Of both the miller and the university of Virginia Press welcome to todays im steve cohen. I am a nonresident senior fellow with the Miller Center, the scholar in residence at the History Channel and a of history at the university of oklahoma. Many of us, when we about the american presidency, we think people like lincolnnd fdr and we think about the 20th century as being the defining century and defining and determining the president ialpow. But Stephen Rockwell in this provocative new book turns out all that on its head. His book is called the esidency and the american state leadership and decision in the adams grant and Taft Administrations. The book is published by the Center Studies on the presidency with the university of Virginia Press. So here to these topics are, first of all, the author of the book, steven rockwell. Steven is a of Political Science he earlier worked as a Senior Research analyst at the Brookings Institution and as an assistant professor in the Administration Programs at the university. Michigan at flint. Steven is the author of indian and the Administrative State in 19th century, which was published in 2010. How government won the west published 2013 and the presidency and the american state. Stephens has been very, as you can tell, im also thrilled to of the finest of the new generation of president ial historian lindsay chervinsky. Lindsay is a senior fellow at the center for president ial history at Southern Methodist university. She is also the of the Award Winning book, the cabinet. George washington and the creation■l■■z of the American Institution and. The coeditor of morning the president s loss and lac cultur. And shes working on a new book that will be coming out. Published by Oxford University press titled making the president s john adams and the precedents that forged the republic. Welcome to both of you. Im really looking forward to our started just a quick note to our audience. We are we welcome your questions. So if you look ath screen thera function. If you would send your questions. I will do my best to either work thconversation or save them untl the end of the show. So lets get started. Stephen so for the past 40 years, i have been telling my students that if you want to understand the presidency in exponential federal power, state lincoln who used the powers of the presidency, help fight and win the civil war. The progressive president s, primarily Teddy Roosevelt and woodrow wilson, who brought the effervescence of the Progressive Movement from the local level up to the national level. And then, of dramatically presil power to fight the depression and world war two. But youre telling me, is that everything been saying is wrong. So so fill me in. Help me understand why whyt wrong and why we really should be looking at John Quincy AdamsUlysses Grant and william. All right,sdq ill try. Thanks for the question. I dont think president ial power has expanded. I know those the regular tones, but put more positively. My main argument in the book is that an active, independent and influential presidency has been a core elementeerican governance since the George Washington administration and throughout 19th century. And what i wanted to do with this book was to link presidency studies with the now robust on american state development and american political development. We now know thanks to a lot of recent research that the federal government is doing much more in the 19th century than we used to thhave been tremendous studies on westward expansion land pension policy, disaster relief, infrastructure development, Indian Affairs, wars, diplomacy, customs enfoem enforcement, all of these various aspects of policy were overly or many of them were overlooked for many years, as we used to cover 19th century history and for the most part, a lot of these studies have focused on policy areas, land policy and Indian Affairs and so on. What i wanted to do with this book was see how our new understand of the 19th century might affeur traditional understandings of Political Institutions like the presidency. And what i found was that there are years and years and years of extensive, influential exercise of president ial power, oftentimes by president s that, weve overlooked in policy areas that weve overlooked. And the way that i tried to get this was to useof analysis that presidency studies have outlined over the years as critical to understanding generally the modern conception of the office. And what i find that 19th century presidencies and into progressive era with taft president s are using the categories of president ial power that we characteristically associate with the modern presidency. And these are specifically the president ial efforts at legislative initiatives and building agendas. President ial leadership of administration and departments andunilateral executive action tools like executive orders and signing statements, of course, authority in war and diplomacy. And finally, communications. Each of my case studies John Quincy Adams, Ulysses Grant and william tools in all five of these categories to try to get done what they want to get done at the head of a large and influential detate. And these three president s make for great case studies in something scope of their lives extends throughout the first part of american history. John quincy adams as a child witnesses, the american revolution. He writes of witnessing the battle of bunker hill and, william taft serves as chief justice into the 1920s. Ulysses has in the middle of those two John Quincy Adams son, one of John Quincy Adams