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Thomas Jefferson
Birth: April 13, 1743 in Shadwell, Virginia, United States
Death: July 4, 1826 in Virginia, United States
Nationality: American
Occupation: president
Source: Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed. 17 Vols. Gale Research,
1998.
Updated: 05/18/2006
BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
American philosopher and statesman Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) was the third president of
the United States. A man of broad interests and activity, he exerted an immense influence on the
political and intellectual life of the new nation.
Thomas Jefferson was born at Shadwell, Va., on April 13, 1743. His father had been among the
earliest settlers in this wilderness country, and his position of leadership descended to his eldest
son, together with 5,000 acres of land.
Jefferson became one of the best-educated Americans of his time. At the age of 17 he entered
the College of William and Mary, where he got exciting first glimpses of "the expansion of
science, and of the system of things in which we are placed." Nature destined him to be a
scientist, he often said; but there was no opportunity for a scientific career in Virginia, and he took
the path of the law, studying it under the tutelage of George With as a branch of the history of
mankind. He read widely in the law, in the sciences, and in both ancient and modern history,
philosophy, and literature. Jefferson was admitted to the bar in 1767; his successful practice led
to a wide circle of influence and to cultivated intellectual habits that would prove remarkably
creative in statesmanship. When the onrush of the American Revolution forced him to abandon
practice in 1774, he turned these legal skills to the rebel cause.
Jefferson's public career began in 1769, when he served as a representative in the Virginia
House of Burgesses. About this time, too, he began building Monticello, the lovely home perched
on a densely wooded summit that became a lifelong obsession. He learned architecture from
books, above all from the Renaissance Italian Andrea Palladio. Yet Monticello, like the many
other buildings Jefferson designed over the years, was a uniquely personal creation. Dissatisfied
with the first version, completed in 12 years, Jefferson later rebuilt it. Monticello assumed its
ultimate form about the time he retired from the presidency.
His Philosophy
Jefferson rose to fame in the councils of the American Revolution. Insofar as the Revolution was
a philosophical event, he was its most articulate spokesman, having absorbed the thought of the
18th-century Enlightenment. He believed in a beneficent natural order in the moral as in the
physical world, freedom of inquiry in all things, and man's inherent capacity for justice and
happiness, and he had faith in reason, improvement, and progress.
Jefferson's political thought would become the quintessence of Enlightenment liberalism, though
it had roots in English law and government. The tradition of the English constitution gave
concreteness to American patriot claims, even a color of legality to revolution itself, that no other
modern revolutionaries have possessed. Jefferson used the libertarian elements of the English
legal tradition for ideological combat with the mother country. He also separated the principles of
English liberty from their corrupted forms in the empire of George III and identified these
principles with nascent American ideals. In challenging the oppressions of the empire, Americans
like Jefferson came to recognize their claims to an independent nationality.
Jefferson's most important contribution to the revolutionary debate was A Summary View of the
Rights of British America (1774). He argued that Americans, as sons of expatriate Englishmen,
possessed the same natural rights to govern themselves as their Saxon ancestors had exercised
when they migrated to England from Germany. Only with the reign of George III had the violations
of American rights proved to be "a deliberate, systematical plan of reducing us to slavery."
Though the logic of his argument pointed to independence, Jefferson instead set forth the theory
of an empire of equal self-governing states under a common king and appealed to George III to
rule accordingly.
Declaration of Independence
The Revolution had begun when Jefferson took his seat in the Second Continental Congress, at
Philadelphia, in June 1775. He brought to the Congress, as John Adams recalled, "a reputation
for literature, science, and a happy talent for composition." It was chiefly as a legislative
draftsman that he would make his mark. His great work was the Declaration of Independence. In
June 1776 he was surprised to find himself at the head of the committee to prepare this paper.
He submitted a rough draft to Adams and Benjamin Franklin, two of the committee, who
suggested only minor changes, revised it to Jefferson's satisfaction, and sent it to Congress.
Congress debated it line by line for 2 1/2 days. Though many changes were made, the
Declaration that emerged on July 4 bore the unmistakable stamp of Jefferson. It possessed that
"peculiar felicity of expression" for which he was noted.
The Declaration of Independence crisply set forth the bill of particular grievances against the
reigning sovereign and compressed a whole cosmology, a political philosophy, and a national
creed in one paragraph. The truths declared to be "self-evident" were not new; as Jefferson later
said, his purpose was "not to find out new principles, or new arguments ..., but to place before
mankind the common sense of the subject." But here, for the first time in history, these truths
were laid at the foundation of a nation. Natural equality, the inalienable rights of man, the
sovereignty of the people, the right of revolution--these principles endowed the American
Revolution with high purpose united to a theory of government.
In Virginia
Jefferson returned to Virginia and to his seat in the reconstituted legislature. A constitution had
been adopted for the commonwealth, but it was distressingly less democratic than the one
Jefferson had drafted and dispatched to Williamsburg. He sought now to achieve liberal reforms
by ordinary legislation. Most of these were contained in his comprehensive Revision of the Laws.
Although the code was never enacted in entirety, the legislature went over the bills one by one.
Of first importance was the Statute for Religious Freedom. Enacted in 1786, the statute climaxed
the long campaign for separation of church and state in Virginia. Though Jefferson was
responsible for the abolition of property laws that were merely relics of feudalism, his bill for the
reform of Virginia's barbarous criminal code failed, and for the sake of expediency he withheld his
plan for gradual emancipation of the slaves. Jefferson was sickened by the defeat of his Bill for
the More General Diffusion of Knowledge. A landmark in the history of education, it proposed a
complete system of public education, with elementary schools available to all, the gifted to be
educated according to their ability.
Jefferson became Virginia's governor in June 1779. The Revolutionary War had entered a new
phase. The British decision to "unravel the thread of rebellion from the southward" would, if
successful, have made Virginia the crucial battleground. Jefferson struggled against enormous
odds to aid the southern army. He was also handicapped by the weakness of his office under the
constitution and by his personal aversion to anything bordering on dictatorial rule.
Early in 1781 the British invaded Virginia from the coast, slashed through to Richmond, and put
the government to flight. Jefferson acted with more vigor than before, still to no avail. In May,
Gen. Charles Cornwallis marched his army into Virginia. The government moved to safer quarters
at Charlottesville. The Redcoats followed, and 2 days after his term of office expired but before a
successor could be chosen, Jefferson was chased from Monticello. The General Assembly
resolved to inquire into Jefferson's conduct, and months after the British surrender at Yorktown,
he attended the legislature on this business. But no inquiry was held, the Assembly instead voting
him resolution of thanks for his services.
Nevertheless, wounded by the criticism, Jefferson resolved to quit public service. A series of
personal misfortunes, culminating in his wife's death in September 1782, plunged him into gloom.
Yet her death finally returned him to his destiny. The idealized life he had sought in his family,
farms, and books was suddenly out of reach. That November he eagerly accepted congressional
appointment to the peace commission in Paris. He never sailed, however, and wound up in
Congress instead.
During his retirement Jefferson had written his only book, Note on the State of Virginia. The
inquiry had begun simply, but it grew as Jefferson worked. He finally published the manuscript in
a private edition in Paris (1785). Viewed in the light of 18th-century knowledge, the book is work
of natural and civil history, uniquely interesting as a guide to Jefferson's mind and to his native
country. He expressed opinions on a variety of subjects, from cascades and caverns to
constitutions and slavery. An early expression of American nationalism, the book acted as a
catalyst in several fields of intellectual activity. It also ensured Jefferson a scientific and literary
reputation on two continents.
Service in Congress
In Congress from November 1783 to the following May, Jefferson laid the foundations of national
policy in several areas. His proposed decimal system of coinage was adopted. He drafted the first
ordinance of government for the western territory, wherein free and equal republican states would
be created out of the wilderness; and his land ordinance, adopted with certain changes in 1785,
projected the rectilinear survey system of the American West.
Jefferson also took a leading part in formulating foreign policy. The American economy rested on
foreign commerce and navigation. Cut adrift from the British mercantile system, Congress had
pursued free trade to open foreign markets, but only France had been receptive. The matter
became urgent in 1783-1784. Jefferson helped reformulate a liberal commercial policy, and in
1784 he was appointed to a three-man commission (with Adams and Franklin) to negotiate
treaties of commerce with the European powers.
Minister to France
In Paris, Jefferson's first business was the treaty commission; in 1785 he succeeded Franklin as
minister to France. The commission soon expired, and Jefferson focused his commercial
diplomacy on France. In his opinion, France offered imposing political support for the United
States in Europe as well as an entering wedge for the free commercial system on which
American wealth and power depended. Louis XVI's foreign minister seemed well disposed, and
influential men in the French capital were ardent friends of the American Revolution. Jefferson
won valuable concessions for American commerce; however, because France realized few
benefits in return, Britain maintained its economic ascendancy.
His duties left Jefferson time to haunt bookstores, frequent fashionable salons, and indulge his
appetite for art, music, and theater. He toured the south of France and Italy, England, and the
Rhineland. He interpreted the New World to the Old. Some of this activity had profound effects.
For instance, his collaboration with a French architect in the design of the classical Roman
Capitol of Virginia inaugurated the classical revival in American architecture.
About Europe generally, Jefferson expressed ambivalent feelings. But on balance, the more he
saw of Europe, the dearer his own country became. "My God!" he exclaimed. "How little do my
countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people
on earth enjoy. I confess I had no idea of it myself...."
Secretary of State
On Jefferson's return to America in 1789, President Washington prevailed upon him to become
secretary of state. For the next 3 years he was chiefly engaged in fruitless negotiations with the
European powers. With Spain he sought to fix the southern United States boundary and secure
free navigation of the Mississippi River through Spanish territory to the Gulf of Mexico. With
Britain he sought removal of English troops from the Northwest and settlement of issues left over
from the peace treaty. In this encounter he was frustrated by the secretary of the Treasury,
Alexander Hamilton, whose ascendancy in the government also checked Jefferson's and James
Madison's efforts for commercial discrimination against Britain and freer trade with France. In
Jefferson's opinion, Hamilton's fiscal system turned on British trade, credit, and power, while his
own system turned on commercial liberation, friendship with France, and the success of the
French Revolution. Hamilton's measures would enrich the few at the expense of the many, excite
speculation and fraud, concentrate enormous power in the Treasury, and break down the
restraints of the Constitution. To combat these tendencies, Jefferson associated himself with the
incipient party opposition in Congress.
Developing Political Parties
As the party division deepened, Jefferson was denounced by the Federalists as the
"generalissimo" of the Republican party, a role he neither possessed nor coveted but, finally,
could not escape. When war erupted between France and Britain in 1793, the contrary
dispositions of the parties toward these nations threatened American peace. Jefferson attempted
to use American neutrality to force concessions from Britain and to improve cooperation between
the embattled republics of the Atlantic world. In this he was embarrassed by Edmond Genet, the
French minister to the United States, and finally had to abandon him altogether. The deterioration
of Franco-American relations did irreparable damage to Jefferson's political system.
Jefferson resigned his post at the end of 1793, again determined to quit public life. But in 1796
the Republicans made him their presidential candidate against John Adams. Losing by three
electoral votes, Jefferson became vice president. When the "XYZ affair" threatened to plunge the
United States into war with France in 1798, Jefferson clung to the hope of peace and, in the
developing war hysteria, rallied the Republicans around him. Enactment of the Alien and Sedition
Laws convinced him that the Federalists aimed to annihilate the Republicans and that the
Republicans' only salvation lay in political intervention by the state authorities. On this basis he
drafted the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, in which he elaborated the theory of the Union as a
compact among the several states, declared the Alien and Sedition Laws unconstitutional, and
prescribed the remedy of state "nullification" for such assumptions of power by the central
government. Kentucky did not endorse this specific doctrine, but the defense of civil liberties was
now joined to the defense of state rights. Though the celebrated resolutions did not force a
change of policy, by contributing to the rising public clamor against the administration they
achieved their political purpose.
President of the United States
Republicans doubled their efforts to elect the "man of the people" in the unusually bitter campaign
of 1800. Jefferson topped Adams in the electoral vote. But because his running mate, Aaron Burr,
received an equal number of votes, the final decision went to the House of Representatives. Only
after 36 ballots was Jefferson elected.
Jefferson became president on March 4, 1801, in the new national capital, Washington, D.C. His
inaugural address--a political touchstone for a century or longer--brilliantly summed up the
Republican creed and appealed for the restoration of harmony and affection. "We have called by
different names brethren of the same principle. We are all republicans: we are all federalists."
Jefferson extended the hand of friendship to the Federalists and, although Federalists
monopolized the Federal offices, he attempted to limit his removals of them. Even after party
pressures forced him to revise this strategy, moderation characterized his course.
Reform was the order of the day. Working effectively with Congress, Jefferson restored freedom
of the press; lowered the residency period of the law of naturalization to 5 years; scaled down the
Army and Navy (despite a war against Barbary piracy); repealed the partisan Judiciary Act of
1801; abolished all internal taxes, together with a host of revenue offices; and began the planned
retirement of the debt. The Jeffersonian reformation was bottomed on fiscal policy; by reducing
the means and powers of government, it sought to further peace, equality, and individual
freedom.
The President's greatest triumph--and his greatest defeat--came in foreign affairs. Spain's
cession of Louisiana and the port of New Orleans to France in 1800 posed a serious threat to
American security, especially to the aspirations of the West. Jefferson skillfully negotiated this
crisis. With the Louisiana Purchase (1803), America gained an uncharted domain of some
800,000 square miles, doubling its size, for $11,250,000. Even before the treaty was signed,
Jefferson planned an expedition to explore this country. The Lewis and Clark expedition, like the
Louisiana Purchase, was a spectacular consummation of Jefferson's western vision.
Easily reelected in 1804, Jefferson soon encountered foreign and domestic troubles. His relations
with Congress degenerated as Republicans quarreled among themselves. Especially damaging
was the insurgency of John Randolph, formerly Republican leader in the House. And former vice
president Aaron Burr mounted an insurgency in the West; but Jefferson crushed this and, with
difficulty, maintained control of Congress. The turbulence of the Napoleonic Wars, with American
ships and seamen ravaged in the neutral trade, proved too difficult. France was not blameless,
but Britain was the chief aggressor.
Finally there appeared to be no escape from war except by withdrawing from the oceans. In
December 1807 the President proposed, and Congress enacted, a total embargo on America's
seagoing commerce. More than an alternative to war, the embargo was a test of the power of
commercial coercion in international disputes. On the whole, it was effectively enforced, but it
failed to bring Britain or France to justice, and the mounting costs at home led to its repeal by
Congress in the waning hours of Jefferson's presidency.
Active Retirement
In retirement Jefferson became the "Sage of Monticello," the most revered--by some the most
hated--among the remaining Revolutionary founders. He maintained a large correspondence and
intellectual pursuits on a broad front. Unfinished business from the Revolution drew his attention,
such as revision of the Virginia constitution and gradual emancipation of slaves. But the former
would come only after his death, and the failure of the latter would justify his worst fears. He
revived his general plan of public education. Again the legislature rejected it, approving, however,
a major part, the state university. Jefferson was the master planner of the University of Virginia in
all its parts, from the grounds and buildings to the curriculum, faculty, and rules of governance.
He died at Monticello on the fiftieth anniversary of American independence, July 4, 1826.
After his death, there was much historical speculation regarding Jefferson's involvement with
Sally Hemings, a slave. The debate was finally laid to rest after extensive DNA testing proved that
he indeed fathered a child by Hemmings, who had been Jefferson's companion for 36 years after
the death of his wife.
UPDATES
October 5, 2005: Jefferson will face forward rather than sideways in the new
five-cent piece scheduled for release in 2006, the U.S. Mint announced. Source:
CNN Money.com,
<http://money.cnn.com/2005/10/05/news/funny/nickel/index.htm>, October 5,
2005.
SOURCE CITATION
"Thomas Jefferson." Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed. 17 Vols. Gale
Research, 1998.
Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2010.
http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC
Document Number: K1631003352
Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, Sir
Also known as: Winston Churchill, Winston S. Churchill, Winston Leonard SpencerChurchill, Sir Winston Churchill, Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill
Birth: November 30, 1874 in England
Death: January 24, 1965 in England
Nationality: English
Occupation: prime minister, statesman, author
Source: Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed. 17 Vols. Gale Research,
1998.
Updated: 06/18/2009
BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
The English statesman and author Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (1874-1965) led Britain
during World War II and is often described as the "savior of his country."
Sir Winston Churchill's exact place in the political history of the 20th century is, and will continue
to be, a subject of debate and polemical writing. Where he succeeded, and how much he
personally had to do with that success, and where he failed, and why, remain to be established.
That he was a political figure of enormous influence and importance, belonging in many ways to
an age earlier than the 20th century, and that he fitted uneasily into the constraints of British party
politics until his moment came in 1940 are not in doubt. Until recently his reputation during the
years from 1940 onward was scarcely questioned. But now historians are beginning to reassess
his career in just the same way as Churchill himself tried to revise T. B. Macaulay's account of the
Duke of Marlborough by writing a multivolumed Life of his distinguished ancestor (completed in
1938).
Churchill's record both before 1939 and after 1945 was for the most part undistinguished. But as
Anthony Storr writes: "In 1940 Churchill became the hero that he had always dreamed of being....
In that dark time, what England needed was not a shrewd, equable, balanced leader. She needed
a prophet, a heroic visionary, a man who could dream dreams of victory when all seemed lost.
Winston Churchill was such a man; and his inspirational quality owed its dynamic force to the
romantic world of phantasy in which he had his true being."
Early Life
Winston Churchill was born on Nov. 30, 1874, at Blenheim Palace--the home given by Queen
Anne to his ancestor the Duke of Marlborough. He was the eldest son of Lord Randolph Churchill,
a Tory Democrat who achieved early success as a rebel in his party but who later failed and was
cruelly described as "a man with a brilliant future behind him." His mother was Jenny Jerome, the
beautiful and talented daughter of Leonard Jerome, a New York businessman.
Winston was conventionally educated following the norms of his class. He went to preparatory
school, then to Harrow (1888), then to the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. He was neither
happy nor successful at school. Winston idolized his mother, but his relations with his father, who
died in 1895, were cold and distant. It is generally agreed that as a child Winston was deprived of
openly expressed warmth and affection.
Churchill very early exhibited the physical courage and love of adventure and action that he was
to keep throughout his political career. His first role was that of a soldier-journalist. Having joined
the 4th Hussars in 1895, he immediately went to Cuba to write about the Spanish army for the
Daily Graphic. He took part in the repulse of the insurgents who tried to cross the Spanish line at
Trochem. In 1896 he was in India, and while on the North-West Frontier with the Malakand Field
Force he began work on a novel, Savrola, a Tale of the Revolution in Laurania, which was
published in 1900. More important, however, were his accounts of the military campaigns in
which he participated. A book about the North-West Frontier and the Malakand Field Force was
followed by a book about the reconquest of the Sudan (1899), in which he had also taken part.
He went to Africa during the Boer War as a journalist for the Morning Post, and the most romantic
of his escapades as a youth was his escape from a South African prison during this conflict.
Young Politician
In 1899 Churchill lost in his first attempt at election to the House of Commons. This was to be the
first of many defeats in elections and by-elections during his career--he lost more elections than
any other political figure in recent British history. But in 1900 he entered the House of Commons,
in which he served intermittently until 1964. Throughout this long span his presence and oratory
exercised a magnetic attraction in an institution he always refused to leave for the House of
Lords.
Churchill's early years in politics were characterized by an interest in the radical reform of social
problems. In 1905 he completed a biography of his father, which is perhaps his best book. Lord
Randolph had tried to give coherence and organization to a popular socially oriented Toryism;
Churchill carried that effort into the Liberal party, which he had joined in 1904 because of his
disagreement with the revived demands for protectionism by the Chamberlain section of the Tory
party. The major intellectual achievement of this period of Churchill's life was his Liberalism and
the Social Problem (1909). In this work he stated his creed: "Liberalism seeks to raise up
poverty.... Liberalism would preserve private interests in the only way in which they can be safely
and justly preserved, namely by reconciling them with public right." Churchill was very active in
the great reforming government of Lord Asquith between 1908 and 1912, and his work in
palliating unemployment was especially significant.
In 1912 Churchill became first lord of the Admiralty--the range of offices which he held was as
remarkable as the number of elections which he lost. He switched his enthusiasm away from
butter toward guns, and his goal was the preparation of Britain's fleet for impending war. While at
the Admiralty, Churchill suffered a major setback. He became committed to the view that the navy
could best make an impact on the 1914-1918 war in Europe by way of a swift strike through the
Dardanelles. This strategy proved unsuccessful, however, and Churchill lost his Admiralty post. In
1916 he was back in the army and served for a time on the front lines in France.
Interwar Years
Churchill soon reentered political life. Kept out of the Lloyd George War Cabinet by conservative
hostility to his style and philosophy, by 1921 Churchill held a post in the Colonial Office. A clash
with Mustapha Kemal in Turkey, however, did not help his reputation, and in 1922 he lost his seat
in the House of Commons. The Conservative party gained power for the first time since 1905,
and Churchill now began long-term isolation, with few friends in any part of the political spectrum.
In 1924 Churchill severed his ties with liberalism and became chancellor of the Exchequer in
Stanley Baldwin's government. His decision to put Britain back on the gold standard was a
controversial one, attacked by the economist John Maynard Keynes, among others. Although he
held office under Baldwin, Churchill did not agree with the Conservative position either on
defense or on imperialism. In 1931 he resigned from the Conservative "shadow cabinet" as a
protest against its Indian policy. Ever the romantic imperialist, he did not want to cast away "that
most truly bright and precious jewel in the crown of the King." Baldwin and he also disagreed on
how to react to the crisis caused by the abdication of King Edward VIII.
