Staff Recommendation #27: Hail to the Chaff

A Treasury of Great American Scandals: Tantalizing True Tales of Historic Misbehavior by the Founding Fathers and Others Who Let Freedom Swing 

By Michael Farquhar

With Presidents' Day just recently behind us, it seems like a good time to recommend a book that takes a novel approach to American political history.

Michael Farquhar is the author of one of my very favorite history books: A Treasury of Royal Scandals: The Shocking True Stories of History's Wickedest, Weirdest, Most Wanton Kings, Queens, Tsars, Popes, and Emperors. The book does exactly what it says on the tin, revealing the most scandalous of stories behind the history of Western Europe's royalty (with a few Russian kings and Roman emperors thrown in). Here, Farquhar takes the same approach with American history, unveiling some of the lesser-known faults, foibles, and follies of our presidents and politicians ... with hilarious and insightful results.

Read on for just a few of my personal favorite factoids from the book:

It's not easy being the president.

-- Despite her tombstone reading, "Mary, the Mother of Washington," Farquhar suggests that George Washington's mother might be better known as "the Bother of Washington." She pestered him constantly for money, nagged him for spending so much time away from home, and embarrassed him as publicly as possible. (She once petitioned the Virginia House of Delegates to come to her personal financial assistance.) She was known to be so pushy and miserable that some people theorized she was actually a secret Royalist, trying to undermine the American Revolution!

-- With a father as a former president, and as a president himself, maybe it's understandable that John Quincy Adams had high expectations for his children. Within reason. Of course, he maybe took it a little far, informing his sons (attending school at Harvard) that their "blast of mediocrity" was shaming the family name. He forbade them to come home until they ranked within the top six of their class, proclaiming that otherwise, "I would feel nothing but sorrow and shame in your presence." 

-- Warren Harding had a fatal flaw for a national leader: he was a people pleaser. His friends took advantage of him even after he gave them high-ranking government posts (actually, especially after he gave them high-ranking government posts). Harding's picks for government office ended up accepting bribes, stealing funds from the Veterans' Bureau, and instigating a little incident known as the Teapot Dome scandal. In regards to his presidency, Harding himself was quoted as saying, "My God, this is a hell of a job!  I can take care of my enemies all right. But my friends, my ... friends, they're the ones that keep me walking the floor nights!"

The Teapot Dome scandal. Caption:

"Who Says a Watched Pot Never Boils?"

-- Trying to pick just one Andrew Jackson duel out of his many encounters is a tough task. But perhaps his most famous (or infamous) challenge came in 1806, when Jackson faced off against a Tennessee lawyer named Charles Dickinson. As Dickinson was well-known to be the better shot, Jackson's strategy was to let the lawyer have the first chance. Dickinson's blow landed squarely in Jackson's chest -- but Jackson was apparently unfazed. Jackson fired back, and despite a faulty pistol hammer, emerged the victor. "I've had hit him," Jackson said later of Dickinson, "if he had shot me through the brain."

-- The first president to be impeached, Andrew Johnson inherited the presidency after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Stubborn and increasingly withdrawn, Johnson remained holed up in the White House, much to the consternation of the rest of the government and the country. But Johnson had his own personal duties to attend to: making friends with the White House mice. Taking pity on the rodents after his daughter had brought in cats, traps, and poison to rectify a mice infestation, Johnson stepped in to save the day. He began spreading flour out around the fireplace for the mice to snack on, then added other treats and dishes of water. He was eventually able to confide to one of his aides that he'd won the confidence and trust of "the little fellows." (Evidently, he won the confidence of the nation, as well, with the Senate failing to convict and Johnson retaining his presidency.)

Andrew Jackson, in one of his many, many, many duels

-- And we think our presidential campaigns get vicious ... in 1864, Harper's Weekly compiled a list of the insults that had been used against Abraham Lincoln by the Democratic supporters of his opponent, George B. McClellan. Among other things, Lincoln was referred to as: Filthy Story-Teller, Despot, Liar, Thief, Braggart, Buffoon, Usurper, Monster, Ignoramus Abe, Old Scoundrel, Perjurer, Robber, Swindler, Tyrant, Fiend, Butcher. (These, mind, were all from the North -- the South had their own selection.)

-- After leaving office in 1845, John Tyler returned to his Virginia estate. He lived a quiet life for fifteen years ... at which point he took up a cause during the Civil War. The rebel cause. The former president supported Virginia's secession from the Union, and was elected to the Confederate House of Representatives in 1861. The only reason he didn't make history as the only U.S. President to serve under two different governments was that he died just before taking office.

-- In the 1850s, it was reported that a Washington policeman arrested a drunken horseback rider for driving crazily down the streets and running over a pedestrian. All charges were dropped when the rider was identified. It was the current president of the United States: Franklin Pierce.


For more on these stories -- and many, many more -- be sure to check out A Treasury of Great American Scandals. History has never been so interesting.

From the Catalog:

- A Treasury of Great American Scandals -- [book]

- A Treasury of Great American Scandals -- [large print]

- A Treasury of Great American Scandals -- [e-audiobook]



-- Post by Ms. B