It can certainly be said that Americans have a long-held penchant for choosing distinguished military heroes as their Presidents. Zachary Taylor was elected to the White House largely due to his illustrious military career in the Mexican-American War. Ulysses S. Grant was boosted into office in a similar way; as the top Union general who had won the Civil War, Grant enjoyed tremendous political popularity. Before becoming involved in politics, a young John F. Kennedy served in the Navy during World War Two, surviving several accidents at sea and later authoring a book on the subject. Perhaps the modern era’s most famous Presidential war hero is Dwight Eisenhower, who, as Supreme Allied Commander, led the American and Allied forces to victory against Nazi Germany in World War Two. And of course, there have been many other military men elected to the nation’s highest office: George Washington, Andrew Jackson, James Monroe, and James Garfield, among several others.

While all of the Presidents listed above were indeed targeted by assassins, unfortunately William McKinley did not survive his encounter. McKinley lost his life in 1901 at the hands of Leon Czolgosz, who fatally shot the President during a meet-and-greet event at the Pan-American Exposition. Sadly, three other Presidents have also been victims of assassination: Abraham Lincoln in 1865, James Garfield in 1881, and John F. Kennedy in 1963. Several other Presidents, however, were more fortunate and were able to survive the attempts made on their lives. For example, Theodore Roosevelt, while campaigning for a third time in 1912, was sought in the chest on his way to give a speech. Luckily, the bullet’s path was slowed by the thick bundle of papers (on which Roosevelt’s speech was written) in his front breast pocket, and so the ever-stubborn Roosevelt, despite much bleeding and tremendous pain from the wound, insisted on giving his speech before receiving any medical treatment. President Gerald Ford, in a bizarre twist of fate, was attacked by two separate assailants within the space of a single month. In 1981, Ronald Reagan was nearly killed when John Hinckley, Jr. attacked the President and his Secret Service officers. In the chaos, Hinckley was able to fire several shots, one of which entered one of Reagan’s lungs but was fortuitously removed after a grueling bout of emergency surgery.

Thomas Jefferson, who served as the nation’s third President from 1801-1809, presided over one the largest expansions of territory in American history: the Louisiana Purchase. Undertaken and finalized in 1803, the Louisiana Purchase ceded a vast expanse of Western lands, including the invaluable port city of New Orleans, from the French government to the United States. Napoleon Bonaparte, the French Emperor at the time, was desperately in need of funds to support his massive army and so he approached Jefferson, offering to sell all of France’s continental North American lands to the United States. Although Jefferson had a few doubts as to the constitutionality of this purchase, he felt that he could not in good conscience, following his duties as President to act in the nation’s best interest, allow such a generous opportunity to slip away. The completed deal drastically increased the size of the young nation, opening up wide new lands to exploration and exploitation.

James Polk occupied the Oval Office for a single term (1845-1849) but he accomplished much in that relatively short span of time (Polk intentionally ran on a one-term promise). Polk is most famous for leading the nation to triumph against Mexico in the Mexican-American War. The hostilities started under suspicious circumstances: Polk alleged that Mexican troops had trespassed on American soil, while ignoring the inconvenient fact that American soldiers, under then-General Zachary Taylor, had committed the exact same offense. The President used this allegation to influence Congress into declaring war against Mexico, a prospect which the majority of Congressmen seemed all too willing to support. The ensuing war is perhaps today best remembered by the Battle of the Alamo, but the overall conflict between the two countries was rather short-lived, lasting little more than a year. Flush with victory, Polk and his administration negotiated an extremely advantageous treaty with Mexico: all land located north of the Rio Grande River became American property, including lucrative California. As one of his last acts as President, Polk announced the recent discovery of gold in California’s hills, and the rush – to both gold and Californian statehood – was officially on.

In 1864, the nation was at a true crossroads: the Civil War had been raging for more than three years, with tremendous loss of life, devastating military setbacks, and frequent changes in leadership at the head of the Union Army. President Lincoln, determined to run for re-election, made his case to the North, asking to be granted a second term in office so that he could steer the conflict through to its final, hopefully triumphant, end. Lincoln faced much opposition, not only from the North’s war-weary civilians but also from members of his own political party, many of whom no longer saw the South as worth regaining and had begun pressing the President to sue for peace and dissolution. Yet Lincoln’s toughest adversary emerged from an even closer source: General George McClellan, who had served, at Lincoln’s own appointment, as the leader of the Union Army from 1861 to 1862. Not only did McClellan run a vigorous campaign against Lincoln, in which he accused the President of being a warmonger and politically unskilled, but the general also bore a fierce personal grudge: Lincoln had fired McClellan as general-in-chief in 1862, following numerous quarrels between the two men over military strategy, troop movements, and McClellan’s pattern of willfully ignoring the President’s instructions. McClellan’s long war record, personal charisma, and numerous illustrious social connections, not to mention his support for seeking a peace deal with the South, drew a great deal of support to his campaign – so much so that Lincoln, on the eve of the election, expressed his sorrow at what he saw as his own impending defeat. Fortunately for both Lincoln and the course of the war, Northerners chose to grant Lincoln a second term in the Oval Office, trusting his demonstrated judgment at conducting the war over McClellan’s enticing but unproven political ideas. Lincoln’s victory was further helped by the Union Army’s capture of Atlanta and Mobile, Alabama, both of which occurred just before Election Day.

