Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the National Constitution center. [ applause ] i am Jeffrey Rosen, the president of this wonderful institution. And its such a great day to celebrate the relationship between National Constitution center and cspan. Cspan has an inspiring nonpartisan mission to bring unfiltered information about the u. S. Government to american citizens and that coincides with the National Constitution centers mission, which i all want you to recite along with me to inspire our guests and our cspan viewers. The National Constitution center is the only institution in america chartered by congress to disseminate information about the constitution on a nonpartisan basis. Beautiful. That was so well done. [ applause ] i was so thrilled when my friend and colleague, susan swain, the head of cspan, came a few months ago or weeks ago, about three weeks ago, that said we have this great new book on the president s. Lets launch it at the National Constitution center. Were here to do it. It is such an honor to welcome back to the National Constitution center the great founder of cspan, brian lamb. [ applause ] he is americas greatest interviewer. I was honored to be interviewed by him for my piece for this book, as were my colleagues, and welcoming him back to the ernt is so meaningful. Now to introduce this program, its a special pleasure to welcome back to the center, because susan has been here so many times, susan swain. She is, among her many other virtues, a philadelphia woman, born and bred, and her relatives are here, which is great. Please welcome susan swain. Thank you very much. Its a delight to be back to the Constitution Center. I always have the bad luck to follow him with that enthusiasm. And its hard to replicate. We are delighted to be here, once again, and welcome you all here. As you heard, this is my hometown. And in addition to our partnership with the Constitution Center and we have shared mission to inform you about the constitution, though in many different ways. So guess what, its cspans 40th anniversary. 1979 in march, the house of representatives went on television for the first time, and the Cable Television industry, private industry, created a Service Called cspan to Bring Congress into your living rooms 40 years ago. It is a notforprofit company. Our mission, as jeff rosen said, is to give you unfiltered access so you can decide for yourself about whats happening in washington. Since were in comcasts home territory i want to tell you that the comcast folks are our largest cable affiliate and have been on our board of directors since our founding, and they are tremendously an important part of what cspan is today, so many thanks to them for what theyve done for us for these 40 years. So when we talked about cspans 40th anniversary, what do we do celebrate this in a meaningful way and decided to do this book which is called the president s. The sub title is noted historians rank americas best and worse chief executives. The reason why it was an important thing for us it allowed us to showcase two very important aspects of our work. First is a survey of president ial historians and the second is this real treasure trove of interviews weve collected over 40 years, many of them done by brian of president ial historians. But here is a look at some of the names of people that are included in the book that are a part of our collection here and youll see some familiar names. Edna medford. Douglas brinkley. And rocket caro and others who are very wellknown contemporary president ial historians. Our three panelists, the idea for this was to bring together three of the president biographers who are featured in the book to talk about something other than the president s who are on mount rushmore. Jeffrey rosen wrote a biograph on William Howard taft. He was interviewed by brian. In addition to his work here hes a professor at Gw Law School which made him particularly interested in the work of taft who went on to become the chief justice of the Supreme Court. And weve known him as a journalist, which he is in his heart and soul since his early days in washington, author of six books. Michael gerhardt wrote a book called the forgotten president s. Brian will be talking to him about a number of them. In our book hes the chapter on jimmy carter. Robert strauss is a philadelphia area journalist. He worked at the daily news and his president ial biography is my favorite title. Worst period. President period. Its your only president , james buchanan. Hes from the Southern Tier of the state not philadelphia but nonetheless our states claim to fame and well learn more from Robert Strauss about why, in fact, hes the worst president ever. The organizing principle for this book was the second resource that i mentioned and it is a survey we have done of president ial historians three times. We did the first one in 2000 when bill clinton was leaving office. The second one when george w. Bush was leaving office and the third in 2017 when barack obama was leaving office. We worked with three historians as long ago as 20 years to put together a survey with ten leadership qualities. We worked for gender diversity so we can represent point of view. Here are the qualities that the president s are judged on. You might think about them as this conversation is going to unfold. Public persuasion. Crisis leadership. Economic management. Moral authority. International relations. Administrative skills. Relations with congress. Vision and setting an agenda. For some reason i always think of george w. Bush when the vision thing comes up. Pursue equal justice for all. And the final one, they wanted to add because the office of the presidency has changed so much over the course of our history. Performance within the context of the times in which they serve. Now why do we do these surveys . We do them because, well ill tell you a littler to. I was standing out at the register where the books are being sold and i heard a woman going why is he on the cover of this book . I dont think that was such a great president. Thats exactly why we do these surveys. We want people to get involved, interested and passionate about our own history and we live in a society where lists do that. Our email is filled every day with the top ten of this or bottom five of that and doing this, although this is historians and has an academic base it still provides a basis for you to get involved and have conversations around your dinner table about whether or not you think the historians did a good job of ratifieding president s you know and president s that youre just learning about. Hey who is up and who is down over the course of the time we did this . Andrew jackson has secured his place on the 20 bill for the next several years but hes gone down in our survey over time. He went from 13th place in 2000 to 18th in 2017. Woodrow wilson from sixth down to 11th. This one boggles my mind. I like rutherford b. Hayes. He went down 32. Glover cleveland 17 to 33. Im sure historians will have some perspectives on how our society has changed why historians are looking at them more critically. Who is up . Dwight eisenhower. In 2000 ninth place now at fifth. Bill clinton when the first survey he was just coming out of the impeachment process, 21st place, in the next two surveys hes settled in 15th position. Finally this is another interesting one, from 33rd place to 22 in, ygrant. The top five no surprise. Dwight eisenhower now in fifth position. Th Theodore Roosevelt in fourth. Franklin roosevelt in third. George washington in second place. Guess who is number one, Abraham Lincoln. Of course. The bottom five. John tyler, tidewater, virginias favorite son who unfortunately went on to join the Confederate Congress after he left the white house. A man without a party while he was in the white house. And he also was buried with a Confederate Flag on his grave. 