Churchill's interwar years were characterized by political isolation, and during this period he made
many errors and misjudgments, among them his bellicosity over the general strike of 1926. Thus
he cannot be viewed simply as a popular leader who was kept waiting in the wings through no
fault of his own. In fact, it is not completely evident that he was aware of the nature of the fascist
threat during the 1930s.
World War II
The major period of Churchill's political career began when he became prime minister and head
of the Ministry of Defense early in World War II. "I felt as if I was walking with destiny, and that all
my past life had been but a preparation for this hour," he wrote in the first volume of his account
of the war. (This account was later published in six volumes from 1948 to 1953). His finest hour
and that of the British people coincided. His leadership, which was expressed in noble speeches
and ceaseless personal activity, stated precisely what Britain needed to survive through the years
before United States entry into the war.
The evacuation of Dunkirk and the air defense of the Battle of Britain have become legend, but
there were and are controversies over Churchill's policies. It has been argued that Churchill's
oversensitivity to the Mediterranean as a theater of war led to mistakes in Crete and North Africa.
The value of his resistance to the idea of a second front as the Germans advanced into Russia
has also been questioned. And there has been considerable debate over the wisdom of the
course he pursued at international conferences (such as those at Yalta in February 1945) which
reached agreements responsible in large part for the "cold war" of the 1950s and 1960s. But
although criticisms may be made of Churchill's policies, his importance as a symbol of resistance
and as an inspiration to victory cannot be challenged.
Last Years
The final period of Churchill's career began with his rejection by the British people at the general
election of 1945. At that election 393 Labour candidates were elected members of Parliament as
against 213 Conservatives and their allies. It was one of the most striking reversals of fortune in
democratic history. It may perhaps be explained by Churchill's aggressive vituperation during the
campaign combined with the electorate's desire for patient social reconstruction rather than for a
return to prewar economic mismanagement.
In 1951, however, Churchill again became prime minister. He resigned in April 1955 after an
uneventful term in office. For many of the later years of his life, even his iron constitution was not
strong enough to resist the persistent cerebral arteriosclerosis from which he suffered. He died on
Jan. 24, 1965, and was given a state funeral, the details of which had been largely dictated by
himself before his death.
UPDATES
June 9, 2009: The U.S. Librarian of Congress announced the recognition of
Churchill's March 5, 1946, speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, as
a culturally significant recording to be included in the sound archive of the
National Recording Registry. Source: USA Today,
<http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2009-06-09-recordingregistry_N.htm>, June 12, 2009.
SOURCE CITATION
"Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, Sir." Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd
ed. 17 Vols. Gale Research, 1998.
Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2010.
http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC
Document Number: K1631001383
Albert Einstein
Birth: 1879
Death: 1955
Nationality: American
Occupation: physicist
Source: Notable Scientists: From 1900 to the Present. Online. Gale Group,
2008.
Updated: 06/03/2010
BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
German-American physicist Albert Einstein ranks as one of the most remarkable physicists in the
history of science. During a single year, 1905, he produced three papers that are among the most
important in twentieth-century physics, and perhaps in all of the recorded history of science, for
they revolutionized the way scientists looked at the nature of space, time, and matter. These
papers dealt with the nature of particle movement known as Brownian motion, the quantum
nature of electromagnetic radiation as demonstrated by the photoelectric effect, and the special
theory of relativity. Although Einstein is probably best known for the last of these works, it was his
quantum explanation of the photoelectric effect that garnered him the 1921 Nobel Prize in
physics. In 1915, Einstein described the nature of gravitation in terms of the curvature of space
and time. This theory, general relativity, has been one of the most successful scientific theories of
all time and has passed many rigorous observational tests including predicting the behavior of
distant astronomical objects.
Einstein's contribution to physics and science in the early twentieth century were arguably the
most fundamental since English physicist Sir Isaac Newton's (1642-1727) publication of
Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica (Mathematical principles of natural philosophy).
Newton's work in the late seventeenth century set forth classical laws of physics that are still in
use in the early twenty-first century. However, within a decade, Einstein's contribution to
theoretical physics offered new and revolutionary ways to look at the universe. Einstein's work
helped establish relativity and quantum physics as the basic organizing theories of modern
physics.
Early background and education
Einstein was born in Ulm, Germany, on March 14, 1879, the only son of Hermann and Pauline
Koch Einstein. Both sides of his family had long-established roots in southern Germany, and, at
the time of Einstein's birth, his father and uncle Jakob owned a small electrical equipment plant.
When that business failed around 1880, Hermann Einstein moved his family to Munich to make a
new beginning. A year after their arrival in Munich, Einstein's only sister, Maja, was born.
Although his family was Jewish, Einstein was sent to a Catholic elementary school from 1884 to
1889. He was then enrolled at the Luitpold Gymnasium in Munich. During these years, Einstein
began to develop some of his earliest interests in science and mathematics, but he gave little
outward indication of any special aptitude in these fields. Indeed, he did not begin to talk until the
age of three, and by the age of nine was still not fluent in his native language. His parents were
actually concerned that he might be somewhat mentally retarded.
A modest academic record
In 1894 Hermann Einstein's business failed again and the family moved once more, this time to
Pavia, near Milan, Italy. Einstein was left behind in Munich to allow him to finish school. Such was
not to be the case, however, because he left the Gymnasium after only six more months.
Einstein's biographer, Philipp Frank, explains that Einstein so thoroughly despised formal
schooling that he devised a scheme by which he received a medical excuse from school on the
basis of a potential nervous breakdown. He then convinced a mathematics teacher to certify that
he was adequately prepared to begin his college studies without a high school diploma. Other
biographies, however, say that Einstein was expelled from Luitpold Gymnasium on the grounds
that he was a disruptive influence at the school.
In any case, Einstein then rejoined his family in Italy. One of his first acts upon reaching Pavia
was to give up his German citizenship. He was so unhappy with his native land that he wanted to
sever all formal connections with it. In addition, by renouncing his citizenship, he could later return
to Germany without being arrested as a draft dodger. As a result, Einstein remained without an
official citizenship until he became a Swiss citizen at the age of 21. For most of his first year in
Italy, Einstein spent his time traveling, relaxing, and teaching himself calculus and higher
mathematics. In 1895 he thought himself ready to take the entrance examination for the
EidgenÖssiche Technische Hochschule (the ETH, Swiss Federal Polytechnic School, or Swiss
Federal Institute of Technology), where he planned to major in electrical engineering. When he
failed that examination, Einstein enrolled at a Swiss cantonal high school in Aarau. He found the
more democratic style of instruction at Aarau much more enjoyable than his experience in Munich
and soon began to make rapid progress. He took the entrance examination for the ETH a second
time in 1896, passed, and was admitted to the school. (In Einstein (1973), however, Jeremy
Bernstein writes that Einstein was admitted without examination on the basis of his diploma from
Aarau.)
As it happened, the program at ETH had nearly as little appeal for Einstein as had his schooling
in Munich. He apparently hated studying for examinations and was not especially interested in
attending classes on a regular basis. He devoted much of this time to reading on his own,
specializing in the works of Gustav Kirchhoff, Heinrich Hertz, James Clerk Maxwell, Ernst Mach,
and other classical physicists. When Einstein graduated with a teaching degree in 1900, he was
unable to find a regular teaching job. Instead he supported himself as a tutor in a private school in
Schaffhausen. In 1901 Einstein published his first scientific paper, "Consequences of Capillary
Phenomena."
Patent clerk
In February 1902, Einstein moved to Bern and applied for a job with the Swiss Patent Office. He
was given a probationary appointment to begin in June of that year and was promoted to the
position of technical expert, third class, a few months later. The seven years Einstein spent at the
Patent Office were the most productive years of his life. The demands of his work were relatively
modest and he was able to devote a great deal of time to his own research.
The promise of a steady income at the Patent Office also made it possible for Einstein to marry.
Mileva Maric (also given as Maritsch) was a fellow student in physics at ETH, and Einstein had
fallen in love with her even though his parents strongly objected to the match. Maric had originally
come from Hungary and was of Serbian and Greek Orthodox heritage. The couple married on
January 6, 1903, and later had two sons, Hans Albert and Edward. A previous child, Liserl, was
born in 1902 at the home of Maric's parents in Hungary, but there is no further mention or trace of
her after 1903 because she was given up for adoption.
Groundbreaking work in theoretical physics
In 1905, Einstein published a series of papers, any one of which would have assured his fame in
history. One, "On the Movement of Small Particles Suspended in a Stationary Liquid Demanded
by the Molecular-Kinetic Theory of Heat," dealt with a phenomenon first observed by the Scottish
botanist Robert Brown (1773-1856) in 1827. Brown had reported that tiny particles, such as dust
particles, move about with a rapid and random zigzag motion when suspended in a liquid.
Einstein hypothesized that the visible motion of particles was caused by the random movement of
molecules that make up the liquid. He derived a mathematical formula that predicted the distance
traveled by particles and their relative speed. This formula was confirmed experimentally by
French physicist Jean Baptiste Perrin (1870-1942) in 1908. Einstein's work on the Brownian
movement is generally regarded as the first direct experimental evidence of the existence of
molecules.
A second paper, "On a Heuristic Viewpoint concerning the Production and Transformation of
Light," dealt with another puzzle in physics, the photoelectric effect. First observed by Heinrich
Hertz (1857-1894) in 1888, the photoelectric effect involves the release of electrons from a metal
that occurs when light is shined on the metal. The puzzling aspect of the photoelectric effect was
that the number of electrons released is not a function of the light's intensity, but of the color (that
is, the wavelength) of the light.
To solve this problem, Einstein made use of a concept known as the quantum hypothesis,
developed only a few years before in 1900 by the German physicist Max Planck (1858-1947).
Einstein assumed that light travels in tiny discrete bundles, or "quanta," of energy. The energy of
any given light quantum (later renamed the photon), Einstein said, is a function of its wavelength.
Thus, when light falls on a metal, electrons in the metal absorb specific quanta of energy, giving
them enough energy to escape from the surface of the metal. But the number of electrons
released will be determined not by the number of quanta (that is, the intensity) of the light, but by
its energy (that is, its wavelength). Einstein's hypothesis was confirmed by several experiments
and laid the foundation for the fields of quantitative photoelectric chemistry and quantum
mechanics. As recognition for this work, Einstein was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize in physics.
A third 1905 paper by Einstein, almost certainly the one for which he became best known, details
his special theory of relativity. In essence, "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" discusses
the relationship between measurements made by observers in two separate systems moving at
constant velocity with respect to each other.
Einstein's work on relativity was by no means the first in the field. French physicist Jules Henri
PoincarÉ (1854-1912), Irish physicist George Francis FitzGerald (1851-1901), and Dutch
physicist Hendrik Lorentz (1853-1928) had already analyzed in some detail the problem attacked
by Einstein in his 1905 paper. Each had developed mathematical formulas that described the
effect of motion on various types of measurement. Indeed, the record of pre-Einsteinian thought
on relativity is so extensive that one historian of science once wrote a two-volume work on the
subject that devoted only a single sentence to Einstein's work. Still, there is little question that
Einstein provided the most complete analysis of this subject. He began by making two
assumptions. First, he said that the laws of physics are the same in all frames of reference.
Second, he declared that the velocity of light is always the same, regardless of the conditions
under which it is measured.
Advancing revolutionary theory
Using only these two assumptions, Einstein proceeded to uncover an unexpectedly extensive
description of the properties of bodies that are in uniform motion. For example, he showed that
the length and mass of an object are dependent upon their movement relative to an observer. He
derived a mathematical relationship between the length of an object and its velocity that had
previously been suggested by both FitzGerald and Lorentz. Einstein's theory was revolutionary,
because previously scientists had believed that basic quantities of measurement such as time,
mass, and length were absolute and unchanging. Einstein's work established the opposite--that
these measurements could change, depending on the relative motion of the observer.
In addition to his masterpieces on the photoelectric effect, Brownian movement, and relativity,
Einstein wrote two more papers in 1905. One, "Does the Inertia of a Body Depend on Its Energy
Content?," dealt with an extension of his earlier work on relativity. He came to the conclusion in
this paper that the energy and mass of a body are closely interrelated. Two years later he
specifically stated that relationship in a formula, E=mc 2 (energy equals mass times the speed of
light squared), that became familiar to both scientists and non-scientists alike. His final paper, the
most modest of the five, was "A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions." It was this paper
that Einstein submitted as his doctoral dissertation, for which the University of Zurich awarded
him a Ph.D. in 1905.
Fame did not come to Einstein immediately as a result of his five 1905 papers. Indeed, he
submitted his paper on relativity to the University of Bern in support of his application to become a
privatdozent, or unsalaried instructor, but the paper and application were rejected. His work was
too important to be long ignored, however, and a second application three years later was
accepted. Einstein spent only a year at Bern before taking a job as professor of physics at the
University of Zurich in 1909. He then went on to the German University of Prague for a year and a
half before returning to Zurich and a position at ETH in 1912. A year later Einstein was made
director of scientific research at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics in Berlin, a post he held
from 1914 to 1933.
Role of Mileva Einstein
In recent years, the role of Mileva Einstein-Maric in her husband's early work has been the
subject of some controversy. The more traditional view among Einstein's biographers is that of A.
P. French in his "Condensed Biography" in Einstein: A Centenary Volume (1980). French argues
that although "little is recorded about his [Einstein's] domestic life, it certainly did not inhibit his
scientific activity." In perhaps the most substantial of all Einstein biographies, Philipp Frank writes
that "For Einstein life with her was not always a source of peace and happiness. When he wanted
to discuss with her his ideas, which came to him in great abundance, her response was so slight
that he was often unable to decide whether or not she was interested" (Einstein: His Life and
Times, 1947).
A quite different view of the relationship between Einstein and Maric is presented in a 1990 paper
by Senta Troemel-Ploetz in Women's Studies International Forum. Based on a biography of Maric
originally published in Yugoslavia, Troemel-Ploetz argues that Maric gave to her husband "her
companionship, her diligence, her endurance, her mathematical genius, and her mathematical
devotion." Indeed, Troemel-Ploetz builds a case that it was Maric who did a significant portion of
the mathematical calculations involved in much of Einstein's early work. She begins by repeating
a famous remark by Einstein himself to the effect that "My wife solves all my mathematical
problems." In addition, Troemel-Ploetz cites many of Einstein's own letters of 1900 and 1901
(reprinted in Collected Papers) that allude to Maric's role in the development of "our papers,"
including one letter to Maric in which Einstein noted: "How happy and proud I will be when both of
us together will have brought our work on relative motion to a successful end." The author also
points out the somewhat unexpected fact that Einstein gave the money he received from the
1921 Nobel Prize to Maric, although the two had been divorced two years earlier. Nevertheless,
Einstein never publicly acknowledged any contributions by his wife to his work.
Any mathematical efforts Mileva Einstein-Maric may have contributed to Einstein's work greatly
decreased after the birth of their second son in 1910. Einstein was increasingly occupied with his
career and his wife with managing their household; upon moving to Berlin in 1914 the couple
grew even more distant. With the outbreak of World War I, Einstein's wife and two children
returned to Zurich. The two were never reconciled; in 1919 they were formally divorced. With the
outbreak of the war, Einstein's pacifist views became public knowledge. When 93 leading
German intellectuals signed a manifesto supporting the German war effort, Einstein and three
others published an antiwar counter-manifesto. He also helped form a coalition aimed at fighting
for a just peace and for a worldwide organization to prevent future wars. Towards the end of the
war, Einstein became very ill and was nursed back to health by his cousin Elsa. Not long after
Einstein's divorce from Maric, he married Elsa, a widow. The two had no children of their own,
although Elsa brought two daughters, Ilse and Margot, to the marriage.
The war years also marked the culmination of Einstein's attempt to extend his 1905 theory of
relativity to a broader context, specifically to systems with non-zero acceleration. Under the
general theory of relativity, motions no longer had to be uniform and relative velocities no longer
constant. Einstein was able to write mathematical expressions that describe the relationships
between measurements made in any two systems in motion relative to each other, even if the
motion is accelerated in one or both. One of the fundamental features of the general theory is the
concept of a space-time continuum in which space is curved. That concept means that a body
affects the shape of the space that surrounds it so that a second body moving near the first body
will travel in a curved path.
Einstein's new theory was too radical to be immediately accepted, for not only were the
mathematics behind it extremely complex, it replaced Newton's theory of gravitation that had
been accepted for two centuries. Einstein, therefore, offered three proofs for his theory that could
be tested: first, that relativity would cause Mercury's perihelion, or point of orbit closest to the sun,
to advance slightly more than was predicted by Newton's laws; second, Einstein predicted that
light from a star is bent as it passes close to a massive body, such as the sun; third, the physicist
suggested that relativity would also affect light by changing its wavelength, a phenomenon known
as the redshift effect. Observations of the planet Mercury bore out Einstein's hypothesis and
calculations, but astronomers and physicists had yet to test the other two proofs.
Einstein had calculated that the amount of light bent by the sun would amount to 1.7 seconds of
an arc, a small but detectable effect. In 1919, during an eclipse of the sun, English astronomer
Arthur Eddington measured the deflection of starlight and found it to be 1.61 seconds of an arc,
well within experimental error. The publication of this proof made Einstein an instant celebrity and
made "relativity" a household word, although it was not until 1924 that Eddington proved the final
hypothesis concerning redshift with a spectral analysis of the star Sirius B. This phenomenon,
that light would be shifted to a longer wavelength in the presence of a strong gravitational field,
became known as the "Einstein."
Einstein's publication of his general theory in 1916, the Foundation of the General Theory of
Relativity, essentially brought to a close the revolutionary period of his scientific career. In many
ways, Einstein had begun to fall out of phase with the rapid changes taking place in physics
during the 1920s. Even though Einstein's own work on the photoelectric effect helped set the
stage for the development of quantum theory, he was never able to accept some of its concepts,
particularly the uncertainty principle. In one of the most-quoted comments in the history of
science, he claimed that quantum mechanics, which could only calculate the probabilities of
physical events, could not be correct because "God does not play dice." Instead, Einstein
devoted his efforts in the remaining years of his life to the search for a unified field theory, a
single theory that would encompass all physical fields, particularly gravitation and
electromagnetism.
Einstein the pacifist
Since the outbreak of World War I, Einstein had been opposed to war, and used his notoriety to
lecture against it during the 1920s and 1930s. He argued for the support of political prisoners and
the defense of democracy against the spread of fascism. In 1927 he signed a protest against
Italian fascism and two years later appealed for the commutation of death sentences given to
Arab rioters in British Palestine. Although not a practicing Jew, he tried to show support for the
German Jewish community whenever it was attacked by anti-Semites. With the rise of National
Socialism in Germany in the early 1930s, Einstein's position became difficult. Although he had
renewed his German citizenship, he was suspect as both a Jew and a pacifist. Nazi physicists
and their followers denounced Einstein's theory of relativity, dismissing it as "Jewish-Communist
physics." Because of this growing violent anti-Semitism, he gave public support to Zionism
although he believed in a world government instead of nationalism. As the Nazi movement grew
stronger, he helped organize a nonpartisan group within the Jewish community that took a stand
against fascism. In addition, his writings about relativity were in conflict with the absolutist
teachings of German leader Adolf Hitler's party. Fortunately, by 1930 Einstein had become
internationally famous and had traveled widely throughout the world. A number of institutions
were eager to add his name to their faculties.
In early 1933 Einstein made a decision. He was out of Germany when Hitler rose to power, and
he decided not to return. In March of that year he again renounced his German citizenship. His
remaining property in Germany was confiscated and his name appeared on the first Nazi list of
those who were stripped of citizenship. He accepted an appointment at the Institute for Advanced
Studies in Princeton, New Jersey, where he spent the rest of his life. In addition to his continued
work on unified field theory, Einstein was in demand as a speaker and wrote extensively on many
topics, especially peace.
Einstein and the atomic bomb
The growing fascism and anti-Semitism of Hitler's regime convinced Einstein in 1939 to sign his
name to a letter written by American physicists warning President Franklin D. Roosevelt that the
Germans were nearing the possibility of an atomic bomb, and that Americans must develop the
technology first. This letter led to the formation of the Manhattan Project for the construction of
the world's first nuclear weapons. Although Einstein's work on relativity, particularly his
formulation of the equation E=mc2, was essential to the development of the atomic bomb,
Einstein himself did not participate in the project. He was considered a security risk, although he
had renounced his German citizenship and become a U.S. citizen in 1940, while retaining his
Swiss citizenship. However, his horror at the havoc wrecked by the atomic bomb led him to
comment in later years that his letter to Roosevelt was the biggest mistake of his life.
In 1944 Einstein contributed to the war effort by hand writing his 1905 paper on special relativity
and putting it up for auction. The manuscript, which raised $6 million, is currently the property of
the U.S. Library of Congress.
Scientist and philosopher
After World War II and the bombing of Japan, Einstein became an ardent supporter of nuclear
disarmament. He continued to support the efforts to establish a world government and of the
Zionist movement to establish a Jewish state. In 1952, after the death of Israel's first president,
Chaim Weizmann, Einstein was invited to succeed him as president; he declined the offer.