Although he is best remembered for his role as the leader and instigator of the infamous Watergate Scandal, President Richard Nixon is in fact responsible for putting an end to the controversial Vietnam War. The Vietnam War dragged on for eight years, with considerable and increasingly virulent opposition from the American people. The very beginnings of this war can be traced back to the beginning of the Cold War and the nation’s standoff with the Soviet Union, but it was President Lyndon B. Johnson who enmeshed American troops into the Vietnam conflict. Johnson hoped that South Vietnam, which had democratic leanings, would be able, with US military aid, to defeat the communist-aligned North Vietnamese, but the war quickly deteriorated into a murderous quagmire from which America seemed unable to escape. Nixon was elected to the Presidency partially due to his promise to secure an end to the conflict – a guarantee which became reality in 1973, with Nixon’s negotiation of a peace treaty with the North Vietnamese and the removal of US troops from the now-divided country. It would be less than a year before Nixon found his machinations in the Watergate Scandal laid bare before the public. His legacy is forever tarnished by the Scandal itself, his bellicose attitude, his hostility towards federal investigators, and his ignominious resignation of the Presidency on August 9th, 1974.

After Franklin D. Roosevelt’s sudden death at the beginning of his fourth presidential term, his Vice President, Harry Truman, took over the Oval Office. Truman faced a daunting task: World War Two, although winding down, was still very much raging and Roosevelt had been a truly formidable war leader. Nevertheless, Truman stepped up to the challenge and was quite successful: the Allied Army, under joint American-British-Soviet leadership, vanquished Nazi Germany in April 1945. Yet one last foe remained, for the Pacific front of the war was still ongoing and Japan, with its skilled army, air force, and navy, seemed untroubled by its German ally’s collapse. Many American generals urged Truman to invade the mainland Japanese island, in spite of the overwhelming losses that were inevitably certain to ensue. An alternate solution was placed before the President: the Manhattan Project, a top-secret scientific program commissioned by Roosevelt that had succeeded in developing the world’s first two nuclear bombs. Fearing further bloody engagements with the Japanese army and desiring a decisive end to the war in the Pacific, Truman authorized the use of these nuclear weapons. After issuing warnings to the Japanese government, which were disregarded as little more than bluffs, Truman ordered the nuclear bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The resulting total devastation did bring about the immediate surrender of the Japanese, just as Truman had wanted, but at a truly fearful and continuingly controversial cost.

George Washington (term: 1789-1797), one of the Founding Fathers of America, made several moves that established various roles and expectations of American Presidents. He enacted the idea of the President heading the military when Washington led the military in the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794. He also deeply respected law and the Constitution, so he gave Congress the authority that this new republic (new at the time) imbued it with. He refused to side with one political party.  Washington saw political parties as symptoms of fractures in the nation. 

Maybe most importantly, he left the office after eight years (two terms) because he believed in the freedom they had gained from the British monarchy’s rule. 

He did not make the Louisiana Purchase – that was done several years later by Thomas Jefferson.

John Adams (term: 1797-1801) restricted the rights of the press, non-citizens, and the right of free speech with the Alien and Sedition Acts. These laws were enacted during a time in which war with France seemed more than likely to happen, creating varying levels of paranoia among different groups. These acts created a wave of unpopularity towards Adams and the Federalist Party.

This resulted in John Adams and the Federalist Party losing the election to Thomas Jefferson in 1801, and Adams serving only one term.

Prior to his presidency, James Madison (term: 1801-1809) contributed several articles promoting the new American government and explaining the nuances of our landmark Constitution. These articles are known as the Federalist Papers. 

Federalist #10 is a very important piece of writing. In it, Madison explains that factions have the ability to tear apart the country due to the proverbial line in the sand that a faction creates. Factions are known today as interest groups.

A strong enough faction with a large enough majority could take on powers that would challenge the government’s functions and erode civil rights and liberties of the minority. Whether it is over a religious principle, supporting leaders, or government policy, factions create a serious division between the people on either side of the argument. James Madison accepts that factions will exist, so his approach to balancing them is through governmental regulations (which would, ideally, protect the citizens from a faction becoming tyrannical).

In the first line of the excerpt above, note what Madison describes as the root cause for factions to rise: “the nature of man”.