39th spot. Not the bottom interestingly. Warren harding, were learning more about Warren Harding and his active love life. Hes in 40th spot. Franklin pierce, New Hampshires only president , 54st position. Frank lynn pierce had a very difficult time with sectionalism and came into office with an incredible tragedy which hell tell you very briefly. He and his wife had three sons. Two died before he was elected to the presidency. The third son, 11yearold benny was riding on a train with his parent in New Hampshire as they made their way to washington. The train had an accident. Beeny was thrown out of the train and killed. The president carried his sons lifeless body back to his wife on the train and thats how they started his presidency. His wife spent much of the first years in the white house in mourning leads writing letters to her departed son. Very difficult personal start and a very difficult time in our nations history. 42 in place, Andrew Johnson first president to be impeached. Ill leave it at that because of time. And there is good old james buchanan, worst president ever. Okay. Quickly on the modern president s. Ronald reagan is the only one in the top ten in ninth position. George h. W. Bush in 20th spot in between two adams which is interesting because hes father and son duo as well. I think it will be fascinating at the end of the Trump Presidency when we survey again because we just went through three days of National Scene setting of his presidency. President ial funerals are very important tool that president s use to put their image in the public mind for posterity and we witnessed a lot of themes being repeated throughout the three days of his funeral about integrity, war heroism, being a decent man, et cetera. Be interesting to see where he fares next time. Bill clinton at 15th. George w. Bush is in 33rd spot. And the last survey, his first time he was one spot lower so he was in the bottom ten, he moved up out of the bottom ten by virtue of adding another president to the mix, im afraid. Hes got some really difficult things for the assessment of time and it will be interesting over the course of time to see what happens with his rating. Finally barack obama and his debut in 12th position, really good start to his assessment. We have the idea was this to get you interested and showcase the work of these wonderful historians. We have an incredibly rich website attached to this book for yours to peruse at your will and every one of the interviews from which this is drawn is listed there. Can you watch the video from it. And all of the chapter references. So if theres a reference to sectionalism or to a certain war weve linked all of them. You dont have to do the work and go through history as youre interested and learn more about that period of time. So, these are the three president s featured with our three historians. Im about to turn the podium over to them. Howard taft, his highest score was in administrative skills. Lowest score public persuasion. Rings true. Total score 528 out of possible of 1,000. Michael, jimmy carter highest score equal justice for all. Lowest score crisis leadership. Yep. There we the go. Total score 506 out of 1,000. James buchanan, he was in the cellar for all of them. Im sorry. He had either 41, 42 or 43 in every single category. He was solo he was 30 points below Andrew Johnson. Sorry about that. His highest score was 41st position in administrative skills and his lowest score in seven of the ten categories was the number 43 spot. 245 out of a possible of 1,000. I cant wait for you to tell us stories about this man. Ill sit down and enjoy this wonderful panel along with you. Thank you for your attention [ applause ] two things cards will be passed out to you for you to ask questions which well do in the last 15 minutes. Everybodys books will be available afterward. I want to tell you about our book. Cspan doesnt make any money off the sale of its books. All the very small amount of royalties we get from the sale goes cspan Education Fund which makes free teaching materials for high school and middle school teachers. If you buy a book you help support teachers in schools. Thanks for your attention. [ applause ] susan, i only have one quarrel for you. You referred to Ronald Reagan being the only modern president in top ten. For someone like me, eisenhower [ laughter ] lbj and fdr are still modern in my lifetime. [ laughter ] i want to start off thank you, susan and this book wouldnt be here today without susans did editing. Would you all start off by telling us a little bit about why you even got into writing history. Robert strauss . Business . History. Writing history. I was a journalist. I worked at the daily news and channel 3 and among other places. I was always interested in it. My father bought little statues of the president s when i was a boy. They were my guide. He bought me a book called facts of president s. Told you when monroes mother died. So baseball statistics. I was always involved with that. And im also a contrarian to write about the worst president was much more fun than figuring out who the best one was. Thats a good question. Still trying to figure out the answer. I think a couple of different reasons. The first is, im a constitutional law professor and in my field and in my classes everybody is totally absorbed with the Supreme Court. And focuses on the Supreme Court. Im fascinated by other institutions that are intertwined with and do a lot of constitutional law. Presidency. Congress. So ive been particularly interested in how president s impact the understanding of the constitution and its development over time. Im also, this is the second reason. I think of myself sometimes as a child of watergate. I grew up in the shadow of watergate and watergate shaped a lot of my understanding of constitutional law particularly the conflicts between president s and congress. And so out of that shadow we get jimmy carter. But we also get nixon and for. It also changes i think a lot how we view constitutional law these days. Thats another reason. Jeffrey rosen . Susan said im a journalist at heart. I only write on deadline and to assignment. [ laughter ] the first biographies i wrote were assignments. I didnt know much about the assignment and was so excited to learn about, in tafts case an underappreciated figure and share him with the world. But i resonated with writing history when i was a kid reading president ial biographies was inst. Petersburg. I remember going to the library of congress for the first time, the Adams Building and being filled with wonder to think all the books of the world were in that building and then learning more about adams and jefferson and reading biographies of truman, the bookish kid with the glasses who read and Learned Leadership through reading or amazing fdr biographies about how another bookish boy found his life in books. But i just resonated so much to these