Historian Reacts - One Misconception about Each US President (Part 1)

welcome back everyone to another reaction video I just got through doing an hour-long private stream with our members and our patrons so thank you to all of you who joined uh and I actually did it on low latency with zero issues so I think we really do have the uh network connectivity issues solved which means more streams both public and private definitely coming your way now that we can do that more stable and have good quality to it so I'm excited about that in the meantime though I'm ready now that we're done with that stream to dive into another reaction video for you guys uh we're taking a look at Mental Floss today I haven't really seen many of their videos but I know that U.S president content is insanely popular here on vlogging through history so I thought it was about time to dive into another one so we're going to take a look at their video One misconception about each U.S president and the process of finishing up episode two of my pod cast on the tragic lives of U.S presidents going to be picking up with the story of James Madison and going through a couple more presidents after that so kind of focused on presidents right now so I thought it'd be fun uh link is in the description to the original content please go over give them a like check out their other content if you would let's Dive In we've all heard the story about George Washington chopping down a cherry tree and then fessing up because he just couldn't bring himself wait wait I've never seen this particular art before it's like little George Washington but he's got old George Washington's face what is the deal there that's kind of creepy the tale has been told for centuries to illustrate that our first president always had an unshakable moral compass if you ask me hacking a tree to death for no reason seems like a real jerk move but whatever maybe he wanted to whittle himself a canoe the anecdote first showed up in 1806 in the fifth edition of Washington's biography the life in memorable actions of George Washington by Mason lock Weems so I learned something there I didn't know that was when the first time that story appeared so that's nine years after no seven years after George Washington's death he died in 1799. in the book six-year-old George mutilates a cherry tree with his beloved Hatchet though he doesn't cut it down per se he confesses the crime to his father crying out I can't tell a lie paw you know I can't tell a lie George's father is so proud of his son for telling the truth that he then says glad am I George that you killed my tree for you have paid me for it a thousand fold such an act of heroism in my son is more worth than a thousand trees though blossomed with silver and their fruits of purest gold you know the way that every father talks to their six-year-old son James credits the story to an old family friend of the Washingtons there's no evidence to suggest the story ever actually happened it's also suspicious that Weems failed to mention such a compelling Tale in any of his first four editions plus he was known to sometimes play a pretty fast and loose with facts about Washington yeah hi I'm Justin Dodd George Washington definitely wasn't the only U.S president for whom a healthy dose of fiction gets mixed in with the facts today I'll try to debunk one misconception about each U.S president and while I'm at it probably remind a healthy number of you that Millard Fillmore existed remind you that Millard Fillmore existed Millard Fillmore AKA Alec Baldwin because the most popular picture and I and it's become one of our drinking games here on vth that every time Millard Fillmore comes up I mentioned that he looks like Alec Baldwin John Adams was a monarchist okay fine John Adams did argue that everyone should call George Washington his majesty the president or His Highness the president but that was mainly because he thought the office should have a title that elevated it above the presidents of random clubs and other organizations yeah that's part of it because president was not think about it precedent was not a title that was used for the heads of most other nations in the world at that time so so today for US president has a different meaning than it did for them he he had a very good point with that and using a title like Excellency or Majesty remember the US is trying to establish itself as an equal to the the britons and Spains and France's and Japan's and all these other nations of the world and so they needed their leader to have that kind of clout so a lot of people make fun of John Adams for that but he he had a good reason for it and he was vice president at the time he was arguing for that um a lot of Federalists got labeled as monarchists early on Alexander Hamilton actually kind of was in favor of an American monarchy he would have made uh George Washington president in a minute or King in a minute if he could have and fine he was sort of an elitist who favored a strong central government and wasn't keen on majority rule but that was partially because he was worried America might otherwise be susceptible to Anarchy in the vein of the French Revolution in practice however Adams was a federalist who staunchly believed in a republic he just wasn't as Democratic minded as Thomas Jefferson when the two ran against each other for president in 1800 Adams was depicted as a raging monarchist Jefferson's Camp even spread a rumor that Adams wanted his son to marry King George III's daughter so they could start a British American Dynasty but they also spread rumors that John Adams was a hermaphrodite I mean there there was nasty stuff going on in the Press during these campaigns on both sides there was a lot of stuff about uh Jefferson and his relationship with Sally Hemmings and all that stuff that was going in the Press too Adams lost this bid for re-election that year and his largely propagandized affinity for the monarchy became part of his legacy so did the title hit is rotundity which is what people nicknamed Adams when he said he wanted to call the president his