement of American foreign policy of the Nineteenth century.

2. Thomas Jefferson (two terms: 1801-1809)

Jefferson’s epipath, written by him, reads “Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, Author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and father of the University of Virginia.” Not a word more, as he would have it.  Thus, evidently, no mention of his two-term presidency from 1801-09. So how could I possibly rank him 2nd in the Powell History list?  In this case, I think it should be evident that it’s because Jefferson’s presidency is a chapter–and a basically positive one–in a career as the greatest Founding Father of the United States.

Jefferson continued to steer the new nation with its self-interest as his guiding star as its third president.  His most notable accomplishment in that area was his leadership in the war against the Barbary Pirates.  Another key action, motivated by American self-interest was the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, which may have been difficult to justify as a government property purchase, but which Jefferson recognized as a necessary action to keep Europe’s powers out of North America. Usually the Embargo Act of 1807 is held as a strike against Jefferson because of its economic costs to Americans, but this is also a difficult measure to judge, and one that had national security implications.  Jefferson, like all the Founding Presidents had extremely limited resources and was concerned above all with the successful creation of a new nation.  In that context, the government had to do something to stand up for Americans’ rights (re: the impressment of Americans by the British navy), but war with Europe’s great powers was to be avoid at nearly all costs.

The incomparably positive value that Jefferson transmitted to American culture was secularism in government.  As Jefferson one wrote, “In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.”  He and Madison helped instill these premises in the national government, and that they have endured to this day is a legacy to them.

3. James Madison (two terms: 1809-1817)

The father of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, architect of the brilliant system of “checks and balances” that is the American government, and contributing author of the Federalist Papers, Madison is obviously a key Founding Father.

His place among the greatest American presidents is secured largely by his willingness to go to war against Great Britain, the superpower of the Nineteenth century, while America was still barely on its feet.  Up to 1812, Madison had preferred to avoid war, and he had supported the Embargo Act as Jefferson’s Secretary of State. Trying to stay neutral while France and Britain–nations that Jefferson said “feel power and forget right”–ran a muck, was a torturous task.  Historians have tended to view Madison’s decision to go to war with Britain over impressments as a terrible mistake, because of the immediate costs.   I think that it can only be properly evaluated in the light of the long term consequences of the decision, which were that America earned the grudging respect of Britain and Europe’s powers by standing up for itself.  The idea that America would defend its citizens’ rights was put to the test, and its President showed that the young nation would defy anyone.

4. James Monroe (two terms: 1817-1825)

After America proved capable of weathering the War of 1812, the “Era of Good Feelings” set in.  The Democratic-Republican party of Jefferson and Madison continued to dominate the federal scene with James Monroe as its new leader.

Monroe was the last president who had a direct connection to the American Revolution.  He had served in Washington’s army, and received a special commendation for his role in the Battle of Trenton after the famous crossing of the Delaware.

Two issues dominate the consideration of Monroe’s presidency.  First, the domestic question of slavery, and temporary avoidance of a crisis relating to that issue through the Missouri Compromise of 1820.  Second, the ongoing foreign policy problem of dealing with Europe’s imperial powers, which was resolved by the Monroe Doctrine of 1823. If it were not for the former, I might be tempted to have Monroe even higher in the rankings, and it is because of the latter that I cannot put him any lower.

The Missouri Compromise, which perpetuated slavery by allowing it to expand westward, was not initiated by Monroe and can’t be characterized as a presidential policy. Nonetheless Monroe did not have any better idea, and he didn’t use his presidential powers to veto it.  The Compromise is a measure of the culture of the time.  It reflects the continuing obsession with national unity–which was entirely justified up to that point–but also the failure to jettison slavery as a European inheritance.  There is no question that it’s a black mark on Monroe’s presidency, but I challenge anyone to come up with a viable solution to the problem that isn’t premised on an anachronistic application of modern philosophical principles to the context of the times.

What I do know about Monroe is that he understood that America must pursue its own self-interest in its foreign relations, and he did bequeath to the country an inestimable value in the Monroe Doctrine.  This enunciation of the president’s views defied Europe to expand its colonial presence in the Americas, and asserted that America would stand up for itself if threatened.  It identified that the American government and its founding premises were unique and antithetical to those of Europe’s and thus that the United States must view European expansion in the Americas as a threat to its national security.  The Monroe Doctrine was a proud and principled assertion of rational self-interest which set the tone for America’s foreign policy for the rest of the Nineteenth century.

5. John Adams (one term: 1797-1801)

Again, if I were to rank “Founding Fathers” I would have John Adams 3rd or 4th, because of his intellectual contribution to the Founding, but of all the Founders, I think he was least temperamentally suited to be president. His obsession with getting the respect he deserved drove him to problematic policies.

