Kevin good evening. Welcome to mount vernon. My name is kevin butterfield, i am the director of the fred w. Swift National Library for the study of George Washington at mount vernon. It is my pleasure to welcome you here tonight. The Ford Motor Company each month sponsors a free book talk like this one. An opportunity for the community to come and learn from the greatest historians in the field. Thank you for being here tonight. We are thrilled to have you. We will hear a brief hesitation from susan swain, copresident and chief executive officer of cspan, and coauthor of the president s. She will be joined by brian lam, the founder and executive chairman of cspan and moderating an esteemed group of historians discussing the american presidency. The american presidency is, as you know, a fascinating subject of inquiry in every possible way. [laughter] in the constitution, there is not as much said about it as you would imagine. Article one is quite long. Article two is quite shorter. As you can imagine, the executive power shall be vested in a president of the United States of america, full stop. That is the first sentence and the key phrase in the second article of the constitution which describes the presidency. Much of what we know today as the american presidency has come from experience, from precedent, from action. We are thrilled to have an opportunity to learn about that experience, that action, tonight from a Wonderful Group of historians that we will tell you about tonight. We will be joined by Douglas Brinkley, Edna Greene Medford, and Richard Norton smith. Dr. Brinkley is a president ial historian for cnn. He wrote a book im excited about thrilled to read which is american john f. Kennedy and the great space race. On the panel, dr. Medford is the professor of history into dean at howard university. She is the author most recently of lincoln an emancipation. Richard norton smith, an acclaimed author of a wonderful book on George Washington called patriarch George Washington and the new american nation. He has written many other books, including one on Herbert Hoover, and has served as the director of five different president ial libraries. Tonight, these individuals will discuss their new book, the president s noted historians on the lives of the best and worst chief executives. Please join me in welcoming them tonight. [applause] susan good evening, everybody. Nice to see you. And thank you very much, kevin butterfield. I cant think of a more appropriate place to talk about president ial leadership than mount vernon. It is a delight to be back here tonight. Brian and i about this book for the first time about a year and a half ago. Our motivation was cspans 40th anniversary, but what a week we picked for this book to come out on president ial leadership. [laughter] a terrific time for us to be hearing from historians to get their perspectives on what makes a good chief executive for the country. Also to put some Current Events , into context, and we hope to do that tonight. In putting this book together, brian and i have actually worked on nine of these, which are collected works of his interviews. This one, we decided to actually bring two resources into play. First of all, brian has been doing a sunday night Interview Program for 30 years now. We have an archive that is full of his interviews. In fact, the odometer on the archives is about to hit 250,000 hours later on this month. Not all brian, but [applause] but among the people brian has interviewed are these three people who have become great friends of ours over the last quarter century. Some of the countrys leading contemporary president ial historians. In addition to having the vast archive of collective works, about 20 years ago exactly 20 years ago in 1999 we did this year long project, which these three folks were involved in. I have some cspan colleagues who are nodding, thinking about what a big job this was. We took it upon ourselves to go , to aive location president ial history site associated with almost every president , and do a two hourlong program on their lives. It almost killed us but we made it through. We needed to put some kind of capper on it. So we talked to the three of them and decided, lets do a survey of historians and take all of this biographical material that is more anecdotal in nature and put a little data and Science Behind it. So we gathered them together, along with dr. Robert browning, who is the head of our archives. Professor john swain is a teacher at the university of maryland. We got into a wonderful debate. You all would have loved to be there, about what should the 10 qualities of leadership be . In order to do a survey of 100 president ial historians. The idea for the book was to merge the survey work that we have done three times now with the president ial historians with the collective content of president ial biographers. And so the book you will learn more about tonight is actually organized not chronologically but where the president s fell in line in that survey. You are jumping through history but you are also going through a continuum from the very best to the very worst rated leaders in our country. You learn more about some of the characteristics and qualities that perhaps put them in that ranking. Let me so you about the 10 qualities we finally agreed on. The first is public persuasion. The second, crisis leadership. That can come in all sorts of forms. The third, Economic Management. The fourth quality was moral authority. The fifth, international relations, which includes not only diplomacy but also war. The next, administrative skills, which includes the assembly of a cabinet and the advisors who surround you. The next, the allimportant relations with congress. You can have that and not get a program done. This reminds me of George H W Bush vision and setting an agenda. The next one, pursued equal