majesty Thomas Jefferson introduced ice cream to the U.S at a dinner party in May 1744 Maryland governor Thomas bladden served a dessert that one attendee described as containing some fine ice cream the previous month Thomas Jefferson had turned one-year-old so consider that proof that ice cream arrived on these Shores before Jefferson could even say ice cream yep that's 1989 in fact before the White House had even been built let alone occupied by Jefferson Abigail Adams commented on a reception put on by first lady Martha Washington according to Adams the company are entertained with ice creams and lemonade James Madison always wanted a Bill of Rights the right to peaceably assemble freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures the assurance that you won't have to become an unwilling Airbnb host for soldiers the Bill of Rights has some bangers yeah but when George Mason first proposed the Bill of Rights at the Constitutional Convention it was unanimously voted down even James Madison the man who would eventually Shepherd the U.S Bill of Rights into law was initially against it so Madison is typically called the father of the Constitution but he himself was very clear that there were many voices that went into the Constitution and Madison is going to be one of the prominent players in the early years of the United States he's in Congress at first then he become Secretary of State later on but yeah he uh it was a practical measure really I mean that doesn't mean that James Madison wasn't for the things contained in the Bill of Rights some felt that defining individual rights didn't make sense for a government based on enumerated powers by definition the thinking went any power not granted to the government and the Constitution belonged to the people choosing to proactively assert some rights might muddy the waters when pro-constitution Federalists agreed to eventually pass a Bill of Rights Madison wrote that the amendments are a blemish but noted it was the least offensive form but remember Madison as the father of the Constitution that's his baby right you know anything that other people say well it's got to have this well you're changing what I like I I think of the scene how true it is I don't know um you know everybody remembers that Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence but he was actually part of a committee of five people who were tasked with putting that together John Adams Benjamin Franklin we're part of that as well and you have that scene where Adams and Franklin are sitting with Jefferson and they're kind of picking apart wording and the Declaration of Independence and um Franklin's making suggestions and and you can tell that Jefferson is kind of irritated by the changes and he even says listen every word was precisely chosen you know you're picking apart my baby here you know I'm sure he didn't see it like say it that way but again James Madison saying the amendments are blemished does not necessarily mean he opposed what the amendments were about it was just people were adding to and you know he probably just figured that those things could be enforced in other ways without having to go into the Constitution eventually either because of ideological Evolution political expediency or some combination thereof Madison became a staunch supporter of the Bill of Rights yes as he said to Congress in 1789 after the Constitution had gone into effect but before some of the individual states had ratified it I think we should obtain the confidence of our fellow citizens in proportion as we fortify the rights of the people against the encroachments of the government James Monroe was The Mastermind behind the Monroe Doctrine it does have his name 23 message to Congress James Monroe included a section that basically said the U.S would henceforth stay out of European Affairs and European nations would no longer be allowed to try to take over places in the Western Hemisphere it became known as the Road Doctrine and affected foreign policy for decades to come yeah not just decades but a good Century or more well almost a century uh really I mean the first time the U.S really kind of violates the Monroe Doctrine is going to be right at the turn of the century originally keen on issuing some sort of joint statement with Britain to that effect it was John Quincy Adams Then Secretary of State who origin Monroe to go It Alone Adam John Quincy Adams uh which we're going to get to in a minute but uh probably one of the most qualified people who's ever been president this guy held like every office had incredible education diplomacy skills served in many places and yeah um it was Monroe's Administration that Quincy Adams was a part of and um interesting thing by the way you know today we think of being a governor or being vice president as kind of the stepping stone to the presidency at that time secretary of state was the stepping stone I mean Jefferson Madison yeah Jefferson Madison Monroe oh John Quincy Adams I think we're all secretaries of State before becoming President James also wrote most of the actual Doctrine John Quincy Adams died on the senate floor John Quincy first of all would have been the house the House of Representatives after his presidency was over so he probably wouldn't have been on the senate floor at all and he didn't die on the house floor either I've never heard that he died on the senate floor yeah first of all it makes no sense he wasn't in the Senate very cool though that a former president goes back and serves in Congress as a member of the House of Representatives but yeah he collapsed on the house floor but he didn't die there he had a stroke there in February 1848 but he was taken to a nearby room where he died a few days later Andrew Jackson won the War of 1812 at the Battle of I've never heard that either Andrew Jackson was considered a war hero for his victory at New Orleans but oddly enough the War of 1812 was in some ways over already over by the time U.S forces claimed Victory there the Treaty of Ghent which established peace between Great Britain and the U.S was signed on