Among the many other honors given to Einstein were the Barnard Medal of Columbia University
in 1920, the Copley Medal of the Royal Society in 1925, the Gold Medal of the Royal
Astronomical Society in 1926, the Max Planck Medal of the German Physical Society in 1929,
and the Benjamin Franklin Medal of the Franklin Institute in 1935. He also received honorary
doctorates in science, medicine and philosophy from many European and American universities
and was elected to memberships in all of the leading scientific academies in the world. In
December 1999 Time magazine named Einstein "Person of the Century," stating: "In a hundred
years, as we turn to another new century--nay, ten times a hundred years, when we turn to
another new millennium--the name that will prove most enduring from our own amazing era will
be that of Albert Einstein: genius, political refugee, humanitarian, locksmith of the mysteries of the
atom and the universe."
A week before he died, Einstein agreed to include his name on a manifesto urging all nations to
give up nuclear weapons. Einstein died in his sleep at his home in Princeton on April 18, 1955, at
the age of 76, after suffering an aortic aneurysm. At the time of his death, he was the world's
most widely admired scientist and his name was synonymous with genius. Yet Einstein declined
to become enamored of the admiration of others. He wrote in his book The World as I See It: "Let
every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized. It is an irony of fate that I myself
have been the recipient of excessive admiration and respect from my fellows through no fault,
and no merit, of my own. The cause of this may well be the desire, unattainable for many, to
understand the one or two ideas to which I have with my feeble powers attained through
ceaseless struggle."
SOURCE CITATION
"Albert Einstein." Notable Scientists: From 1900 to the Present. Online. Gale
Group, 2008.
Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2010.
http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC
Document Number: K1619001795
Mohandas Gandhi
Also known as: Mahatma Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Mahatma Ghandi,
Birth: 1869
Death: 1948
Nationality: Indian
Occupation: Activist, Leader, Religious Leader
Source: American Decades. Gale Research, 1998.
Updated: 12/16/1998
BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
Beloved Indian Hero. Mohandas Gandhi was an Indian nationalist, moral and spiritual leader in
India's struggle for independence from Great Britain. He advocated passive resistance, civil
disobedience, and boycotts to force the pace of social and political reform.
Jewel of British Colonial Crown. The British Empire reached its zenith under the rule of Queen
Victoria in the 19th century. The jewel in its imperial crown was India, Britain's most prosperous
and profitable acquisition. The subjugation of the sub-continent had not been easy, nor had it
been achieved quickly. The military effort during the second half of the 19th century had been
considerable and was accompanied by extensive social reforms as British rule was aggressively
consolidated. One unexpected by-product of the assertion of British predominance was the
emergence of an Indian national consciousness and the growth of a number of nationalist political
organizations dedicated to svaraj or self-rule. The Svaraj movement gained in popularity
throughout the late and early 20th century, becoming increasingly violent as the British
steadfastly denied India self-rule.
Inspired by Gopal Gokhale. One provincial political organization that emerged was the All
People's Association, a movement dedicated to winning freedom through the effective application
of British institutions and freedoms. As developed by Mahadev Ranade and Gopal Gokhale, the
association also believed that the modernization of Indian social and religious institutions was a
necessary prerequisite for independence. Gokhale became the leader of the Moderates in the
Indian National Congress, a Hindu dominated representative body established in 1885. Its goal
became independence within the British Empire. Gokhale's work inspired one who would
supplant him as the leading nationalist figure--Mohandas Gandhi.
Uneventful Childhood. Gandhi's early years gave few clues to his future stature. He was born in
Porbandar, a state of Kathiawar in Western India, to a middle-ranking family with a recent
tradition of state service. In caste-conscious India, Gandhi's family had acquired neither riches
nor fame but their intelligence and common sense had secured the respect of the community. By
Gandhi's own account, he remembered little of his early days in Porbander. His early schooling
experience was uneventful and he conjectured, "my intellect must have been sluggish, and my
memory raw." His child marriage, however, stood in sharp contrast. Gandhi later held his
marriage at the age of 13 to be an illustration of the moral and common sensical vacuum that
plagued the tradition bound society of India and of the need for modernization. Nevertheless, he
accepted the marriage and had four sons by his wife Kasturbia.
Studied Law. In 1887, four years after his marriage, Gandhi graduated from high school, an
achievement that in itself marked him among the more privileged of Indian society. He spent one
term at a local college, but disliked it immensely. Deciding that the study of law in England was
his proper course, with some difficulty he persuaded his reluctant wife and family to bless his new
venture. In 1888, he sailed for London at the age of 19. Gandhi's three years in London left a
lasting impression. Determined to style himself an "English gentleman," he began his road to selfdiscovery. Foregoing the material trappings of his ambition, he became a vegetarian and began
to study religious philosophies. His legal studies, however, left little time for extensive outside
reading, and religion remained a marginal interest. Called to the bar in 1891, Gandhi returned to
India that same year. He was not a notable success as a lawyer, finding the study of Indian Civil
Law a "tedious business." After two failed practices, he accepted a small offer to practice in South
Africa for a short time. It would be 21 years before he returned.
Experienced Discrimination in South Africa. Gandhi left for South Africa without his family in
the spring of 1893. His experience there was a turning point in his life. Over 40,000 Indians
resided in the South African province of Natal, descendants of indentured servants sent in the
1860s. By the 1890s, Indian Muslims outnumbered the white European community, triggering
racially inspired legislation from the European rulers designed to stem the tide of immigration and
encourage Indian residents to leave the country. Gandhi experienced the prejudice upon his
arrival in the country as he was forced out of his first class train berth after complaints by white
passengers. Unlike many Indian residents, however, Gandhi did not accept this situation as the
necessary price for monetary gain. He sought to address the issue, attempting to bring attention
to the grievances of Indians in South Africa. His actions and thoughts on the subject were
influenced by an increasingly philosophical outlook, a subject his legal practice gave him the time
to study. His limited successes as a lawyer also proved revealing. "I had learnt the true practice
of law," Gandhi concluded after his first case, "I realized that the true function of a lawyer was to
unite parties riven asunder."
Embarked on Spiritual Journey. The next decades saw the foundation laid for Gandhi's
thoughts and actions in later life. He returned to India infrequently--on one occasion bringing his
wife and family--but his Indian national identity was intensified by the racial struggle in South
Africa. So too was his spiritual consciousness. "I started on a life of ease and comfort," he wrote,
"but the experiment was short-lived." Gandhi's transformation continued. He related his difficulties
with his wife, and he struggled to overcome the centuries of tradition that demanded complete
obedience. Slowly, Gandhi acquired the sagelike qualities of meditation, fasting, non-violence and
impoverishment that would characterize him as a historical figure.
Advocated Passive Resistance. Gandhi's activist techniques also emerged from his struggles
against the white oppression in South Africa. He began writing, authoring pamphlets, and
publishing journals dedicated to generating interest in his cause. His work caught the eye of
government authorities, but only threats were forthcoming. Gandhi, nevertheless, maintained his
loyalty to the British empire, organizing an ambulance corps for the British during the Boer War.
His loyalty turned to ire in 1906 when the government passed an ordinance requiring all Indians
to register with the authorities and carry their certification at all times. Aptly named the "Black
Act," it evoked an outcry in the Asian community, but with little result. Gandhi reacted by
organizing a movement for "passive resistance" to the law, a movement which became known as
"Satyagraha, the Force which is born of Truth and Love." Satyagraha, or passive resistance,
became the centerpiece of his activities until his death.
Indian Relief Act. Gandhi's campaign of passive resistance resulted in little beyond his own
arrest. He continued to actively write and persuade his fellow Indians that the path to self-rule
was through passive resistance. By 1913, however, government legislation had become so
restrictive that a court decision could rule that only Christian marriages were viewed as legal in
the eyes of the law. There was a general outcry against this and other repressive measures and a
symbolic march across the provincial boundaries which Indians were forbidden to cross. In the
aftermath of the "Great March," Gandhi was imprisoned, but the South African government came
under international pressure to deal with the Indians. In December of 1913, Gandhi and several
confederates were released and a commission was appointed to investigate the grievances of the
Indian community. The result was an Indian Relief Act that removed many of the restrictions.
Having won this partial victory, Gandhi returned to England to continue what he now considered
the larger struggle to obtain equality for Indians throughout the Empire.
Champion of the Common People. Gandhi's arrival in England, however, coincided with the
outbreak of the First World War. He organized an Indian Ambulance Training corps, but was
forced from the service after protesting the racism of his English commanding officer. Returning
to Bombay, Gandhi began to spread his message of passive resistance across India where he
found fertile ground for his ideas. The economic dislocation and rampant inflation caused by the
war as well as the expanding casualty lists had resulted in a growing sense of discontentment
among the Indian peoples. Gandhi used his satyagraha to help the poorer classes organize and
win against oppressive employers and landowners. Under Gandhi's guidance, the masses scored
impressive victories and his popularity spread. Unlike most political leaders, Gandhi dressed and
lived the life of the "lowest of the low" and appealed to the people as a religious leader with
political ideals. He was able to bridge the gap between the masses and the educated upper
classes making him one of the most effective national leaders. His appeal was only limited by the
religious divisions between Hindu and Muslim that plagued India. Despite Gandhi's attempts to
broaden his own religious philosophy, his views on modernization were often products of his own
beliefs and biases. As he ascended the national stage, however, these problems were secondary
to the discontentment with British rule.
Rise of Indian Nationalism. The economic and political upheavals of the First World War
released a wave of Indian nationalism. The full political expression of that nationalism, however,
was the product of the disappointments that followed the 1918 armistice. The Rowlatt Acts of
1919 essentially continued the restrictions on civil liberties that had been obtained in wartime. In
response, Gandhi launched the first nation-wide civil disobedience campaign. Scattered violence,
however, marred the strike and prompted a swift and brutal response from local British officials
culminating in the Amritsar massacre which left 400 Indians dead and 1,200 wounded. Shocked
and appalled at both sides, Gandhi called off the movement, but the massacre turned Gandhi,
and millions of others, from ardent supporters of the empire into "pronounced opponents."
Nonetheless, he also hesitated to fully exercise his influence lest violence break out again.
Headed Congress Party. Gandhi's fears were confirmed by the events of 1920-22. Having
politicized his movement after the Amritsar massacre and using his overwhelming support from
the lower classes--both Hindu and Muslim at this point--he assumed the leadership of the
moderate middle class-based Congress Party. The Party's appeal to the non-violent Gandhi was
obvious and he turned it into a mass national party that was a counter to the radical Muslim
League. He drafted a "Congress Constitution" defining the Party's agenda as the attainment of
self-rule "by all legitimate and peaceful means" and reorganized the Party machinery to maintain
a broad-based national support, breaking all ties with the British. He demonstrated the power of
this new vehicle for his message of satyagraha in 1920, mobilizing the nation in another
campaign of limited non-cooperation and promising svaraj within a year. The campaign only
provoked mass arrests and unrest as the promised results were not forthcoming. Urged on by
other Congress leaders, Gandhi was prepared to call a total strike in one province to paralyze the
government. Just days before it was to begin, however, chilling news that a mob had burned a
police headquarters, killing 21 constables, spread across India. The news convinced Gandhi that
his people were not yet ready for peaceful passive resistance and he turned from political
agitation to social welfare programs in the villages hoping to teach the self-control he believed
was necessary for his campaigns to be successful. Nevertheless, he was arrested by the British
in mid-1922 for "promoting disaffection," serving two years of a six-year sentence before being
released due to appendicitis. Ill and disheartened, Gandhi continued to promote self-control and
peaceful solutions, particularly between the increasingly factious Hindus and Muslims, but he did
not resume political agitation until 1928.
Organized Salt March. "In the years following 1922," wrote Homer Jack, "the nationalist
movement was at a low ebb." The British continued to exclude the Indians from the process of
political reform and administration of the nation. Frustrated at the pace of reforms, Gandhi reentered the political arena in 1928, urging the Congress to launch another nation-wide strike
unless India's demands for constitutional independence, as defined in that same year by the AllParties Congress led by Motilal Nehru, were met within a year. The British did not meet these
demands. In consequence, Gandhi organized a symbolic demonstration of the Indian's refusal to
recognize the government's authority. The " Salt March" of 1930 was designed to flout the
government's heavily taxed monopoly on the manufacture of salt by marching to the coast to take
salt directly from the sea. Gandhi reached the sea in April, scooping up the first piece of natural
salt himself, and calling on all Indians to emulate his actions in defiance of the government.
Gandhi's actions unleashed long pent-up emotions. Waves of protest and unrest swept across
India and thousands were imprisoned. Gandhi himself was arrested in May of 1930.
Negotiated with the British. Gandhi was released in January of 1931 to secure some goodwill
as talks began on the process of Indian independence. In a series of discussions with the
Imperial Viceroy Lord Irwin, Gandhi agreed to attend the second "Round Table Conference" in
London to establish a new constitution for India. He also agreed to call off the civil disobedience
campaign in return for certain British concessions. Although Gandhi's agreement was perceived
as a sell-out by the more radical Indian nationalists, Gandhi hoped to attract sympathy and
attention for India's plight while in Britain.
Criticized British Reforms. Gandhi succeeded in enlisting sympathy for his cause but little else.
He returned to India to find that the moderate Viceroy Irwin had been replaced with a
conservative hard-liner. Gandhi was immediately arrested, signalling a general crackdown on all
nationalist activities and the beginning of a carrot-and-stick approach by the British. They offered
various reforms, but never the independence or representation that Gandhi and the Congress
party demanded. The most disturbing of the British reforms, from Gandhi's perspective, promised
separate electoral representations for India's numerous religious factions. This raised the specter
of a permanently divided India. Gandhi chose to "fast-unto-death" to oppose the granting of
separate seats, particularly for the class of Hindu known as the "untouchables." Gandhi reasoned
that Hinduism must be free of such prejudices to combat British prejudice. The Congress party
reasoned on slightly more pragmatic grounds that such an electoral system threatened their claim
to represent all of India.
Strived for Indian Unity. Although Gandhi was able to bring attention to some of India's lowest
castes, religious and ideological divisions continued to weaken the Congress party's attempt to
unite against the British and only confirmed the British belief that India was not ready for self-rule.
On the eve of the Second World War, the Congress party itself was divided between moderates
and extremists, and the rival Muslim League, revived under the leadership Muhammad Ali Jinnah,
advocated a separate Islamic state of Pakistan. Gandhi worked to reconcile the two parties,
convinced that India's hope lay in unity, but the war destroyed any chance of reconciliation. The
Congress declared its intention to boycott the war effort until independence was granted--a
political miscalculation that allowed the Muslim League a stronger voice in the direction of the
self-rule movement as it tacitly supported the British position. Gandhi, however, supported the
Congress and in October of 1940 called for a renewed satyagraha campaign, recruiting individual
followers to "proclaim his resolve to protest the war nonviolently." The usual pattern of arrests and
release followed.
Established Quit India Movement. The British were nevertheless anxious to maintain relative
peace in India during the war. In 1942, Sir Stafford Cripps, the leader of the British House of
Commons, was dispatched to India to negotiate Indian freedom. He promised complete
independence as soon as the war ended and offered an "opting out" clause for any region that
did not wish to be part of a united India. Gandhi dismissed the British offer out of hand, calling it
"a post-dated cheque on a failing bank." The Congress party also rejected it and the Muslim
League was forced to follow suit to maintain their mass support. Cripps's offer convinced Gandhi
that there was little common ground left between the Britain and India. In 1942, he organized the
"Quit India" movement, his last satyagraha campaign. He was arrested and not released until
1944.
Attempted to End Indian Factional Violence. Gandhi remained popular with the mass of the
Indian population and remained as the spiritual leader of the independence movement. His
political influence, however, waned as the Hindu-Muslim split widened. His dream of a united
India was quickly becoming politically impractical and, while he continued to be consulted on
national issues, his advice went largely unheeded by the Congress party and the Muslim League.
When, in 1946, the British sent a "Cabinet Mission" to make one last attempt to peacefully resolve
the problems of the transition from British to Indian rule, Gandhi supported their final report but
the Congress remained uncommitted. The British finally washed their hands of it and in 1947
resolved to transfer power to Indian hands. Gandhi hailed this decision "as the noblest act of the
British nation" but elsewhere it unleashed an orgy of violence and bloodshed. The announcement
of the partition of the sub-continent into a Hindu India and an Islamic Pakistan fueled a wave of
religious violence which left some 1 million dead. Gandhi's last days were spent fasting as he
tried to quell the growing communal strife. The revered Mahatma became a victim himself in
January of 1948--shot at the hands of a Hindu extremist. Millions worldwide mourned the violent
end of one who had attempted always to find peaceful solutions.
SOURCE CITATION
"Mohandas Gandhi." American Decades. Gale Research, 1998.
Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2010.
http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC
Document Number: K1602000475
Hitler, Adolf (1889–1945)
Also known as: Adolf Hitler, Adolf Schickelgruber, Der Fuhrer
Birth: April 20, 1889 in Braunau, Austria
Death: April 30, 1945 in Berlin, Germany
Nationality: German, Austrian
Occupation: Dictator, Politician, Chancellor (Government), Military leader,
Nationalist, Party leader, War criminal, Writer
Source: Europe Since 1914: Encyclopedia of the Age of War and
Reconstruction. John Merriman and Jay Winter, eds. 5 vols. Charles Scribner's
Sons, 2007.
Updated: 01/01/2007
BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
German chancellor and Führer.
No single figure, except perhaps the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, had as great an impact on the
history of the twentieth century as Adolf Hitler, the man who became Germany's chancellor in
1933, who led his country into history's largest war six years later, and whose defeat in 1945
ushered in a new age in European and world history.
EARLY LIFE
Hitler was born in the small Austrian town of Braunau am Inn on 20 April 1889. He was the
second son of Alois Hitler, a small-time official in the Habsburg Empire, and his second wife,
Klara. Little in his childhood indicated his later impact on history. He was a modest pupil at the
local schools he attended near Linz, where his parents moved in 1898. He lost interest in
schooling as he grew older. His early years were dominated by loss: four of his brothers and
sisters died in childhood; his father, for whom he had scant affection, died in 1903; and his
mother, to whom he was devoted, four years later in December 1907, when Hitler was eighteen.
He left school at sixteen, and two years later moved from Linz to the capital, Vienna, where he
hoped to enroll at the prestigious Academy of Fine Arts to pursue a career as an artist. His
rejection by the academy left him embittered and rootless. In 1913, partly to avoid military
conscription, he left Vienna for Munich. Though he was eventually forced to return briefly to
Austria, where he was pronounced unfit for service in February 1914, he went back to Munich
where his bohemian existence ended abruptly with the outbreak of World War I. He volunteered
to fight for Germany and was accepted into the Bavarian army in August 1914.
Hitler's Austrian background was important in many ways in shaping his views about society and
politics. He became interested in the parliamentary debates and listened to them from the gallery.
He later claimed that his contempt for parliaments was formed watching the many small Austrian
parties squabbling. He was attracted to the pan-German movement and saw the future of Austria
in a larger "Greater German" state than the loose Habsburg confederation with its large nonGerman minorities. His profound sense of German identity became the core of his political being.
Other influences were particularly Viennese. He developed his love of opera in Vienna,
particularly, but not exclusively, Richard Wagner. His dislike of artistic modernism almost certainly
dates from this period, as he struggled to sell neat and conventional landscapes in a city that
hosted the artistic fin de siècle.
Myths abound from his time in Vienna. He was never the penniless artist and laborer in the selfconstructed legend of his later years but was able to survive on several small legacies and the
money he made from selling pictures. The claim that life in Vienna explains Hitler's anti-Semitism
has little foundation in fact, though hostility to the Jews was all around him in the prewar capital.
He sold his pictures to Jewish galleries and had a number of Jewish friends. His favorite
conductor at the Vienna Court Opera was the German-Jewish Gustav Mahler. Hitler would have
witnessed the arrival of many eastern Jews in the capital before 1914, but prejudices against
them were shared even by Vienna's own established Jewish community. The assumption that
Hitler's hatred of the Jews stemmed from these early encounters has not been demonstrated with
any certainty.
Hitler's anti-Semitism became an evidently central part of his worldview only at the end of World
War I. He served throughout the war at the front, much of the time as a "runner" between the front
line and headquarters. He was promoted to corporal and earned the Iron Cross, Second Class, in
1914, and First Class in 1918. Shortly before the end of the war he was in the hospital after being
temporarily blinded in a gas attack. Here he heard about the Armistice, and it was from around
this point that his hatred of Jews and Marxists, who it was widely alleged had "stabbed Germany
in the back," became the keynotes of his worldview. Hitler was one of many veterans of the war
whose own sense of personal loss was projected onto the fact of German defeat and dishonor,
but with Hitler these hatreds and anxieties became psychological props of extraordinary power to
the extent that he came to see himself as the personification of Germany's suffering and also the
instrument of German salvation.
RISE TO POWER
Following the Armistice, Hitler was invited by one of his officers to become an army informer
working among the many political splinter groups in Munich, which was in the throes of political
crisis following a brief communist republic. During one of these visits, to a meeting of the German
Workers' Party, Hitler was very impressed by that party's mixture of nationalism, anti-Semitism,
and populist quasi-socialist politics. He joined the tiny party in September 1919 and was soon
appointed to be its propaganda chief. He abandoned the army and devoted himself full time to
radical nationalist politics. In 1920 he encouraged the party to change its name to the National
Socialist German Workers' Party (the NSDAP, or the Nazi Party). A party program was drawn up,
and, after a brief power struggle with the party's leader, Anton Drexler, Hitler emerged as the
party's undisputed master in July 1921. He set out to transform the party into a mass movement
committed to the revolutionary transformation of Germany and the reassertion of German national
power. When the young Weimar Republic was plunged into political chaos in 1923 during the
hyperinflation, Hitler and the party leadership decided to collaborate with other extreme-right
forces in Bavaria to stage a coup and a possible march on Berlin. The so-called Beer Hall Putsch
took place on 8–9 November when the Bavarian government was taken hostage and Hitler and
his allies marched through the streets of Munich to the town hall. Police and army units met the
march and opened fire. Hitler narrowly avoided injury. The fiasco brought him to the edge of
suicide, but when he was arrested and put on trial between February and April 1924 alongside his
National Socialist colleagues and the nationalist general Erich Ludendorff, he used the trial as the
opportunity to campaign for German national revival. He was sentenced to five years in
Landsberg prison, but served fewer than nine months before he was amnestied. During his
incarceration he dictated his autobiography and a summary of his worldview. The manuscript was
published a year later under the title Mein Kampf (My struggle). The book became the bible of the
National Socialist movement and by 1945 more than eight million had been sold.
