Epitaphs for thirty-odd presidents

by David Benjamin

 

“I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” 

— Bill Clinton

 

MADISON, Wis.—Listening to the news the other night, I heard an oft-repeated phrase that seemed to encapsulate what an ex-president had said and done, what he meant to America and how he’ll be remembered. Ideally, this handful of words is the epitaph that will be etched in granite on his grave.

I’ll get back to that. But as I thought about Trump’s tombstone, I wondered how many presidents could be reduced to a single trenchant line. For a dozen or so, including nebbishes like James K. Polk and scoundrels like Andrew Johnson, I found nothing in the record quotable or memorable. Warren G. Harding might have been speaking for all those forgettable and regrettable White House denizens when he admitted: “I am not fit for this office and never should have been here.”

Our most gifted orator was Abe Lincoln, who seemed to utter a memorable phrase every morning at breakfast. Among his unforgotten sound bites are “A house divided against itself” and “The last full measure of devotion.” However, his profoundest ten words, in the peroration of the Gettysburg Address, reminded us that we are a union “Of the people, by the people and for the people.”

Our first president, George Washington, on the other hand, was a paragon of reticence who seemed disinclined to being quoted at all. The phrase by which we remember him, “I cannot tell a lie,” is mythical. He never said it.

Similarly apocryphal is Lyndon Johnson’s oft-cited remark lamenting the expected blowback from the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Supposedly, he said, “We have lost the South for a generation.” Better we should mark his tombstone with a surrender that echoes down through history from the tumultuous Sixties and the tragedy of Vietnam: “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”

Our early chiefs dwelt on the idea of democracy, because they were present at its creation and chary of its frailty. Before we were a nation, Thomas Jefferson divined the spirit of America and gave himself an immortal epitaph when he wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…”

In that vein, John Adams said, “Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.” James Madison might best be honored for writing, in The Federalist Papers, “Justice is the end of Government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been, and ever will be pursued, until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit.”

Even Andrew Jackson, proud to be seen as a maverick and a ruthless Indian fighter, felt the humility that haunts the president. “Any man worth his salt,” said Jackson, “will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error.”

There were presidents, of course, whose “errors” are their benediction. Millard Fillmore dealt with the national controversy over human bondage by whining, “God knows I detest slavery but it is an existing evil, and we must endure it and give it such protection as is guaranteed by the Constitution.” Thirty years later, Grover Cleveland assured his fellow male supremacists that “sensible and responsible women do not want to vote.”

The great journalist Ida B. Wells summed up William McKinley’s profile in cowardice when she noted that he was “too much interested… in the national decoration of Confederate graves to pay any attention to the Negro’s rights.”

And Herbert Hoover, who greeted the Great Depression by saying, “Prosperity is just around the corner,” will be better known, forever and anon, with a one-word eulogy: “Hooverville.”

His successor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, was perhaps our most voluble president. We might engrave on FDR’s memorial any one of several phrases: “The New Deal,” “organized money, “the Four Freedoms,” “day of infamy.” But he delivered the most significant of his utterances when he was barely in office, in his first Fireside Chat. “The only thing we have to fear,” he said, ‘is fear itself.”

Among our less celebrated Oval Office aphorists was Ulysses S. Grant. He  was both statesmanlike when he said,  “Keep the church and state forever separate,” and witty when he confessed that “I know only two tunes. One of them is ‘Yankee Doodle’, the other isn’t.” But he spoke most memorably as General Grant in 1865 after the bloodbath at Spotsylvania Court House. He stiffened the resolve of his Union troops (and made himself a likely presidential candidate) with the cool declaration, “I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer.”

We can fondly recall a few not-so-heroic presidents for their sense of humor. Woodrow Wilson was both liberal and racist, and a hypocrite, but let’s be Christian and mark his grave with his wisest quip: “If a dog will not come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience.”

James Garfield said,  “The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.” And Franklin Pierce signed off with,  “There is nothing left to do but get drunk.”

Five presidents composed epigrams that succinctly captured the challenges they faced. John Quincy Adams said, “Try and fail, but don’t fail to try.” James Buchanan, presiding in an era of rage and vituperation, said, “I like the noise of democracy.” Theodore Roosevelt’s immortal byword was “Speak softly and carry a big stick,” and Harry Truman’s was “The buck stops here.” Calvin Coolidge, known as “Silent Cal,” said, “Sit down and keep still.”

Among recent presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower is remembered for slipping an ominous phrase into the political vernacular. Prophetically, he said, “We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”

Months later, John F. Kennedy’s inauguration included the most remembered appeal in that event’s history: “Ask not what what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”

The ensuing era ended with Richard Nixon’s permanent slogan, “I am not a crook,” and with Gerald Ford both contradicting and forgiving Dick’s lie: “… a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he… has committed or may have committed…”

Jimmy Carter is associated with a word, “malaise,” that he never said, and remembered for “lusting in his heart”—which he also didn’t exactly say—for girls other than Rosalynn. We remember Ronald Reagan for many well-delivered lines but the best of these was, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

Our two Bushes summed up twelve years in the White House in five Hooveresque words: “Read my lips,” and “Mission accomplished.”

In 2004, Barack Obama anticipated and epitomized his presidency when he said, “There is not a liberal America and a conservative America—there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America—there’s the United States of America.”

Which brings us back to ex-president Trump, who has spent his life telling lies, selling snake oil, grabbing pussy and flinging insults. But nothing he has said or tweeted is as adhesive as the refrain that will serve as his subtitle in history books and the mark of his legacy forevermore: “Hush Money to a Porn Star.”

I’m loath to finish on a note so sour. So, here’s what Joe Biden—harking back to Jefferson, Madison and Alexander Hamilton—wrote in his memoir: “My rights are not derived from any government. My rights are not denied by any majority. My rights are because I exist.”

Glory. Glory, hallelujah.