Christmas Eve 1814. so why did the Battle of New Orleans take place in early 1815. the treaty specified that hostilities wouldn't cease until it was ratified by the governments on both sides of the war not only that but word wouldn't have reached the armies in New Orleans that soon uh you know we're only talking a couple of weeks the British did so quickly but the United States didn't ratify until February providing time for the Battle of New Orleans to be fought historians debate of Jackson's Victory had any influence on the treaty's ratification but considering it had already been signed it's safe to say Jackson's Victory did not win the war Martin Van Buren's parents were Dutch immigrants in fact it didn't win the war because the U.S didn't win the war of 1812. it was a stalemate I mean nobody won the war of 1812. Martin Van Buren and his parents were definitely Dutch in fact he was the first U.S president who wasn't of British descent and the first to speak English as a second language I think the only U.S president to speak English as a second language he was born and raised in a close-knit Dutch community in Kinderhook New York but his parents were also born in New York not the Netherlands according to the National Park Service Van Buren's family was the fifth generation of descendants of Dutch immigrants William Henry and yeah if you looked at whole Hudson River Valley was all very much of Dutch descent to this day you'll see a lot of Dutch names in the Hudson river valley of New York Harrison caught a fatal case of pneumonia at his inauguration on March 4th 1841 William Henry Harrison gave a nearly two-hour long inauguration address without wearing a coat a hat or gloves exactly one month later he was dead supposedly from a case of pneumonia that he caught at the event but there's no real proof that it was pneumonia or that he caught it at the inauguration he didn't summon his doctor Thomas Miller until March 26th at that point he complained of a few days of anxiety and fatigue those issues soon gave way to an illness that included a cough difficulty breathing and other symptoms of pneumonia but Harrison suffered much more from gastrointestinal grief that didn't match the pneumonia diagnosis interesting thing you see several suspicious deaths uh in Washington in this time period that all may actually be linked to the water supply uh there you know William Henry Harrison Zachary Taylor uh even some family members of some presidents some other members of the government that may have been some kind of gastrointestinal thing even Miller admitted this writing the disease was not viewed as a case of pure pneumonia but as this was the most palpable affection the term pneumonia afforded a succinct and intelligible answer to the innumerable questions as to the nature of the attack in 2014 researchers Jane McHugh and Philip makaveak published a study that presented an alternative diagnosis enteric fever AKA typhoid fever yep according to their Theory Harrison may have contracted the bacterial infection from drinking contaminated water which again like I said may have also killed Zachary Taylor and some others the White House got its water from Springs that weren't far from a sewage depository two future presidents James poke and Zachary Taylor fell ill with gastroenteritis while living in the white house which supports the idea that there could have quite literally been something in the water yeah Polk died right after he left office he almost died in office too that would have been three in the span of 10 years when Harrison died everyone knew John Tyler would become president says that in case of the removal of the president from office or of his death resignation or inability to discharge the powers and duties of the said office the same shall devolve on the vice president so when William Henry Harrison died it seems pretty obvious that his VP John Tyler would become president but if you look at that text closely you'll see that it says the president's powers and duties will devolve on the Veep not necessarily the job title some of Harrison's cabinet initially called Tyler vice president acting as President John Quincy Adams among others felt this was proper and it went beyond semantics If the vice president was only acting as president perhaps a special election to choose a new president would make sense Tyler acted quickly though taking the oath of office as president and probably moving into the White House so you know as with a lot of things in the Constitution and things that we take for granted and we make assumptions that they are a certain way it's only that way because at some point someone interpreted it that way acted on that interpretation and it kind of became generally accepted or in cases such as this it was later dealt with with legislation or an amendment to to clarify uh yeah so same thing with like George Washington he becomes president a lot of the powers that are associated with the office of President were not spelled out directly but were things that Washington kind of put in place a lot of things that the Supreme Court does are things that the Supreme Court kind of started doing and nobody really challenged it or if it was challenged that challenge was was thrown out or overcome uh so yeah and in fact it was only when an amendment was passed in the Constitution I think in the 70s that clarified the presidential line of succession and that's when you get um like the it goes president vice president Speaker of the House president pro tem of the Senate and then you start going down the cabinet members list in fact if if Vice President Andrew Johnson had been murdered as he was targeted in 1865. the president pro tem of the Senate not the speaker of the house would have become acting president until there could be a special election that fall to elect a new president to fill out the remaining years of the term establishing a president for presidential succession that President saw seven more VPS take the office before it was officially codified by the 25th Amendment to the Constitution a few years after John F Kennedy's