justice for all. The 10th was performance within the context of their times. So what we did was send a survey out to 100 historians. This is three times now. We worked very hard to get people of different demographics and people of different political points on the spectrum so that we could represent lots of different points of view. This survey, the first one was so successful that we now do it every time a president leaves office. To answer your question, President Trump has not been rated and we will not formally rate him until he leaves office. It certainly does engender lots of discussion about the current occupant of the office. I will give you a quick overview on the best and the worst and who moved the most, just so you have some context of what you will be hearing from the historians. Lets look at the top five. First of all, in fifth place from the top, William Hitchcock is the biography we chose, but historians rated eisenhower in fifth place. He has actually moved a bit, which speaks to the hidden hands theory that has been developing about his presidency. His lowest score was public persuasion. The next is fourthplace and that is t. R. We have our biographer on set tonight, and we chose his wonderful biography called wilderness warrior. Im sure we will learn more from Douglas Brinkley about why he chose that particular aspect of t. R. s agenda to focus on. He scored very well or he would not have been in fourth place, but his lowest score was equal justice, pursuing equal justice for all. In third place, Franklin Delano roosevelt. In the book, you will find that we chose goodwins really terrific biography on the white house years when they had all those interesting people, including Winston Churchill , living on the second floor of the white house to help them get through the war years. His lowest scores, number fifth in Economic Management and eighth, which are both high scores, in pursuing equal justice for all. The next, here we are at his home, in second place was George Washington, scoring 1s and 2s across the board by the historians. But his single lowest score, and the folks in mount vernon have been working hard to help us all understand this, 13th in equal justice for all. And the top winner in not only our survey but every survey done for president s is Abraham Lincoln. The top score was 1000 and Abraham Lincoln won a score of 907 among historians. He had a terrific rating on every single one, except for relations with congress where he scored a 9. [laughter] ok, so who are the bottom five . Who is at the other end of the spectrum . John tyler is at number 39, virginia native. Our biographer does argue that he has some redeeming qualities, so i invite you to read that chapter. [laughter] the man who ended up not having a party, but he did manage to establish the president ial succession because it was not written into the constitution. Ok, you wont be surprised at number 40. Warren harding. He scored 360 out of 1000. We know so much about the scandals that plagued his presidency. You will be interested to know the biographer we selected was john dean. Yes, that john dean of watergate fame, who knows a thing or two about president ial scandals. Actually, he uncovered papers of Warren Harding that were previously unknown to biographers, and he argues that he deserves a little bit better than the place the historians have given him. It is up for you to decide. [laughter] next, franklin pierce. Poor franklin pierce. New hampshires only president. 41st place. The kansasnebraska act did him in. He also had a bit of a drinking problem. You might remember that he came into office with tremendous tragedy. They had three sons. They had already lost two of them. The third, a young boy named benny died in front of his wife , and himself as their train capsized on their way to washington. He carried his sons dead body up from the accident. His wife had a hard time recovering from that. She spent much of the first couple of years in the white house on the second floor in the residence writing letters to her dead son. It is a very tragic story. In pierces case, he had a hard time focusing and assembling his cabinet, understandably. It put him behind the curve. Next up, Andrew Johnson. 42nd place. David stewart is the biographer we chose for him. The tennessee governor who was loyal to the union, but impeached by the republicans using the tenure of office act. Guess who is dead last . James buchanan. I am a pennsylvanian so this one hurts a little bit. [laughter] i love the biographer we chose for this chapter. His name is robert strauss. It is called worst. President. Ever. [laughter] how bad is he . He is a full 30 points below Andrew Johnson. And all of these people this is something to think about. All of them are below William Henry harrison, who was only in office for one month. [laughter] i think richard called them the net negative presidencies. Lets take a quick look at how the modern president s fared. Ronald reagan was the only one that made it into the top 10. Lou cannon, the terrific biographer who covered him as a journalist in california, is the chapter that we did. He had a lot to say about reagans command of storytelling while he was in office. Next, george h. W. Bush in 20th place. It will be interesting to see what happens to him now that he has passed, now that more records are available, and there is a bit of a halo effect once president s leave office. We will see if he remains there. Interestingly, he is also book ended by the two adams president s. Bill clinton came in at 15. We had david marinus seminal biography as his chapter. Washington post reporter who writes about bill clintons duality that he could be both good and bad at the sing time and that kind of impacted everything that happened throughout his public career. How about george w . Just out of the bottom 10, his highest score was pursuing