Kenneth C. Davis's Blog, page 62
September 26, 2016
Debate DOs and DON’Ts from History
Presidential debate history can be instructive. Reviewing some of the memorable moments—and debate debacles—from these televised showdowns provides a worthy primer in “debatiquette:”
Lesson 1: Lay off the Lazy Shave and Get Some Sun
The slightly unshaven look may work for Don Draper on “Mad Men,” but it was not a plus for Richard Nixon, as he learned in his historic confrontation with John F. Kennedy in the first presidential debate in 1960. Nixon had just come from a hospital stay. He had lost weight in the hospital and his suit looked ill fitting. He had also injured a knee and had to lean on the podium. To make matters worse, Nixon was given a heavy pancake makeup called “Lazy-Shave” to conceal his five o-clock shadow, making him appear even more pale and haggard. Chicago’s legendary Mayor, Richard Daley, reportedly said, “My God they’ve embalmed him before he even died.”
Read more: “Eight Lessons for the Presidential Debates”
September 23, 2016
“Mob Rule Cannot Be Allowed”-Little Rock, 1957
Mob rule cannot be allowed to override the decisions of our courts.
President Eisenhower (Courtesy: Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum)
President Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Radio and Television Address to the American People on the Situation in Little Rock,” (September 24, 1957)
For a few minutes this evening I want to speak to you about the serious situation that has arisen in Little Rock. To make this talk I have come to the President’s office in the White House. I could have spoken from Rhode Island, where I have been staying recently, but I felt that, in speaking from the house of Lincoln, of Jackson and of Wilson, my words would better convey both the sadness I feel in the action I was compelled today to take and the firmness with which I intend to pursue this course until the orders of the Federal Court at Little Rock can be executed without unlawful interference.
In that city, under the leadership of demagogic extremists, disorderly mobs have deliberately prevented the carrying out of proper orders from a Federal Court. Local authorities have not eliminated that violent opposition and, under the law, I yesterday issued a Proclamation calling upon the mob to disperse.
This morning the mob again gathered in front of the Central High School of Little Rock, obviously for the purpose of again. preventing the carrying out of the Court’s order relating to the admission of Negro children to that school.
Whenever normal agencies prove inadequate to the task and it becomes necessary for the Executive Branch of the Federal Government to use its powers and authority to uphold Federal Courts, the President’s responsibility is inescapable.
In accordance with that responsibility, I have today issued an Executive Order directing the use of troops under Federal authority to aid in the execution of Federal law at Little Rock, Arkansas. This became necessary when my Proclamation of yesterday was not observed, and the obstruction of justice still continues.
Complete text and Source: Dwight D. Eisenhower: “Radio and Television Address to the American People on the Situation in Little Rock.,” September 24, 1957. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project.
September 22, 2016
Now Available: “In the Shadow of Liberty”
The first prepublication reviews are in for In the Shadow of Liberty: The Hidden History of Slavery, Four Presidents, and Five Black Lives. (Holt Books for Young Readers/Penguin Random House Audio, September 20, 2016)
[UPDATED September 12, 2016]
The latest advance review has come in from Publishers Weekly in a *Starred Review:
“–delivers an eye-opening vision of ‘stubborn facts’ in American history…”
Read the complete Publishers Weekly review here.
School Library Journal, in a *Starred Review, has called the book:
“Compulsively readable….”
Read the complete School Library Journal review here.
In the Shadow of Liberty (Available for pre-order and in stores on 9/20)
In a *Starred Review, Booklist said,
“A valuable, broad perspective on slavery, paired with close-up views of individuals who benefited from it and those who endured it.” Booklist
And Kirkus has called the book,
“An important and timely corrective.” Kirkus
In the Nonfiction Book of the Week, Horn Books says,
“Davis’s solid research (there are source notes and bibliographies for each chapter), accessible prose, and determination to make these stories known give young readers an important alternative to textbook representations of colonial life.”
In the Shadow of Liberty will be published by Holt Books for Young Readers on Sept. 20, 2016.
