A Brief History of Generals as President

I think history can inform, but we shouldn't be shackled by it. I thought it would be interesting to dig into the past to look at the history of generals ascending to the presidency. Here's what I found.

Only three career generals have served as President of the United States, none Democrats. They are Zachary Taylor (Whig), Ulysses S. Grant (Republican), and Dwight D. Eisenhower (Republican).

Taylor was a 40-year army veteran and slaveholder. He got into office on a bit of a fluke, when the Free Soil Party (anti-slavery) nominee, Martin Van Buren, split the vote with Lewis Cass.

Grant was the most famous Civil War general -- with the possible exception of Lee -- and won office during Reconstruction, when the election of another Republican was a fait accompli. He got entangled in the Gould-Fisk gold scandal which led to an economic depression during his term.

Few people remember it, but Eisenhower spent a few years as President of Columbia University after World War II. In 1951 he was named to help form the new NATO forces in Europe. So he was actually in civic life well before Republicans nominated him in 1952. (The 1952 nomination was still under the old "smoke-filled room" system. Republican leaders picked their nominee.) Eisenhower governed pretty much as a status quo president, with the interstate highway system and formation of NASA two notable accomplishments.

The citizen-generals include George Washington, who needs no introduction, and Andrew Jackson (Democrat). Jackson had ample political experience. He served as both a Congressman and Senator, and he lost one presidential race (to John Quincy Adams in 1824), before ascending to the presidency. Andrew Jackson was an army major general.

Brigadier General William Henry Harrison (Whig) spent a couple decades as a civilian before becoming president -- briefly. (He died of pneumonia almost immediately after taking office.)

Brevet Major General Rutherford B. Hayes (Republican) served in Congress and as Governor of Ohio before becoming president. (He also lost the popular vote, like George W. Bush.)

Major General James A. Garfield (Republican) was a classics professor, college president, state senator, Congressman (for 18 years), and then, finally, president. Garfield was fatally shot while in office.

Quartermaster General (of New York) Chester Arthur (Republican) was a lawyer, Collector of the Port of New York (Customs), and Vice President before election to the top job.

Have I missed any?

Winfield Scott was never President...

Winfield Scott was nominated by the Whigs in 1852. Lost to Franklin Pierce, the Democrat.

I didn't list anyone who ran and lost, but it's good to mention him (and others in that category). Thanks!

Dont forget James Weaver who ran as a populist. Hes not well known honestly.

Civil War Brigadier General James Weaver ran as a populist (Greenback Party) in the 1880 election and lost to another general, Garfield (Republican). Weaver ran again in 1892 (as the Populist Party candidate) and lost to Grover Cleveland (Democrat). He did better in 1892, winning 22 electoral votes.

Weaver served two terms in the House of Representatives as a Greenback before running.

Nice find, John!

The populist movement was great and thank you tsipple.

He was in the Mexican War under Winfield Scott. After being a Representative and Senator in the US Congress he resigned to return to his law practice in New Hampshire. He then enlisted as a private and rose to the rank of Brigadier General. He left the service after the war and again returned to his law practice. Later, he was chosen as the Democratic Candidate for President at the party convention in 1852.

edit for spelling

He must be spinning in his grave....you know he is Babs Bush's ancestor, right?

Democrats werent that good back then and Pierce was no exception. He condoned slavery and was critical of Lincoln during the civil war effort. It is interesting though that Shrub's ancestor is considered the most handsome president.

Strange but true. :-)

Yes probably, because of the many abolitionists, however I would join Weaver and the populists, then I would join Eugene Debs, I would like TR but prefer Debs. Finally in 1932 I would finally be a democrat. Thats my opinion.

But "Populist Underground"? Doesn't abbreviate well, does it? :evilgrin:

P.S. Why does this Dean supporter suddenly find himself liking Kucinich supporters and thinking at least one Kerry supporter is a major twit? :evilgrin: Maybe Kucinich and Dean (and their supporters) have more in common than I ever thought...

P.P.S. I like John Kerry, actually.

I like Kerry and Dean but Kucinich :) well you have to be a Kucinich supporter to know lol. Kerry is a good guy, I dont mind him although I share the frusration of IWR but I dont forget hes a good guy, and he too hates those damn nukes *kicks invisible nuke* oopsie. Yeah PU lol. So yes I would be a follower of Paine during the revolution, would probably support Jefferson, wouldnt like Jackson but be ok with him on some things, etc.

In July of 1862, He was made a Colonel of the 70th Indiana Volunteers. After some hard fighting in Georgia under Sherman, Harrison was promoted to Brigadier General and served out the war at this rank. His political career spanned the Civil War. He was a two term Congressman before and, of course, President afterward from 1889-1893.

Lots of presidents served in the military. I think we are talking about generals though.

Wwagsthedog, that triples the number of Democratic generals-turned-president. And thank you for that summary of both their civil service careers before election to the presidency. Two more citizen-generals.

Nice finds, also! Much appreciated.

He served between Cleveland's two terms.

Mea culpa. Make that two Democrats, total, both citizen-soldiers.

This was originally about big time generals.

Citizen-generals. I'm looking for generals. (I meant citizen-generals.)

Al Gore, the last Democratic nominee, is a Vietnam veteran, and he's just the latest in a long and proud history of Democratic veterans running for elected office, including the presidency.

Shrug. Its ok this is an interesting thing. Oh I got one for you tsipple, General George McClellan, he ran against Lincoln in 1864.

"Quartermaster General (of New York) Chester Arthur (Republican) was a lawyer, Collector of the Port of New York (Customs), and Vice President before election to the top job.

Have I missed any?"