equal justice for all. And again, that is his first entry into it, so it will be interesting to see as time progresses how he will do. But he has some difficult problems to overcome. Hurricane katrina, the economic crisis, and certainly the ongoing wars. We will be seeing what the historians have to say is more time goes by. How did our most recent president do . Barack obama. The historians rated him at number 12. A pretty good showing for first entry. He got 24th in international relations, and 39th in relations with congress. I found it was really interesting to look at these scores as i was reading the chapters, which we hope you will do, to see what the biographers had to say about how the historians rated them. This is my last set of slides for you. This is kind of fun. Who is up and down . Andrew jackson. Which way do you think he went . Down. Susan down. Over the course of the surveys, he went from 13th place down to 18th. Woodrow wilson, down. Six to 11. You folks are going to have to explain this because i have a soft spot in my heart for rutherford b. Hayes. [laughter] he actually dropped six points over the survey from 26 to 32. Grover cleveland, our only two term nonconsecutive president , went from number 17 in the survey to 23. Who are the ones that went up . Dwight eisenhower. He made it from the number nine spot into the top five. Bill clinton. I told you he was in the number 15 position. When he first came into the survey, he was 21st. That was in 1999, right after the impeachment process. He moved to 15 by the second time we did it and he stays there in the 2017 survey. And finally, u. S. Grant. And edna, you are a specialist on this area. You will have to help me understand this one. Grant is the president to changed the most, going up 11 points over the course of the three surveys. I would love to hear your perspective about why historians are looking more favorably on him. That is a bit of an overview of how the president s were rated by 100 historians. Now, you have three fabulous historians that have been so much a part of cspans programming over the years that will add some context to that. Thanks for your attention. [applause] brian this book is what it is because of susans fabulous editing capabilities. Thank you, susan. [applause] Richard Norton smith comes to us today from grand rapids. Doug brinkley from austin, texas, and Edna Greene Medford from howard university. I would like to start off by asking doug, because lincoln is number one, he got back from the Lincoln Library in springfield and richard opened it for us all. What year was that, 2006 . Yeah. Brian what did you find there . Why do we think everybody should go . Douglas everyone should go visit springfield, illinois, if you can. They have built an incredible new library and museum for Abraham Lincoln. He is always number one, as susan pointed out, largely because no matter how bad other president s think they had it, lincoln had it worse. The fact of the matter was he was not on seven states ballots to vote for him. He comes to washington, d. C. Having to have a body double. The executive mansion it wasnt called the white house until Theodore Roosevelt dubbed it that. So the executive mansion had lax security. Lincoln is sitting there so vulnerable. I came in at austin and landed at dulles airport, which is very close to the battle of bull run. The confederates won the first battle of bull run, and there is Abraham Lincoln sitting in the white house with half the country putting up confederate flags and trying to find a way to keep america cobbled together. He did it miraculously. I am always amazed we were able , in our country, to hold an election in 1864, and lincoln is able to get reelected. But when you think about it, the gettysburg address, the first and second inaugurals, are almost foundational text. They are like the the bill of rights or the declaration of independence or the constitution. We are not a full nation without addressing lincolns accomplishments, and of course, the emancipation proclamation, the original sin of the United States with slavery. Here, lincoln gets to be the person that leads the abolitionist crusade from the white house and put america on a new and better course. And then finally, his assassination. John wilkes booth. Schoolkids go and study it. You realize when lincolns body moved back to springfield he is buried there at the cement terry in springfield. But the train arrived with this casket. It went across the country at the exact same moment that the Union Soldiers were laying down their arms and coming home as a kind of homecoming. So lincoln is kind of in a category unto his own. Also, if you are a book lover, go to the lincoln bookshop in chicago. They sell nothing but books about Abraham Lincoln. All scholars want to write a book about lincoln. I never have. If i could write one, i would write about lincoln going down the mississippi river, two trips, and discovering slavery markets in new orleans. Brian lets pick up what susan asked about u. S. Grant. You can throw in your comments on mr. Lincoln if you would like. Can you explain why general grant has done so well in these surveys . Edna i think every generation decides how they are going to rank the president s, how they are going to interpret the president s. At this time in our history, things that really matter to us are integrity. I know this is a scandal filled administration, supposedly. He has surrounded himself with some people who are not always behaving properly. But he always did. I dont think there is any real criticism of him personally. But it is also about the fact that, during the reconstruction period he is trying to make sure , that the violence that is developing, especially in the south, is quelled. So he is willing to enforce those enforcement acts. I think, from todays sensibilities, we really recognize how importa