September 19, 2016
Who Said It? (9/19/16)
President George Washington to Secretary of the Treasury Oliver Walcott (September 1, 1796)
Washington secretly asked the Secretary of Treasury to help him recover Ona Judge, an enslaved woman who had escaped from Washington’s home in Philadelphia while he was serving there as president.
After Ona Judge –who was Martha Washington’s enslaved maid– made her escape in May 1796, Washington took out an advertisement offering a ten dollar reward.
In September 1796, he wrote to a member of his Cabinet:
To seize, and put her on Board a Vessel bound immediately to this place [Philadelphia], or to Alexandria which I should like better, seems at first view, to be the safest and least[t] expensive. But if she is discovered, the Collector, I am persuaded, will pursue such measures as to him shall appear best, to effect those ends;
President George Washington to Secy. of Treasury Oliver Walcott (September 1, 1796)
Source: Writings of George Washington, cited in An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America by Henry Wiencek (p. 324)
Washington requested the assistance of Joseph Whipple, the Collector of the Port in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where Ona Judge had escaped by boat and was later identified on the street.
Washington wrote this letter just weeks before his more famous “Farewell Address” was published on September 19, 1796. The complete story of Ona Judge and Washington’s relationships with the people enslaved at Mount Vernon is detailed in
In The Shadow of Liberty: The Hidden History of Slavery, Four Presidents, and Five Black Lives.
In the Shadow of Liberty (Available for pre-order and in stores on 9/20)
September 15, 2016
Did You Know? Washington re-enslaved thousands of runaways at Yorktown
When George Washington defeated the British at Yorktown, America won its freedom; thousands of enslaved African Americans lost theirs.
Surrender of Lord Cornwallis by John Trumbull hangs in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol (Public Domain)
When the British forces under Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington and his French allies on October 19, 1781, the terms of capitulation included the following phrase
It is understood that any property obviously belonging to the inhabitants of these States, in the possession of the garrison, shall be subject to be reclaimed.
(Article IV, Articles of Capitulation; dated October 18, 1781. Source and Complete Text: Avalon Project-Yale Law School)
Thousands of escaped enslaved people had flocked to the British army during Cornwallis’s campaign in Virginia in what has been called the “largest slave rebellion in American history.”
Among those thousands Washington had recaptured were seventeen people from his Mount Vernon plantation and about two dozen others from Thomas Jefferson’s plantations at Monticello and elsewhere. They were all returned to enslavement.
George Washington’s Mount Vernon (Author photo)
Read more about this piece of “Hidden History” in In The Shadow of Liberty: The Hidden History of Slavery, Four Presidents, and Five Black Lives.
In the Shadow of Liberty (Available for pre-order and in stores on 9/20)
September 12, 2016
Who Said It? (9/12/16)
James Madison in an 1826 letter to the Marquis de Lafayette
James Madison’s Montpelier
(Photo: Kenneth C. Davis)
“…the two races cannot co-exist, both being free & equal. The great sine qua non therefore is some external asylum for the colored race.”
Source: James Madison’s Montpelier, “Madison and Slavery”
James Madison is known as the “Father of the Constitution,” which was signed by the men who wrote it on September 17, 1787. September 17 is now marked as Constitution Day.
Madison believed that the solution to slavery was creation of a colony where emancipated African Americans could eventually be moved. He freed none of the enslaved people at Montpelier, his home, although one of them –Paul Jennings– later claimed that the dying President had pledged to emancipate Jennings. Eventually, Jennings was able to purchase his freedom from an ailing and destitute Dolley Madison.
Read more about Paul Jennings, his life, and times in IN THE SHADOW OF LIBERTY: The Hidden History of Slavery, Four Presidents, and Five Black Lives. (Holt/Penguin Random House Audio, September 20)
In the Shadow of Liberty (Available for pre-order and in stores on 9/20)
September 8, 2016
COMING ON SEPTEMBER 20, 2016: “In the Shadow of Liberty”
The first prepublication reviews are in for In the Shadow of Liberty: The Hidden History of Slavery. Four Presidents, and Five Black Lives. (Holt Books for Young Readers/Penguin Random House Audio, September 20, 2016)
UPDATED AUGUST 8, 2016
The latest advance review has come in from School Library Journal, which in a Starred Review called the book
Compulsively readable….