stories and thats why i find writing biographies to be such an inspiring experience. Going back to the book on james buchanan. I want you all to jump in on this. It doesnt have to relate just to james buchanan. He waffled about everything. Right. I picked this out of our interview. Why did you say that . At some point the buck does stop and the president is the point where it has to stop. And most of our great president s, the guys you had up there, made the decision. Now they werent all great decisions. I would say that the japanese internment wasnt a wonderful decision. But, you know, sometimes it comes to a head and buchanan was the ultimate diplomat. First of all he was the best party give of the middle of the 19th century. There are positive things. He was a really nice guy. But he was always trying to please people. And he was a diplomat. He was an ambassador to russia. Ambassador to england. He had the czar over for lunch. So there were certain things that were good and bad but he did waffle. Michael, your book the carter chapter came out of your book with 13 presidencies, 12 men, any of those other 12 besides jimmy carter and im not sure you would call them wafflers. They were wafflers but one of the more interesting things we learn about president s that get rated lonely is precisely because they werent wafflers. They were too strong. They were stubborn. Sometimes stubborn in destructive ways. I wouldnt say carter was stubborn in a destructive way. Carter wasnt a waffler. He came in with a strong sense of what he wanted to do. Part of his problem is he just didnt listen to other people. He felt he was morally sort of right about different issues and then charged ahead and it turned out sometimes that was good, sometimes it was bad, at least sometimes popular, sometimes unpopular and that became the story of his presidency. Henry harrison he died 30 days after becoming president. But in those 30 days he was stubborn. He actually had to be stubborn in some respects. He he had to push against henry clay who wanted to be the power behind the throne and harrison didnt want that to happen. Turned out the be the defining moment in a sense of his short presidency. And a lot of president s end up becoming unpopular or ranked low because they stake out a position, not listen to other people, not react to events of the time and end up losing the presidency and losing in the historical judgment of the presidency. Do you think hes right about William Howard taft being among the list of the 12 that were the minor president s . Sure. As a president ial leader and the cspan survey is right, the president ial leadership tack is low but for administrative skills is high. But the book which i learned so much about if you want a book on the constitutional legacy of president s, read michaels book. As michael said and taft is among these 12, mastetafters ha strong constitutional vision and in the taft case his vision was heroic and seems all the more precious trying to defend the madisonian constrained of the presidency and congress when the new presidency embody by roosevelt and wilson was rising up. This question of waffling is interesting. If you know what you know, if youre too sure of your constitutional vision as taft and the other minor president s showed, you refuse to engage in the arts of public persuasion. Taft says i will not play a part for popularity. If people dont like my vision so be it. Instead of lobbying congress and speak to these people with these speeches and expecting that would be persuasive. I was trying to think about the difference between waffling and delibera deliberating. The great president s took their time to make up their mind. They did a lot of reading, including literature before he made up his mine. Or roosevelt waiting for so long before he felt the American Public was ready for world war ii. Lincoln changing the purpose of the war from preserving the union to eradicating slavery. The real vice is lack of deliberation and waffling isnt the only way of avoiding deliberation. You can refuse to deliberate because youre too sure of your principles in advance. My gale geichael gerhardt, ik on taft, somebody called him a great hater. You wrote about him. Did you see that in him . He had his moments. And in those moments he could be not just angry but he could be hateful. Did it work . Didnt work for him. I mean one of the more famous hates he had was for louis grandice. It was mutual. Taft was to some extent a reflection of his time. He reacted negative the high to programice in part because he was jewish. There were other issues too. And to some extent when a president becomes that way, somebody who hates something notice lincoln really tried, really hard not hate the enemy. Even right before he died in his great second inaugural address. Hes still trying to handout a hand to the other side. To find a way to bring people together. Great president s do that. Awful president s dont do that. Robert strauss, can you expand the any on any of the president s youve studied whether they were haters . Haters . Haters. Did it work for them. Thats interesting. Well my guy buchanan didnt seem to be a hater. He did not get along with one guy in particular, Steven Douglas. Thats one guy. He was a big guy, an influential person. It doesnt seem that there were that many haters. Even when you go way back to philadelphia, adams and jefferson politically were, you know, against each other but they had a history before and a history after that they were able to obviate those political difficulties. It also seems to me thats part of being a politician. Trying to bridge your hatred in order to get things done. Tell the story about the Charles Evans hughes appointment, William Howard taft and the court and who ended up on the court instead of Charles Evans hughes when William Howard taft was president and why. William howard taft pined to be chief justice of the united states. When avenues kid his father told him to be chief justice is to be more than president in my estimation. The best job he ever had was to be a judge on the u. S. Court of appeals for the 6th president. He unwittingly becomes president because his wife and roosevelt make him do it. The moment arrives. The chief justice dies. He has to be replaced. Taft desperately wants to take the seat himself. He says i cant help note the irony im signing the commission of somebodys job i want. Hes about to appoint charles hughes. Tease dynamic, young former governor of new york. Admired by all. And hughes is dressing on his way to the white house for the interview. Taft is on the phone and cancels the interviews. He appoints white, taft hoped white would die so he could take his place. [ laughter ] white becomes chief justice and serves for about ten years and taft is a former president. He stops by every couple of years, how are you doing, you want some more cheesecake. Tragically white refuses to expire. Happily and without for taft and without any warning, white drops dead all of a sudden and taft lobbies hard and has to mobilize all his forces and per swads ha persuades harding to appoint him and he becomes the second greatest chief since john marshal. Wonderful story of forward planning. [ laughter ] as you point out in your book he appointed one term. Six members of the Supreme Court. As you point out Michael Gerhardt jimmy carter zero. So talk about all three, if you would, talk