By the Maui Curmudgeon (5th in a 43-part series)

How do the U.S. Presidents stack up? I thought I’d find out by reading biographies of all 43 presidents, in the order of their administrations. Here are briefly the pros and cons of my discoveries, the interesting bits, and how I’d rank him. For comparison, I give you the 1982 Murrary-Blessing ranking, a survey of hundreds of leading historians who ranked each president by number. This survey is the gold standard of presidential rankings and is most cited when this kind of thing needs bringing up in media.

JAMES MONROE: 1817-1825 ~ 5th U.S. President

The last of the Republican Trio - Jefferson, Madison, being the first two - James Monroe oversaw what many historians call the “late phase of the early republic.” Of average height and build, Monroe was considered very handsome by the ladies. He was a war hero - fighting beside Washington and was badly wounded at Trenton. Before serving under Madison as sectretary of war and state, Monroe was a Virginia legislator, a U.S. Senator, a Minister to France, and a member of the Confederation Congress.

He was not charasmatic, nor did he particularly inspire loyalty, but he was to many in his time, the last of his generation to remind the country of the heady days of revolution, George Washington, and the hope of a new country, and it is on this basis many historians think he was elected so easily to the presidency.

THE BAD

• Sidestepped slavery, though he presided over the Missouri Compromise. In it, the slave holding south agreed no further states north of Missouri would hold slaves, and the north allowed Missouri statehood while holding slaves. Monroe said the compromise saved the union.
• Yet another person bad with personal financies, he begged the U.S. for $60,000 in back dues to help him pay for out of pocket expenses during his years of service to the country. The Congress said no.
• Oversaw the nation’s first recession, the panic of 1819, and minimized the depression in his annual state of the union address, calling merely for “time and patience” to solve the country’s ills.

THE GOOD

• No major wars, and it is because of this that people remember his presidency fondly.
• At Trenton, beside Washington, Monroe took a huge shot in the shoulder, which severed his artery. He would have died in minutes had not a surgeon been crawling by at the very instant Monroe fell.

Murray-Blessing Ranking: #15

My Score: 45%

Interesting reading: James Monroe: The Quest for National Identity by Harry Ammon

Five men sat around a camp fire in Mendocino County long ago. Each expressed his fear, anxiety and resentment regarding the laws, principles and forces of the universe. One man railed against the extent of the necessary. Another feared chance. A third was in the grip of compulsions. A fourth felt victimized by karma. I most feared, resented and found incomprehensible the strain of irony in the universe.

Necessity, chance and compulsion did not seem to require supermundane intervention. Physical laws, statistical probabilities and patterns of behavior seemed to explain the workings of these three.

Karma, however, and irony seemed to extend to and from the visible and immaterial realms. These two seemed to require response, continuation and completion, partially shaped by forces far subtler than physical. Karma might require psychic consent, but who consciously consents to irony? Irony seemed almost infernal or impish. Almost a kind of black humor. Why would a benevolent power provide for so much irony? Justice often is unobservable in the torture of irony.

The next morning we realized that our philosophical and metaphysical discussions had so engrossed us, that we had left unprotected our supplies. A bear had not missed the opportunity. Thus began again our discussion of the night before.

– Raphael O’Suna,  Haiku  

By the Maui Curmudgeon (4th in a 43-part series)

How do the U.S. Presidents stack up? I thought I’d find ou by reading biographies of all 43 presidents, in the order of their administrations. Here are briefly the pros and cons of my discoveries, the interesting bits, and how I’d rank him. For comparison, I give you the 1982 Murrary-Blessing ranking, a survey of hundreds of leading historians who ranked each president by number. This survey is the gold standard of presidential rankings and is most cited when this kind of thing needs bringing up in media.

JAMES MADISON: 1809-1817~ 4th U.S. President

Without question, James Madison was the smallest person ever to be president - about 5 foot tall and 100 pounds. He distinguished himself in battle during the Revolutionary War. He was a great writer - penning many of the Federalist papers (numbers 10 and 11 are considered works of political genius). In many ways, Madison grew to be a carbon copy of Jefferson, both good and ill.

Madison was Jefferson’s secretary of state for eight years. The culmination of that effort was a treaty that Madison bargained for in Europe. It was so embarrassingly bad that Jefferson refused to present it to the Senate for consideration.

While Jefferson was a hypocrite, writing one philosophy and practicing another, Madison was a turncoat. At first, he was indeed a Federalist and loyal Washington supporter in the 1780’s, which is why he worked closely with the uber-federalist Alexander Hamilton, to produce the Federalist papers. By the time he served Jefferson 20 years later, and became president himself, he was the ultimate Republican, writing screeds against centralized excutive power, power he abused during his presidency. And, like Jefferson, he died deeply in debt.

Read the rest…