[Abridged] Presidential Histories

Rutherford B. Hayes is known to history as the President who ended Reconstruction, but is that a fair monicker? What did Hayes think of slavery, the freedmen, and Reconstruction, anyway? Join me as I interview to Dustin McLochlin , a historian at the Rutherford B Hayes Presidential Library and Museums in Fremont, Ohio , on Hayes' evolving views on slavery and how to best protect the former sl...

How do you lead a nation when half the country thinks you were fraudulently elected?  I'm not talking about 2021, I'm talking about 1877, when Rutherford B Hayes emerged the winner of an election that was so vigorously contested, he wasn't even officially declared the winner until two days before inauguration day. But what did Hayes win? A nation that didn't fully accept him, a...

President Lincoln and General Grant formed one of the most successful president-general partnerships in American history, winning the Civil War and defeating the Confederacy. But before that partnership could turn to the challenge of reconstruction, Lincoln was assassinated, leaving the nation in the incapable hands of Andrew Johnson. Four years later, Grant was elected to pick up where Lincoln an...

Ulysses S. Grant's reputation has been through a lot . While he was still alive, he was very nearly our first three-term president; after he died, the Myth of the Lost Cause repainted him as a drunk and corrupt butcher; in the past 30 years, he's started to become a Civil Rights Icon as historians gave him a long overdue second look. Join me as I interview to Joan Waugh , UCLA professor...

Ulysses S. Grant led an Odyssey of a life. From the battlefields of the Mexican-American War, to the get-rich-quick frontier of the California Gold Rush, to years of poverty in St. Louis, Grant was shaped by a dizzying array of diverse experiences. Join me as I interview Nick Sacco , a park ranger at Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site in St. Louis and an author for The Journal of the Civil Wa...

They say history is written by the victor. Ulysses S Grant may beg to differ. For nearly 100 years, Grant was derided as an inept and corrupt drunk who won the Civil War by recklessly sacrificing the lives of his men and who floundered in a presidency rife with corruption. In the past 30 years, that verdict has changed. Follow along as Grant goes from Mexican-American war veteran to failed busines...

Andrew Johnson is the only president to face a Senate impeachment in our first 200 years. What did he do to get impeached? Who were the men out to get him? And how did he beat his conviction and removal from office by a single vote? Join me as I interview David O Stewart , a lawyer, historian, and author of numerous books about presidential history, including Impeached: The Trial of President Andr...

In the wake of Abraham Lincoln's assassination, former vice president Andrew Johnson was faced with a tremendous challenge: How do you mend relations between the north and south, two regions that had spend the past four years killing each other on the field of battle? And what do you do about the south's 3.5 million newly freed former slaves who owned no land or property and who were sur...

Jefferson Davis was never president of all the United States, but he was president of half of them. Follow Davis as parlays his status as a Mexican-American war hero into a political career as a fiery southern radical, serves as Secretary of War, get's his dream job as general of the confederate Mississippi armies, and days later gets the job he never asked for nor wanted - President of the C...

Six of the seven presidents who followed Lincoln served in the Union Army during the Civil War. In our final look at Honest Abe, join me as I interview Jon White , an associate professor of American Studies at Christopher Newport University and author of Emancipation, the Union Army, and the Reelection of Abraham Lincoln , on Lincoln's relationship with the army and what its soldiers thought...

Abraham Lincoln is the most experienced trial lawyer we've ever elected president, with more than two decades of experience litigating in the courtroom. Join me as I talk to Brian Dirck , a professor of History at Anderson University in Anderson, Indiana, and author of Lincoln the Lawyer , as we discuss how those decades of practicing the law prepared Lincoln for the legal landmines he had to...

Think the press is biased today? Take a look at it in the 19th century, when papers were so partisan they were practically departments of their parties. Join me as I interview Harold Holzer , director of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College in New York City,  Chairman of the Lincoln Forum, and author of The presidents vs. the Press: The endless battle between the white hou...