about the importance of or the lack of significance when you cannot appoint somebody to the court. Yes. Making Court Appointments is something president s all want to do because they can shape the court and it becomes part of their legacy. But i should hasten to add and i know jeffrey will agree with this. Taft didnt kill white. I want to bury that right now. But in that in some respects thats something as important because its not just a joke. President s cant do certain things. They cant make people grow older. They cant make people get sick. I can imagine the current president hopes that justice something happens to Justice Ginsberg and many of us hope nothing happens to Justice Ginsberg. So theres fate or whatever word you want to use for it. Ends up presenting president s with some opportunities. Taft got his. Sooner than he expected. And lincoln, of course, didnt get an the opportunity. Have to decide. What do we do . Looks like south is going to secede. Bring this back to carter briefly. I cant say carter was pining away to make an appointment to the court but every president thats served a full term before carter got that chance. As you say, taft got several chances. Carter got none. Thats another reason why he gets sort of downgraded as president because he doesnt get to make that important appointment. However, he makes a lot of influential lower Court Appointments. A lot of them. Including two Circuit Court judges who are later elevated to the Supreme Court, steven bryer and Justice Ginsberg. Fdr had giants and William Howard taft six. Go to dred scott, the importance of that and how that all happened during james buchanan. Theres a theory that probably is true, that buchanan wanted the dred scott decision to happen. What he definitely wanted was he came into office saying that he was going to solve the problem of slavery. I dont know that he had a particular solution but here was this case winding around, dred scott, the former slave had gone up to minnesota with what became minnesota with his master. Comes back to st. Louis, master dies. He says hes free because he was living in the territories that were not supposed to have slavery. In any case, the court case comes and roger the tawney is the Supreme Court chief justice. Francis scott keys brotherinlaw. They are all related, all these guys. Anyway, so the court is split 54, not conservative and liberal as today, but southern and northern. And buchanan apparently had a discussion with tawney before he took office after he was elected, and said what are we going to do about this . And tawney says i cant have a 54 major decision. Nobody will, you know, buy into that. If you can convince somebody to change his mind. Well, buchanan anybody here go to dickerson college . Okay. Youre responsible for the civil war. [ laughter ] so buchanan went to dick are sopranos, tawney went to dickerson and a third Supreme Court justice that went to dicker sopranos, went to him, changed his mind. The case was sort of 72 but definitely 63 for the current opinion, and this, you know, most vile of Supreme Court cases came to be because of dickerson college. [ laughter ] Jeffrey Rosen in Michael Gerhardts book he talks about jimmy carter and makes a statement, he was a tremendously good man. How often, first of all, do you agree with that and how often do you say that about the 44 men who have been president . I must, before answering that important question put in a plug for our new civil war exhibit which i want to you see downstairs which ill show you brian too which has dred scotts freedom petition the original petition that dred scott filed to the Supreme Court signed with an x because he couldnt write and its that stories you say so well that set off the civil war by requiring three constitutional amendments to overturn the dred scott decision. Was cart ear good man . I cannot look into his heart although he famously characterized his own heart in the 1976 president ial campaign. He seems to be a good man. But our most president s good emp and is there a correlation between private virtue and public virtue . Let me add while youre thinking about that. Thats an easy question, brian, thanks a lot. [ laughter ] Michael Gerhardt writes he also says this about jimmy carter that he had integrity. He was demanding. He was an outsider. And, you know, he brings up the fact he gave amnesty to all those who dodged the draft during the vietnam war. But, again, any of you can jump in on this. Talk about the good and most integrity ridden president s. Theres no doubt let me start with my guy. Taft was a very good man. We talk about him being a hater because he had a the strong sense of personal loyalty when he felt it was affronted he would lash out. His feud with grandice and he wanted to be appointed to the Supreme Court. But the thing about taft he made up with grandice and when they were on the court together he was so devoted to the legitimacy of the Supreme Court that he would join grandice decisions which he would disagree, they both would set aside their disagreements to converge and ended up working well. Taft chose theres no correlation between virtue and he was an incredibly devoted husband. Taft lovingly nursing his wife nelly back to health after she had a stroke and taking hours a day to teach her to speak again. Devoted to his kids who did so well from robert taft mr. Republican in the 20th century to his daughter helen taft who became a very distinguished history professor and president of bryn mawr. None of that means youre a good leader. Leadership requires things like deliberation, the flexibility, willingness to listen to your opponents that may not correlate with public virtue. Just thinking out loud i remember reading one antinixon historian who said nixon was the only truly wicked president that weve had and i dont think that thats true. I have a soft i love president ial biographies and a recent nixon biography shows there was a human side to nixon. He was so vulnerable and also did great deal of good in Foreign Policy and even his awkward attempts, failed attempts to connect with his wife and kid, you cant help but empathize with the humanity of it. I can interrupt. Evan thomas said in that book that Richard Nixon was weird. [ laughter ] he was weird. That shouldnt disqualify any of us from public office. You agree he was weird . Yes. He was definitely he was weird. He was definitely weird, asking read from mallack to count the juice. That showed a certain weirdness. And his he didnt like to be touched. Of course theres a sign of him, the teeth marks on the aspirin bottle, he was awkward so he couldnt open the aspirin. But for me that weirdness just showed it was the awkwardness which stemmed from his mom and dad and thats, you know, we are here in our comfy chairs here at the National Constitutional center you have to go back to the relationships with mom and dad to under anybodys character and that weirdness came from that demanding mother and rearrogance inaccessibility from his alcoholic father. I havent answered your question about whether you need to be good, a good person to be a good president. My instinct is no that you dont. I guess i would like Robert Strauss the other president s that Michael Gerhardt writes about, march incident van burien, franklin pierce, chester arthur, grover cleveland, calvin coolidge, jim my carter, benjamin harrison, this whole business about being