Martin Meenagh blog

  President Woodrow Wilson famously went to bed on the night of the 1916 presidential vote believing that he had lost, as did the New York Times , which had declared the race for his opponent, Charles Evans Hughes. The newspaper did this in part because, on early returns, Wilson had lost the entire North bar New Hampshire and Ohio. A (prematurely identified) tide was seen to be running against re-election. For two days, until Southern, Western, and Midwestern votes were declared, it still seemed likely that the next president would be Charles Evans Hughes, the Republican candidate. State and local elections also suggested, as Thomas Knock has noted, that the Socialist vote was reasonably strong, which, given the reunification of the Republican party after the split between Roosevelt and Taft in 1912, suggested that Wilson could lose states such as California and North Dakota. It is in fact reasonably well established that Wilson was not suffering from an excess of false humilit...

  Harry Truman became president in unusual, but not unprecedented, circumstances. Truman succeeded upon the death of a popular president who had recently been re-elected, in the midst of a global war in which the United States was approaching victory. At a basic level, he did not undermine the legacy his predecessor had worked towards, as Andrew Johnson had done, and nor did he preside over a dangerous post-war economy recklessly, as Calvin Coolidge had. He did not fire or remove the cabinet and advisors assembled by his predecessor—as Tyler did—and, unlike Lyndon Johnson, he did not deceptively escalate a major Asian war. He also won re-election in his own right, unlike Presidents Tyler, Fillmore, Johnson, and Arthur, who had risen from the vice-presidency to the presidency after presidential death. In this basic analysis, Truman was a somewhat successful president. Political historians and analysts may employ such a feral metric to assess Truman, but there are other outstandi...

  The period after the American civil war was marked by third parties. From 1870 to 1896, Greenbackers pursuing fiat money, Farmer’s candidates associated with the Granger movement, Union Labour candidates, Liberal Republicans, and People’s Party candidates all contended with the Democratic and Republican parties for election. Though there was a clear evolutionary link between these parties, it is important that they be distinguished from each other. In addition, various reform movements swept across the plains and west, even reaching the developed urban areas of the East. These included religious revivalists, prohibitionists, bimetallists, workplace reformers, anti-corruption campaigners, and pro-democracy activists seeking womens’ suffrage and the direct election of the United States Senate, as well as wider use of referenda. The common theme uniting most of these movements and parties was a reaction against monopolies and cartels, particularly railroad trusts and Banks. Th...

  The United States was essentially produced and maintained in its security during a period of intense Anglo-French competition. In the hundred years after 1702, the United Kingdom and France were at war for some fifty-two years. For most of the same period, the forces and Companies of the Dutch Republic were also amongst dominant sea-powers and international lenders. France and Britain maintained extensive insular and continental bases and colonies in North America, along with Spain. In the late eighteenth and nineteenth century, both faced competition and revolt in the Caribbean and Sargasso seas, not least during the rise of the Republic of Haiti, which successfully resisted massive French assaults between 1795 and 1804. During this competition, inspired financially and then with critical naval and military support by the Kingdom of France, the United States succeeded in their expensive rebellion against London. The USA nevertheless maintained a position of neutrality in the F...

  The Republican party dominated the period between 1876 and 1912, winning all but two presidential elections and Congressional elections in 1880, 1888, and from 1894 to 1910. The two Democratic administrations of the period, in addition, were one man, Grover Cleveland, who was elected twice non-consecutively, and with only pluralities of the popular vote. Similarly, Democratic dominance between 1932 and 1980 was characterized by every Congress being Democratic with two exceptions between 1932 and 1980, and 8 Democratic victories in presidential elections in the same period. At first glance, dominance can be attributed in both cases to a combination of events and party weakness. Democrats in the late nineteenth century were split between Southern ‘Bourbons’, populists, bimetallists, and over religion, to the point where nominating conventions were frequently deadlocked. Republicans, by contrast, proved capable of developing and applying a locally based infrastructure nationally...