Hitler emerged from prison to find his movement split and scattered. In 1925 and 1926 he
struggled to reimpose his authority, but not until the party congress at Weimar in July 1926 did he
finally unite the party factions and have himself declared party leader (Führer), the title by which
he was generally known from then until his death in 1945. After the failure of the coup in 1923,
Hitler determined to take the legal path to power by taking part in national and local elections. By
the general election in 1928 the party had grown considerably in size but won only a tiny fraction
of the vote and twelve seats in parliament. The economic slump that started in 1929 helped Hitler
and the party to move to the political center-stage. Growing fear of German communism
combined with exceptional levels of economic and social hardship to create a large constituency
looking for some form of political salvation. Hitler used party propaganda remorselessly to
promote the idea that he was the German messiah who would lead his adopted country into a
future of social harmony, economic well-being, and national rebirth. The traditional right and
center of German politics collapsed, and millions flooded to support National Socialism. In the
election of 1930 the party became the second largest. After Hitler contested the presidential
election against the aging field marshal Paul von Hindenburg in April 1932, which Hitler lost by a
small margin, the Nazi Party won the largest share of the vote (37 percent) in the July 1932
election. This did not secure a majority in the German parliament, but it made stable government
impossible for the loose coalitions that tried to govern. Hitler would not join forces with other
parties unless he was made chancellor. Following new elections in November, Germany became
almost ungovernable. Hindenburg was persuaded by a clique of nationalist aristocrats around
Franz von Papen to appoint Hitler as part of a broad nationalist front. On 30 January 1933 he was
summoned into office as German chancellor.
Though Hitler was soon to have an exceptional impact on German and European affairs, the man
who assumed the chancellorship was little known outside Germany and even among the German
people. Hitler was a private person, who relied largely on a constructed "cult of personality" to
project his image and win mass support. The private Hitler was unassuming, socially awkward,
capable of bursts of hysterical irritation, but otherwise colorless. He chose not to marry, modeling
himself on Karl Lueger, mayor of Vienna from 1897 to 1910, who had deliberately avoided
matrimony so that he could serve his political office. Hitler is said to have had an affair with his
niece Geli Raubal, and her suicide in 1931 affected him profoundly. Later in the 1930s he took as
his companion Eva Braun, a former photographic assistant, but she was forced to live in the
shadows. Hitler's public persona was remarkably different. He was a violent and evangelical
speaker who developed the capacity to sway a crowd (even if most of them were composed of
the party faithful) with his messianic vision of a German future. He used the personality cult to
create the legend of the humble German who had survived life in the trenches to save Germany
from the Marxists, Jews, and international plutocrats who had stifled and subverted it since 1918.
His ideology was a mix of pseudoscientific race theory, modern illiberalism, and ideals of
community that he picked up from discourses that were European-wide. He gave the latter a
particularly German gloss, presenting Germany as the nation destined to save and rebuild
European culture and succeed the decadent empires of the West. This worldview was seldom
articulated fully (he followed Mein Kampf with a second manuscript dictated in 1928, but this was
not published until 1961, long after his death). During the life of his regime, which was soon
described as the Third Reich or "empire," Hitler wrote very little. His ideas were worked out in
great set-piece speeches delivered at party congresses and rallies.
HITLER IN POWER
Hitler's appointment in January 1933 opened the way for a nationalist revolution supported by
more than those who had joined the party or voted for Hitler. At first the regime was a coalition of
nationalist forces. Hitler was chancellor, but only three other party leaders were in the cabinet.
Following an arson attack on the parliament building in Berlin on the night of 27 February 1933,
Hitler got the president to approve emergency powers that became the basis for a regime of
"legal" terror exercised principally against communist, social democratic, and Catholic opponents
of the party. New elections were called in March, and Hitler and his nationalist allies won more
than 50 percent of the vote. A few days later, on 24 March, an Enabling Bill was promulgated that
allowed the cabinet to approve changes to the constitution and to draft legislation. Over the next
nine months other political parties were banned, the trade unions were abolished and their assets
seized, and the provincial governments were forced to accept rule directly from Berlin. The
dictatorship was consolidated in 1934 following the murder on 30 June of leaders of the party's
paramilitary wing, the SA (Sturmabteilung), who were accused of plotting against the party
leadership. Hitler himself arrested the chief of the SA, Ernst Röhm, who was shot on his orders
the following day. Parliament then approved Hitler's right to take the law into his own hands. In
early August, President von Hindenburg died, and Hitler took the opportunity to fuse the function
of president and chancellor together by creating a single office of Führer, which was formally
approved by national plebiscite later that month. The office was a unique one; Hitler was
effectively above the law, able to make and enforce it as he saw fit. This was the essence of his
personal rule.
Hitler's style of ruling was deliberately unconventional. He saw himself as the country's messiah
whose task was to guide the German people to its new destiny. He disliked committee meetings
and his attendance at cabinet meetings declined rapidly after 1934, until the cabinet ceased
meeting altogether in February 1938. He preferred more informal governance. He met party
leaders in secret meetings; ministers and officials discussed issues with him face-to-face; he
delegated a good deal of responsibility to special commissioners who enjoyed his powerful
backing; decisions were taken over lunch, at dinner, or on walks around his villa in the small
Bavarian town, Berchtesgaden, that he chose as his retreat from Berlin and as a second political
center. He preferred the company of party friends and leaders, and it was they who came to play
an increasingly important part in pushing policy through and in subverting the normative state,
vying for Hitler's attention and basking in his reflected glory. He indulged technical experts as
well. Throughout his period as dictator Hitler was fascinated by monumental architecture and
advanced technology; in 1934 he launched the construction of a network of fast motorways and in
1937 decreed the rebuilding of Germany's major cities, both projects a monument to his selfimage as an "artist-ruler" rather than a mere politician.
The absence of settled administrative routine and the habit of delegation has led some historians
to the conclusion that Hitler was a "weak dictator," dominated by the power structures around him
and unable to insist on his own political intentions. The reality was more complex. There were no
power centers that could effectively challenge Hitler's position after 1934; no major decisions
could be taken without his consent, and Hitler could overturn minor decisions, even of the courts,
if he chose to intervene. The cult of personality secured popular endorsement, while governing
circles around Hitler understood that loyalty to the dictator was the central element in their
survival. But Hitler was aware that he faced circumstances that were not always under his control,
either at home or abroad, and he continuously engaged in political activity designed to remove
barriers to the exercise of his power. He displayed moments of uncertainty or fear of risk, but
once decisions were taken he regarded them as irreversible, the result of what he regarded as an
act of dictatorial will. But on the principal issues of Germany's international revival,
remilitarization, and biological purification Hitler played a more direct part as befitted, in his view,
a leader destined to create a utopian "new order."
Foreign and military policy absorbed a large part of Hitler's energy throughout the whole history of
the Third Reich. As early as February 1933 he announced to the cabinet that the chief priority of
the new regime was to re-create Germany's military power. In October 1933 he took Germany out
of the Disarmament Conference that had been called the year before at Geneva, and withdrew
Germany from the League of Nations. He moved cautiously at first to avoid fear of foreign
intervention, but in March 1935 he publicly declared German rearmament, and a year later, in
March 1936, he ordered German forces to reoccupy the demilitarized zone of the Rhineland,
imposed on Germany under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. In August 1936, at
Berchtesgaden, he drafted a memorandum that laid out the future of German strategy. He saw
Jewish bolshevism as the greatest threat Germany confronted and called for rearmament on a
massive scale at the expense of every other priority. In October he appointed Hermann Goering
(chief of the German air force) to head the creation of a four-year plan to prepare the German
economy and the German armed forces for war in four years.
WORLD WAR II AND THE GENOCIDEOF THE JEWS
Hitler had no clear blueprint for war, but he saw conflict as inevitable if Germany were to claim its
just position as a world imperial power. On 5 November 1937 he finally revealed to his
commanders his resolve to absorb Austria into the German Reich and to attack Czechoslovakia
at the first opportunity. His homeland was occupied by German troops on 12 March 1938, and a
few days later Hitler rode in triumph into Vienna, where he announced Austria's union in a
Greater Germany. He then informed the army of his intention to invade the Czech state in the
autumn, but the diplomatic intervention of Britain and France delayed conquest. At the Munich
conference on 29–30 September Hitler was granted the German-speaking areas of the
Sudetenland, but on 15 March of the following year he ordered the occupation of the rump Czech
state in defiance of the Western powers. Two weeks later he decided on war against Poland for
refusing to return the "German" territories Poland had been granted in 1919. This time he ignored
threats from Britain and France, assuming they were too decadent and militarily weak to interfere
seriously, and, after approving an expedient nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union signed on
23 August, he ordered German forces to attack Poland on 1 September. Two days later Britain
and France declared war.
Hitler made foreign policy his own preserve. His initiatives were often opposed by more prudent
military leaders, even on occasion by his party colleagues, but he was determined that Germany
should become the dominant power in Eurasia during his lifetime. His role in German race policy
is less certain. Hitler made anti-Semitism a central part of his worldview in the 1920s. He saw the
Jew as an eternal enemy of all higher forms of culture; he identified the Jew with bolshevism and
"social decomposition"; and he adopted popular biological racism and applied it to the Jewish
"bacillus," which he thought infected the purity of German blood. This mix of prejudices was used
by Hitler to define the threat to Germany and German national identity, but there is little evidence
before 1939 that he ever considered the genocide of the Jews as the solution to what was
defined as "the Jewish question." The lack of a clear genocidal program has divided historians
over the issue of Hitler's responsibility; so-called intentionalists assume that he must have played
a central part, while "structuralist" historians argue that the system moved step-by-step toward
more radical racist solutions.
There is no doubt that race policy was pushed along by enthusiasts in the party and a science
establishment keen to pursue a policy of race hygiene. Hitler approved but did not initiate the
sterilization law of January 1934, nor did he take the initiative in the Race Laws approved in
September 1935 at the party rally in Nuremberg, which forbade marriage between Jews and
ethnic Germans and turned Germany's Jews into second-class citizens. Hitler never obstructed
the radicalization of anti-Semitic policy, but his exploitation of race prejudice was rhetorical as
much as practical. Only in January 1939, in a speech to the German parliament, did Hitler
confront the "Jewish question" directly when he announced that if Germany were to be dragged
into a global war again, it would mean the annihilation (Vernichtung) of the Jewish people in
Europe. Hitler linked war and racism together from 1939. The Jew was seen as a malign
international force using the cover of world war to destroy Germany, and it was this warped
perception that made Hitler's anti-Semitism so dangerous.
Hitler's popularity in Germany reached its highest point between 1939 and 1940. In two weeks
German forces defeated Poland. Hitler wanted to attack French and British forces at once, but
was persuaded by his generals to wait until the spring. In April he ordered the occupation of
Denmark and Norway, to protect the northern flank, and on 10 May German armies launched a
campaign that in six weeks defeated the Netherlands, Belgium, and France and drove British
forces from mainland Europe. Hitler was hailed as the greatest German; his regime began to plan
the building of a new European order. In late July 1940 he announced to his military commanders
that, despite the non-aggression pact, he would order an attack on the Soviet Union to complete
the establishment of a new German empire and destroy forever the threat of "Jewish
bolshevism." When the German air force failed to defeat the Royal Air Force in the autumn of
1940 as a prelude to a quick invasion of southern Britain, Hitler turned to the east. On 18
December he issued the Barbarossa order for an assault on the Soviet Union in the early
summer. In the spring German forces were diverted to the conquest of Yugoslavia and Greece,
but on 22 June 1941 the invasion of the Soviet Union began. In the months beforehand Hitler had
approved special orders allowing German troops and security forces to murder communists and
Jews in state service, and from the early weeks of the invasion Jewish communities were
targeted for indiscriminate murder.
Historians argue over when or if Hitler ordered the genocide of the Jews at some point in the
second half of 1941. No document has ever been found, but Hitler can be shown to have played
a part in all the key decisions about the murder of Soviet Jews. As German forces pushed into the
Soviet Union, Hitler was convinced that victory was assured. Orders were given to extend Jewish
executions to women and children, German Jews were finally rounded up and deported east, and
orders were given for the first purpose-built extermination centers to be set up. On 12 December,
a day after Germany's declaration of war on the United States, Hitler gave a speech to party
leaders in which he was reported to have announced a program for the physical annihilation of
European Jews in line with the threat he had made in January 1939. Though there can be no
certainty about the date, most historians agree that Hitler approved a policy of extensive mass
murder at some point in the last weeks of 1941, and reconfirmed this in the course of 1942 as
murder was applied to Jewish communities from other parts of occupied Europe. The genocide
continued for the next three years, but Hitler seems to have taken only a limited interest once the
program was under way. His decisive interventions came in 1941.
HITLER'S FALL
Hitler from the autumn of 1941 became absorbed in the details of the military campaigns. In
February 1938 he had appointed himself supreme commander of the armed forces, and his
headquarters became the center of the German war effort. In December 1941, disillusioned with
the army leadership, he appointed himself commander-in-chief of the German army and
conducted the day-to-day war effort himself. He had staff reports and discussions once or twice a
day and spent most of his time at headquarters, his public appearances reduced almost to
nothing, his life a tedious routine of military briefings, technical reports, and dinners in which he
engaged in monologues about every aspect of world history and world affairs. In December 1942
he faced his greatest challenge with the encirclement and defeat of German armies at Stalingrad.
His health and temper deteriorated, sustained by regular applications of drugs prescribed by his
personal physician, Theodor Morell. As Germany faced defeat on all fronts, Hitler became ever
more determined to hold out to the bitter end in the hope that destiny might in the end rescue
Germany from collapse. In October 1943 he ordered a program of underground construction so
that Germany could carry on with the war despite bombing; he personally ordered the
development and production in the autumn of 1943 of "vengeance weapons" (the V1 flying bomb
and V2 rocket) to turn the tide of the war, though he made little effort to support programs of
nuclear research. In spring 1944 he insisted on dividing German forces along the French channel
coast to meet the expected Anglo-American invasion, a decision that made it possible for the
campaign in Normandy to succeed when it was launched on 6 June 1944. Throughout the period
of German retreats Hitler refused to acknowledge reality. Though some of his entourage made
tentative peace feelers, Hitler seems never to have entertained the idea of surrender.
On 20 July 1944 an attempt was made to assassinate Hitler at his headquarters, carried out by a
coterie of disillusioned senior soldiers. This was one of at least forty-two known attempts on
Hitler's life. The bomb left him injured but alive. In the aftermath hundreds of senior soldiers and
officials, drawn mainly from Germany's upper classes, were arrested and executed. Hitler's
personal rule remained unshaken and no further effort was made to stop him from dragging
Germany down into a state of complete destruction. In March 1945 he ordered a policy of
scorched earth inside Germany to deny the German people any chance of their survival. The
policy was ignored by most local authorities as Allied armies approached. In his last recorded
conversations Hitler blamed defeat not only on the Jews, but also on the Germans for failing the
supreme test of racial superiority. On 30 April 1945 he shot himself in his command bunker in
Berlin rather than risk capture by the encircling Red Army. Eva Braun, whom he had married the
day before, took cyanide. Their bodies were incinerated; only their dental remains could be found
and definitely identified. The Allies had intended to put Hitler on trial in 1945 for crimes against
peace and crimes against humanity. Every effort was made to avoid making Hitler into a
nationalist martyr.
Hitler's legacy has been a powerful one. He has continued to exert a fascination for historians
and the wider public outside Germany. Inside Germany his legacy has provoked profound
historical disagreements over how to come to terms with responsibility for war and genocide but
has also encouraged a self-conscious democratic spirit and hostility toward populist nationalism
and racism. Small groups of neo-Nazis have kept Hitler alive politically, but there has been no
mainstream movement to revive National Socialism or to encourage a postwar cult of Hitler. His
name has entered the language as the personification of modern evil.
RICHARD OVERY
SOURCE CITATION
"Hitler, Adolf (1889–1945)."Europe Since 1914: Encyclopedia of the Age of War
and Reconstruction. John Merriman and Jay Winter, eds. 5 vols. Charles
Scribner's Sons, 2007.
Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2010.
http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC
Document Number: K3447000445
Johnson, Andrew
Also known as: Andrew Johnson
Birth: December 29, 1808 in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States
Death: July 31, 1875 in Carter Station, Tennessee, United States
Nationality: American
Occupation: American president, President (Government)
Source: Presidents: A Reference History. Henry F. Graff, ed. 3rd ed. 1 vols.
Charles Scribner's Sons, 2002.
Updated: 01/01/2002
BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
Albert Castel
NO president ever became president under more dramatic and tragic circumstances than did
Andrew Johnson. On the night of 14 April 1865, Johnson, recently inaugurated as vice president,
went to bed in his hotel room in Washington, D.C. Scarcely had he gone to sleep when he was
awakened by a friend who informed him that President Lincoln had just been shot by an assassin
at Ford's Theater. Johnson promptly dressed and hastened to the boardinghouse where Lincoln
lay dying. He remained awhile and then left when it became apparent that the distraught Mrs.
Lincoln resented his presence. At 7:30 on the morning of 15 April church bells tolled, signaling
Lincoln's death. Shortly after 10 A.M. Johnson took the oath of office as the seventeenth
president of the United States.
Personal and Political Background
No president, not even Lincoln, rose from lower depths of poverty and deprivation to reach the
height of that office than did Johnson. He was born on 29 December 1808 in a two-room shack in
Raleigh, North Carolina; his parents were illiterate tavern servants; and he never attended school.
In 1822 he became a tailor's apprentice, learned that trade,and managed to acquire a
rudimentary knowledge of reading. At the age of seventeen he moved to east Tennessee, where
in 1827 he opened a tailor shop in Greeneville and married Eliza McCardle, a shoe-maker's
daughter who taught him to write and cipher.
His business prospered, but as soon as he was old enough to vote, he became active in politics,
first as an alderman and mayor in Greeneville, then as a state legislator, and next as a
Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from 1843 to 1853. In 1853
and again in 1855 he won election as governor of Tennessee, and in 1857 he went to the United
States Senate. By then he was a well-todo man, owned a few household slaves, and entertained
presidential aspirations.
A tireless campaigner, an unsurpassed stump speaker, and a man both shrewd and courageous,
Johnson was a staunch advocate of Jacksonian democracy and the champion of the "plebeians"
(the small farmers and tradesmen of Tennessee) against the "stuck-up aristocrats" (the wealthy,
slaveholding planter class). He also possessed, in the words of a fellow Tennessean who knew
him well, a "deep-seated, burning hatred of all men who stood in his way." For him political
combat was personal combat, and he engaged in it with uncompromising ferocity.
During the winter of 1860–1861, Johnson strongly opposed secession, both by the South as a
whole and by Tennessee. Although he believed in states' rights and defended the right of slavery,
he placed preservation of the Union above all else, argued that slavery could be best protected
within the Union, and denounced the Confederacy as a conspiracy by the planter aristocracy. For
a while he succeeded in keeping Tennessee in the Union, but following the outbreak of war in
April 1861, the state seceded and Johnson had to flee for his life to the North. His valiant struggle
against secession made him the leading Unionist of the South, won him the acclaim of the North,
and caused the South to condemn him as a renegade.
In March 1862, after federal forces captured Nashville, Lincoln appointed Johnson military
governor of Tennessee. During the next three years he strove against great obstacles to establish
a pro-Union civil government, a goal that was finally achieved early in 1865, when a new state
constitution abolishing slavery went into effect. Realizing that the war doomed slavery, Johnson
supported Lincoln's emancipation policy and told the blacks of Tennessee that he would be the
Moses who led them into the promised land of freedom.
Meanwhile, Lincoln, hoping to attract support from northern prowar Democrats and border-state
Unionists, arranged for Johnson to be his running mate in the 1864 presidential election. Hence,
Johnson returned to Washington, where on 4 March 1865 he was inaugurated as vice president.
Unhappily, prior to the ceremony Johnson, who recently had been ill and was feeling faint, drank
some whiskey and then delivered a rambling, maudlin, almost incoherent inaugural address.
Later on, enemies would seize upon this incident to denounce Johnson as "the drunken tailor,"
but there is no evidence that he habitually overindulged. As it was, he realized that he had
disgraced himself and that there was little chance he would ever again play an important role in
national affairs. Then came Lincoln's assassination, and suddenly he was the most important
man in the nation.
Johnson's Task
With Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox on 9 April 1865, the Civil War to all intents and
purposes ended, leaving in its wake over six hundred thousand dead Union and Confederate
soldiers, a devastated and demoralized South, and an exultant and dominant North. The great
issue now was Reconstruction. The Union was preserved and slavery was destroyed. But by
what process and under what terms would the seceded states come back into the Union? And
what would be the future legal, political, and social status of blacks? Johnson faced the task of
dealing with these questions; on his success or failure in doing so depended the success or
failure of his presidency.