tremendously good and decent. You know, we had this sort of, if you studied history you probably in high school went from jackson to lincoln. Right . All those other guys in between several of whom youve mentioned. So theres a period of the presidency i dont know if historians would always say that but pretty much that congress ruled. We had great congressmen. Even if you didnt agree with Jefferson Davis or John Calhouns politics, they were great men. They were prominent men. Of course, henry clay, daniel webster. So i wonder if they were sort of fellows well met and not made for the presidency, not made, or at least made for the presidency as we view it now as a strong man, a roosevelt or a reagan or somebody like that. Mr. Gerhardt . Its a great question. I think the president s dont necessarily have to be good but i think they have to recognize good in other people. And they have to have achieved something good, that is a commonality in president s weve rated very highly. Lincoln was a complex guy. Was a complex character. A guy thats been rated the highest president of all time. But one thing and lincoln was also Something Else which i think is another characteristic of some of the great president s. He was extremely good at reading other people. And Steven Douglas wrote about, of course, lincoln not reagan lincoln, had to go up against douglas a couple of times. But whats really interesting is douglas was a hater. Right. But he did not hate lincoln. And, in fact, when douglas learned that he would face lincoln, he said im paraphrasing, i like lincoln hes a good guy. Which is really extraordinary coming from douglas. Believe me woe not say that about anyone else. He does say that about lincoln. I think people wine up working with lincoln thinking hes difficult sometimes because he wouldnt always tell you what he was thinking. Sometimes he would go back on what he said. He was very pragmatic. He had a lot on his plate. President s have to deal with that. At the end of the day president s, i think, have to think about goodness because they have to achieve something because thats whats going lasting. In a few minutes well go questions and i dont know where the little card are. No cards . Okay. In the next few minutes. Thank you, susan, very much. What are the chances we talk about and think about the presidency too much . Well they are high. Framers thought kwong the most powerful franch and a vortex sucking all else into hits jaws. The judiciary would be the least Dangerous Branch but the chief magistrate as they put it supposed to be a constrained office to make sure laws were faithful lie executed and be commanderinchief. Exercising the will of congress within constitutional bound but not a popular leer. This was tafts whole point to the degree that he has constitutional significance it is that he marked the year 1912 that the presidency was transformed from a constrained and constitutional into a popular an populace office when you have wilson and roosevelt saying that the president is a steward of the people who directly channels their will then you have a very different vision of the presidency than the framer. Taft thought it was a threat to the madisonian separation of powers that could lead to demagogues and the mob and to president s curing favor with factions by making demagoguic apeels and therefore threatening liberty. Today were seeing some of the the fulfillment of those fears not only the current incumbent but because of social media. Direct communication between the president and the people the is the worst thing that can be imagined because of the danger of demagoguery. The president occupies so much air time, can personalize the government in him or her that the danger is that he will distract us from his tweets and personal virtues from paying attention to serious complicated questions of Public Policy and constitutional law that require a lot more time and attention than quick takes. So, yes, i think were paying too much attention. We also started out with the greatest american george washington. A strong president or a person who was publicized to be a strong president and a significant man nonetheless, no matter what you would have said about his presidency, whether you agreed with his politics or not. Avenues general. He was the guy on the white horse. I dont know that his horses were white but in any case he was so hes the signal guy. Our first president was martin van burien we night not have said that. The i dont know that the first president s of other European Countries but i would bet that many of them, charles de gaulle, first president of modern france, another strong man. So maybe thats the point of why we discuss him. I think the other i think one reason why people think about the presidency a lot is because one thing that gets left out of the equation a lot of times in thinking about great leaders is they need followers. They need the people. They need the people not just to vote for them but to support them. And they need to enjoy to some extent interacting with people. Taft hated it. Lincoln the actually liked it. Lincoln sometimes, the great story territorial. Lincoln would stop almost anybody and say let me tell you a storier and times this is part of the brilliance of spielbergs movie about lincoln, oh, my god another story. Theres more realism in that than not. And i think that the other thing about president s is to some extent they reflect Something Else i think the American People almost in spite of themselves sometimes want and thats a king. They go back and forth on it. But they like to look up to somebody. They want to look up to somebody. And the presidency can occupy a position no other leader can occupy,ao which is he, insofar, is always in the camera. Always in peoples eye. Always being written about. People are always telling stories about them, biographies about them. We have days dedicated to them, not to great Supreme Court justices, not to great members of congress but we do have president s day. And ate little bit of a reflex of how to some extent weve threw off but theres something in all of us we want a good in the president s so they can revere them and honor them to some extent like a king. Should we be trying to rate them . I know its even in the subhead of your book about rating president s, jeff rry rosen. Is it a good idea . Let me tell you a quick story and see what your reaction to this. At cspan we get a lot of students and for some reason i gate lot of ohio students. The name of the school will remain in my head not yours. Great student, great kids and enjoy them very much. I asked them what have you done since youve been in they get around weve been to arlington cemetery. These are ohio student. I said what did you see at the cemetery. They said john f. Kennedy grave site. I asked them who else was buried in arlington cemetery. They have no idea. What other president. They have no idea. Its a president that served for four years and nine years as the chief justice of the Supreme Court and his grave is within walking distance and they have no idea and they dont even know who William Howard taft is. What does that say about civic classes or glamour or the assassination is a global story. But fill in the blanks on all that. We rate everything. We rate colleges and law schools and museums and opera houses and so forth. But i think the cspan ratings of president s are extremely