I do, however, fundamentally agree with John Adams own estimate of his presidency.  “When I am dead,” he said, “write on my tomb, ‘Here lies John Adams, who took upon himself the responsibility of peace with France.’” He felt that he could have no better epitaph.  This reflects a fundamental truth about the Founding Era, which is that the essential problem facing the Founders was how to secure independence. It was one thing to declare it.  It was another to win it.  It was altogether a different–and indeed, greater–challenge to keep it.   For Adams, the harsh reality was that the United States could not afford a war with France, and thus he had to find ways to stand up for Americans’ rights while avoiding this outcome.  The “Quasi-War” was the temporary expediency he adopted. In the long run, Adams understood that America would have to be able to defend itself, and he pushed for the creation of a navy to make that possible.

The black mark on Adams’s record are the “Alien and Sedition Acts,” of which the Sedition Act was the most pernicious.  It made it a crime to publish “false, scandalous, and malicious writing” against the government.  In the context of the threat of war with France and the invectives being leveled against him for his foreign policies, Adams believed he has sufficient cause to place restrictions on free speech.  Jefferson didn’t agree, and I can’t see it either, but I still rate Adams highly as an intellectual defender of rights, and he deserves special mention as a Founding Father who never owned a slave, so he definitely stays in the top five.

So this is how I rank the Founding presidents against each other.  This is also where I rank them overall.   Their work, measured against the standard of individual rights, is the most heroic labor of any generation of politicians in world history.  Although it must be admitted that they were unable to jettison the legacy of slavery which America inherited from the Old World, they created the intellectual foundations for a society of individual rights in which, ultimately, slavery could not be sustained.  Thus, although they belonged to an era marked by a terrible flaw, they were distinguished as unparalleled promoters of rights within that era.

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America’s Presidents: Introducing The Powell History Rankings

A Better Mt. Rushmore

Everybody has fun with this one, so I decided to try to come up with a complete set of Powell History rankings for America’s Presidents so far, not including Obama.  (I know where I expect him to end up, but I’ll let him prove me right over time.)

Coming up with a complete set of rankings is not an easy task, so I decided to start with some groupings, just to get a preliminary sense of where I’d have everybody.  The groups don’t necessarily indicate what a president’s final ranking will be.  They are more periodized, i.e. chronological, than anything, although I find that they help me to achieve greater clarity, as any good conceptual framework does.

I know, for instance, that I’d have the first five presidents as my top five–though I don’t have a definitive order for them just yet.

Group 1: Founders

Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe

I also know for certain that there are certain Twentieth century “unforgivables” that I would put at the bottom of my rankings.  Again, I’m not sure the exact order I’d have them in just yet.  Sadly, there are twice as many of these as there are presidents that I love.

Group 2: Unforgivables

Teddy Roosevelt, Taft, Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Eisenhower, LBJ, Nixon, Carter, George Bush Sr., Bill Clinton

The middle, of course, is the hardest to sort out, but to organize it somewhat I’ve got the following groups:

Group 3: The Punters

JQ Adams, Jackson, Van Buren, Harrison, Tyler, and Polk, Taylor, Fillmore, Pierce, Buchanan

Punters? One of my students called them this.  These are all the presidents who, following the Founding Era, had to deal with the issue of slavery, but decided to “punt.”

Group 4: Lincoln

A category all by himself.  For most people, an easy one.  For most Objectivists, not so easy.  For me, easy. 

Group 5: The Long Twentieth Century

Subgroup 5a: Reconstruction presidents: Johnson, Grant

Subgroup 5b: The “Mixed Bag” – Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland, Harrison, Cleveland (again), McKinley, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, Truman, JFK, Ford, Reagan, and “W”

So, how am I going to work the detailed rankings?  Well, I’m going to apply a basic template that includes two primary metrics: foreign policy and domestic policy.  Foreign policy will be measured with American self-interest as the standard, and presidents’ ideas, intentions and results as the quanta.  Domestic policy will be measured with individual rights–to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness–as the standard.  This will include looking at whether a president advanced the cause of individual rights–are there any who did besides the Founders and Lincoln?–or how they damaged our rights by promoting or abetting the cause of statism.  Usually, of course, it’s a “mixed bag.”

This dual template will operate on a sliding scale to account for “level of difficulty.”  Obviously, you don’t get as many points for a presidential “one and a half somersault” as you do for an “armstand three and a half with a twist”.  (Of course, if you as the President forced the nation into an “armstand” when it could just as easily have been upright, then your points go down, even if you successfully maneuvered through whatever problem you created.)

In the event of a tie, then I’ll deploy other considerations, such as non-presidential activity.  For instance, if you wrote something like a Declaration of Independence, then you obviously get some pretty major bonus points.  If, on the other hand, you made a career of appeasing Islamic terrorism while in and out of office, then you drop even further.  (Nobel Peace prizes will not figure prominently in these rankings, unless they serve to illustrate a president’s commitment to internationalism–in which case, if necessary, they will certainly be used to reduce a president’s score.)

First up, in the next installment: sorting out the Founders.  Let the hand wringing begin!

