Other than an excuse to go the shopping mall, President’s Day feels pointless. Though officially still a day to commemorate George Washington, the more frequently used generic has all but severed the connection to number 1, and little reminds us of presidents in general. What would that even mean?
The French do not commemorate “Prisons Day”—they remember the Bastille. The American holiday feels both empty and inclusive to the point of insipid. Not all Presidents merited a holiday. Is anyone shedding a tear for number 29 (Warren G. Harding)? Or number 10 (John Tyler)?
In his day, Tyler was lampooned as “His Accidency” (he was the first President not elected). But he was no laughing matter. Tyler was a large slaveholder and so besotted with the institution of human chattel that he disputed the federal government’s right to ban slavery even in the territories.
Another dud was number 15 (James Buchanan), who opposed secession by the cotton states but did nothing to stop it. Number 31 (Herbert Hoover) is unfairly maligned for doing nothing about the Great Depression; it is more accurate to say he did nothing that worked.
On the subject of Presidents not worthy of glorifying, it is hard to top the reflection of Philip Hone, the legendary diarist and mayor of New York City, on the grief attending the death of the populist central bank destroyer, number 7 (Andrew Jackson):
“Now, to my thinking, the country had greater cause to mourn on the day of his birth than on that of his decease.”
The sportswriter Red Smith once confessed that for him, no one topped Joe DiMaggio; well, we historians have our favorites, too. I am partial to the under-appreciated and good-intentioned number 27, (William Howard Taft), and respectful of the civic spirit of the modest post-Watergate number 38 (Gerald Ford).
Number 35 (JFK) was inaugurated on the snowiest birthday of my life (no 7). He introduced me, through no fault of his own, to the concept that history could be tragically bent from its seeming course. Be their subject flawed, early memories cast durable molds.
As each historian, and each citizen, has their own stew, we are unlikely to agree on a hierarchy. Herewith a modest proposal. Let’s honor that other President with a February birthday (sorry, not meaning Ronald Reagan, number 40, about which various books and many grade-B movies provide testimony, and not William Henry Harrison, the unlucky number 9, either).
No, let’s rebrand the holiday once more and this time name it for number 16 (Abraham Lincoln). None of our past Presidents, with great respect for Washington, is so relevant to our national discourse. Few if any could be more revered. None provide so many teachable or discussable moments.
I just read Edward Achorn’s newly published, and gripping, “The Lincoln Miracle,” telling the story of how the underdog Lincoln snatched the 1860 Republican Presidential nomination from better-positioned rivals. Achorn’s “miracle” refers to Lincoln’s personal triumph—but to me it was a miracle for the country, which on the verge of its worst and bloodiest calamity found its greatest leader. In a poignant metaphor for the fiery trial to come, Lincoln in 1860 deftly appreciated his deficiencies as a candidate and chose an unassuming strategy that ultimately proved successful. (You can read my Wall Street Journal review of the book here.)
Achorn’s study focuses on only a few weeks, yet is rich with unexpected insights. So it is with the entirety of Lincoln’s life. A national Lincoln’s Day would be far more meaningful than the anodyne President’s Day. It wouldn’t be just a day off. It would give Americans something to commemorate and learn from. And a rare source of inspiration.
Presidents’ Day only dates from 1970 or so. Before that, we had separate celebrations for Lincoln’s birthday and Washington’s. By wrapping them into one, we end up remembering and celebrating neither. The idea of celebrating generic “Presidents” is in any case strange and vaguely authoritarian. “Lincoln’s Day” would fix that.