F Harmon - Presidents versus Senators

As a former sportswriter at two daily newspapers for seven years and a sports communications professional at three different state universities for more than 22, I am well versed in the integral role rivalries play in the American athletic landscape. No matter the level of competition, rivalries inspire a greater intensity for any athletic contest. And under the canopy of major pro and/or college sports, it doesnt require die-hard fandom to recognize our most renowned, athletic rivalriestraditional confrontations like PackersBears, YankeesRed Sox, CowboysRedskins, GiantsDodgers, CelticsLakers, MichiganOhio State, AuburnAlabama, or North CarolinaDuke. The mere mention of those rivalries prompts images of big games past that live on through constant reminders and annual hype.

By contrast, all-time political rivalries are not so much remembered by the individuals involved as by the issues. Usually these have been started by an influential senator of the opposition party taking on the White Housesomeone with the public persona and political clout to directly challenge the president. It has made for some of Americas most intense political conflicts, with presidents emerging victorious most of the time, but not always.

The rivalries and issues to be covered here commence with the rise of congressional influence and populist impact following the War of 1812, sometimes referred to as Americas Second Revolution, and illustrated by the partisan divide over such things as a National Bank. They are continued through the battle over slavery and its expansion; emancipation and the aftermath of racially motivated, sectional civil war; the international transition brought on by U.S. involvement in World War I; the repeated threats and suspicion of communist infiltration of our federal government after World War II; the final move towards actual racial civil rights in America; and the controversial give-away of one of our most celebrated accomplishments and prized possessions, the Panama Canal.

Sources for such legendary battles abound. From biographies of the great and would-be great men who waged these protracted political showdowns, to detailed examinations of each historic episode, and from period overviews of some of our most famously defined American eras and specific institutional histories, to related books that either set the stage or confirm the results.

Among the biographies used were a series on Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, and Daniel Webster by Robert Remini, undoubtedly one of the foremost historians of the Jacksonian Era (1820s and 30s); three on Abraham Lincoln, including one by two-time Pulitzer Prize winner David Donald Herbert titledsimply Lincoln ; as well as recognized bios of presidents Andrew Johnson, Woodrow Wilson, and Harry Truman, and a Pulitzer winner titled with just another last name Truman by yet another two-time Pulitzer recipient, David McCullough. Add to those accepted biographies on the administrations of presidents Jimmy Carter and Lyndon Johnson, and the careers of senators Charles Sumner, Joseph McCarthy, and Richard Russell, and you get the idea of how much attention was paid to the vast array of biographical works available from the nearly 150-year span of American history covered in this book.

Additionally, targeted histories like The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party by Michael Holt; Almost President: Men Who Lost the Race but Changed the Nation by Scott Farris; Reconstruction: Americas Unfinished Revolution by Eric Foner; Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World by Margaret MacMillan; The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made by Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas; and most recently Heirs of the Founders: Henry Clay, John Calhoun, and Daniel Webster, the Second Generation of American Giants by H.W. Brands are all examples of the wide ranging support sources used to fill in blanks of each of the major political battles examined here.

Each confrontation has been examined in three parts, with the first involved in setting the stage for the battle; the second a chronological breakdown of the events that occurred during each battle; and the third a summation of the results of those famous Washington warswinners and losers and what it meant for the country in the aftermath.