death the amendment says in part in case of the removal of the president from office or of his death or resignation the vice president shall become president alcohol was banned from the White House during James Pope's presidency I've never heard this Pope's wife Sarah was a devout Presbyterian in a bit of a party pooper as first lady she prohibited card playing dancing and hard liquor in the White House receptions during Polk's presidency weren't exactly the highlight of the social season but Sarah poke didn't ban all booze at the White House after dinner party in December 1845 one attendee wrote in her diary about the adult beverages on offer and their colorful presentation saying pink champagne gold Sherry green hawk Madera the Ruby Port inside I love their Madeira rainbow around each plate Zachary Taylor died from arsenic poisoning No in fact that one uh if you are so inclined to such things there are pictures of Zachary Taylor's bones to be found on the internet because they actually exhumed him from his uh his grave in Louisville Kentucky to test him to see if he was poisoned by Arsenic and in fact he wasn't and there are a couple of photos they snapped of his remains that have been uploaded to the internet since then Zachary Taylor died on July 9 1850 after several days of debilitating cramps diarrhea and other related typhoids His official cause of death was listed as cholera morbus a gastrointestinal infection Taylor had washed down a big bowl of cherries with a bunch of milk shortly before falling ill for some reason and some have suggested that the acid and dairy combo caused his demise more likely something he ate or drank harbored bacteria as we discussed with William Henry Harrison but in the early 1990s author Clara Rising pointed out that Taylor's symptoms sounded suspiciously like arsenic poisoning the theory proved so compelling that authorities actually exhumed Taylor's Body and had it tested for arsenic now traces they found were hundreds or even thousands of times lower than what he you need to poison someone to death in line with the expected arsenic levels found in any human being Rising didn't dispute the results as she told the Associated Press in June 1991 we have the truth and that's what we were after good good for her Millard Fillmore was Mormon during his never heard that either Chris Miller Fillmore appointed Mormon leader Brigham Young as governor of the Utah territory where thousands of Mormons were already residing to thank Fillmore young named a county Millard in a city Fillmore those places still exist today which has given rise to the notion that Millard Fillmore himself was a member of the church never heard that Christ the Latter-Day Saints he wasn't based on the available information Scholars generally associate Fillmore with Unitarianism although to Monday the water is just a bit it seems that he declined to self-identify as a member of the Unitarian Church on at least one occasion okay maybe we don't all grow up being taught that Miller Fillmore was Mormon but 21 of Americans in a Yuga of pulse said they'd never even heard of them an additional 53 had no opinion as to his quality as president so come on we had to get creative so are these the ones that the least number of people have heard of or just don't care about interesting the Harrisons aren't doing so well McKinley Rutherford behaves basically with the exception of Warren G Harding these are all like 19th century presidents so that makes sense people just don't care about history three percent had no opinion as to his quality as president so come on we had to get creative Franklin Pierce ran over a woman with his Carriage while he was President Franklin Pierce was supposedly arrested for running over an old woman with his horse or Carriage according to biographer Peter a Waller there's no evidence that this ever occurred as he told Mental Floss the fact that there are no newspaper stories about it yes there would be it wasn't mentioned in any correspondence convinced me that it probably didn't happen yeah there would have been something in fact I think the only uh president who ever got in trouble with the law um for an Associated thing with a carriage was Ulysses S Grant who got stopped for speeding in a carriage James Buchanan was single his entire life James Buchanan is the only President technically true if you define single as not married that doesn't mean he didn't have like love interests just meaning he was never married but so I would say that one's actually if we're gonna stick to the the league the letter of the law here single means not married so yeah president two have never been married but in 1819 28 year old James got engaged to one and Caroline Coleman she ended the engagement that same year possibly over rumors that her fiance was unfaithful and or because she thought he might only be marrying her for her money Buchanan also lived at one point with an Alabama Senator named William Rufus King the two were extremely close and people have speculated ever since that their relationship was romantic after King relocated to France in 1844 Buchanan wrote to a friend I am now solitary and alone having no companion in the house with me I have gone a wooing to several gentlemen but have not succeeded with any one of them I feel that it is not good for man to be alone and should not be astonished to find myself married to some old maid who can nurse me when I am sick provide good dinners for me when I am well and not expect for me any very Ardent or romantic effect interesting other Scholars have posited that Canon might have been asexual though this is mainly based on a lack of evidence suggesting otherwise Abraham Lincoln owned enslaved people in another episode about the Civil War we covered the oversimplification slash misconception that Lincoln freed the slaves with the Emancipation Proclamation but here's an apparently widespread misconception I wasn't aware of a lot of people think Abraham Lincoln owned enslaved people never heard anybody seriously suggest that Professor Gerald J prokopovich wrote a book called did Lincoln