The four presidents whose images are carved on Mount Rushmore recently took to the stage at the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center Theater in Rapid City. To be clear, four renowned historical re-enactors offered a one-time only look at “Presidents” Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt. With Election Day almost upon us, SDPB’s Jim Kent stopped by to ask the legendary leaders some questions about concerns in their own administrations that are still relevant today.
It’s not often you get the opportunity to meet one of our presidents face-to-face, no less 4 of them at the same time. But that’s just what happened when George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt stopped by Rapid City – in the bodies/persons? of historical re-enactors who literally inhabit their characters.
The requirement on the audience’s part, of course, was to suspend reality and accept that four deceased presidents were actually alive and talking politics, the Constitution and an assortment of other topics right before them.
The same holds true for our listeners as I ask each of the former presidents about their time in office and issues from those periods that still concern Americans.
GW: “Well…my name is Washington, sir. I am General George Washington. I am the chief magistrate of these United States of America.”
JK: “At the time that you were elected there were not yet set political parties. And that kind of started when Mr. Adams ran for the presidency…”
GW: “Sir…one does not ‘run’ for the presidency. One ‘stands’ for the presidency.”
JK: “Okay. And at the time it wasn’t as it is today. Today millions of dollars are spent on ‘running’ for the presidency. Back then it was almost considered to be….you were too impressed with yourself. How dare you run for the presidency? One wouldn’t do that. Can you comment on that?”
GW: “Well…why would one want to run for the office of the presidency. ‘Running’ connotes an overarching ambition for the role. And that does not bode well with serving with disinterest. I say…sir…disinterest. I mean without greed…without personal gain. You have no personal interest in advancing yourself in the office. It is a glorious burden. I cannot imagine ‘running’ towards it.”
JK: “Once political parties started while you were in your two terms…how did you feel about the idea of…basically factionalism within the leaders.”
GW: “This is a cause of great upset and great concern. All of my national public service has been directed towards union. I have worked to put down faction. To put down division and…dare I say…political party. This too does not bode well for the country. As I have written and you may read…political party does little but raise the interest of ‘party’ above the interest of the nation.”
JK: “Executive power. Executive power versus the power of the Congress and the judicial. I recall a story where you decided to go visit Congress to discuss a treaty you were trying to negotiate with an American Indian tribe and you went there and presented your case to them…if you will…and you expected a reply and…basically…they said ‘We’ll get back to you.” And I understand you weren’t too pleased with that and never went to see the Congress again. Is that correct? Can you comment on that? And can you also comment on issues…if you will…between the Executive branch and the Congress particularly?”
GW: “Uh…it is my pleasure…sir. First of all I believe that the Chief Magistrate…the President…is an individual elected to act as an exemplar to set the tone as the first national citizen. A tone…again…serving with disinterest. No pay. No profit. And trying to…hope that others will follow this example. With regard to the specific incident that you mention…early in my first term I negotiated a treaty with the Creek Indian Tribe down in Georgia. This was…in essence…the first treaty of the United States of America under the Constitution. And the Constitution…if you are aware sir…requires that the President seek the advice and consent of Congress. I did so. I presented the treaty to them. You know…the Constitution does not say how you should seek the advice and consent. You may send a subordinate. You may write a report. You may go yourself. I went myself. They debated it for nigh on 3 days before approving it exactly the way I had submitted it to them three days earlier. And I said to my secretary at the time with regard to the Congress…I shall never set foot in that damned place again. Forgive my language sir.”
JK: “And did you?”
GW: “I did not.”
JK: “Thank you. One more question. At some point shortly after we gained our independence…and the government was set up… and the Constitution was written…and you became president…once again the powers in Europe were at war. France and Britain were at war. And you chose to remain neutral. Was it specifically as a result of concern over whether or not we would be able to support one side or the other without impacting ourselves…or did you have a concern…which later became an issue in this country…as to American involvement in European wars?”
GW: “Excellent question and the answer ‘tis both sir. I have written and again you may read if you so choose that we need to avoid having permanent friendships or permanent animosities towards any country. Instead…trade with all countries. It is in the interest of the United States of America. And we should also avoid becoming involved…as I mentioned…in the embroilments of other nations. We have no place in this planet Earth to build nations. We have only the example to set as a beacon light unto other nations. Hopefully they will copy our generous example.”
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JK: “Tell me who you are, if you would.
TJ: “Thomas Jefferson.”
JK: “When you became president…there’s a story that you changed the image of the President to a…more relaxed office in that….supposedly you answered the door to the White House in your slippers.”
TJ: “Laughs…and continues.”
JK: “At least once. Did you see the presidency as a more…a more common man’s office, if you will?”
