Abstract
Although Johnson is generally regarded as the most unsuccessful of accidental presidents and Roosevelt the most successful, the two presidents have much in common. Both succeeded popular assassinated leaders. Both assumed the presidency with a high degree of popular support. Both were men of strong will and conviction who used aggressive personae to intimidate opponents. Both challenged limited conceptions of the presidency. Both sought to strengthen wings of their congressional party by “going public.”1 Both were peacetime presidents after wars. Both initiated their independent strategy with a brief homage that moved directly to independence.
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Notes
Jeffrey Tulis in The Rhetorical Presidency (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987) discusses the novelty of Johnson’s decision to “go public” and compares it to Roosevelt’s.
Edmund Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (New York: McCann and Geoghegan, 1979), pp. 12, 13, 20, 21; Stephen Gwynn, ed., The Letters and Friendships of Sir Cecil Spring-Rice (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1929), 1:437; Bernard de Voto, ed., Mark Twain in Eruption (New York: Harpers, 1940, p. 8; Theodore Roosevelt, “National Life and Character” in American Ideals (New York: Putnam’s, 1897), 2:93.
H. W. Brands, T. R.: The Last Romantic (New York: Basic Books, 1997), p. 339.
Ibid., p. 357.
Theodore Roosevelt, “National Life and Character” in American Ideals, (New York: Putnam’s, 1897), 2:93.
Ibid., p. 123.
Elting E. Morison and John Blum, eds., The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1951–54), 1:102; Morgan, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, p. 333.
Morgan, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, p. 374; Thomas Hart Benton in Works, 7:5, 6, 232. Two years later in volume I of The Winning of the West, TR expanded his account of westward migration in terms of “race expansion.” The Winning of the West (New York: Putnam’s, 1889), 1:1–27.
Theodore Roosevelt, The Autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt (McLean, VA: Indypublis.com, 2002), p. 42.
Kathleen Dalton, Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life (New York: Knopf, 2002), p. 81.
Paul Grondahl, I Rose like a Rocket: The Political Education of Theodore Roosevelt (New York: Free Press, 2004), p. 107.
Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt: Letters and Speeches (New York: Library of America, 2004), p. 243.
John Morton Blum, The Republican Roosevelt (New York: Atheneum, 1968), p. 52. For TR’s views on Hanna’s intentions as a candidate himself, see his letter to his son in January, 1904. Theodore Roosevelt: Letters and Speeches, pp. 307–8.
Theodore Roosevelt, “First Annual Message,” in Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 14:6642–43.
Ibid., pp. 6641, 6642, 6645.
Harbaugh, The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt (New York: Collier, 1961) p. 172.
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© 2008 Philip Abbott
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Abbott, P. (2008). Theodore Roosevelt “There’s only one life between that madman and the presidency”. In: Accidental Presidents. The Evolving American Presidency Series. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230613034_5
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