Read the complete School Library Journal review here.
In the Shadow of Liberty (Available for pre-order and in stores on 9/20)
In a *Starred Review, Booklist said,
“A valuable, broad perspective on slavery, paired with close-up views of individuals who benefited from it and those who endured it.” Booklist
And Kirkus has called the book,
“An important and timely corrective.” Kirkus
In the Nonfiction Book of the Week, Horn Books says,
“Davis’s solid research (there are source notes and bibliographies for each chapter), accessible prose, and determination to make these stories known give young readers an important alternative to textbook representations of colonial life.”
In the Shadow of Liberty will be published by Holt Books for Young Readers on Sept. 20, 2016.
September 5, 2016
Advance Praise for In the Shadow of Liberty
Advance praise for In the Shadow of Liberty: The Hidden History of Slavery, Four Presidents, and Five Black Lives (Coming on September 20, 2016 from Holt Books and Penguin Random House Audio)
“By exploring the humanity of people held in bondage by early American presidents, Kenneth C. Davis once again turns American mythology into history. Read the book and be grateful.”
— Marcus Rediker, author of The Slave Ship: A Human History
“The young woman was enslaved, but also privileged. She was part of the household of the nation’s first president. This powerful book tells her story, and others, which are surprising and have been unknown to most of us. They will give you insights into our American heritage that you may not have considered before. I hope In the Shadow of Liberty will be widely read. It is important and timely.”
—Joy Hakim, author, A History of US (Oxford University Press), Freedom: A History of US (Social Studies School Service), and The Story of Science (Smithsonian Books).
In the Shadow of Liberty (Available for pre-order and in stores on 9/20)
Who Said It? (9/5/2016)
President Theodore Roosevelt, “The New Nationalism” (August 31, 1910)
Now, this means that our government, National and State, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests. Exactly as the special interests of cotton and slavery threatened our political integrity before the Civil War, so now the great special business interests too often control and corrupt the men and methods of government for their own profit. We must drive the special interests out of politics. That is one of our tasks to-day. Every special interest is entitled to justice–full, fair, and complete–and, now, mind you, if there were any attempt by mob-violence to plunder and work harm to the special interest, whatever it may be, that I most dislike, and the wealthy man, whomsoever he may be, for whom I have the greatest contempt, I would fight for him, and you would if you were worth your salt. He should have justice. For every special interest is entitled to justice, but not one is entitled to a vote in Congress, to a voice on the bench, or to representation in any public office. The Constitution guarantees protection to property, and we must make that promise good. But it does not give the right of suffrage to any corporation.
The true friend of property, the true conservative, is he who insists that property shall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth; who insists that the creature of man’s making shall be the servant and not the master of the man who made it. The citizens of the United States must effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have called into being.
There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains. To put an end to it will be neither a short nor an easy task, but it can be done.
Source: From the White House Archives: Teddy Roosevelt’s New Nationalism Speech
COMING IN SEPTEMBER 2016: “In the Shadow of Liberty”
The first prepublication reviews are in for In the Shadow of Liberty: The Hidden History of Slavery. Four Presidents, and Five Black Lives. (Holt Books for Young Readers/Penguin Random House Audio, September 20, 2016)
UPDATED AUGUST 8, 2016
The latest advance review has come in from School Library Journal, which in a Starred Review called the book
Compulsively readable….
Read the complete School Library Journal review here.
In the Shadow of Liberty (Available for pre-order and in stores on 9/20)
In a *Starred Review, Booklist said,
“A valuable, broad perspective on slavery, paired with close-up views of individuals who benefited from it and those who endured it.” Booklist
And Kirkus has just called the book,
“An important and timely corrective.” Kirkus
In the Shadow of Liberty will be published by Holt Books for Young Readers on Sept. 20, 2016.