helpful. We learn so much about history from susan as learned introduction to why the different president s were good and bad and the fact that the cspan historians accurately identified tafts greatest strength, administrative skill and greatest weakness public persuasion. For all the president s that helps us evaluate leadership. Also it helps us have heroes and also put them in perspective and inspires us to learn about history and it makes us have a conversation like were having now which i think is im at least learning a lot from. Your question with im still ponding over and long will, you asked, you know, can you be good and be president. I said top president s can be good. You think about roosevelt number three. And such a complex person. He had at least affairs of the heart if not more with his secretary and spent a lot of time with his cousin daisy. Was walled off from i had children. Unusual marriage with eleanor. It was that compartmentalization to allow him to give all the empathy to the nation. Polio which humbled him and gave him a feeling of empathy with the poorest and most down trodden he wasnt able to lavish on his intimates but could on the world. To think about that is interesting and important as citizens. Ultimately what the constitution and cspan is trying to do is getting information be good citizens and thats make judgments about leadership and what the constitution means and what the presidency means. President s weigh into history because you have to tell stories and personalize it and make judgments and connect. You have tube kid and be inspired to learn more. To read those books. In that sense, i think reading them is fine. Well, i would think that we rate pretty much everything, right, as jeffrey was saying. And i would say, i dont know when this became true but maybe always true the president is the most wellknown person in america. Now maybe muhammad ali was more wellknown or Herbert Hoover said i had better years thats why i got paid more. In general hes the one that represents america in some way. Both internally externally. I dont see how you could not say that donald trump isnt the most wellknown person in america. And that makes us different from even the english system whether its parliamentary, heads of parties, theresa may is not prime minister, who is the next guy, he might last for a few month, then the next guy. So were sort of destined and most celebrity ridden country anyway and the president is a celebrity as well. Not just i mean i know there are a lot of people who must read kutchers tweets but not as many as donald trumps. Thats a really good question. I think its not just because americans like to rate things and grade things, its because president s care about ratings. President s care about Something Else. They care about being remembered. We all want to be remembered. Stories help that. And president s, i think, intensely want to be remembered. Even not the great president s. But one of the defining things for president s is how they are constantly comparing themselves to other president s. So even if we dont rate them they will rate themselves. Lincoln near the end of his first term, right before his second term is talking and basically saying what do you guys think . I think im doing pretty well against the others. Thats paraphrasing, he was much more eloquent than that. He was thinking about that. So that rating effort is being done always not just by americans but i think by president s. They are always thinking about how do i compare against others and thats another form. Ill ask susan to come up in preparation for questions from the audience. This is such a trite he question but i love it anyway. If each of you could invite three former president s to the table for a dinner, for a conversation, which three would you invite. Of course i would want to have buchanan you should have seen the list of food and liquor at his inaugural ball. Saddles of this. Caldrons of that. Anyway, of course now that i sort of studied him in a way, i would want him there. But then i would want him to be compared to somebody wonderful and i think washington sort of, in a certain way, even though he was so popular he was enigma the enigmatic. Of course he had that horrible teeth problem. He could do ads in between, you know, minor football games. [ laughter ] and i would like to talk to nixon too. You know, he seems the most complex of our modern president s. Michael gerhardt, who would you have . Another great question. I dont think it would be any of the president s probably beginning in the 20th century, partly because they are covered so much. We know them better than all the other ones. A lot of them are on the tv as well. They are remembered better. So i would cast farther back and i think of lincoln. Who wouldnt want to sit down with lincoln, hear those stories and talk to them. I would mention another one because hes so forgotten and thats William Henry harrison. Give him a chance to speak. So i would probably invite him as another one, what would you have done in those four year. Then the other one might be somebody like James Madison because he was there and. Involved with so much, not just with the founding but with the birth and development of america. So he probably would have been my third. Jeffrey . Youve taken madison, at the Constitution Center. We need him back. Ask him quite a few questions. Theres this amazing moment in the civil war exhibit when lincoln in 1840 and fred drying douglass discovered madisons notes being published. They are so important they convince lincoln twe people of the u. P. S. Whole and sovereign and secession is unconstitutional and persuade free district douglass when he saw madison said there could be no position of property and men. What an amazing thrill and necessity for all of us to talk to madison to find out what went on. You have to invite jefferson to see if could you have a better dinner party but also to talk about music and science and to just channel his genius and his conversation which was supposed to be so incredibly sparkling. And then i would i love the question, theres so many but i think i would like so much to meet harry truman who just seemed authentic, spending up nights reading, so determined to teach himself about the ancient greek and learning about the American Century as president from this strong, proud, humble, brilliant strong leader. Susan . Thank you. When you were talking about haters before, Jeffrey Rosen in our book we tell through your interview the rift between they do roosevelt and taflt. Would you tell that story . Roosevelt was tafts mentor. He persuaded him to run for president. He told him he would be the greatest president since washington. Then they have this painful falling out precipitated over a series of misunderstandings and political differs including taft bringing an antitrust suit that roosevelt refused to bring which embarrassed roosevelt. Roosevelt breaks his promise not to run again. Taft is persuaded that roosevelt is a demagogue threatening the constitution. He runs for presidency to defend the constitution. Prefers wilson to roosevelt. And then reporters see him on the campaign trail after hes deannounced roosevelt and says roosevelt is my closest friend and convulss in tears and its an incredible drama. They do make up before roosevelt dies. They run into each other by accident in a hotel dining room. Come up slowly