sons, and William Howard taft, father, are in grants administration. And so with three president s, we get a that runs from the earliest days of the revolution right through the 1920s more these president s was witness to exercises of president ial authority by. So adams is in Louisiana Purchase and jeffersons embargo. Adams, of course, writes Monroe Doctrine for james monroe. Ulysses grant is a player notably in the civil war, but also a direct in the tenure of office act fight between president Andrew Johnson and congress after the civil war. And taft was Theodore Roosevelts secretary of war and right hand man and. Its important to remember that taft earlier on in his career is civilian governor of the philippines. Theres a tendency to think of taft primarily as judge, but his work in the philippines suggests a deep experience in executive authority that then translates into the and to put this all together, i think the new understanding of what the state was doing gives us a host of issue power and looking for president ial power throughout the 1800s reveals extensive exercises of numerous president s. The this fascinating is also lindsay as historians you know, weove ranking president s, right with every year theres a you know, a new ranking and things dont change all that much. But the three president s that stephen is ranked very high on t list of president s. So to if stephen is right and and and i thk is too we need to rethink the way we rank our president s. Well thank you so much for that question. And thank you to the center joyn conversation with both of you and to be talking about these president s of whom i have great affection for at least two and maybe need to include taft in that list. After reading the book i think that youre right, we do we love to ring president s. Im sure you have also partat involved in the cspan rankings that come out every couple of years and we we think of things like communication, working withleadership. And you know how a president does in civil rights, how does a president do managing the bureaucracy all of these different things, a lot of which steven included, is sort of the big factors that we think about in terms of executive power. And we do see some. It generally is fairly gradual. I think grant has benefited a little bit from a lot of the scholarship in the last ten years to sort of boost his legacy. K one of the real takeaways that i from reading this book was so much of John Quincy Adams vision, so much of vision came to, if not by their successor. So adopts so manybs policies and really is a man through because he has a more cooperative and willing congress. And so what does that tell about their legacy . And i think that maybe we need to do a better job as were thinking president ial legacy, which is, of course, a sort of nebulous anyway. And its hard to always its really hard to sometimes. I think one of the key factors term vision and to what extent has their long term vision proven to be accurate . Or was was validated by the people that came after them. And sometimes its really clear, you know, with lincoln his long term on civil rights and slavery is pretty obvious and we give credit for that with John Quincy Adams, not so much. And so i think that definitely need to grapple historians and with as i think as were were studying things to what extent was vision the right one for the nation and even if they didnt accomplish it have we embraced it since then. So do you have a different opinion of any of these president s based on what stephen s written . Yeah. I mean, i think taft is probably the one, ironically, that you know, changed for me the most. I well should actually let me let me back that up. Im a huge John Quincy Adams fan. My dogs name is John Quincy Adams. Love the man. He is so interesting when ask me who are your favorite president s . I say, well, the best president s, in my opinion, are washington, lincoln. But the most interesting men are Theodore Roosevelt and John Quincy Adams. But even i was susceptible to. The idea that his presidency was sort of the weak spot of his Political Service career. And it certainly flashy than, you know, his in congress, which he gets a lot of credit, especially fightin . The gag rule or, you know, his secretary of state tenure, which i think is probably among the, best of all secretaries of states. So i definitely sort of added additional ammunition to my enjoyment of John Quincy Adams, my my real admiration for his Public Service career. But i generally thought that taft was kind of boring and thought that taft was had the mentality and had justice that d he actually got a fair amount of done, you know, in terms of the progressive think really shifted my appreciation for sometimes sometimes boring is actually good and boring get stuff done. So i assume there will be no dogs in your household named William Howard taft . No no, that probly it do have st maybe if i while i probably should not say that sentence if i got a newfoundland thats some point, youd be that would be a really good name for for a new the month so you know i want to get into each of the president s and some of the nuances of stevens but you know all this for me brings up this issue of ethanol are the different ways l scientists go about looking at topics. You know, theres a old expression that theres bumpers, theres splitters right there, bumpers or. Those are looking for broad trends, generalizations, splinters, those who always point out thexception and historians are some bumpers. But we tend to be splitters. Political scientist or lovers by