During the war both Lincoln and Congress had wrestled with Reconstruction. In 1863, Lincoln
instituted in Louisiana and Arkansas a program whereby 10 percent of the voters, on taking an
oath of allegiance, could form state governments and elect congressmen; once the latter were
seated, these states again would be in the Union. The Republican majority in Congress, feeling
that the Ten Percent Plan was inadequate and overly lenient, refused to seat the congressmen
elected under it and declared that Reconstruction should be carried out by the legislative, rather
than the executive, branch.
In July 1864, Congress passed the Wade-Davis bill, which disfranchised all high-ranking
Confederates,required 50 percent of the voters in a rebel state to take a loyalty oath before
elections could be held, and made abolition of slavery a condition for read-mission to the Union.
Lincoln in turn pocket vetoed this measure on the grounds that Reconstruction policy should be
flexible—that is, carried out by the president. Finally, to confuse matters even more, just before
his death Lincoln hinted that with the coming of peace he might take a different approach to
Reconstruction, one in which voting rights would be given to blacks who had served in the Union
army or who were "very intelligent."
Thus, April 1865 found the government without an established Reconstruction policy and with the
Republicans divided over what the policy should be. One faction, the Radical Republicans, of
whom Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts and Representative Thaddeus Stevens of
Pennsylvania were the outstanding spokesmen, contended that the Confederate leaders should
be punished severely, that the rebel states should not be restored to the Union until their future
loyalty was assured, and that blacks should receive full civil and political rights both as an act of
justice and as a means of securing Unionist (that is, Republican) domination of the South.
Another faction, the Moderate Republicans, was primarily concerned about preventing
secessionist leaders from returning to power in the South and about keeping the Democrats from
regaining their pre-1861 control of the government. They favored securing for blacks their basic
personal and civil rights but were hesitant about granting them political rights. They were more
numerous and powerful than the Radicals, particularly in Congress.
Finally, there were the Conservative Republicans, who saw no need to go beyond what the war
had already achieved—salvation of the Union and emancipation of the slaves—and who
therefore believed that the southern states should be readmitted quickly and that the fate of the
blacks should be left to the indefinite future. Although weak in Congress, the Conservatives were
strong in the cabinet that Johnson inherited from Lincoln—notably in the secretary of state, the
highly experienced and astute William H. Seward. In contrast, only one influential member of the
cabinet, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, was sympathetic to the Radicals.
The differences between the Radicals and Moderates were essentially ones of timing and degree,
but the Conservatives had more in common with the Democrats. Bitter over their loss of national
power in 1860, the Democrats wanted to bring the southern states back into the Union as soon as
possible, confi-dent that this would bring their party back to power. Moreover, having opposed
emancipation, they likewise opposed "Negro equality"; as far as they were concerned, the status
of the former slave should be determined by the former master.
Reconstruction Program
Paradoxically, both the Radicals and the Democrats welcomed Johnson's unexpected accession
to the presidency. The latter hoped that Johnson, as a lifelong Democrat, would sympathize or
even ally himself with their party. For their part the Radicals, who had considered Lincoln too
conservative, believed that Johnson inclined to their viewpoint because of his frequent and
vehement denunciations of secessionists as traitors who should be treated as such. Their
confidence that the new president was "thoroughly radical" increased as he continued to
advocate punishing the rebel leaders and when he repudiated an agreement made by Major
General William T. Sherman with Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston that had the effect of
leaving Confederates in control of southern state governments.
On 29 May 1865, Johnson announced his Reconstruction program in the form of two
proclamations. The Amnesty Proclamation pardoned all participants in the rebellion, restored their
property except slaves, and required them to take a loyalty oath. It excluded from amnesty the
upper-echelon leaders of the Confederacy and all persons possessing over $20,000 in taxable
property. Such people would have to apply to the president for a restoration of their right to vote
and hold office.
The other proclamation dealt with North Carolina, but its provisions set the pattern for all of the
seceded states except Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana, where pro-Union
governments already existed. It stated that the president would appoint a provisional governor
who would summon a convention to draw up a new constitution, whereupon the state would
resume its normal relationship to the Union. Only those men who had been eligible to vote in
1861 and who had taken the loyalty oath could vote for delegates to the constitutional convention;
in other words, unpardoned rebels and all blacks were barred from the polls, although the
convention or a subsequent state legislature could enfranchise the latter if it so desired.
Johnson's cabinet unanimously approved the proclamations, although the North Carolina one,
asdrafted by Secretary of War Stanton, originally left the way open for black suffrage. Taken
together, they were in accordance with Lincoln's approach to Reconstruction in that they gave top
priority to reconciling the North and South and looked to the speedy return of the seceded states
to the Union. On the other hand, the disfranchisement clauses of the Amnesty Proclamation had
more in common with the Wade-Davis bill than with the Ten Percent Plan, and the North Carolina
Proclamation showed no trace of Lincoln's proposal to give the vote to at least some blacks.
Three interlocking motives prompted Johnson's Reconstruction program. First, like Lincoln,
Johnson wanted to restore the southern states as functioning members of the Union as soon as
possible. To him this was the supreme purpose of the Civil War, whereas the future status of
blacks was a secondary matter that, for both constitutional and practical reasons, should be left to
the states. Second, he wished to transfer political power in the South from the planter aristocracy
to the "plebeian" democracy through the disfranchisement clauses of the Amnesty Proclamation.
Black suffrage, as he saw it, would thwart the achievement of this objective, because the majority
of blacks, even though free, would remain economically bound to the big planters and so would
be controlled politically by that class. Third, he hoped to be elected president in 1868 in his own
right by promoting what he was confident most Americans desired—sectional reconciliation—and
opposing what he was sure few of them favored—black equality. This approach, he believed,
would lead to the formation of a new political party that would combine the moderate majority in
both sections; unify and dominate the nation; and, of course, look to him as its leader.
Johnson's proclamations delighted the northern Democrats, pleased Conservative Republicans,
and relieved southerners, who had expected the worst from the Tennessee turncoat. The
Radicals were disappointed by Johnson's failure to give at least some blacks the vote and began
to suspect that they were mistaken about his sentiments. As for the Moderate Republicans, they
considered the proclamations satisfactory as far as they went, but worried about unrepentant
rebels taking control of the new southern state governments and electing congressmen who
would join with the northern Democrats to challenge Republican power nationally. Many of them
also had misgivings about leaving the fate of the blacks entirely in the hands of their former
masters. For the time being, both Radicals and Moderates withheld overt criticism of Johnson's
program and waited to see how it worked in practice.
Implementation of Johnson's Program
Johnson followed the North Carolina Proclamation with identical declarations for Mississippi,
South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and Texas. During the summer and fall of 1865, all of
these states held constitutional conventions. Through the provisional governors he appointed,
Johnson directed each state to nullify its secession ordinance, ratify the Thirteenth Amendment
by formally abolishing slavery, and repudiate its Confederate debt. South Carolina refused to
carry out nullification, Mississippi balked at ratification, and neither of those states repudiated its
debt.
Aware of Republican concern about blacks, Johnson also advised—but did not require—these
states to "extend the electoral franchise to all persons of color" who could read, who could write
their names, or who owned real estate worth at least $250, and to enact laws "for the protection
of freedmen in person and property." By doing this, Johnson pointed out, they would "completely
disarm the adversary"—by which he meant the Radicals—and greatly enhance their chances of
quick readmission to the Union. It was excellent advice, but the southerners failed to heed it. The
very idea of former slaves voting was repugnant to them, and they were resolved to restore by
other means the "white supremacy" formerly guaranteed by slavery. Hence, none of the southern
states so much as considered limited black suffrage; instead, they began enacting "black
codes"—laws that provided some basic rights for blacks but had the effect, as well as the intent,
of placing them in a position of legal, economic, and social subordination approaching peonage.
Nor was this all. During the fall of 1865 the South held state and congressional elections in which
most of the successful candidates were men who had supported the Confederacy. Furthermore,
many of the winners were ineligible to hold office under the terms of the Amnesty Proclamation,
but by then, that made little practical difference. At first sparing in conferring pardons, Johnson
was granting them almost automatically by the latter part of 1865. By doing so, he undermined his
plan of transferring politicalpower in the South to the "plebeian" class, but he advanced his
presidential ambitions by gaining the goodwill of the former Confederate leaders, who obviously
remained dominant in the South. In keeping with this alteration in his strategy, Johnson directed
that lands confiscated from rebels during the war be returned to them, thereby dispossessing
several thousand blacks who had been settled on them by the Union army.
Aside from Democrats and Conservative Republicans, northerners became increasingly disturbed
by Johnson's program and its consequences. They resented the election of Confederate leaders
to office, they considered the black codes an attempt to restore slavery, and they were angered
by newspaper reports, sometimes exaggerated but sometimes quite accurate, of violent acts
committed against blacks, Unionists, and northerners in the South. To them it seemed that the
southerners were not displaying proper repentance for the sins of secession and slavery, that
they remained disloyal at heart, and that they were attempting to undo the results of the war.
Most Republican politicians felt the same way. Furthermore, they feared that the newly elected
southern senators and representatives would, by uniting with the northern Democratic members,
threaten their control of Congress. Hence, when Congress, which had not been in session since
March, reassembled early in December 1865, the Republican majority barred the southern
congressmen from their seats and set up the Joint Committee of Fifteen on Reconstruction,
headed by Senator William Pitt Fessenden of Maine, to investigate conditions in the South and
recommend appropriate legislation. In taking these actions, the Republicans signaled that they
believed further Reconstruction measures were needed and that they intended to formulate them.
Congress' rejection of the southern delegates did not surprise Johnson, as newspapers had been
predicting it for sometime, but he was angered by the establishment of the Joint Committee on
Reconstruction, deeming it a direct challenge not only to his Reconstruction policy but also to his
authority as president. In his annual message to Congress, delivered on 5 December and
ghostwritten by the historian George Bancroft, Johnson sought to rally public opinion behind his
program by arguing that to continue military occupation of the South or to try to impose black
suffrage on it was contrary to the Constitution and to the very concept of democracy, that the sole
legitimate purpose of Reconstruction was the restoration and reconciliation of the southern
people to the Union, that this now had been substantially accomplished, and that all that
remained to be done to complete Reconstruction was to seat the congressmen from the former
rebel states.
Public reaction to the message was, on the whole, favorable, and Johnson felt confident that
eventually the Republicans would be compelled to admit the southern delegates or else place
themselves in the ruinous position of keeping America divided. The only significant group that
openly denounced Johnson for his handling of Reconstruction was the Radicals. Johnson
endeavored to counteract them by releasing a report written by General Grant on conditions in
the South in which Grant asserted that "the mass of thinking men in the South accept the present
situation of affairs in good faith" and by stating in published interviews that giving blacks the vote
against the will of the whites would produce a race war in the South.
For a while it seemed that Johnson's strategy would succeed. Then, early in February 1866,
Congress, by unanimous vote of the Republicans, passed the Freedmen's Bureau bill. This
measure extended indefinitely the life of the Freedmen's Bureau, an agency created near the end
of the war to provide aid, education, and legal protection for former slaves. Republican leaders
not only hoped but expected Johnson to sign it. Anxious to avoid a split with the president that
would play into the hands of the Democrats, they had gone to him prior to its passage and offered
to change anything to which he had strong objections; he voiced none and they assumed he had
none.
Hence, they and Republicans throughout the nation were stunned when, on 19 February,
Johnson vetoed the bill. It was, he declared, unnecessary and unconstitutional; furthermore, it
had been passed by a Congress that unjustly excluded the duly elected representatives of eleven
states. In totally rejecting the bill, Johnson ignored the advice of some of his advisers, notably
Secretary of State Seward, that he propose a compromise. Doing this, he feared, would cost him
his recently acquired popularity in the South, where the Freedmen's Bureau was hated as the
main obstacle to the restoration of white supremacy, and cause the Democrats to turn against
him, thereby ruining his plan to form a new party. He realized that the Republicans would resent
the veto,but he calculated that popular sentiment would oblige most of them to accept both it and
his leadership.
On 20 February the Senate, by a vote of 30 to 18, failed to achieve the two-thirds majority needed
to override the veto; three Moderate Republicans, hoping to forestall an open break with the
president, joined eight Democrats and seven Conservatives to sustain it. Johnson exulted in the
victory. Ignoring the thin margin by which it had been obtained, he believed that he had
successfully defied the "Radicals," as he indiscriminately labeled all Republicans who were not
Conservatives. On the evening of Washington's Birthday, he delivered from a White House
balcony to a crowd of supporters a speech in which he excoriated his opponents in general, and
Sumner and Stevens in particular, as traitors bent on subverting the Constitution and
consolidating all power in the central government. So intemperate were his remarks that even
friends were embarrassed, and most Northerners felt that he disgraced the presidency.
Less than three weeks later, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866. Designed to protect
blacks against the black codes and southern white terrorism, the bill declared them citizens of the
United States entitled to equal protection of the laws and conferred broad enforcement powers on
the federal government. As with the Freedmen's Bureau bill, Republican congressional leaders
solicited Johnson's views on this measure and again got the impression that he found it
acceptable. In spite of the Freedmen's Bureau bill veto and the Washington's Birthday tirade,
Moderates still hoped to achieve harmony with the president and within the Republican party.
As before, their hope proved unfounded. On 27 March, Johnson delivered another stern veto.
The civil rights bill, he declared, was an unconstitutional intrusion on states' rights and
discriminated against whites in favor of blacks. No doubt he was sincere in making these
assertions, but as in the case of the Freedmen's Bureau veto, he also was motivated by his
desire to retain Democratic and southern support.
The veto outraged most northerners and turned all of the Moderate Republicans against Johnson.
They concluded that he had gone over to the Democrats and that in alliance with them and the
southerners he was endeavoring to destroy the Republican party. Hence, on 6 April the Senate
overrode the veto by 33 to 15, and three days later the House did the same by 122 to 41. For the
first time, a Congress had defeated a presidential veto.
Johnson's rejection of the civil rights bill was the greatest blunder of a presidency filled with
blunders. Had he signed the bill or, as most of his advisers urged him to do, returned it to
Congress with a request that its enforcement provisions be modified, he could have kept the
Moderates and Radicals divided. Instead, he united them in opposition to him, thereby ruining any
realistic chance of securing the early readmission of the southern states while setting in motion
forces that would render him nearly impotent as president.
Meanwhile, the Joint Committee on Reconstruction had been conducting hearings and
considering legislation. On 30 April—the same day a white mob began a three-day rampage
against blacks in Memphis, Tennessee—the committee reported a constitutional amendment
designed to make permanent the protections given by the Civil Rights Act. Two months of debate
ensued, at the end of which Congress adopted the Fourteenth Amendment, which provided that
all persons born or naturalized in the United States are to be citizens and that no state may
"deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any
person . . . the equal protection of the laws." In addition, the amendment provided for reducing
the House representation of any state denying adult male citizens the vote, disfranchised former
federal and state officials who engaged in rebellion, guaranteed the Union war debt, declared the
Confederate debt void, and stated that "Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate
legislation, the provisions of this article."
Like the Freedmen's Bureau bill (which, incidentally, Congress repassed in July, overriding
another veto) and the Civil Rights Act, the Fourteenth Amendment was a product of the
Moderates, who beat back an effort by Sumner and Stevens to incorporate black suffrage per se.
By adopting it, the Republicans in effect set forth the peace terms of the North and of Congress.
Should the southern states ratify it, thereby indicating acceptance of equal civil rights for blacks,
they would be readmitted forthwith to the Union. Should they reject it, then (the Republicans
clearly implied) they could expect much more drastic treatment.
Johnson promptly denounced the amendment and called for its defeat. All of the former
Confederate states, with one exception, either rejected it ortook no action. The exception was
Johnson's own Tennessee, which, under the almost dictatorial sway of Governor William
("Parson") Brownlow, ratified it against the will of its largely disfranchised citizens. The vast
majority of southerners found the prospect of black legal and civil equality intolerable. Moreover,
they believed, as did Johnson himself, that northerners would not impose on their fellow whites of
the South something they themselves denied blacks in most of their states.
The Referendum of 1866
On 28 July, Congress adjourned and its members headed home to engage in the upcoming
congressional elections. These elections, as everyone knew, would be a de facto referendum on
Reconstruction. If the Republicans could maintain or increase their majority in Congress, it would
mean the North supported their policy of protecting black rights in the South; if they lost their
majority or had it substantially reduced, then they would stand repudiated and Johnson would be
vindicated.
Johnson sought to secure Republican defeat and victory for himself in two main ways. The first
was to try to form a working coalition of Conservative Republicans and northern Democrats that
would back candidates favorable to his Reconstruction policy and serve as a step toward the
establishment of a new political party. To this end he arranged for the organization of "Johnson
Clubs" throughout the North and the border states, and for the meeting of delegates from all of
the northern and southern states in the National Union Convention in Philadelphia on 14–16
August. The Johnson Clubs tended to be dominated by Democrats, and many of the participants
in the National Union Convention were prominent Copperheads and Confederates.
Consequently, most Republicans regarded both moves as merely devices to trick them into voting
for Democrats, and instead of gaining support, Johnson lost it.
Johnson's other major effort to overthrow the Republicans took the form of doing something no
previous president had done—making a personal campaign tour. Using as the occasion an
invitation to dedicate a monument to Stephen A. Douglas in Chicago, Johnson left Washington on
28 August in a special train that carried him north to upstate New York, west to Chicago, south to
St. Louis, and then back east to Washington via the Ohio Valley. Proud of his prowess as a
stump orator, Johnson believed that if he could speak directly to the people, he would rally them
behind his Reconstruction policy. Instead, this "swing around the circle" proved to be a political
and personal fiasco. Everywhere he went, Johnson delivered virtually the same speech; before
long, his audiences knew what he was going to say before he said it, and pro-Republican
humorists had a field day parodying his repetitious remarks. On several occasions, notably in
Cleveland and St. Louis, hecklers caused him to lose his temper, to engage in unseemly debates,
and to make indiscreet statements. At Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, and several other cities hostile
crowds shouted him down, and Republican newspapers denounced him as a vulgar, drunken
demagogue who was disgracing the presidency, accusations with which many northerners
agreed. Far from persuading the northern people, he ended up disgusting them.
During September, October, and November the voters of the North went to the polls. When all
ballots were counted, the Republicans had retained control of every state in the North and
increased their already huge majority in Congress. Quite obviously the course of Reconstruction
henceforth would be determined by Congress with little or no reference to the wishes of the
president. Any chance that Johnson would be able to form a new party and succeed himself in
the White House had been destroyed, although in spite of everything he would continue to harbor
the latter ambition.
Congressional Reconstruction
On 3 December 1866, Congress reassembled, with the Republicans resolved to scrap Johnson's
Reconstruction program and replace it with a new one. Reinforcing their resolve was the refusal
of the ten southern states still outside the Union to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment and the New
Orleans riot of 30 July, in which a mob of whites massacred thirty-eight Republicans, thirty-four of
whom were blacks.
All through the winter Congress debated and labored. As before, the Radicals pushed for black
suffrage, whereas the Moderates held back, fearing that imposing this on the South would indeed
outrage the North, where only a handful of states, all with minuscule black populations, permitted
blacks to vote. Ultimately, faced with political humiliation if they did not come up with something,
the Republicans united to pass the Military Reconstruction Act late in February 1867.
The act divided the ten unreconstructed states into five military districts, each under a general
empowered to employ military courts and troops to maintain order and enforce federal laws;
directed that conventions elected by black voters and eligible whites be held in each of the ten
states for the purpose of framing new constitutions that would provide for black suffrage;
stipulated that after a state had adopted its new constitution and ratified the Fourteenth
Amendment it would be entitled to congressional representation; and, finally, barred from voting
for, and serving in, the state constitutional conventions any person guilty of violating an oath to
uphold the United States Constitution by voluntarily engaging in rebellion. In sum this was, and
remains, the most drastic law ever enacted by Congress, for it placed millions of citizens under
military rule in peacetime, deprived hundreds of thousands of them of political rights, and
enfranchised a group that the majority of Americans at that time considered unqualified to
participate in government. Nevertheless, like the Civil Rights Act and the Fourteenth Amendment,
it was largely a Moderate measure; Sumner, Stevens, and other Radicals criticized it because it
allowed the readmission of southern states upon ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment and
did not confiscate "rebel" lands for distribution to blacks.
Congress also passed two bills aimed at Johnson himself. One, which took the form of an
amendment to the annual Army Appropriation Act, required the president to transmit all orders to
military commanders through General of the Army Grant, whom the Republicans counted on to
block or at least report any attempt by Johnson to sabotage the administration of the Military
Reconstruction Act. The other measure was the Tenure of Office Act. This prohibited the
president from dismissing any official appointed with the Senate's consent without that body's
approval. Its purpose was to prevent Johnson from removing Republican officeholders and
replacing them with his own supporters.
Needless to say, Johnson vetoed the Military Reconstruction Act, which he accurately described
as revolutionary, and the Tenure of Office Act, which he rightly labeled an unconstitutional
encroachment by the legislative on the executive branch; as for the Army Appropriation Act, he
signed it only because hefeared that to do otherwise would demoralize the army, but he protested
against the provision requiring him to issue orders via the general of the army. And needless to
say, Congress overrode his vetoes and ignored his protest. In addition, before recessing at the
end of March, the House instructed the Judiciary Committee to prepare a report on the
advisability of impeaching the president—a warning to Johnson to behave while Congress was
away from Washington. Thus, by the spring of 1867, Johnson's Reconstruction program had
been demolished and he, so it seemed, was reduced to virtual impotence.
