Joseph Martin Hernon - Profiles in Character: Hubris and Heroism in the U.S. Senate, 1789-1996

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Profiles in character

Profiles in character

HUBRIS AND
HEROISM
IN THE
U.S. SENATE,
17891996

Joseph Martin Hernon

First published 1995 by M.E. Sharpe

Published 2015 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright 1997 Taylor & Francis. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Notices
No responsibility is assumed by the publisher for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use of operation of any methods, products, instructions or ideas contained in the material herein.

Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In using such information or methods they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for whom they have a professional responsibility.

Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Jacket photo credits: Kennedys: UPI/Bettmann.
All others: see pages following page 118.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hernon, Joseph M.
Profiles in character : hubris and heroism in the U.S. Senate,
17891990 / Joseph Martin Hernon.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-56324-937-5 (hc.: alk. paper)ISBN 1-56324-938-3 (pbk.: alk paper)
1. United StatesPolitics and government.
2. United States. Congress. SenateHistory.
3. LegislatorsUnited StatesHistory.
I. Title.
E183.H461996
973dc2096-8940
CIP

ISBN 13: 978-1-563-24938-9 (pbk)
ISBN 13: 978-1-563-24937-2 (hbk)

To the memory of my father, Joshep Martin Hernon (19011963) a lawyers lawyer;

my mother, Lucille Mearns (19021990), a loving teacher of a sickly child;

Dr. Geoffrey Morrison (19481995), a historians historian, who challenged me to undertake the task;

and George Macaulay Trevelyan, O.M. (18761962), whose inspiring artistry taught me the poetry and irony of history.

Contents

---

Epilogue
Virtue Misapplied: Modern Heroes in an Age of Hubris

---

Americans are not known for their sense of history or historical memory, though our national past spans little more than two centuries. So it should not be surprising to discover quite a few unsung political heroes, especially with our relatively recent obsession with the presidency to the neglect of Congress. But the end of the Cold War appears to mark the end of the imperial presidency and a greater balance of power between the executive and legislative branches.

My focus on character comes at the end of a national age of hubris as we are forced to downsize our patriotic ego. National demoralization has recently inspired a plethora of studies of the American character, but one must caution against easy, moralistic answers. It is hoped that this study demonstrates the way individual character can shape legislation and the course of historical events. Individual character does count for a lot.

Moving against the grain of conventional interpretations of American history, my study does not focus on a multiplicity of details but, rather, endeavors to paint in broad strokes a panorama of the great American political debate. Should not the study of history raise big moral questions with no facile answers?

Joseph M. Hernon
Amherst, Mass.
March 25, 1996

Profiles in character

---

In 1956, Senator John F. Kennedy published a much-heralded book about that most admirable of human virtuescourage, which he defined in a phrase of Ernest Hemingways, grace under pressure. The books dust jacket headlined Decisive Moments in the Lives of Celebrated Americans, who happened to be members of the United States Senate. Although I have also written about the lives of senators, I have done so in a considerably different way.

First of all, my heroes will be evaluated according to the Greco-Roman concept of Virtue. It includes not only courage but also prudence, temperance, and justice, in our Founding Fathers conception of their Greek and Roman heroes. This kind of courage is defined as the fortitude of a lifetime, which makes grace under pressure possible.

The young Thomas Jefferson wrote to a friend that everything is useful which contributes to fix us in the principles and practice of virtue, and he recommended reading authors such as Jonathan Swift and Voltaire who would inspire an emotional, commonsense kind of virtue. In a letter to John Adams in old age, Jefferson wondered what a Julius Caesar, who had been as virtuous as he was daring and sagacious, might have done to lead his fellow citizens into good government. Very little, the Monticello sage concluded, because Romes only concept of government was the degenerate Senate and the people were not informed, by education or encouraged in habits of virtue.

Pierce Butler of South Carolina, a member of the Constitutional Convention and the first Senate, noted that the very concept of the office of president was shaped during the Philadelphia deliberations by a consensus about the Virtue of the expected first incumbent. George Washingtons perceived virtue determined the powers given to the presidency itself.

Like the members of the first Senate, the young Washington was conscious of being taught to put on the character and not just the clothes of a gentleman. Virtue and courage are part of character, but the historian must ascribe these characteristics with caution. Allan Nevins acknowledged in his Foreword to Kennedys Profiles the need to look beyond moral courage to that greater entity called character because a person without character may give fitful exhibitions of courage. Our cynical society of the 1990s has few criteria even to understand the concept, let alone live by it. And a study of a body intended as a forum for virtue must be an exploration into cultural as well as political history.

Too much of our history centers on presidencies, and virtually every modern president has his own court historian with an extensive staff to exaggerate his importance and influence. Yet some senators who served unbroken terms for two to three decades were more politically significant than many of the presidents. And studying the contrasting careers of any two such senators provides a better understanding of the critical issues of their age.

Among the factors that determined my selections was length of tenure in the Senate. Thomas Hart Benton served from 1821 to 1851, John Sherman from 1861 to 1897, George Frisbie Hoar from 1877 to 1904, Henry Cabot Lodge Sr. from 1893 to 1924, William E. Borah from 1907 to 1940, George W. Norris from 1913 to 1943, and Strom Thurmond from 1954 to the present. Most of these men did not have presidential ambitions but through tenure and force of personality became historically significant. Sherman, on the other hand, illustrates a corollary to the theme: he was so busy running for president (three times) that he became a figurehead.

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