definition. I mean, what you have done is looked at these patterns over. So the bigger picture, larger themes over a longer period of time. But is there so i think the downside of the way that go about it is we all the times those trends over time, wewe dr picture because we focus president s in the context of their often, you know, historians love nuance and ambiguity and complexity and contingency. Terms we use or when were writing history, recapture the nuance of it all, the complexities of it downsided in being a member by so, for so a lot of the things that you attribute to taft are really a part of this effervescence that thel progressive that begins on the ground level bubbles up to the top and and finds expression and tr and taft and wlot of the inih amendment, for example, mean that was that was something was bubbling up. Well part of the aggressive with the growing. It was sponsoredy law under taft. So how do you take someone a president out of the context their4r and and and in doing so there something los its itt obviously. And i think im not so sure about the the word lumbers but i think i agree with point. I mean the two disciplines approach things differently and sadly dont talk to each other enough. I think political scientists have tendency not to fully utilize the extensive histories that are available on pretty much everything. I, i was shocked when i started doing the taft research. Find out just how deep conservation and within conservation, historical approaches to water power sites and the different bureaucratic regulations and Interest Group divisions over the fights in the progressive era over what to do on conservation that is often not tapped by political scientists in effort to draw conclusions and lump along category and look for trends over time. And as you mentioned, i think historians have tendency, at least in my experience, stay. Theyre comfortable in their field of expertise and are encouraged oftentimes not to comment much or too far and draw conclusions that havent been really, really carefully assessed and evaluated. The two together, its difficult to separate them out and things lost, but theres also a benefit i mean, one of the things with t things about this book me as a primarily political scientist, sometime historian was to try to keep roosevelt out of it and to try to keep the focus on taft and Taft Administration and wht taft was able to accomplish without the sort of seductive desire to link him always to theodore similarly. When i was working on John Quincy Adams, its hard to talk about adams without talking about andrew jackson, but to appreciate a lot of what adams does as. President , itsk important to separate those two out and to split them. And so this book, i think your question is really intriguing to me. I think my in this book was at times too split. I mean taft chapters are aimed at taft and theres some comparisons with Theodore Roosevelt and some effort to look at the broader trends of the progressive era. But a lot of this is about taft and what he was able to ■lmplish. And similarly with Andrew Andrew jackson and John Quincy Adams, as much as adams has a vision, i think as lindsay mentioned, that has sometimes obscured a lot of what adams asks for. And talks about comes to fruition later on under the jacksonian. He also has a tremendous track record as president with internal. We may talk about his efforts perpetuate the federal role expansion in indian treaties and that treaty relationship. So the effort i think in this book that i tried to make was was to do both if i could, to split when it was going to help amplify the contributions of people like, adams and taft in particular. And then the lumping is important because again, the main theme here is to think about the presidency as, an office over more than two centuries of time occupied by a lot of different people, but with similarategories of analysis for how different individuals wield that power. Thats what i found fascinating about book is you really are trying to find that common between two methodologies that rarely speak to each other, you know, i mean, itd be great if you a Political Science and Historical Convention all taking place at the same time so we can listen to the work that we do. I, i write i read primarily books. I don and i, i appreciate you have a, i think a Political Science methodology, but an historian se deal i think you deal sensitively with history. And thats one of things i rejoined about your book linsey how do you feel about this whole issue about what are the strengths limitations of the Political Science approach and the history approac lot what has been said. I think i might im going to kind of make up a different way, distinguish the two. I think that what polscientistss tend not to is they tend to come up with sort of process categorizations. So you know i think in the beginning ofn does a great job of talking about like how the three president s make their decision and there are three different types of processes that he comes up with. And thats not something that typically do all much because its sort of a systems oriented ysis. And i think that there are, you know, there are sort of strengths and weaknesses to not doing that. I think the strengths are that sometimes if we focus too much on theindividual nuance and whaa person can bring to a space. But i think the risk that historians often miss the opportunity to draw really interesting parallels and to draw really interesting by going outside of the one persons life thats not to say that we have to compare to everythi