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, whene think people like lincoln and tr and fdr and we think about the 20th century as being the defining century and defining and determining the president ial power. But Stephen Rockwell in this provocative new book turnstc■b t all that on its head. His book is called the presidency 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 ataint university in new york. He earlier worked as a Senior Research analyst at the Brookings Institution and■ as an assistant professor in the Political Science and Public 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 have with one of the finest of the new generation of president ial historiinchervinsk. Lindsay is a senior fellow at the center for president ial history at Southern Methodist university. She is also the of the Award Winning boo t George Washington and the creation of the American Institution and. The coeditor of morning the president s loss and legacy in american culture. 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 conversation today. But before we get started just a quick note to our audience. Weso if you look at the bottom f your screen theres a a q a function. If you would send your i will do my best to either work them in the course of the conversation or save them until 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 power, you look at Abraham Lincoln who used the powers of the presidency, help fight and win the civil, 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 course, roosevelt, who dramatically president ial power to fight the depression and world war two. But youre telling me, is that everything been saying is wrong. So sfille in. Help me understand why why that wrong and why we really should be looking at John Quincy AdamsUlysses Grant and william. All right, ill try. Thanks for the question. I dont think president ial powe[ haex i know those the regular touchstones, but put more positively. My main argument in the book is that an active, independent and l presidency has been a core element of american governance since the George Washington administration and throho 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 rece r doing much more in the 19th century than we used to think. There have been tremendous studies on westward expansion policy, disaster relief, infrastructure development, Indian Affairs, wars, diplomacy, Customs Enforcement 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[[ 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 affect our traditional understandings of Political Institutions like theand what ie 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 catf analysis that presidency studies have outlined over the years as critical to understanding generally the office. And what i find that 19th century presidencies and into progressive era withafpresident e 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 buildingrship of administration and departments and agencies, the use of unilateral 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 taft use tools in all five of these categories to try to get done what they want to get a large and influential federal state. And these three president s make for great case studies in something this because first of all, the scope of their lives extends throughout the first part of american history. John quincy adams as a child witnesses, the american revolution. Herites ofof witneine 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 over each of these president s was witness to exercises of presidenal by. So adams is in congress for the 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 careerne. Theres a tendency to think of taft primarily as judge, but his work in the philippines suggests a deep experience in executive authory that then translates into the presidency and to put this all together, i think the new state was doing gives us a t of issue areas to look for president ial power and looking for president ial power throughout the 1800s reveals president ial power by numerous president s. The this fascinating is histori, we love ranking president s, right with every year theres a you know, a new ranking and things dont change all that much. Stephen is talking about so usually ranked very high on that list of president s. So to if stephen is right and and and i think he 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 for having us. And its such a joy to be in conversation with both of you and to be talking about these pridts 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, you have also participated. Ive been involved in the cspan rankings that come out every couple of years and communicati, working with congress wartime leadership. And you know how a president does in civil rights, 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 abou. And we do see some change over time. 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. But i think 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 many of jacobs policies and really is a man through bee 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 ■0sometimes. I think one of the key factors to be how is their long 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 him credit for that with John Quincy Adams, not so much. And so i think that definily grd with as i think as were were studying things to what extent right one for the nation and even if they didnt accomplish it have we embraced it since then. So do you have a different esidents based on what stephen has written . Yeah. I mean, i think taft is probably the one, ironicall 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 susceptiblesort s Political Service career. And it certainly flashy than, you know,which he gets a lot of credit, especially fighting 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, admiration for his Public Service career. But i generally thought that taft was kind of boring and thought that taft had personalio be a justice that made sense and he actually got a fairmount of done, you know, in terms of the Progressive Agenda but doesnt get credit for it. But this book, i think really shifted my appreciation for jes ■hng is actually good and boring get stuff done. So i assume there will be no dogs in your household named William Howardno no, that probt quite have same ring to it, but 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 that historians and political scientists go about looking at s 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 the exception and historians are some bumpers. But we tend to be splitters. Political scientist or lovers by definition. Right, steven . 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, we all think we dont see the broader picture because we focus president sext of their times and often, you know, historians love nuance and complexity and contingency. These are all the terms we use or when were writing history, recapture the nuance of it all, the complexities of it all the doubt. But is there a downside and and in being a member by so, for example taft so a lot of the things that you attribute to taft are really a part of this effervescence that the progressive that begins on the ground level bubbles up to the top■ ■n and and finds expressiod tr and taft and Woodrow Wilson a lot of the initiatives, the 16th amendment, for example, mean that was twa up. Well part of the aggressive period to to deal with the growing. It was sponsored by and obviously signed into law under taft. So how do you take someone a president out of the context their times and and and in doin. Well its its difficult obviously. And i think im not so sure about the the word lumbers but i think i agree with your basic 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. At this point, i, i was shocked when i started doing the taft research. Find o just how deep historians have gone into conservation and within conservation, historical approaches to water power sites and different of using land. The different bureaucratic regulations and Interest Group diviprogressive era over what to on conservation that is often not tapped by political scientists 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, just to want to 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 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 tr and one of the toughest 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 what taft was able to accomplish 7■l■nth 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 , its 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 a 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 accomplish. And similarly with Andrew Andrew jackson and john quincy■ob■ ada, 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 the best 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 theme here is to think about the presidency as, an office over more than two centuries of time cupi by of dt with similar categories 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 Ground between two methodologies that rarely speak to each other, younow, 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 primarily books. I dont read many Political Science books. And i, i appreciate you have a, i think a Political Science methodology, but an historian sets. So you deal i think you deal sensitively with history. And that■ onjoined about your y how do you feel about this whole issue about what are the strengths limitations of the Political Science approach and the history approach . Yeah, i know i agree with a 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 political scientists do that historians tend not to is they tend to come up with sort of process categorizations. So you know i think in the beginning of the steven does a great job of talking about like how the three president s make theirision 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 analysis. And i think that there are, you know, there are sort of strengths and weaknesses to not dointhe strengths are that sometimes if we focus too much on the process we miss the individual nuance and