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The Powell History Person of the Year (2008)

Does getting yourself elected the president of the most important country in the world during a wave of world-wide economic upheavals and in an era of myriad international political crises make you the “Person of the Year”–considering in addition that you are the first black president in that same country, which has an otherwise incomparably glorious history of individual rights, but whose story is nonetheless stained by black slavery and racism–and considering that you promote a conciliatory policy with fundamentalist Islamic leaders whose essential philosophy is wholly antithetical to everything America stands for–and that you are a dedicated socialist who will take the freest country in the world and push it further towards being just one more “people’s state”–and finally, that your election signals that modern-day Americans believe that all the above is change they can believe in?

Yes. It does.

Barack Obama is Powell History’s “Person of the Year” for 2008.

If you object to this choice on moral or political grounds, I refer you to my series on the 2007 Person of the Year.

History is what matters, not how what matters makes you feel. ‘Nuff said.

Well…just one more thing…I do not wish for any of my readers to interpret this brief dismissive post as a sign that I would have preferred America to choose John McCain for President.  For the record, I had no preference whatsoever in the matter.  If you would like to know why, I refer you to Leonard Peikoff’s podcast comments here.

The fact that America has declined from the republic it once was to a democracy faced with the McBama non-alternative is the most depressing thing I can think of.  I bid goodbye and good riddance to 2008.

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Columbus and Isabella

I wish I had had time for all the posts I had planned for Columbus Week at Powell History, but these past months of teaching–I’m finally off for Christmas break!–have been wonderfully draining. Only now have I found the time to write about a wonderful new find I made.

Recently, I discovered a fascinating painting by Peter Rothermel, the artist who is probably most well known for his depiction of Patrick Henry before the House of Burgesses. It turns out that Rothermel was quite prolific, and he created a number of paintings depicting parts of American history, and especially the American Revolution, which I’ve been thrilled to learn about. Today however, I want to present a painting connected to Columbus that highlights one of the more fascinating relationships that are a part of the story of the great explorer.

As is somewhat common knowledge, it was Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain who upon defeating the last of the Muslims in Spain in 1492 agreed to send Columbus on his voyage. To be precise, however, it should be said that it was Isabella of Castile whose final consent made the epoch-making journey of 1492 possible, and it was Castile that paid the lion’s share. Thus, the relationship between Columbus and Isabella has been of considerable interest, and in paintings that depict Columbus arguing for his westward voyage or, later, pleading his case before the monarchs, it is generally towards Isabella that Columbus is oriented, not Ferdinand.

Columbus before the Queen, by Peter Rothermel

Rothermel, for his part, has chosen the point in the story where Columbus is still making his case. His argument has captured the attention of a scribe, who pauses as if to ponder the notion rather than merely record the proceedings. Ferdinand, seated, motions to quiet his adviser. A young lady sits in rapt attention. Finally, Isabella–the most prominent figure in the main group–raises her hands to her bosom, transfixed.

Although Isabella is standing on a raised platform, symbolizing her authority, she and Columbus are at the same height.  Because of the dark, cavernous, featureless space between them, a strong psychological line exists between them.  In viewing the image, the natural axis upon which one’s gaze moves back and forth from is from one face to the other.

To help us understand what moment this is and what is passing between them, Rothermel provides a set of contextual clues–especially in the bottom right corner.

It is perhaps when viewing this part of the painting that one becomes aware of deliberate distortions in the historicity of the image that Rothermel has employed to relay his theme.  In Columbus’s time, the main thing to grasp is not that the idea of a flat earth held sway (although it did); the more important thing to understand is that there simply wasn’t a point to worrying about it and nobody did. Only a select group of intellectuals in all of Europe were sufficiently literate and aware of  ancient and scientific geography to develop the specialized theoretical knowledge necessary to even debate the question in anything approaching a rational way.

In this setting, globes were certainly not commonplace.  In fact, there probably wasn’t a single globe to be found in Europe! (Apparently, Martin Behaim, may have constructed the first modern globe in 1492, while Columbus was on his fateful voyage.)

The charts and books make more sense from a strict historical perspective.  One is labeled “Marco Polo,” because Columbus was known to have been inspired by the Italian merchant’s travels to the Far East.  But it is their symbolic presence that matters more.  In much the same way, the portrayal of Columbus in aristocratic garb from a later period is intended to convey nobility, a dimension of the man’s character that Rothermel wished to make plain despite the fact that Columbus would never have been clothed in this way during his life.

The painting was for a certain audience: the audience of Nineteenth century Americans who still believed in the essential heroism of Columbus and who also felt that Columbus’s relationship to Isabella was pivotal in leading to the discovery of America.  For those untroubled by modern revisionism, the image can still conjure this exciting theme.

(To further explore this image, and to enjoy the other great works of Peter Rothermel, I highly recommend Rothermel, by Mark Thistlethwaite.  I’d grab one quickly.  It would make a great Christmas gift, and there are only a handful of copies out there!)

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