Johnson Counterattacks
In spite of his defeats and humiliations, Johnson remained determined to fight on until he
achieved victory and vindication, just as he had done in his struggle against secession. He
believed that although most northerners, duped by Republican propaganda, might agree to civil
rights for blacks, they would not support the imposition of black suffrage on their fellow whites of
the South or the indefinite prolongation of bayonet rule in the southern states. Sooner or later, he
calculated, the Republicans would "hang themselves" with their extreme measures as public
opinion in the North turned against them. Meanwhile, until that happened, and in order to help
make it happen, he would do everything he could to oppose, cripple, and discredit Military
Reconstruction. He also hoped, indeed expected, that the Supreme Court would declare the
congressional program unconstitutional. Already, on 17 December 1866, the Court had held in
the case of Ex parte Milligan that military tribunals had no right to try civilians in areas where the
civil courts were functioning—a decision that obviously had negative implications for the Military
Reconstruction Act.
On 1 April 1867 an election in Connecticut resulted in the Democrats capturing the governorship
and three of that state's four congressional seats—the first Democratic victory in the North since
1864. Johnson saw this as a "turn of the current" of northern public opinion. It also encouraged
him to launch an indirect but potentially devastating assault on Military Reconstruction. At
Johnson's behest, Attorney General Henry B. Stanbery prepared an interpretation of the legal
powers of the district commanders in the South that, in the words of Michael Les Benedict,
"virtually emasculated the Reconstruction law." The Republicans, who had anticipated such a
move, quickly reconvened Congress, which on 13 July passed a supplementary Reconstruction
bill that overruled Stanbery's interpretation on every important point. Automatically Johnson
vetoed the bill, and just as automatically, Congress repassed it over his veto and then again went
home, hoping that Johnson finally realized the futility of resisting its will—a vain hope.
Playing a key role in carrying out Military Reconstruction was Secretary of War Stanton. For a
long time Johnson had been aware of the fact that Stanton constantly obstructed his policies, that
he habitually lied to him, and that he was actively aiding the congressional Republicans. Yet he
had held back from dismissing him from the cabinet out of fear of the political and personal
repercussions, for Stanton enjoyed great prestige in the North because of his wartime services
and possessed strong backing among the Republicans. By the summer of 1867, Johnson had
decided that he no longer would tolerate Stanton's disloyalty to his administration. Therefore, on
11 August, after failing to obtain Stanton's resignation, he suspended Stanton from office under
the terms of the Tenure of Office Act and named Grant acting secretary of war, a post Grant
accepted with great reluctance, as he, too, opposed the president's Reconstruction program and
had been secretly collaborating with Congress. In addition, on 17 August, Johnson relieved Major
General Philip H. Sheridan as commander of the Military District of Louisiana and Texas, where
he had been pursuing a course that Johnson deemed both tyrannical and insubordinate.
As was to be expected, the Republicans reacted to Stanton's suspension and Sheridan's removal
with anger and demands for impeachment. Johnson was unmoved, and the outcome of the
autumn state elections reinforced his feeling that northern public opinion was shifting in his favor.
The Democrats won in New York, New Jersey, and California; gained control of the Ohio
legislature; and sharply reduced Republican majorities in several other states. In addition, the
voters of Ohio, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Kansas overwhelmingly rejected black suffrage in
their states. Unlike in 1866, when most Republican candidates carefully avoided the issue, in
1867 they came out in favor of granting blacks the vote in the North as well as the South. The
result was that, in the blunt words of Radical Senator Benjamin Wade, "The nigger whipped us."
When Congress convened in December 1867, Johnson announced to his cabinet, "The time for
mere defense is now past and I can stand on the offensive in behalf of the Constitution and the
country." Accordingly, in his annual message of 3 December he declared that the effect of Military
Reconstruction was to make blacks the rulers of whites, that this could only cause the South to
sink into barbarism, and that he intended to resist the unconstitutional usurpations of Congress,
"regardless of all consequences," confident that he would be sustained by the people, as
demonstrated in the recent elections.
Infuriated, the Radicals called for the House to impeach Johnson. But the Moderates, although
likewise angry, stated that unfortunately there was no legal basis for such action, and after an
acrimonious debate the House on 7 December defeated an impeachment resolution by 108 to 57,
with 66 Republicans joining 42 Democrats in opposition. Radical leaders thereupon began
deploring the "surrender of Congress" to the president, whereas one of John-son's confidants
asserted that "the President has Congress on the hip." Further encouraging Johnson while at the
same time alarming all Republicans, the case of Ex parte McCardle, involving the constitutionality
of the Military Reconstruction Act, was now before the Supreme Court; on the basis of the
Milligan precedent, the Court would almost surely strike down the act.
But if Radicals and Moderates differed as to the feasibility of impeaching Johnson, they did agree
that he must not be allowed to displace Stanton permanently as secretary of war. If that
happened, the Tenure of Office Act would become a dead letter and Johnson would be free to
name a secretary of war who would cooperate with him in sabotaging Military Reconstruction,
thereby threatening Republican domination in the South. Hence, on 13 January 1868 the Senate,
applying the Tenure Act, rejected a request from Johnson that it concur in Stanton's dismissal
and declared that Stanton was still secretary of war.
Johnson had anticipated this action. Accordingly he had asked Grant not to surrender the
secretary of war's office without giving prior notice; in this way Johnson would have an
opportunity to appoint someone else to the post so as to bring about a Supreme Court test of the
Tenure Act. Grant promised, or at least permitted Johnson to understand that he promised, to do
what the president requested. But on 14 January, after the Senate refused to sanction Stanton's
removal, Grant went directly to the War Department building, locked the secretary of war's office,
and turned over the key to a military aide; an hour later Stanton arrived, obtained the key, and
entered his old office.
Johnson accused Grant of "duplicity" both before the cabinet and in the press. Grant heatedly
denied the charge and thus the two became open, bitter enemies. Probably Grant did betray
Johnson, for although he had warned Johnson that he would quit as acting secretary of war if the
Senate rejected Stanton's dismissal, he knew that the president did not expect him to do it so
abruptly and in a manner that would make it so easy for Stanton to regain physical possession of
the office. On the other hand, Johnson was seeking to exploit for his own purposes Grant's
prestige and popularity; and had Grant allowed him to do this, Grant would have been caught in
the middle of the struggle between the president and Congress. Realizing this, Grant decided to
extricate himself, even though it meant acting in a fashion that at best can be described as
slippery.
Foiled in his plan to prevent Stanton from taking possession of the war office, Johnson next tried
to force him out of it, his intention still being to bring about a legal test of the Tenure Act. To this
end, on 21 February he appointed the adjutant general of the army, Lorenzo P. Thomas,
secretary of war and instructed him to go to the War Department and demand that Stanton vacate
the office. Thomas, an elderly, ineffectual type, did so twice; each time Stanton adamantly
refused and Thomas went away.
The Republicans exploded with anger and joy—anger because Johnson was so brazenly defying
the will of Congress and joy because he had at last giventhem a plausible reason to impeach and
remove him from office. On 24 February the House of Representatives, by a vote of 126 to 47,
passed a resolution declaring "that Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, be
impeached of high crimes and misdemeanors." For the first time in American history a president
had been impeached.
Johnson's Impeachment Trial
A special House committee drafted articles of impeachment against Johnson—that is, specific
accusations of "high crimes and misdemeanors." Adopted by the House on 2 and 3 March, the
articles totaled eleven. The first eight were variations on the charge that Johnson had violated the
Tenure Act by attempting to supplant Stanton with Thomas; the ninth and tenth contained petty
and patently absurd allegations; and the eleventh, primarily the handiwork of Stevens, combined
all of the previous charges. On 4 March seven Republicans, acting as the "impeachment
managers," formally presented the articles to the Senate, which sat as a "High Court of
Impeachment" presided over by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase. Two days later, the Senate
summoned Johnson to stand trial beginning 13 March.
Johnson reacted to impeachment calmly. "If I cannot be President in fact," he told his personal
secretary, "I will not be President in name alone." To defend him, he retained the services of
several of the nation's leading lawyers. Pleading the need for more time to prepare their case,
they succeeded in getting postponement of the trial. In the meantime, the Republicans passed a
bill that deprived the Supreme Court of jurisdiction over cases such as Ex parte Milligan. Thus,
Johnson was frustrated not only in his effort to challenge the Tenure Act in the courts but also in
his hope of having Military Reconstruction declared unconstitutional.
On 30 March the impeachment trial, which the president was not required to attend in person, got
under way. Johnson's attorneys argued that the Tenure of Office Act was unconstitutional; that
even if it were constitutional, it did not protect Stanton because he had been appointed by
Lincoln, not Johnson; that the president had not actually violated it, since Stanton obviously still
remained in office; that Johnson's attempt to replace Stanton was motivated by a legitimate
desire to test the act's constitutionality and not by criminal intent; and, finally, that since
impeachment was a judicial and not a political process and since Johnson had not committed any
indictable offense, the president was innocent of "high crimes and misdemeanors." The House
managers, with Benjamin Butler of Massachusetts being the main spokesman, rebutted the
defense's allegations about the Tenure Act and maintained that impeachment was political in
nature; otherwise, Butler sarcastically asked, how could an unfit president be removed unless he
was caught "robbing a chicken house" or committing some other statutory crime?
The managers believed that the catchall eleventh impeachment article offered the best prospect
for convicting Johnson. Therefore, on 16 May the Senate voted on it first. Thirty-five senators
declared Johnson guilty, and nineteen declared him innocent. Since under the Constitution at
least two-thirds of the senators present and voting are needed to convict a president, Johnson
escaped by the narrowest possible margin. Ten days later, votes on two other articles provided
the same outcome, whereupon the impeachment trial ended.
Johnson owed his escape to the fact that seven Republicans joined with the Senate's ten
Democrats and two Conservatives to vote for acquittal. A combination of factors explains why
these seven "recusants" deserted their party's ranks: they doubted the legal justification of
impeachment, feared that deposing the president would ultimately injure the party, and disliked
the prospect of the ultra-Radical Senator Benjamin Wade of Ohio replacing Johnson, which under
the presidential succession law of that time he would have done by virtue of being president pro
tern of the Senate. Johnson also helped his own cause by letting it be known that if he remained
in office, he would cease obstructing the implementation of Military Reconstruction and that he
would appoint the politically neutral Major General John M. Schofield to be the new secretary of
war—promises he kept. (Stanton resigned as soon as the impeachment trial ended.)
Today practically all historians and legal experts agree that Johnson was innocent of the charges
brought against him, and in 1926 the Supreme Court did what Johnson had hoped for in 1868—it
declared the Tenure of Office Act unconstitutional. On the other hand, the oft-expressed view that
Johnson's removal from office would have permanently weakened the presidency probably is
erroneous. The circumstances that led to Johnson's impeachment were both extreme and
unique, whereas the forces that brought about the emergence of the "imperialpresidency" in the
twentieth century would have operated regardless of the outcome of Johnson's trial. Finally,
although the impeachment as such failed, it did cause Johnson to abandon his struggle against
Congress' Reconstruction program. Despite having declared that he did not want to be president
in name alone, in effect he settled for exactly that.
Other Events of Johnson's Presidency
Reconstruction was the dominant issue of Johnson's presidency to which, both out of choice and
necessity, he devoted most, sometimes all, of his attention and energy. Yet he also had to
concern himself with a number of other matters that were highly important in their own right—
indeed, would have held center stage under normal circumstances.
When Johnson became president, a war with France over Mexico was a distinct possibility.
During the Civil War the French, then ruled by Napoleon III, flagrantly violated the Monroe
Doctrine by establishing in Mexico a puppet regime headed by the Emperor Maximilian, an
Austrian archduke. Initially Johnson seemed disposed to adopt the approach advocated by
General Grant—namely, to tell Napoleon that unless he pulled his troops out of Mexico
immediately, the United States Army would drive them out. Fortunately, Secretary of State
Seward successfully asserted his control over foreign policy, something in which Johnson had no
experience and scant interest. By means of skillful diplomatic prodding, Seward induced
Napoleon, who was finding the Mexican intervention costly in money and men, to withdraw his
forces beginning late in 1866. Once they all left, the Mexicans, led by Benito Juárez, had little
difficulty overthrowing Maximilian. Thus, the greatest challenge to United States interest in the
Caribbean prior to the Castro Communist takeover of Cuba was repelled. Ironically, an
aggressive policy leading to war with France would have been enormously popular in the United
States and would probably have assured the success of Johnson's Reconstruction program.
Seward, who long had been an advocate of Manifest Destiny, tried to pursue an expansionist
policy, hoping thereby to gain public support for the Johnson administration and to advance his
own presidential aspirations. In large part because of the bitter conflict over Reconstruction, his
only solid achievement along this line was the acquisition of Alaska in 1867. Early that year the
Russian government, having decided that Alaska was a financial and strategic liability, instructed
its minister in Washington, Baron Edouard de Stoeckl, to sell it to the United States. Seward
proved more than willing to buy it, and he and Stoeckl quickly negotiated a treaty whereby the
United States agreed to pay $7.2 million in gold for the territory. The treaty easily passed the
Senate, 37 to 2, on 9 April 1867, but the necessary appropriation bill encountered strong
opposition in the House, where many Republicans opposed it simply because they hated
Johnson. Finally, on 14 July 1868, after Stoeckl discreetly bribed several key representatives, the
House approved it, 114 to 43. Thus, the expansion of the United States across the North
American continent, which began in 1803 with the Louisiana Purchase, came to an end.
During the Civil War, Confederate warships, of which the Alabama was the most prominent,
inflicted tremendous damage on northern merchant shipping. Since these raiders had been built
in Britain, the United States government held the British government responsible for their
depredations and demanded monetary reparation. In 1868, in an effort to settle these so-called
Alabama Claims before he left office, Johnson sent a former senator named Reverdy Johnson to
London, where he negotiated a treaty whereby the claims of both British and American citizens
arising from the Civil War would be settled on an equal basis. It was a poor treaty, but thinking it
the best that could be had, Johnson submitted it to the Senate early in 1869, only to see it
rejected, 54 to 1. Two years later the United States obtained a much better settlement of the
Alabama Claims.
On the domestic front the two main problems other than Reconstruction had to do with fiscal
policy and the Indians of the western plains. Concerning the first, the Civil War had resulted in a
federal debt of nearly $3 billion (an enormous sum by the standards of the day), the issuance of
over $600 million in "greenbacks" (paper money unsupported by gold or silver), and
unprecedentedly high taxes, especially the tariff. Johnson for the most part left financial policy to
Secretary of the Treasury Hugh McCulloch, a holdover from Lincoln's cabinet. McCulloch
generally cooperated with the Republican Congress in gradually reducing the number of
greenbacks in circulation with a view to restoring a bullion-based currency.
Meanwhile, during the latter part of his presidency, when he was desperately casting about
forpolitical allies, Johnson toyed with the thought of embracing the "Ohio Idea," a scheme popular
in the Midwest that called for increasing, rather than decreasing, the supply of greenbacks in
order to pay off the national debt and stimulate the economy. But Johnson held fast to his fiscal
conservatism; furthermore, the Ohio Idea had more opponents than proponents, and so he would
have hurt, rather than helped, himself politically by advocating it. For similar reasons he made no
serious effort to counter the Republican high-tariff policy, although verbally criticizing it.
As regards the Indians, Johnson's administration adopted a two-pronged approach: the army
waged campaigns designed to pacify the hostile tribes and safeguard western settlers, and the
Bureau of Indian Affairs responded to the demands of eastern reformers by endeavoring to place
the Indians on reservations, where supposedly they would be protected from evil white influences
and given an opportunity to acquire white civilization. Although the reservation policy fell far short
of the expectations of its idealistic proponents, it was probably the most practical one the
government could have adopted at that time, for the Indians' way of life was doomed by the
westward push of the American people as incarnated in the construction of the transcontinental
railroad, a project nearly completed by the time Johnson left office.
Conclusion of Johnson's Presidency
In May 1868 the Republicans, as everyone expected, nominated Grant for president on a
platform that called for black suffrage in the South but discreetly avoided proposing it nationwide.
Johnson hoped for and sought the Democratic nomination, believing that his fight against
congressional Reconstruction entitled him to it. Most Democrats now considered him, rightly
enough, a political liability, and at their convention in July nominated Horatio Seymour, a former
New York governor. Although disappointed, Johnson—out of hatred for Grant, if nothing else—
did what he could during the campaign to help Seymour. Grant won by 214 electoral votes to
Seymour's 80, but his popular majority was only 300,000, and even that was the result of the
enfranchisement of blacks and the disfranchisement of whites in the South. Hence, early in 1869,
the Republicans placed black suffrage on a permanent foundation by ramming through the
Fifteenth Amendment, which stated that no citizen could be deprived of the vote for reasons of
"race, color, or previous condition of servitude." This turned out to be the final major measure of
congressional Reconstruction, and like the first, it became law over Johnson's futile protests.
Johnson finished his few remaining months as president in relative peace. At noon on 4 March
1869 he left the White House without, as is customary, attending the inauguration of his
successor. He returned to Tennessee and soon plunged into politics, making several
unsuccessful attempts to secure a seat in Congress. Finally, in January 1875, the Tennessee
legislature, now controlled by Democrats, elected him to the United States Senate. On 5 March
he took his seat in the Senate, thereby becoming the only former president to serve in that body.
He did not serve long. On 28 July, while visiting one of his daughters in Tennessee, he suffered a
stroke and three days later died. He was buried near his Greeneville home, his body wrapped in
the United States flag and his well-thumbed copy of the Constitution beneath his head.
Johnson Evaluated
Johnson's presidency corresponded with the first and most crucial phase of Reconstruction.
Since Reconstruction was intimately linked to the highly controversial issue of the status of blacks
in American life, both it and Johnson have been highly controversial also. Accordingly, historians
who believe that congressional Reconstruction in general was bad and that in particular it was a
mistake to grant blacks equal civil and political rights so soon after being freed from slavery
portray Johnson as a heroic champion of the Constitution and true reconciliation between North
and South. Historians who feel that the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments were necessary
acts of justice and that the only thing wrong with Reconstruction was that it did not go far enough
condemn Johnson as a racist villain who deserved to be removed from office. Between these
extremes stand yet more historians and their judgments of Johnson; historians never have
agreed about him, nor will they ever.
Even so, it seems that this can be said with certainty about the tenacious tailor from Tennessee:
Few presidents faced a greater challenge than he did, and none failed more completely than he
to meet that challenge successfully. There are several reasons why this was so.
First, Johnson was a southerner and a Democrat heading the government of a nation controlled
by northerners and Republicans. Consequently, he miscalculated the attitudes of the North and
had no sympathy for, or understanding of, the Republicans. Lincoln, had he lived, would not have
suffered from such handicaps and the course of Reconstruction would have been substantially
different.
Johnson lacked the moral and political authority of an elected president, yet he acted as if he
possessed it. As a result, his refusal to compromise with Congress quickly dissipated the strength
he initially enjoyed.
Johnson's dedication to the Union, the Constitution, and democracy as he understood them was
as sincere as it was strong; but he did not realize that the Civil War was a revolution that would
not end with the defeat of the rebels and the freeing of the slaves, and he failed to see that the
pre-1861 power relationship between the federal and state governments had been permanently
altered in favor of the former.
Johnson, like the vast majority of American whites of his time, considered blacks inferior. Had his
racial attitudes been those of Charles Sumner or of a twentieth-century liberal, possibly the story
of his presidency and the outcome of Reconstruction would have been happier. But there is no
evidence that racism was the sole or even the main determinant of his policies. Like Lincoln, he
perceived the enormous obstacles that lay in the way of equality for blacks; he also believed,
given the realities of the situation, that the status of blacks in the South would sooner or later be
dictated by the whites. This belief, obviously, was not altogether wrong. By 1875, the year
Johnson died, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments were virtually dead. Eighty years would
pass before they came to life again.
Finally, Johnson suffered from serious defects of mind and character. Although he possessed
"great natural capacity," he held "few ideas," was "narrow-minded," and lacked flexibility and
adroitness. He also was extremely distrustful of others, tended to regard advice as tantamount to
dictation, and was overly pugnacious and insufficiently discreet. At the same time, he was often
indecisive and hesitant, yet when he did act, he did so hastily and without foresight. Quite likely
these traits, more than anything else, caused him to commit the blunders that turned his policies
and presidency into a shambles.
To sum up, Johnson quested for power all of his adult life; but when, through tragic circumstance,
he gained the highest power, he proved incapable of using it in an effective and beneficial
manner.
SOURCE CITATION
"Johnson, Andrew."Presidents: A Reference History. Henry F. Graff, ed. 3rd ed.
1 vols. Charles Scribner's Sons, 2002.
Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2010.
http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC
Document Number: K3436400026
Martin Luther
Birth: November 10, 1483 in Saxony, Germany
Death: February 18, 1546 in Saxony, Germany
Nationality: German
Occupation: reformer
Source: Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed. 17 Vols. Gale Research,
1998.
Updated: 12/12/1998
BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
The German reformer Martin Luther (1483-1546) was the first and greatest figure in the 16thcentury Reformation. A composer of commentaries on Scripture, theology, and ecclesiastical
abuses, a hymnologist, and a preacher, from his own time to the present he has been a symbol of
Protestantism.