TJ: “Well…Mr. .Kent I see not only the office of the presidency but I see our entire government as simply servants of the people. The people are those who hold the reins of our nation. And therefore…yes…it is an honorarium but…mind you…it’s an obligation to remind ourselves…those they have elected to government…that we are the servants of the people. Yes…you are correct. When I took office the 4th day of March 1801 I proceeded to dispense with all of the monarchal trappings of the president’s house that had been there for…well…3 administrations before me. No…I opened the doors of the President’s house…not literally. But you merely had to come up…make a rap on the door. Yes…usually I’d enjoy opening it and put forth my hand to greet my fellow American in that fashion that shows brotherhood and shows that we are…indeed…one people.
And…yes sir…you are correct Mr. Kent. On one occasion I greeted a gentleman caller at the President’s house in my bed cloak and my bed hat and my slippers and with my pet mockingbird Richard perched upon my shoulder. The man was the Minister Plenipotentiary of the Court of His Majesty King George III of England. Sir Anthony Merri. Oh…he was devoted to formality and ceremony. I hoped to remind him that he was in a land no longer British.”
JK: “Thank you. Separation of church and state…Mr. President. Was a concern of the Founding Fathers. Is still a concern today all these years later. There are…questions as to where religious…freedom of religion lies. And sometimes the individual is overpowered by a group and vice-versa. The government may or may not get involved or is viewed to be getting involved. How do you see...how important do you see the separation of church and state and was it an issue during your time?”
TJ: “Well…Mr. Kent…too often we forget about the essential principles…the semantics…if you will…of the freedom ‘for’ religion and the separation ‘between’ church and state. I rarely…if ever…have said separation ‘of’ church and state. No…I’m not for that. That implies a separating of religion from our lives…from the lives of those we elect to office. No…what I wrote distinctly in answer to the Baptist preachers in Danbury Connecticut…they wrote me…you see. It was in 1802. They had to continue to suffer the Constitution of Connecticut under which they would have to pay a tax…a tithing to the Congregationalist Church. They asked me as Chief Magistrate ‘Does not the First Amendment of our Constitution supersede the Constitution of Connecticut?’ Well…I reminded them the Constitution of our Union is the Law of the Land. Now…allow Connecticut to own up to our Constitution. Allow that time. It will occur. And in the interim…if you want my advice upon the subject…well…no one more than myself would rather see a great wall of separation be built…‘between’ church and state.”
“Now…many have said…’Mr. Jefferson…are those words precisely so in our Constitution?’ Well…no they’re not. But the entire foundation…the entire principle of the matter is. The First Amendment. ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of a religion…or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.’ And if any think that’s not enough at the beginning of our system of government…well at the very end of our Constitution…Article 6…Paragraph 3…’There shall be no religious test for office.’ That is the purpose of our government sir…to protect and defend that inherent right.”
JK: “Thank you…Mr. President.”
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AL: “My name is Lincoln…Abraham Lincoln. Currently my position is a...(chuckles)…not an enviable one. I happen to be the president in the midst of an awful conflagration. But…hopefully…we’ll get through it.”
JK: “So, you came into the presidency. States seceded. The war began. Initially you had said…you had told people that your goal wasn’t to…you had no intention of freeing the slaves. That changed though come the end of …well the middle of 1862. You decided the proper route for everyone and for the purpose of the country…the future of the country was to free the slaves. What made you change your mind?”
AL: “Well…it was actually the rebels themselves that changed the question from the extension of slavery…which was legal where it had been. But it…they changed it to…to dissolution. To…to disunion. And that is what was illegal and created a war situation. Now in the context of that war we…it took nearly a year of struggle to have one single battle at all that gave victory to the union. And we were losing support. Volunteers and so forth. We had to have a Conscription Act. And here were hundreds of thousands of able-bodied men who were not allowed to fight…the slaves.
“Now the laws of war permit the confiscation of property used in behalf of the war. Why not the property of slaves? So…there we were killing 2 birds with one stone. Not only could we…did we need to have the slave power fighting with us and not with their masters…but we could end the problem forever by so doing. So…it was difficult. And it was the only course to take.”
JK: “Thank you. Reconstruction. Do you have plans? I mean…for what will happen after the war presuming the union is…brought back together again?”
AL: “Well…what the war has done…other than the emancipation…which is nothing small…but it has brought us back to the very place that we started at. The division within the country still remains. So…to restore the union…to make it a union of hearts and hands as well as of states…is the great task ahead. Wars bring vindictiveness and hate and...and a desire to be or be killed in the midst of it all. And we must overcome that and look to restoring this union in such a way to absolve all ill feeling and get back to the heart of the original matter. It was a difference in definition of liberty that started this. And that yet remains. And that must be addressed I the very near future. So…it’s not an easy task. Especially with war behind us now and all of the ill feeling and memory.”