The debate over slavery is was old as independence. What made Lincoln to end it with the emancipation of the slaves? Join me as I interview Kate Masur , an associate professor of 19th-century American History at Northwestern University and author of Until Justice Be Done: America’s First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction , on the history of the abolitionist movement and...

How did Lincoln keep the slave-holding border states in the union while also advancing the cause of emancipation? Join me as I interview  Louis Masur , a distinguished professor of American Studies and History at Rutgers University and author of Lincoln’s Hundred Days: The Emancipation Proclamation and the War for the Union , on the tightrope act Lincoln walked to save the union and end American s...

When Abraham Lincoln was elected, the south didn't take it too well. Before he was even sworn in, seven states had already seceded, and four more joined the confederacy in the months that followed. The fate of the union was at stake. Follow along as Lincoln goes from country lawyer to U.S. President and then leads the nation to reunification by winning the PR war, finding a general who can wi...

Was James Buchanan secretly the nation's first gay president? Join me as I interview historian Thomas Balcerski , author of Bosom Friends, the intimate world of James Buchanan and William Rufus King , on the 150-year-old rumors about Buchanan's sexuality. We'll also dive into Buchanan's presidency and ask, what can we learn from a man widely considered one of the worst presiden...

In 1857, the debate over slavery had fractured Kansas, national political parties, and even national churches. It's easy to see why the country turned to James Buchanan, a man with one of the strongest resumes ever put in the white house. Unfortunately, he inherited 31 states, and left behind 27, as the pre-civil was secession crisis overwhelmed the nation during his final months in office. F...

"We Polked  you in 44, we're Pierce you in 52!" Franklin Pierce may have my favorite campaign slogan yet. But in terms of presidencies, wow, this guy is a total disaster. I mean, Millard Fillmore just nuked the only major opposition party into oblivion. Governing should be easy, right? Not when you're Pierce, who do his best to one-up Fillmore and wreck the Democratic party on...

When Millard Fillmore became president, the country was on the verge of collapse. President Taylor had just died, the Compromise of 1850 appeared dead, and southern secessionist were organizing a convention to plot disunion. The nation looked to Fillmore to save it. And he totally whiffed. Follow along as Fillmore uses the scapegoating of minorities to rise to power, postpones Civil War for a deca...

"Ol' Rough n' Ready" hadn't even been sworn in yet when the discovery of California gold derailed whatever plans he'd held for his presidency. 100,000 Americans flooded west to California In 1849 and quickly began clamoring for statehood - statehood without slavery. The north loved the idea, the south threatened to secede over it, and Zachary Taylor had to bridge the...

No president better captures the spirit of Manifest Destiny than James K. Polk. When he entered office, the United States had a disputed claim to Oregon, and that's about it. When he left office, the United States looked like the continent-spanning empire it is today.. Follow along as Polk revives his dead-end political career to shock everyone and win the White House, manipulates the United...

President John Tyler was so hated, he was burned in effigy by his own party before being kicked out of the party and made into a political pariah. And that's BEFORE he committed treason. Follow along as John Tyler sneaks into the presidency in a fluke, vetoes his own party's agenda to incur their wrath, engages in some of the most ambitious backroom political plotting so far, and then an...

Sam Houston was never president of the United States, but he was the first president of the Independent Republic of Texas, one of the first senators of the state of Texas, and was ejected from the governorship of Texas for refusing to swear loyalty to the confederacy on the eve of the Civil War. Follow Houston as he runs away from home to live with the Cherokee, joins the army to fight under Andre...

When William Henry Harrison pledged to only serve one term as president, he probably expected that term to last more than one month, but a disease lurking in the D.C. sanitation system had other plans, and so history knows him as our shortest-serving president. But Harrison is far more than that. He's also the reason England didn't capture the American midwest during the war of 1812, and...

How does Martin Van Buren rise from being an impoverished child with no education to taking over New York State politics, forging the Democratic Party, and creating the modern two-party system? He does it by being sly. Sly as a fox. Follow Van Buren, the "Little Magician," as he outwits and manipulates every foe and ally alike to remake the American political landscape, only for it all t...