Wesley K. Clark, our first half-Jewish President :)

I'm working on a list of our most recent Democratic Presidents who were Northerners. . . but, nah, "electability" is an semantically empty category. It must be so: I learned it on DU.

We will have our first Slavic American Irish Catholic president, 2nd for Irish and Catholic, yes DK is part Irish. But on Arthur he wasnt elected take no offense, he took Garfield's place after Garfield was assassinated.

Democrat, Massachusetts, Election of 1960. Oh, he was a pretty mediocre northerner. Only kept the U.S. and the Soviet Union from blowing each other up. :-)

But (New Yorker) Franklin Delano Roosevelt kind of throws off everything there, doesn't it? Social Security alone... man! And he's the first and last president elected to office more than twice. He's also the longest serving president by far, and it'll be near impossible to ever beat that record. (It's not totally impossible within the Constitution, but virtually impossible.) Plus you can't get any more northern than New York and Massachusetts. It's not like Maryland or something.

Actually, "electability" has a definition on DU (and everywhere else). It's the ability to get elected, demonstrated by... getting elected!

That's the funny thing. You don't know it until you have the election and the voters pick. (What a concept!) The other funny thing is that anybody can say they're electable, and there's no objective proof required. I do seem to recall, right around the Gennifer Flowers Era, that a certain governor from a small state had an "electability" problem. Allegedly. :-)

The last Northern Dem Presidents were 1960 or earlier. From LBJ afterwards, nothing but failure when we've gone with Northerners.

As a CT Yankee, I'm happy with Southerners as long as they represent Democratic values. FDR fractured the South upon class lines, which in the New Deal coalition, helped Dems maintain power. Nixon's Southern Strategy fractured the South upon racial lines, which helped eviscerate our Party in the South. The racial lines are still there, but have also morphed into cultural lines.

How to claim the South? Alabama excepted, Southerners aren't really anti-progressive. They've got a CULTURAL disposition towards the GOP. A General--say, Clark--helps destroy this cultural affiliation in the South with the GOP, in a way that Clinton never could.

The South could be refractured, once again, upon class lines, instead of upon cultural or racial lines. Gen Clark, in a way Dean never could, has the potential for bringing in a New Deal Coaliation for the 21st Century.

Also--this is an empty statement: "Actually, "electability" has a definition on DU (and everywhere else). It's the ability to get elected, demonstrated by... getting elected!"

But this is just nonsense. The ability to get elected to one office does not transition to the ability to get elected to another. Running for the Presidency is a wholly different beast than running for anything else. A whole host of substantive and cosmetic issues which could be brushed over in a local or state election have terrible, and often foolish resonance in a Presidential election. Unhappy, but true.

One more time: "It's the ability to get elected, demonstrated by... getting elected!" Since we're talking about Generals, I'm glad that your definition of electability explains why Adlai Stevenson twice defeated Eisenhower.

Ah, but what northerners they were, Kennedy and Roosevelt! (Don't forget Truman in 1948. He's from Missouri, which isn't north or south really.)

LBJ was a southerner (Texas). He assumed the presidency after Kennedy's death, so no election there. Did great in 1964, but a chimpanzee would have defeated Goldwater. Then Vietnam, 1968, and... Well, not good. Couldn't even run. Sank Hubert Humphrey from Minnesota, a Midwesterner. Decent man, LBJ, but boy what a cock-up.

Californian Nixon won in 1968, then again in 1972 against Midwesterner (and South Dakotan) George McGovern.

Jimmy Carter (Georgia) won in 1976, but he screwed up, too. Set in motion the Republican conservative revolution, and what a disaster that's been ever since. Our best ever ex-president, though. (Californian Ronald Reagan beat Carter in 1980.)

Midwesterner and Minnesotan Mondale couldn't beat Reagan in 1984. No one could. Not even Gary Hart, who was the strongest candidate available besides Mondale.

Massachusetts's finest, Michael Dukakis, lost in 1988 to Connecticut Yankee (and pseudo-Texan) George H.W. Bush.

Bill Clinton, from Arkansas, did very well in 1992 and 1996, the latter defeating Kansan Bob Dole. Clear win for the southern candidate.

But Al Gore, the southerner from Tennessee, "lost" in 2000. That's our most recent experience with southern Democratic nominees.

So, there is one conclusion. Do not nominate Democrats from Minnesota! :-) Another possible conclusion is that southerners can occasionally get elected but then screw it up royally for the northerners. :-)

Vermont has a pretty good track record, with two presidents: Chester Arthur and Calvin Coolidge. New York has a really good track record: Martin Van Buren, Millard Fillmore, Theodore Roosevelt, and Franklin Roosevelt. (Dean was born in New York, I believe.) Arkansas has but one: the one-of-a-kind Bill Clinton.

With respect to Eisenhower, everyone already knew him. World War II, the biggest and baddest war ever, against the Nazis and the Germans. Also arguably the most just war ever fought by the United States. (The War of 1812 is not bad there, either.) With all due respect to General Clark, a lot of people were asking, "Who?" Many still are. No one knows much about him. That's true of lots of Democrats of course, which is precisely my point.

And you misunderstood my electability comment. You can't determine electability until you run the experiment. So you won't know whether Clark, Dean, or anyone else is electable until November, 2004. And you can't objectively prove electability beforehand.

Take the case of southern candidate Al Gore. Booming economy, smart guy, unbelievable resume. No one could predict he was unelectable. That he'd run away from Clinton and make a bunch of campaign mistakes. That the Supreme Court would intervene.

Or take the case of Bill Clinton. He was definitely unelectable when he was exposed by Gennifer Flowers as an adulterer in the 1992 campaign, right?

The good news is that voters get to decide this stuff, not Wesley Clark, not Howard Dean, and not political hacks. We get to figure it out. And then we run the experiment in November, 2004.