own slaves and other frequently asked questions about Abraham Lincoln there is no evidence that Lincoln owned enslaved people for the record but his wife's family the Todds assuredly did they absolutely did in fact several of his wife's brothers died fighting for the Confederacy Andrew Johnson was kicked out of office Andrew Johnson was the first American president to be impeached basically The Radical Republicans in Congress weren't happy with Johnson's forgiving attitude toward former Confederate states after the Civil War so this goes to just a lack of Education among people who don't understand what impeachment means a lot of people have the idea that impeachment means removed from office impeached is basically a good way to think of that as indicted you know just because you are indicted for a crime does not mean you're found guilty of that crime the impeachment is the indictment now you have a trial and he was impeached as was Bill Clinton as was Donald Trump twice none of those impeachments resulted in a conviction Johnson came the closest he he won out by one vote in March 1867 they enacted the tenure of office act which prevented the president from firing certain officials without the Senate's okay and that tenure of office act listen I am not going to defend Andrew Johnson he was a horrible president he's right up there with Woodrow Wilson for me for the worst we've ever had Johnson May I think I hate Andrew hate Woodrow Wilson more that's for personal reasons Johnson may have been the most destructive president overall I think you could argue about that uh but his presidency was an absolute disaster especially for the newly freed slaves and and we are still dealing with the ramifications of his presidency today as we are with Wilson and many others um that tenure of office act though was intentionally passed to provoke Andrew Johnson into a situation where they could impeach him he was a Democrat who ran on the ticket on what was called the national Union ticket with Lincoln Lincoln was all about unity and he's thinking ahead to the end of the war and he's trying to bring people together and the Democrats were the primaril primarily the party of the South and the party of slavery and the party um that opposed the Civil War if he was trying to bring them on board by putting a Democrat a southern Democrat on the ticket nobody thought he'd end up president so The Radical Republicans the the most extreme wing of the Republican Party hated Johnson from the beginning and rightfully so and so they provoked him into that by passing that act when Johnson fired an official without the Senate's okay months later he was impeached but the Senate acquitted him by a margin of one vote so Johnson got to keep his job Ulysses S Grant's name was Ulysses S Grant again this one's this is a mixed bet I'll let him talk about it first and I'll I'll talk Ulysses S Grant was born Hyrum Ulysses Grant it was when Ohio Congressman Thomas Hamer submitted his name for a spot at West Point he wrote Ulysses S Grant which generally agreed that Hamer thought the S stood for Simpson which was Grant's mother's maiden name and also the middle name of his brother Samuel Grant reportedly tried to right the wrong but ended up just rolling with it and it's a very common practice at that time and still to a degree is today to use the mother's maiden name as a middle name for a son very common thing that happened my my grandma's brother was Glenn Chambers Whitaker his mother's maiden name was Chambers so pretty common thing that happened uh yeah so he goes to West Point it says Ulysses S Grant he was actually born Hiram Ulysses Grant at a very young age switched it to Ulysses Hiram Grant among other reasons he didn't like the fact that his initials spelled out hug so he he always went by Ulysses even though that was his middle name at Birth and so he did go with the U and in the U.S thing was kind of cool when he got to West Point it was just easier just to roll with it and in 1844 letter to Julia Boggs whom he'd later marry he wrote find some name beginning with s for me she said Julia Boggs her name was Julia Dent so a little mistake there her maiden name was Dent not Boggs Julia you know I have an s in my name and don't know what it stands for I would have gone for serpentine because it sounds kind of cool but that's just me Rutherford B Hayes was a lifelong tea totaler never heard that unlike the pokes the hazes did fully ban alcohol from the White House Rutherford's wife Lucy never drank earning her the nickname Lemonade Lucy Rutherford was known to imbibe before he became president the band which was his idea was mostly a way to appeal to prohibitionists Yeah by that point prohibitions starting to become a thing and it makes sense get the votes get the support of a group of people especially if you're not huge into alcohol I'm actually gonna stop right there we're about halfway through this video you know I like to Ramble On and I've gone on for a half hour with this one so uh we're actually going to wrap it up right there I'll come back tomorrow with part two of this one and we'll cover the rest of the president so let me know your thoughts use the comment section below what's another misconception that maybe you've always believed or you always heard or other people have heard that you want to um tell everyone hey this is not true about one of these presidents we've just talked about use the comment section below and if you want to join us for those future private streams we played kahoot today it was a lot of fun we only had about 20 people so it's very quiet very private very laid back uh join as a member or as a patron even at the lowest level and you'll get access to those future streams thanks for watching we'll see you again soon

Channel: Vlogging Through History

Views: 137,545

Keywords: american history, historian reacts, american presidents, us president, us history, tier ranking, president of the united states, history reaction, united states

Id: p_AV9Evpr0M

Length: 30min 18sec (1818 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 24 2022