and approach each other and start talk and clasping each others hands and the whole dining room sees them and breaks out in applause and taft was happy they made up. They knew their leaders came back together. To the question from the audience. How thats availability of universal and instant information impacted our president s which would be different from their predecessors . Michael . Well, i think that, of course, another great question. President s again all leaders care about information. And i think president s that you get more information almost all president s want more information. They want to get informed. Why not . Youll better understand something if you get informed. So gathering information more quickly and better through the developments that occurred with technology would be something all president s want and the other thing about it is you wouldnt want them to abuse it. So how they deal with that information is oftentimes the defining thing about the presidency. Im going to name some but if either of you have thoughts in addition. Please jump in. Is there any correlation between good and bad president s and legislative experience coming in to office . I would say this, in the last election a lots of made of Hillary Clintons resume. Well theres nobody with a better resumes s othan james buchanan. He was a state legislator in pennsylvania. Member of u. S. House, u. S. Senate, ambassador is to state, ambassador to england and russia. Up to Supreme Court couple of time. Sort of came to nothing. He had no great legislative triumphs. He was sort of the last man left to be nominated. He wasnt exactly nominate d. They werent going to have frank ly franklin pierce. He was a disaster somebody. Like the phillies relief pitcher. Bring somebody else in. But essentially he was the plotter to the top. I also have a thought that perhaps Abraham Lincoln didnt have a big bar to jump over to become a great president. So maybe youre comparing before and after. I would say. Its hard to say that about lincoln. Michael, do you have a thought on that . Sure. I think legislation is critical for a presidency especially a presidency that will endure or be remembered. Presidencies are remembered in part because of their speech, their rhetoric, sometimes remembered because of the awful thing theyve done or failures they had. But they are also remembered for their achievements with legislation. And so other president s are often forgotten or rated low is John Quincy Adams who achieved absolutely no legislative success but while we rate lincoln the highest and legislation is part of what he achieved, of course he creates the possibility for there to be legislation that will to be done in the future because he saves the union. Just a possible counter. Passing legislation as president might be important but think of how few of the greatest president s did have legislative experience including roosevelt, a minor state legislature in albany. Johnson may be the only really serious legislator that had legislative achievements and greatness do you have a constitutional vision not just that do you pass laws or do you transform under thing of the constitution. There are three republics in American History. The founder, founding republic. Washington is the founding constitutional vision of that. The middle republic the reconstruction and lincoln is the anchoring flig. Then progressive, new deal, and roosevelt the is that one. When you ask what is our next constitutional vision you see Ronald Reagan aspiring to repeal the new deal republic and to resurrect the originalalist constitution original constitution. Bruce acerman was here last week on this stage and he arg uped that had raig succeeded he would have been as great a president as roosevelt and lincoln. With one more Supreme Court court appointment, a republican president might allude reagan and that is just as transformative and significant of a president ial act as the transformation of washington, lincoln and roosevelt themselves. I just want to add one quick thing to that. And it may help us solve a great mystery. People say about lincoln, by gosh, he didnt do much before he became president and didnt demand a resume but one reason he gets elected was because what people cared about in the 19th century is what they still care about now and that is what jeff was talking about. They care about vision. They didnt care much less about experience than a president s judgment and their vision and lincoln had both. And many of our great president s, that is what they had. Jeffrey im going to turn to you for this because it is in your time frame. Why has wilson dropped so many points. His views on race. The president who resegregated the federal government who is not a president who could speak to our time. That is one important reason for progressives now questioning wilson. And george will was here two years ago, hes coming back next wednesday, june 20th, to talk about his new book. But george will said the defining question for whether youre a conservative today is who you would have voted for in the election of 1912. And if conservatives he said would have voted for taft and anyone who votes for wilson or roosevelt is a progressive and will traced to Woodrow Wilson the questioning of the separation of powers and the birth of the imperial presidency and the rise of demagoguery and a lot of conservatives and libertarians blame it all on wilson. So that is tough critics from both sides and that is why hes gone down. Related to that, michael, for you to start on this, do shifting cultural views impact the way historians rate president s . Absolutely. In part because were all imbedded in culture. Were all bound by culture. They could try to break a lot of things but they cant break out of their culture. They might be able to change the culture to some extent. Obviously lincolns vision encompasses in part, lets change our culture by getting rid of slavery, lets break that chain so to speak and begin a different way of thinking and then unfortunately he dies. But i think culture is critical for a president because it defines the context in which they operate. For our crew well take ten more minutes with questions here. Anyone want to tackle this one. Discuss jfks place. Is it camelot. Well he didnt pass much legislation if you go back to that. Most of the signal things that he wanted to have done, he found well, not too much success in congress for. You know, if we look back, people who dont like trump in the horror of our age but the cuban missile crisis, we thought we were all going to blow up. So there were a lot of i wouldnt necessarily call it a great successful presidency except culturally and the idea that youth got involved at the peace corp started or any of the things that he represented as opposed to the old times which is probably now why were having a resurrection of eisenhower and remembering those old times as not so bad. Im thinking as robert was speaking, silence is not something that helps a presidency and this reminds me of one of the greatest stories of any president and that is calvin coolidge. Coolidge didnt like people all that much. He was burdened by the death of his son while he was president. But he also didnt like to speak that much. Perhaps the president with the fewer words and there is a great story that arises with coolidge when hes at a dinner party and a woman sits next to him and