Accidental Presidents summary

The decision to annex Texas set in motion a chain of events that would change the shape of America forever. To begin with, Mexico still laid claim to the state and refused to accept the new borders drawn by the US. A bitter but ultimately one-sided war between the nations was concluded in February 1848 with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Victorious, the US set steep terms for peace: Mexico would forfeit all of present-day California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and Utah and a good chunk of Colorado, Wyoming and Texas.

Seven months later, Americans headed to the polls. The Whigs had chosen Zachary Taylor as their candidate. A Kentucky-born general best known for his exploits in the Mexican-American war, he’d been selected for his popularity rather than his political bona fides. With Harrison’s death in office still fresh in their minds, leading Whigs insisted on installing a reliable party man as Taylor’s running mate: Millard Fillmore, a New York congressman more interested in patronage than high office.

By 1864, victory for the Unionist North against the Southern Confederacy in the Civil War was all but guaranteed. The question in November’s election was what would come next.

Abraham Lincoln, the abolitionist Republican president of the US since 1860, championed a radical reform of the old slaveholding South. A moral opponent of slavery, he’d already issued the 1862 Emancipation Proclamation freeing Southern slaves, and approved the Thirteenth Amendment to the US constitution, outlawing slavery in the US in 1864. His running mate, Andrew Johnson, had different views. An unabashed racist who’d owned enslaved people himself, he believed that black people in America, “have shown less capacity for government than any other race of people.”

By 1880, many Americans were tired of politics. Principle had given way to patronage, and the nation’s highest offices were packed with the corrupt products of the so-called spoils system – machine politicians who owed their positions to the old-boy network.

The victor in that year’s presidential election, the Republican candidate James Garfield, offered hope. A former teacher from a working-class background, he owed his success to no one but himself. A friend to black Americans, immigrants and the poor, he championed educational reforms that would lay the foundations for a more meritocratic and equal system.

In November 1899, William McKinley's vice president died while in office. The 54-year-old Republican president was himself eight years older than the average life expectancy, but he was oddly complacent about filling the VP position – in fact, if it hadn’t been for the upcoming 1900 election, he would have left it vacant. When he was unable to settle on a running mate himself, the decision was left to the party’s convention.

The man chosen was Theodore Roosevelt. A progressive New Yorker known for his hatred of corruption and advocacy for poorer Americans, “Teddy” had ruffled a lot of feathers during his stint as the city’s police commissioner and governor. His selection as VP was partly engineered by New York’s top Republican political operator, Thomas Platt. The idea? Kick Roosevelt upstairs and give him a prestigious position with little real power in order to stop him from sticking his nose where it wasn’t wanted.

The early twentieth century was a turbulent time in the US. Class conflict and political radicalism were on the rise. Then there were international affairs: in 1917, the US mobilized its forces and entered the First World War on the side of the Allied powers. By the end of that conflict, Americans were ready for some peace and quiet. In 1920, they elected a man who promised just that – the Republican candidate Warren Harding.

The economy grew at a steady clip, and the temperature of political debate cooled down, making Harding's administration one of the most popular in living memory. But voters didn’t know the whole story. Despite his sober public image, Harding was a prolific adulterer who loved nothing more than long, booze-fuelled nights playing cards with old pals from his native Ohio. Worst of all, he turned a blind eye as those cronies used their connections to the presidency to build a criminal empire in Washington.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, or FDR, was already a dying man when he was nominated to run for a fourth term as president in 1944. Aware that his poor health would likely put power in the hands of his VP, senior Democratic party figures were determined to prevent his old running mate – the ultra-left Henry Wallace – from standing again. The candidate they settled on was an unremarkable machine politician and self-declared “political eunuch” from Missouri, Harry Truman.

During the 82 days between Roosevelt’s inauguration in January and his death in April 1945, Truman kept a low profile. He met FDR just twice and didn’t receive a single foreign policy briefing or set foot in the map room, in which the US planned its war against Germany and Japan. When he learned of the president’s death, he asked FDR’s wife Eleanor what he could do for the family. Her reply? What could she do for him? After all, he was the one who was in real trouble!

The assassination of America’s telegenic young Democratic president John F. Kennedy in November 1963 shocked the world. What had happened? Some believed a sinister Marxist conspiracy was afoot. Others suspected a right-wing coup. Fear was in the air.

No one had more reason to be terrified than America’s black community. Kennedy’s victory in 1960 had been greeted with a wave of euphoria. As civil rights leader Jesse Jackson later put it, Kennedy was the first prominent white politician to declare segregation unconstitutional and denounce it as a moral evil publicly. His death seemed to mark the end of a brief period of hope.