Emile Lester - Liberalism and Leadership: The Irony of Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

A growing literature on the presidency identifies the technical skills of presidents by focusing on their political thought and moral values, often assuming that a presidents values and goals are the most crucial component of his moral thought and behavior. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., was an empiricist and historian whose work on the presidency shows that value commitments do not translate smoothly into policy achievements. The dispositions and skills to address setbacks and unexpected crises were as vital to Franklin Roosevelts and John Kennedys accomplishments as their liberal moral views. At the same time, Schlesinger implied that several key skills Roosevelt and Kennedy demonstrated were moral virtues rather than mere techniques intended to enhance the presidents power. Schlesingers moral framework relies on insights about trends in American history to argue that Roosevelts and Kennedys ironic virtues often helped them avoid dangerous illusions to which Americans have been prone to succumb.

Appreciating the history-based regime analysis at the heart of Schlesingers liberalism opens up a new avenue of presidential analysis and may offer a path forward. In an age where external, institutional checks on the presidency continue to dwindle, internal checks on presidential overreach become all the more necessary. Schlesinger may have acknowledged and often championed the expansion of the presidents institutional powers, but he also urged liberal leaders to cultivate ironic virtues to prevent these powers abuse. That his counsel was grounded in conservative insights as well as liberal values makes it accessible to leaders across the political spectrum.

Emile Lester is professor of political science and international affairs at the University of Mary Washington.

Emile Lester

University of Michigan Press

Ann Arbor

Copyright 2019 by Emile Lester

All rights reserved

This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publisher.

Published in the United States of America by the University of Michigan Press

Manufactured in the United States of America

Printed on acid-free paper

First published November 2019

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Lester, Emile, author.

Title: Liberalism and leadership : the irony of Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. / Emile Lester.

Description: Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019016056 (print) | LCCN 2019981094 (ebook) | ISBN 9780472131518 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780472125876 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. (Arthur Meier), 19172007. | Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 18821945. | Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 19171963. | PresidentsUnited StatesHistory20th century. | LiberalismUnited StatesHistory20th century. | Political leadershipUnited StatesHistory20th century. | IronyPolitical aspectsUnited StatesHistory. | Executive powerUnited StatesHistory. | United StatesHistoriography.

Classification: LCC E175.5.S38 L47 2019 (print) | LCC E175.5.S38 (ebook) | DDC 973.91092 [B]dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019016056

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019981094

Digital materials related to this title can be found on the Fulcrum platform via the following citable URL: https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.9385856

In Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.s, A Thousand Days, John F. Kennedys participation in the civil rights movement culminates with his inspiring televised address on June 12, 1963, in response to George Wallaces blocking the entrance of African American students to the University of Alabama. Acting promptly and forcefully by federalizing the Alabama National Guard and causing Wallace to back down, Kennedy justified his decision with a magnificent speech in a week of magnificent speeches that in burning language... set forth the plight of the American Negro (Schlesinger 1965, 965). A week later, Kennedy introduced to Congress a civil rights bill that, in Schlesingers words, moved to incorporate the Negro revolution into the Democratic coalition and thereby help it serve the future of American freedom (977). In Schlesingers account, Kennedy understood that mobilizing support for the bill might even cause him to lose the 1964 election, but he saw no alternative to leading the fight in order to prevent the final isolation of the Negro leadership and the embitterment of the Negro people (968).

The focus on celebratory passages such as these in A Thousand Days and in Schlesingers trilogy about Franklin Roosevelts first term, The Age of Roosevelt, has inspired a scholarly consensus that these books were intended as hagiographies of Roosevelt and Kennedy and the muscular liberalism they practiced. Presidency scholar Michael Nelson ascribes a savior conception of the presidency to Schlesinger (Nelson 1998, 34; Tulis 1981). Historian Alan Brinkley describes Schlesingers histories as the classic statement of the view that FDR acted as an enlightened, progressive leader who used the political opportunities created by the Great Depression to shatter an existing orthodoxy and create a new, more democratic Page 2 distribution of power (Brinkley 1995, 12). In these accounts, Schlesinger saw Roosevelt and Kennedy as liberal knights devoted to triumphing over impersonal obstacles such as economic scarcity and human agents of injustice such as opponents of civil rights. The success that Roosevelt and Kennedy achieved is due to virtues often found in heroic quest narratives. Their commitment to liberal moral values of economic equality and personal freedom reflected purity of heart. The boldness of Kennedys inaugural address and the frankness of Roosevelts fireside chats showed their inspirational ability to communicate their vision. Their willingness to persevere in the face of daunting political odds demonstrated their courage.

If we pay attention to the complete assessments of Kennedy and Roosevelt in Schlesingers histories, however, the claim that Schlesinger intended to celebrate their heroic questing on behalf of an aggressive liberalism cannot be sustained. Schlesinger, for instance, may have praised Kennedys forceful and magnificent speech on July 12, 1963, but he immediately points out that some criticized Kennedy for not having given it earlier (Schlesinger 1965, 965). Civil rights leaders, Schlesinger notes, leveled accusations of timidity and delay against not only Kennedys rhetoric, but his legislative actions. While Kennedys legislative proposals of July 1963 were bold, his more piecemeal initiatives presented to Congress in February 1963 disappointed civil rights leaders (951), just as his delays in acting on his 1960 campaign pledge to address housing discrimination with the stroke of a pen had aggrieved the civil rights leadership (939).

Kennedys reticence on civil rights as described in A Thousand Days is consistent with the more general ambivalence about bold, activist liberalism that Schlesinger attributes to him. While Kennedy was willing and able to deploy inspiring rhetoric on occasion, A Thousand Days accuses liberals who urged Kennedy repeatedly to use it to appeal over the heads of Congress of garbled memories of Wilson and the Roosevelts and of exaggerating the impact of their oratory (722). Kennedy himself believed in a qualified historical fatalism which led him to doubt whether words, however winged, would by themselves change the world (723).