says oh, i made a bet with someone that i could get you to say more than three words and he says, you lose. Not surprisingly we have four or five cards that want to ask about the incumbent president. So ill ask ill use this one and perhaps michael you could start. Because you just talked about orrans being a product of the culture in which they live. This person wants to know will historians be able to look at President Trump in a nonbiased way . It will be difficult. But great historians, that is what we have though do. They have to find a way to be dispassionate about subjects to write about them in a way that will improve understanding and enrich our understanding of history. I think with President Trump, might probably take some time for people to be able to put him in perspective and that is what historians do. And hes also a president in a sense stop himself from talking so the more words he utters and kind of provide ammunition so to speak for people to be able to judge him, not just now but later. Jeff, for you, im going to throw this one to you because it is about the supreme Court Appointments but using a current example. Regardless of who wins in 2020, it is possible and even likely the Supreme Court will over turn roe and gay marriage which are out of step with Public Opinion. So im going to use that president s ability to point and what the majority of the culture might be saying in Public Opinion polls. So help people understand that. It is a very important question so we just did podcasts on both of these questions i so i think have of the poll numbers. A plug for the we the people podcast where every week i call up the scholars in america to debate the constitutional issues in the news and we did a twopart podcast on roe which was illuminating and the polls have been pretty consistent that more than twothirds of americans have supported the right to choose early in pregnancy and stronger majorities, 80 or more, supports restrictions on the right to choose later in pregnancy. And that consensus was pretty well mirrored not in roe but in the 1992 casey decision. The debate has been transformed about fetal life and when life begins and the effort by some states that life begins at conception is not supported by large numbers even within those states that that position does not have super majority or majority in the red estates but it could transform the landscape. I think conventional wisdom is you need another Supreme Court appointment to change the balance of court to cleanly overturn roe rather than just chipping away at it and Marriage Equality does have a majority of support around the country and for that reason many conservatives and others believe that roberts will flot be eager to overturn roe and that is the answer to the question that over the course of time, michael and other scholars have written about this, the Supreme Court perceived as an institution tended to mirror the broad occurrence of Public Opinion on the rare occasions when it challenges them such as during the new deal. It often provokes backlashes that lead to judicial retreat. What is so dramatic about this moment were about to enter into, imagine the scenario that the questioner signals and i mentioned before comes to pass. President trump wins and he has another Supreme Court seat, say the court did overturn roe and even over turn the Marriage Equality provisions which are not inconceivable, that would put the court in conflict with the majority of Public Opinion and it lead to the striking down of federal laws such as regularations that are supported by the majority of the people and what happens next they might talk about Court Packing and not funding the courts and the definition of a constitutional crisis, i learned on a podcast, when one branch breaks down and government is impossible and this is a long way of saying that the court gets strongly out of step with Public Opinion at its peril and the public has a way of fighting back. Michael, this will be last from the audience, about eisenhower inching ahead of truman in the poll and what happens considering that truman gave us the marshal plan and integrated the armed forces and stopped the expansion of communism in korea. Well it is another great question. Im thinking about eisenhower and truman, they didnt like each other. And it would actually bother truman a great deal to know that eisenhower just inched in and im sure eisenhower would chuckle and think yeah. I think the fact that eisenhower has been to rise is there is distance now between us and eisenhower and you could gain more perspective on it. Eisenhower was not a man of many words but a man whose deeds and actions even as president have become very important. Jeff mentioned earlier, eisenhower had to enforce the civil laws but it took him some time. Much of the story of his presidency is how long it took him but that may be critical is he didnt fail at the end. At the end he ended you will valuing something and ill come around to the fact that one of the things that is important is values. What are the values that presidency and define them and over time the president s regarded as great are those that embrace values that the American People as a whole embrace. President s that dont do that, buchanan, fail. President s that do that like lincoln succeed and are remembered. Thank you. So the last question is about our poll and it said shuz the cspan poll be weighted, should not jacksons genocide of American Indians count more for other strategies. They made the decision early on to have it be consistent over time and rate each category evenly. Ten times ten to a thousand. But i would argue into the survey does take into account and that is why jacksons poll numbers have gone down in pursuit of equal justice for all moral understanding. This is affected his poll numbers enormously so it does get weighted in the court of historians opinions. Go to the website, cspan, the ratings 10 times the 43 president s are all rated. You can play the survey results yourself by knocking off one of the categories and giving more weight to another and see what happens with the results. Have a little fun with it. So i would like to thank you all for your attention and join me in thanking brian for our questions and our wonderful panel. [ applause ] all five of us will be at the table if you would like your book signed by everybody were happy to accommodate it. Thank you to you and your colleagues for hosting us. The president s from public apairs available now in paperbook and e book. Presented biography of every president from best to worse and featured perspectives in the life of our nations chief executives and leadership styles. Visit our website cspan. Org the president s to learn more about each president and historian feature and order your copy today wherever books and ebooks are sold. Every saturday night American History tv takes you to College Classrooms around the country for lectures in history. 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Political change from the time of the American Revolution to present day. Watch American History tv tonight and over the weekend on cspan3. Sculpture David Adickes created 42 giant busts of american president s for williamsburg, virginia, president s park that opened in 2004. After the park closed in 2010, the statues were transported to private property where they have been decaying ever since. We met