Martin Luther was born at Eisleben in Saxony on Nov. 10, 1483, the son of Hans and Margaret
Luther. Luther's parents were of peasant stock, but his father had worked hard to raise the
family's status, first as a miner and later as the owner of several small mines, to become a smallscale entrepreneur. In 1490 Martin was sent to the Latin school at Mansfeld, in 1497 to
Magdeburg, and in 1498 to Eisenach. His early education was typical of late-15th-century
practice. To a young man in Martin's circumstances, only the law and the church offered likely
avenues of success, and Hans Luther's anticlericalism probably influenced his decision that his
son should become a lawyer and increase the Luther family's prosperity, which Hans had begun.
Martin was enrolled at the University of Erfurt in 1501. He received a bachelor of arts degree in
1502 and a master of arts in 1505. In the same year he enrolled in the faculty of law, giving every
sign of being a dutiful and, likely, a very successful son.
Religious Conversion
Between 1503 and 1505, however, Martin experienced a religious crisis which would take him
from the study of law forever. His own personal piety, fervently and sometimes grimly instilled by
his parents and early teachers, and his awareness of a world in which the supernatural was
perilously close to everyday life were sharpened by a series of events whose exact character has
yet to be precisely determined. A dangerous accident in 1503, the death of a friend a little later,
and Martin's own personal religious development had by 1505 started other concerns in him.
Then, on July 2, 1505, returning to Erfurt after visiting home, Martin was caught in a severe
thunderstorm in which he was flung to the ground in terror, and he suddenly vowed to become a
monk if he survived. This episode, as important in Christian history as the equally famous (and
parallel) scene of St. Paul's conversion, changed the course of Luther's life. Two weeks later,
against the opposition of his father and to the dismay of his friends, Martin Luther entered the
Reformed Congregation of the Eremetical Order of St. Augustine at Erfurt. Luther himself saw this
decision as sudden and based upon fear: "I had been called by heavenly terrors, for not freely or
desirously did I become a monk, much less to gratify my belly, but walled around with the terror
and agony of sudden death I vowed a constrained and necessary vow."
Luther's early life as a monk reflected his precipitate reasons for entering a monastery: "I was a
good monk, and kept strictly to my order, so that I could say that if the monastic life could get a
man to heaven, I should have entered." Monastic life at Erfurt was hard. Monks had long become
(with the friars and many of the secular clergy) the targets of anticlerical feeling. Charged with
having forsaken their true mission and having fallen into greed and ignorance, monastic orders
made many attempts at reform in the 15th and 16th centuries. The congregation at Erfurt had
been reformed in 1473. The year before Luther entered the Augustinian order at Erfurt, the vicar
general Johann Staupitz (later Luther's friend) had revised further the constitution of the order.
Luther made his vows in 1506 and was ordained a priest in 1507. Reconciled with his father, he
was then selected for advanced theological study at the University of Erfurt, with which his house
had several connections.
Luther at Wittenberg
In 1508 Luther was sent to the newer University of Wittenberg to lecture in arts. Like a modern
graduate student, he was also preparing for his doctorate of theology while he taught. He lectured
on the standard medieval texts, for example, Peter Lombard's Book of Sentences; and he read
for the first time the works of St. Augustine. In 1510 Luther was sent to Rome on business of the
order and in 1512 received his doctorate in theology. Then came the second significant turn in
Luther's career: he was appointed to succeed Staupitz as professor of theology at Wittenberg.
Luther was to teach throughout the rest of his life. Whatever fame and notoriety his later writings
and statements were to bring him, his work was teaching, which he fulfilled diligently until his
death.
Wittenberg was a new university, founded in 1502-1503, strongly supported by the elector
Frederick the Wise. By 1550, thanks to the efforts of Luther and his colleague Philip Melancthon,
it was to become the most popular university in Germany. In 1512, however, it lacked the prestige
of Erfurt and Leipzig and was insignificant in the eyes of the greatest of the old universities, that
of Paris. It was not a good place for an ambitious academic, but Luther was not ambitious in this
sense. His rapid rise was due to his native ability, his boundless energy, his dedication to the
religious life, and his high conception of his calling as a teacher.
The intellectual climate which shaped Luther's thought is difficult to analyze precisely. The two
competing philosophic systems of the late Middle Ages--scholasticism (derived from the
Aristotelianism of St. Thomas Aquinas) and nominalism (derived from the skepticism of William of
Ockham and his successors)--both appear to have influenced Luther, particularly in their
insistence on rigorous formal logic as the basis of philosophic and theological inquiry. From
Ockhamism, Luther probably derived his awareness of the infinite remoteness and majesty of
God and of the limitation of the human intellect in its efforts to apprehend that majesty.
Luther's professional work forced him further to develop the religious sensibility which had drawn
him to monasticism in 1505. In the monastery and later in the university Luther experienced other
religious crises, all of which were based upon his acute awareness of the need for spiritual
perfection and his equally strong conviction of his own human frailty, which caused him almost to
despair before the overwhelming majesty and wrath of God. In 1509 Luther published his lectures
on Peter Lombard; in 1513-1515 those on the Psalms; in 1515-1516 on St. Paul's Epistle to the
Romans; and in 1516-1518 on the epistles to the Galatians and Hebrews. Like all other
Christians, Luther read the Bible, and in these years his biblical studies became more and more
important to him. Besides teaching and study, however, Luther had other duties. From 1514 he
preached in the parish church; he was regent of the monastery school; and in 1515 he became
the supervisor of 11 other monasteries: "I ... write letters all day long," he wrote, "I am conventual
preacher, reader at meals, sought for to preach daily in the parish church, am regent of studies,
district Vicar, inspect the fish-ponds at Leitzkau, act in the Herzberg affair at Torgau, lecture on
St. Paul, revising my Psalms, I seldom have time to go through my canonical hours properly, or to
celebrate, to say nothing of my own temptations from the world, the flesh, and the devil."
Righteousness of God
Luther's crisis of conscience centered upon the question of his old monastic fears concerning the
insufficiency of his personal efforts to placate a wrathful God. In his own person, these fears
came to a head in 1519, when he began to interpret the passage in St. Paul's Epistle to the
Romans which says that the justice of God is revealed in the Gospels.
Luther, the energetic monk and young theologian, felt himself to be "a sinner with an unquiet
conscience." After an intense period of crisis, Luther discovered another interpretation of St.
Paul's text: "I began to understand that Justice of God ... to be understood passively as that
whereby the merciful God justifies us by faith.... At this I felt myself to be born anew, and to enter
through open gates into paradise itself." Only faith in God's mercy, according to Luther, can effect
the saving righteousness of God in man. "Works," the term which Luther used to designate both
formal, ecclesiastically authorized liturgy and the more general sense of "doing good," became
infinitely less important to him than faith.
The doctrine of justification, taking shape in Luther's thought between 1515 and 1519, drew him
into further theological speculation as well as into certain positions of practical ecclesiastical life.
The most famous of these is the controversy over indulgences. In 1513 a great effort to dispense
indulgences was proclaimed throughout Germany. In spite of the careful theological reservations
surrounding them, indulgences appeared to the preachers who sold them and to the public who
bought them as a means of escaping punishment in the afterlife for a sum of money. In 1517
Luther posted the 95 Theses for an academic debate on indulgences on the door of the castle
church at Wittenberg. Both the place and the event were customary events in an academic year,
and they might have gone unnoticed had not someone translated Luther's Latin theses into
German and printed them, thus giving them widespread fame and calling them to the attention of
both theologians and the public.
News of Dr. Luther's theses spread, and in 1518 Luther was called before Cardinal Cajetan, the
papal legate at Augsburg, to renounce his theses. Refusing to do so, Luther returned to
Wittenberg, where, in the next year, he agreed to a debate with the theologian Johann Eck. The
debate, originally scheduled to be held between Eck and Luther's colleague Karlstadt, soon
became a struggle between Eck and Luther in which Luther was driven by his opponent to taking
even more radical theological positions, thus laying himself open to the charge of heresy. By
1521 Eck secured a papal bull (decree) condemning Luther, and Luther was summoned to the
Imperial Diet at Worms in 1521 to answer the charges against him.
Diet of Worms
A student of Luther's described his teacher at this period: "He was a man of middle stature, with a
voice which combined sharpness and softness: it was soft in tone, sharp in the enunciation of
syllables, words, and sentences. He spoke neither too quickly nor too slowly, but at an even
pace, without hesitation, and very clearly.... If even the fiercest enemies of the Gospel had been
among his hearers, they would have confessed from the force of what they heard, that they had
witnessed, not a man, but a spirit."
Luther throughout his life always revealed a great common sense, and he always retained his
humorous understanding of practical life. He reflected an awareness of both the material and
spiritual worlds, and his flights of poetic theology went hand in hand with the occasional
coarseness of his polemics. His wit and thought were spontaneous, his interest in people of all
sorts genuine and intense, his power of inspiring affection in his students and colleagues never
failing. He was always remarkably frank, and although he became first the center of the Reform
movement and later one of many controversial figures in it, he retained a sense of self-criticism,
attributing his impact to God. He said, in a characteristic passage: "Take me, for example. I
opposed indulgences and all papists, but never by force. I simply taught, preached, wrote God's
Word: otherwise I did nothing. And then, while I slept or drank Wittenberg beer with my Philip of
Amsdorf the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that never a prince or emperor did such
damage to it. I did nothing: the Word did it all. Had I wanted to start trouble ... I could have started
such a little game at Worms that even the emperor wouldn't have been safe. But what would it
have been? A mug's game. I did nothing: I left it to the Word."
Great personal attraction, absolute dedication to his theological principles, kindness and loyalty to
his friends, and an acute understanding of his own human weakness--these were the
characteristics of Luther when he came face to face with the power of the papacy and empire at
Worms in 1521. He was led to a room in which his collected writings were piled on a table and
ordered to repudiate them. He asked for time to consider and returned the next day and
answered: "Unless I am proved wrong by the testimony of Scripture or by evident reason I am
bound in conscience and held fast to the Word of God. Therefore I cannot and will not retract
anything, for it is neither safe nor salutary to act against one's conscience. God help me. Amen."
Luther left Worms and was taken, for his own safety, to the castle of Wartburg, where he spent
some months in seclusion, beginning his great translation of the Bible into German and writing
numerous tracts.
Return to Wittenberg
In 1522 Luther returned to Wittenberg, where he succeeded in cooling the radical reforming
efforts of his colleague Karlstadt and continued the incessant writing which would fill the rest of
his life. In 1520 he had written three of his most famous tracts: To The Christian Nobility of the
German Nation, which enunciates a social program of religious reform; On the Babylonian
Captivity of the Church, on Sacraments, the Mass, and papal power; and Of the Liberty of a
Christian Man, a treatise on faith and on the inner liberty which faith affords those who possess it.
The Lutheran Bible, which was "a vehicle of proletarian education" as well as a monument in the
spiritual history of Europe, not only gave Luther's name and views wider currency but revealed
the translator as a great master of German prose, an evaluation which Luther's other writings
justify.
Besides these works, Luther had other matters at hand. His name was used now by many
people, including many with whom he disagreed. The Reformation had touched society and its
institutions as well as religion, and Luther was drawn into conflicts, such as the Peasants'
Rebellion of 1524-1525 and the affairs of the German princes, which drew from him new ideas on
the necessary social and political order of Christian Germany. Luther's violent antipeasant
writings from this period have often been criticized. His fears of the dangerous role of extreme
reformers like Karlstadt and Thomas Münzer, however, were greater than his hope for social
reform through revolution. Luther came to rely heavily upon the princes to carry out his program
of reform. In 1525 Luther married Katherine von Bora, a nun who had left her convent. From that
date until his death, Luther's family life became not only a model of the Christian home but a
source of psychological support to him.
Luther's theological writings continued to flow steadily. Often they were written in response to his
critics or in the intense heat of debate with Protestant rivals. Among those great works not
brought about by conflict should be numbered the Great Catechism and the Small Catechism of
1529 and his collection of sermons and hymns, many of the latter, like Ein Feste Burg, still sung
today.
Debates with Theologians
In 1524-1525 Luther entered into a discussion of free will with the great Erasmus. Luther's On the
Will in Bondage (1525) remained his definitive statement on the question. In 1528 Luther turned
to the question of Christ's presence in the Eucharist in his Confession concerning the Lord's
Supper, which attracted the hostility of a number of reformers, notably Ulrich Zwingli. In 1529
Luther's ally Melancthon arranged a discussion between the two, and the Marburg Colloquy, as
the debate is known, helped to close one of the early breaches in Protestant agreement.
In 1530, when Charles V was once again able to turn to the problems of the Reformation in
Germany, Luther supervised, although he did not entirely agree with, the writing of Melancthon's
Augsburg Confession, one of the foundations of later Protestant thought. From 1530 on Luther
spent as much time arguing with other Reformation leaders on matters of theology as with his
Catholic opponents.
Luther's disputes with other theologians were carried out with the same intensity he applied to his
other work: he longed for Christian unity, but he could not accept the theological positions which
many others had advanced. He was also fearful of the question of a general council in the
Church. In 1539 he wrote his On Councils and Churches and witnessed in the following years the
failure of German attempts to heal the wounds of Christianity. On the eve of his death he watched
with great concern the calling of the Council of Trent, the Catholic response to the Reformation.
In the 1540s Luther was stricken with diseases a number of times, drawing great comfort from his
family and from the lyrical, plain devotional exercises which he had written for children. In 1546
he was called from a sickbed to settle the disputes of two German noblemen. On the return trip
he fell sick and died at Eisleben, the town of his birth, on Feb. 18, 1546.
SOURCE CITATION
"Martin Luther." Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed. 17 Vols. Gale
Research, 1998.
Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2010.
http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC
Document Number: K1631004114
Pius, IX
Also known as: Pope Pius IX, Blessed, Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti, Pope Pius IX,
Pius IX, Pio Nono
Birth: 1792
Death: 1878
Nationality: Italian
Occupation: pope
Source: Historic World Leaders. Gale Research, 1994.
Updated: 01/01/1994
BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti, who took the name Pius IX on his election in 1846, reigned longer
than any pope in history, dying in 1878 at the age of 86. During his reign, he turned the Catholic
Church decisively away from reconciliation with the modern world. When he resisted the
unification of Italy, the political power of the Vatican collapsed; he tried to compensate by
increasing its spiritual authority. The declaration of papal infallibility at the First Vatican Council
(1870-71) was the decisive step in his elevation of papal authority above that of the world's
Catholic prelates in council.
Mastai-Ferretti was born in 1792 in central Italy and grew up in the shadow of the Napoleonic
Wars. He came from a reform-minded family of the lesser nobility in the Papal States and was
guided towards the priesthood from early life. He admired Pope Pius VII, who was persecuted by
Napoleon, and took his own pontifical name from this hero. During his training for the priesthood,
he suffered from epilepsy but was able to be ordained in 1819, after which he rose rapidly
through the Church hierarchy. All his work was close to Rome except for an expedition to Chile
and Peru as assistant to the apostolic delegate in 1823-25. By his early 40s, he was an
archbishop, first of Spoleto (1827-32), later of Imola (1840-46). In these years, sympathizing with
the ideal of Italian unity and disliking the reactionary politics of Pope Gregory XVI, he was
regarded as a reformer. At his election in 1846, the Catholic liberal Frederic Ozanam declared
that Pius was "the envoy sent by God to conclude the great business of the nineteenth century,
the alliance of religion and liberty."
Unlike most popes in recent centuries, Pius had had little diplomatic and political experience and
his education had been scanty. Stubborn and inflexible in his official role, he was at the same
time personally magnetizing and widely loved, as even his adversaries had to admit. He held
garden parties at his palace and showed a warm interest in the spiritual and personal welfare of
his subjects. The English convert John Henry Newman, who did not like his policies, nevertheless
said of him:
His personal presence was of a kind that no one could withstand. . . . The main cause of
his popularity was the magic of his presence. . . . His uncompromising faith, his courage,
the graceful mingling in him of the human and the divine, the humour, the wit, the
playfulness with which he tempered his severity, his naturalness, and then his true
eloquence.
Pius enjoyed social life, mingled freely with the population, and made himself available to visitors
seeking an audience. He was the first of the modern popes to develop a huge personal following
of loyalists, some of whom took their love for him to almost idolatrous extremes. As his cult
developed, European Catholic newspapers loyal to Pius denounced with brutal rhetoric anyone
who dared to challenge the Holy Father in any way.
The pope loved company and, taking advantage of improved world communications, encouraged
his bishops to visit frequently. He held a massive gathering in 1862 to celebrate the canonization
of missionaries martyred in Japan, and another assembly in 1867 to celebrate the 1,800th
anniversary of the martyrdom of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. He also established colleges at
Rome for trainee priests from different nations (including Polish, French, American, and Irish
colleges) as a way of strengthening Rome's influence in the Church's far-flung provinces. He lived
for such a long time that by the end of his reign almost every Catholic bishop in the world had
been appointed by him and felt a close sense of obligation to him.
When, soon after his election, he created a parliament for the Papal States, arranged for gas-fired
street lights in Rome, and projected railroads, his "liberal" credentials seemed assured. Ever
since the French Revolution 50 years before, the political landscape of Europe had been split
between sympathizers with the Revolution and those who detested its memory. Republicans,
liberals, democrats, and socialists generally favored it; monarchists opposed it. The papacy, as a
wealthy and ancient monarchy, was usually well towards the conservative end of the political
spectrum; most cardinals and bishops rejected the idea of freedom of religion, freedom of the
press, and constitutional government. Within the Catholic Church, however, a minority of
influential thinkers, notably the Frenchmen Lammenais, Montalembert, Lacordaire, and
Dupanloup, the German theologian Dollinger, and the Englishman Lord Acton, believed that the
"Barque of St. Peter" could be navigated in the uncharted waters of a new world order.
Industrialization, modern science, modern biblical criticism, and philology all presented
challenges which they regarded as opportunities as they hoped the new pope would realize. After
an early period of turning a sympathetic ear to these and other liberal Catholics, Pius, like
Gregory XVI, sided with their authoritarian enemies Louis Veuillot in France and Donoso Cortes
in Spain, and condemned all forms of liberalism out of hand.
Several factors account for Pius IX's swerve away from liberalism. Ever since the era of Pope
Gregory I (the Great) at the end of the sixth century, the Vatican had been a political presence in
central Italy. Its empire, the Papal States, had waxed and waned with the fortunes of war, and
recurrent scandals in Catholic life had been caused by the pope's political interests compromising
his spiritual role as leader of Christendom. The leaders of the 16th-century Reformation had
revolted against the political and commercial character of the papacy and split from Catholicism,
partly in the name of a purer piety and a simpler Christianity. "Christendom" as a religiously
united Europe was no more than a distant memory by Pius IX's day, three centuries after the
Reformation, and the justification for the Papal States, which were anything but models of
enlightened government, seemed to many Italians flimsy. In Pius's view, however, they were
essential; he referred to his domains as "the robe of Jesus Christ." His predecessors had lost the
States altogether during the Napoleonic wars but, as part of the pacification of Europe at the
Congress of Vienna (1815), they had been restored.
Italian Soldiers Besiege Pope
In 1848, two years after Pius IX's ascension to St. Peter's throne, Europe experienced a period of
revolutionary upheaval, in France, Germany, and Italy. Giuseppe Mazzini, the Italian republican
leader, believed Pius would support him as he tried to overthrow Austrian influence in Italy and
was dismayed when Pius refused to back an anti-Austrian crusade. Disillusioned Italian soldiers,
returning from a defeat at Austrian hands, murdered Pius's prime minister Rossi and besieged
the pope in the Quirinal Palace. Disguised as an ordinary priest, Pius was forced to make a
humiliating retreat from Rome to Gaeta in southern Italy, where he could only find lodging in a
cheap hotel. Mazzini declared Rome a republic.
This trauma stilled whatever liberal impulses Pius IX had once felt, and he became a stern
opponent of Italian unification and republicanism. With the help of a French army, he reentered
Rome in 1850 and expelled Mazzini. French help hardly came cheap, however. In return for their
aid, the pope was required to leave "most" Church appointments within France in the civil
government's hands, which rendered him little more than a figurehead to French Catholics. The
memory of his humiliation and exile never left Pius, and his advisors often reminded him of it as a
warning against concessions. "Henceforth," says historian Alec Vidler, "the pontificate of Pius IX
was to be marked by the citadel mentality, which supposes that the only hope for the Church is to
fortify itself against all new ideas and democratic reforms."
New threats to the Papal States emerged in the late 1850s and early 1860s. Count Camillo
Cavour, the central figure in the politics of the north Italian state of Piedmont between 1852 and
1861, was unpopular with Pius because he had closed down many monasteries and taken
education out of the hands of the Church; he aimed at building a modern, centralized secular
state. Cavour now tried to unify Italy under the Piedmontese monarchy and guarded his rear by
making an 1858 agreement with France, to be certain that it would not again intervene on the
pope's behalf. After a period of diplomatic maneuver, Cavour's army marched on Rome in 1860,
shattered a makeshift army of Catholic loyalists recruited from around Europe at the battle of
Castelfidardo, and overran all but a narrow coastal strip of the Papal States.
A few remnants of the Papal States survived until 1870, but their political significance was ended.
Eager to conciliate rather than antagonize his defeated rival, Cavour offered the pope full
authority over the Church in Italy and a guarantee of all jeopardized Church property. Pius IX
contemptuously turned his back on Cavour, described himself as "the prisoner of the Vatican,"
and forbade all loyal Catholics from participating in Italian politics. This standoff persisted until
1929 when Pope Pius XI finally made a treaty with Benito Mussolini, under terms quite similar to
those offered by Cavour. This 70-year "prisoner" phase weakened the influence of the Church in
Italy and increased the secular direction of the new nation's political life. "To realists who tried to
persuade him that sooner or later he must negotiate," says historian R. Aubert, "Pius IX opposed
a mystical confidence in divine providence, nourished by the conviction that the political
convulsions in which he was implicated were only an episode in the great battle between God
and Satan, in which Satan's defeat was inevitable."