JK: “Okay. Is there anything you’d like to say to the American people who’ll be hearing this conversation with regard to what you would like them to have learned from your administration?”
AL: “Well…I’ll say this…and I’ve said it many times. Human nature doesn’t change. And it’s a great piece of foolishness for any of us to suppose that something like what has happened to us could not happen again…and again. Which many in the early days of the administration thought…that we would not have this kind of war. We know better. It’s destructive. There was no hope of recovery from it. We thought we were better and…we’re not. And…and I think to maintain that attitude is about the healthiest possible. Forewarned is forearmed. And as we remember that we can go the way of all flesh as easy as not…then we will not have the national hubris to suppose that we can’t make the same mistakes as those who’ve gone before us.”
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TR: My name is Theodore Roosevelt and I am the ex-President of the United States. As you can see I’ve bene out of office 4 or 5 years now. But I have to admit…I wouldn’t mind being President again.”
JK: “Now…when you first came into office one of the initial campaigns you started for yourself was to try and have a balance in the economy in the country. The trusts were very big…people like J.P. Morgan and his cronies were making an awful lot of money and many people were at the other spectrum and there wasn’t anything really resembling a middle class. So you kind of put the trusts in your gun sights…if you will…and you went after them. And this didn’t go over well with many people…particularly the powerbrokers…but also people within your own party.”
TR: “Well…absolutely. Unfortunately…the Republican Party had gro0nw successful…as it should have been…during the years following the Civil War. But it had also grown…oh…too complacent…and too much under the control of others who were pulling the strings of Senators and Congressmen. Let it be known…I am not against trusts. I have no problem with a trust that is a good trust. That is regulated…as regulated itself. And is working for the benefit of the people it serves or its customers as well as itself. What I was trying to avoid were trusts that monopolized…as did the Great Northern Securities merger. Monopolized business in such a way that the ordinary average American would be under the control of some large company or monopoly that was not regulated for the good of the people. And I firmly believe that in these United States there’s only one entity that could regulate and control these monopolies so they did not hurt the people…and that’s the United States government. So…we took action.”
JK: “Okay. Thank you. Executive orders. You passed over 1100 Executive Orders during your time that many people saw as your way to circumvent Congress. You had a problem with Congress and…I guess…the amount of time it took them to do anything. Would you comment on that?”
TR: “Well…in one aspect because otherwise we could be here for a couple of hours. But…uh…let us take the American Antiquities Act. You know…only Congress can create a National Park. And I wanted more parks…national parks…than the 5 that were in existence when I came into the presidency. Well…with the American Antiquities Act…drafted by Congressman John Lacey of Iowa…I was able to have an instrument that allowed me…to use your word…circumvent Congress. I no longer had to wait for the tortoise-paced meandering of a Congress that was filled with men who only were…well…all they wanted to know was what was in it for them in order to get a bill passed.”
JK: “How important do you feel it is for a chief executive to be able to do that? To have that power?”
TR: “If he has the interests of the American people in mind…above his own…I think it is vitally important. I think it should be used carefully and wisely…which I feel I did. It devolves back on the character…the moral character of the man in the office.”
JK: “Last question…sir. You brought the United States from a…a large nation in the Western hemisphere to a world power. You visited Europe. You visited Panama. You started the Panama Canal. You expanded the navy to a two-ocean navy and then once you did that sent them out around the world…basically…for the world to see what the United States Navy now was. Given that we’re world power as a result of your actions…many people have subsequently felt that perhaps we shouldn’t be involved in as many areas of the world…conflicts…what have you…that we have been since your time. Was that your intention…to be what people refer to as The World’s Policeman…or…?
TR: “Personally speaking…I do not want the United States to be the world’s policeman. I do not mind…in fact I would consider it an honor…if nations who had grudges against one another or difficulties with one another came to us as sort of negotiators or peacemakers. I think that is a role that Americans can do well…and should do. My…my policy is that American interests…honor and citizens shall be and will be protected anywhere in the world. In order to do that we must…uh…maintain a force…a presence around the world. I do not believe we need to get mixed up in the…in the internal affairs of any one nation unless in some manner it…oh…seems to harm our own…like I say…interests. Our own honor. Our own citizens.”
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To close, we offer these words from our nation’s first President…George Washington.
JK: “Is there anything you’d like to say to the American people?”
GW: “Well…I would suggest to them that they need to understand the importance of union. I would urge them to remember the motto of this nation when it was formed. It ‘twas a Latin phrase. “E pluribus unim.” Out of many…one. We touched on it earlier…my friend. We need to set aside faction and division…and dare I say political party. If we do those things we can accomplish anything as Americans.”
Don’t forget to vote.
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