In intellectual affairs as in politics, Pius IX refused to compromise with modernity. The vestiges of
the French Revolution, along with the growing influence of the United States, which then
appeared as a beacon of republican virtue and inspiration to the Old World, had made the ideas
of political liberty and religious freedom attractive to many influential authors. The mid-19th
century also saw the transformation of scientific thought with the rise of evolutionary theory,
notably in the works of Charles Darwin and in a new physics based on the discovery of entropy.
Bible scholars and archaeologists were meticulously unraveling the history of the ancient Middle
East to enhance the understanding of Jesus' life and times.
Pope Publishes Syllabus of Errors
Pius IX cold-shouldered all these developments. When the liberal Catholic Montalembert made a
speech equating Catholicism with modern civilization and progress during 1863, Pius responded
by publishing his Syllabus of Errors (1864). In this decree, he summarized all the significant
modern ideas and theories which Catholics were forbidden to hold, including freedom of speech,
press, and religion. He had already declared against freedom of religion: "The Church will never
admit it as a benefit and a principle that error and heresy should be preached to Catholic
peoples." Now he added: "It is an error to say that it is no longer expedient that the Catholic
religion should be established to the exclusion of all others." Another prohibited belief was the
faith that "the Roman pontiff can and ought to reconcile himself to, and reach agreement with
progress, liberalism, and modern civilization." No wonder that in progress-minded America, as
elsewhere in the modernizing world, the Catholic Church was regarded by all but its sons and
daughters as atavistic (a throwback to ancestors). Dupanloup, one of the French liberal Catholics,
tried to soften the hammer blows of the Syllabus of Errors by arguing that it represented the ideal
Catholic position on these questions, but that, in the realities of the contemporary world, the
Church was not going to try fulfilling it step by step. The pope was so surprised by the outcry his
Syllabus had provoked that he let Dupanloup's tactful formulas stand.
The perception of Pius as an aggressor against religious freedom was particularly keen in
England, which had been severed from Rome since the days of Henry VIII, 300 years before.
Catholics had suffered civil ostracism since then until the stirrings of British liberalism in the early
19th century led to "Catholic emancipation" in 1829. In 1850, the Catholic Church took advantage
of emancipation by reestablishing a hierarchy of dioceses and bishops in England, first under
Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman and later under Cardinal Henry Manning, both of whom were militant
supporters of Pius IX and bombastic apostles of Catholic world supremacy. To the British prime
minister, Lord John Russell, this unforseen reestablishment was "Papal aggression" without trying
to prevent it, he labeled it "insolent and insidious." Pius IX was burnt in effigy by an anti-Catholic
mob in London, but the new hierarchy managed to reestablish itself, and to prosper. Catholicism
was also reestablished three years later in Holland, another Reformation stronghold.
Despite a rhetoric of unity, the world's Catholic people have always been at odds with one
another; each country has had its distinctive forms of Catholic faith and tradition, and each, over
the centuries, has won concessions from the Vatican. One measure of this variety could be seen
in the United States during Pius IX's reign. The first big group of Catholic migrants came from
Ireland in the 1840s, and they became the dominant ethnic group in American Catholicism.
German and Italian Catholics, arriving in subsequent decades, found a Church they scarcely
recognized, run by men unsympathetic to their own quite different traditions; they responded by
appealing (unsuccessfully) for a permanent division of American Catholicism along ethnic lines.
Some Catholics were scandalized by the differences in the Church from place to place and the
wide margin of local variations. They wanted a strong centralized papacy in Rome, governing and
regulating the whole Church; they are remembered as the Ultramontanes. By contrast with the
Ultramontanes, the defenders of Catholic pluralism were known as Gallicans. The long-lasting
tension between Ultramontanes and Gallicans came to a head in Pius IX's reign; a passionate
Ultramontanist, he compensated for his loss of political power by strengthening his spiritual
powers, which seemed to him especially necessary in a world which was shrugging off Church
leadership and pursuing materialist and secular ends. Some liberal Catholics also favored
Ultramontanism. The early and mid-19th century was a period in which nation states were
becoming far more powerful; having a counterweight in Rome seemed to some liberals, such as
Lammenais, a good way of curtailing the danger of state tyranny. By the later days of Pius IX's
reign, however, Ultramontanism was generally the faith of conservatives.
In 1854, he declared the new doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
In other words, he said, Mary, like Jesus, was the product of a virgin birth to her mother, St. Anne,
and was devoid of original sin. There was no biblical warrant for this doctrine (except the
ambiguous greeting, "Hail Mary, full of grace," made by an angel at the Annunciation), though it
had been a popular belief among some Catholics for several centuries. Pius himself was devoted
to the Virgin and believed that she had cured him of epilepsy earlier in life. By making the
declaration without first consulting the world's bishops and cardinals, Pius IX in effect served
notice of his preeminence on questions of doctrinal definition. He also implied that of the two
sources of Catholic authority, scripture and tradition, tradition should take the upper hand, even
though in its name new as well as venerable doctrines could develop. To a critic, Pius once
remarked: "Tradition? I am Tradition!" Meanwhile, the apparition of the Virgin to Bernadette
Soubirous of Lourdes in 1858 confirmed, in many Catholics' eyes, his wisdom. Mary allegedly told
Bernadette: "I am the Immaculate Conception," a declaration treasured by orthodox Catholics as
confirmation of the pope's decree.
Papal Infallibility Declaration Approved
Pius moved to strengthen his authority further by summoning the world's bishops to a Vatican
Council, which convened in St. Peter's Basilica, Rome, at the end of 1869. With the help of his
secretary of state, Cardinal Antonelli, and the influential English convert Cardinal Manning, the
Curia (Vatican civil service) had carefully orchestrated the event beforehand, and when the
prelates assembled they were presented with a fait accompli: documents proclaiming papal
infallibility which they were expected to endorse by acclamation. A minority of the world's bishops,
the Gallicans, along with many theologians, were dismayed at this Ultramontane scheme,
because they saw the declaration as a crucial shift in Catholic power relations, designed to strip
them of their own authority and many time-honored privileges. Many of the bishops from the
United States, led by Kenrick of St. Louis, Missouri, were opposed to the decree of infallibility
because they realized that it would intensify Protestant hostility and make their task of spreading
Catholicism in America harder then ever. But despite their superior intellectual skills, which they
used to restrict the sweeping language of the declaration, limiting infallibility to declarations only
on questions of faith and morals, the anti-infallibilists lacked the numbers to forestall the
declaration. Rather than scandalize the council, 60 of the bishops who could not in conscience
vote for infallibility left Rome on the day before the crucial vote, which was carried on July 18,
1870, with 533 for and only two against (one of the two was the bishop of Arkansas). When the
constitution, Pastor Aeternus, was read out in St. Peter's, the two knelt at the pope's feet and
pledged their full assent to the will of the majority.
Infallibility became the centerpiece of Catholic "triumphalism" for the next century. No sooner had
the vote on infallibility been passed than war broke out in Europe, and as the French troops
guarding Rome withdrew to serve Napoleon III in the Franco-Prussian War, an Italian army
moved into Rome, forcing the bishops to disperse. It was, politically, the final humiliation of Pius
IX, but it coincided almost exactly with his greatest spiritual exaltation. Not until the pontificate of
John XXIII and the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) was the stern logic of Pius IX's
Ultramontanism mitigated. His last act as a political ruler was to climb the Scala Santa on his
knees (he was now nearly 80 and had long flowing white hair) to address his troops in the
Lateran piazza, telling them to put up only a token resistance, to show that they were yielding to
force. After a brief bombardment, they surrendered the next day, and Rome became the new
capital of a united Italy. For the remaining seven years of his life, Pius never showed by either
word or deed that he acknowledged the new king, Victor Emmanuel II.
Shortly before Victor Emmanuel's death in 1878, Pius almost admitted that he had blundered in
his uncompromising attitude towards the rest of the world. "I hope," he said, "that my successor
will be as much attached to the Church as I have been and will have as keen a desire to do good:
beyond that, I can see that everything has changed; my system and my policies have had their
day, but I am too old to change my course; that will be the task of my successor."
Bitterly disliked by many of the Roman population, a mob pelted his coffin during the funeral
procession which brought his reign to an inglorious end. By then, as historian Carlton Hayes
observes:
the Catholic Church seemed to be at losing feud with the whole modern world,
intellectually, politically, and morally. Its influence on the life and thought of the fashioners
of public opinion--leading men of letters, journalists, educators, and scholars--was fast
disappearing, and its hold was gone on a large fraction of the bourgeoisie and on the bulk
of the urban proletariat. It appeared impotent to dike anywhere the flood tide of "science,"
liberalism, Marxism, anti-clericalism, and secularization. Its foes had mastered Italy and
despoiled the Church of its age-old capital city and of a vast deal of popular prestige.
The task of Leo XXIII was to create a new place in the world for this jeopardized Church, and to
restore its dignity as a purely spiritual organization.
PERSONAL INFORMATION
Born Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti in 1792 into a minor noble family in the
Papal States of central Italy; died in 1878. Predecessor: Pope Gregory XVI.
Successors: Following Leo XIII, three of the next four popes also took the name
Pius, in honor of his memory.
CHRONOLOGY
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1792 Giovanni Mastai-Ferretti born
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1846 Gregory XVI died; Mastai-Ferretti elected as Pius IX
1848 Revolutions in Europe; Mazzini took Rome; Pius fled to Gaeta in
disguise
1850 Pius IX returned to Rome, aided by the army of French emperor
Napoleon III
1854 Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary declared
1860 Piedmontese army defeated papal army at Castelfidardo
1864 Syllabus of Errors condemned liberalism and intellectual novelties
1869-70 First Vatican Council; constitution on papal infallibility
1870 Dissolution of the Papal States; Rome became capital of Italy under
Victor Emmanuel
1878 Pius IX died; Leo XIII elected
SOURCE CITATION
"Pius, IX." Historic World Leaders. Gale Research, 1994.
Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2010.
http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC
Document Number: K1616000481
George Washington
Birth: February 22, 1732 in Bridges Creek, Virginia, United States
Death: December 14, 1799 in Mount Vernon, Virginia, United States
Nationality: American
Occupation: president
Source: Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed. 17 Vols. Gale Research,
1998.
Updated: 10/1999
BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
George Washington (1732-1799) was commander in chief of the American and French forces in
the American Revolution and became the first president of the United States.
George Washington was born at Bridges Creek, later known as Wakefield, in Westmoreland
County, Va., on Feb. 22, 1732. His father died when George was eleven years old, and the boy
spent the next few years with his mother at Ferry Farm near Fredericksburg, with relatives in
Westmoreland, and with his half brother at Mount Vernon. By the time he was 16 he had a
rudimentary education, studying mathematics, surveying, reading, and the usual subjects of his
day. In 1749 Washington was appointed county surveyor, and his experience on the frontier led
to his appointment as a major in the Virginia militia in 1752.
French and Indian War
Virginia governor Robert Dinwiddie appointed the 21-year-old Washington to warn the French
moving into the Ohio Valley against encroaching on English territory. Washington published the
results of this expedition, including the French rejection of the ultimatum, in the Journal of Major
George Washington ... (1754). Dinwiddie then commissioned Washington a lieutenant colonel
with orders to dislodge the French at Ft. Duquesne, but a superior French force bested the
Virginia troops. This conflict triggered the French and Indian War, and Great Britain dispatched
regular troops under Gen. Edward Braddock in 1755 to oust the French. Braddock appointed
Washington as aide-de-camp.
Later in the year, after Braddock's death, Dinwiddie promoted Washington to colonel and made
him commander in chief of all Virginia troops. Throughout 1756 and 1757 Washington pursued a
defensive policy, fortifying the frontier with stockades, recruiting men, and establishing discipline.
In 1758, with the title of brigadier, he accompanied British regulars on the campaign that forced
the French to abandon Ft. Duquesne. With the threat of frontier violence removed, Washington
resigned his commission, soon married the widow Martha Custis, and devoted himself to life at
Mount Vernon.
Washington took seriously his role of stepfather and guardian of Martha's two children; it was his
duty, he wrote, to be "generous and attentive," and he was. His stepdaughter's death at 17 was
an emotional shock to him. When his stepson died in 1781, after serving in the Virginia militia at
Yorktown, Washington virtually adopted two of his stepson's four children.
Early Political Career
Washington inherited local prominence from his family, just as he inherited property and social
position. His grandfather and great-grandfather had been justices of the peace, a powerful county
position in 18th-century Virginia, and his father had served as sheriff and church warden, as well
as justice of the peace. His half brother Lawrence had been a representative from Fairfax County,
and George Washington's entry into politics was based on an alliance with the family of
Lawrence's father-in-law, Lord Fairfax.
Washington was elected as a representative to the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1758 from
Frederick County. From 1760 to 1774 he served as a justice of Fairfax County, and he was a
longtime vestryman of Truro parish. His experience on the county court and in the colonial
legislature molded his views on Parliamentary taxation of the Colonies after 1763. He opposed
the Stamp Act in 1765, arguing that Parliament "hath no more right to put their hands into my
pocket, without my consent, than I have to put my hands into yours for money." As a member of
the colonial legislature, he backed nonimportation as a means of reversing British policy in the
1760s, and in 1774 he attended the rump session of the dissolved Assembly, which called for a
Continental Congress to take united colonial action against the Boston Port Bill and other
"Intolerable Acts" directed against Massachusetts.
In July 1774 Washington presided at the county meeting which adopted the Fairfax Resolves,
which he had helped write. These resolves influenced the adoption of the Continental
Association, the plan devised by the First Continental Congress for enforcing nonimportation of
British goods. They also proposed the creation in each county of a militia company independent
of the royal governor's control, the idea from which the Continental Army developed. By May
1775 Washington, who headed the Fairfax militia company, had been chosen to command the
companies of six other counties. The only man in uniform when the Second Continental Congress
met after the battles of Lexington and Concord, he was elected unanimously as commander in
chief of all Continental Army forces. From June 15, 1775, until Dec. 23, 1783, he commanded the
Continental Army and, after the French alliance of 1778, the combined forces of the United States
and France in the War of Independence against Great Britain.
Revolutionary Years
Throughout the Revolutionary years Washington developed military leadership, administrative
skills, and political acumen, functioning from 1775 to 1783 as the de facto chief executive of the
United States. His wartime experiences gave him a continental outlook, and his Circular Letter to
the States in June 1783 made it clear that he favored a strong central government.
Washington returned to Mount Vernon at the end of the Revolution. "I have not only retired from
all public employments," he wrote his friend the Marquis de Lafayette, "but I am retiring within
myself." But there was little time for sitting "under the shadow of my own vine and my own fig
tree." He kept constantly busy with farming, western land interests, and navigation of the
Potomac. Finally, Washington presided at the Federal Convention in 1787 and supported
ratification of the Constitution in order to "establish good order and government and to render the
nation happy at home and respected abroad."
First American President
The position of president of the United States seemed shaped by the Federal Convention on the
assumption that Washington would be the first to occupy the office. In a day when executive
power was suspect--when the creation of the presidency, as Alexander Hamilton observed in The
Federalist, was "attended with greater difficulty" than perhaps any other--the Constitution
established an energetic and independent chief executive. Pierce Butler, one of the Founding
Fathers, noted that the convention would not have made the executive powers so great "had not
many of the members cast their eyes toward General Washington as President, and shaped their
ideas of the Powers to be given a President, by their opinions of his Virtue."
After his unanimous choice as president in 1789, Washington helped translate the new
constitution into a workable instrument of government: the Bill of Rights was added, as he
suggested, out of "reverence for the characteristic rights of freemen"; an energetic executive
branch was established, with the executive departments--State, Treasury, and War--evolving into
an American Cabinet; the Federal judiciary was inaugurated; and the congressional taxing power
was utilized to pay the Revolutionary War debt and to establish American credit at home and
abroad.
As chief executive, Washington consulted his Cabinet on public policy, presided over their
differences--especially those between Thomas Jefferson and Hamilton--with a forbearance that
indicated his high regard for his colleagues, and he made up his mind after careful consideration
of alternatives. He approved the Federalist financial program and the later Hamiltonian proposals-funding of the national debt, assumption of the state debts, the establishment of a Bank of the
United States, the creation of a national coinage system, and an excise tax. He supported a
national policy for disposition of the public lands and presided over the expansion of the Federal
union from eleven states (North Carolina and Rhode Island ratified the Constitution after
Washington's inaugural) to 16 (Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee were admitted between 1791
and 1796). Washington's role as presidential leader was of fundamental importance in winning
support for the new government's domestic and foreign policies. "Such a Chief Magistrate,"
Fisher Ames noted, "appears like the pole star in a clear sky.... His Presidency will form an epoch
and be distinguished as the Age of Washington."
Despite his unanimous election, Washington expected that the measures of his administration
would meet opposition, and they did. By the end of his first term the American party system was
developing. When he mentioned the possibility of retirement in 1792, therefore, both Hamilton
and Jefferson agreed that he was "the only man in the United States who possessed the
confidence of the whole" and "no other person ... would be thought anything more than the head
of a party." "North and South," Jefferson urged, "will hang together if they have you to hang on."
Creation of a Foreign Policy
Washington's second term was dominated by foreign-policy considerations. Early in 1793 the
French Revolution became the central issue in American politics when France, among other
actions, declared war on Great Britain and appointed "Citizen" Edmond Genet minister to the
United States. Determined to keep "our people in peace," Washington issued a neutrality
proclamation, although the word "neutrality" was not used. His purpose, Washington told Patrick
Henry, was "to keep the United States free from political connections with every other country, to
see them independent of all and under the influence of none. In a word, I want an American
character, that the powers of Europe may be convinced we act for ourselves and not for others."
Citizen Genet, undeterred by the proclamation of neutrality, outfitted French privateers in
American ports and organized expeditions against Florida and Louisiana. For his undiplomatic
conduct, the Washington administration requested and obtained his recall. In the midst of the
Genet affair, Great Britain initiated a blockade of France and began seizing neutral ships trading
with the French West Indies. Besides violating American neutral rights, the British still held posts
in the American Northwest, and the Americans claimed that they intrigued with the Indians
against the United States.
Frontier provocations, ship seizures, and impressment made war seem almost inevitable in 1794,
but Washington sent Chief Justice John Jay to negotiate a settlement of the differences between
the two nations. Although Jay's Treaty was vastly unpopular--the British agreed to evacuate the
Northwest posts but made no concessions on neutral rights or impressment--Washington finally
accepted it as the best treaty possible at that time. The treaty also paved the way for Thomas
Pinckney's negotiations with Spanish ministers, now fearful of an Anglo-American entente against
Spain in the Western Hemisphere. Washington happily signed Pinckney's Treaty, which resolved
disputes over navigation of the Mississippi, the Florida boundary, and neutral rights.
While attempting to maintain peace with Great Britain in 1794, the Washington administration had
to meet the threat of domestic violence in western Pennsylvania. The Whiskey Rebellion, a
reaction against the first Federal excise tax, presented a direct challenge to the power of the
Federal government to enforce its laws. After a Federal judge certified that ordinary judicial
processes could not deal with the opposition to the laws, Washington called out 12,000 state
militiamen "to support our government and laws" by crushing the rebellion. The resistance quickly
melted, and Washington showed that force could be tempered with clemency by pardoning the
insurgents.
Washington's Contributions
Nearly all observers agree that Washington's 8 years as president demonstrated that executive
power was completely consistent with the genius of republican government. Putting his prestige
on the line in an untried office under an untried constitution, Washington was fully aware, as he
pointed out in his First Inaugural Address, that "the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and
the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered, perhaps, as deeply, as
finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people."
Perhaps Washington's chief strength--the key to his success as a military and a political leader-was his realization that in a republic the executive, like all other elected representatives, would
have to measure his public acts against the temper of public opinion. As military commander
dealing with the Continental Congress and the state governments during the Revolution,
Washington had realized the importance of administrative skills as a means of building public
support of the army. As president, he applied the same skills to win support for the new Federal
government.
Despite Washington's abhorrence of factionalism, his administrations and policies spurred the
beginnings of the first party system. This ultimately identified Washington, the least partisan of
presidents, with the Federalist party, especially after Jefferson's retirement from the Cabinet in
1793. Washington's Farewell Address, though it was essentially a last will and political testament
to the American people, inevitably took on political coloration in an election year. Warning against
the divisiveness of excessive party spirit, which tended to separate Americans politically as
"geographical distinctions" did sectionally, he stressed the necessity for an American character
free of foreign attachments. Two-thirds of his address dealt with domestic politics and the baleful
influence of party; the rest of the document laid down a statement of firs principles of American
foreign policy. But even here, Washington's warning against foreign entanglements was
especially applicable to foreign interference in the domestic affairs of the United States.
His Retirement
Washington's public service did not end with his retirement from the presidency. During the "half
war" with France, President John Adams appointed him commander in chief, and Washington
accepted with the understanding that he would not take field command until the troops had been
recruited and equipped. Since Adams settled the differences with France by diplomatic
negotiations, Washington never assumed actual command. He continued to reside at Mount
Vernon, where he died on Dec. 14, 1799, after contracting a throat infection.
At the time of Washington's death, Congress unanimously adopted a resolution to erect a marble
monument in the nation's capital "to commemorate the great events of his military and political
life"; Congress also directed that "the family of General Washington be requested to permit his
body to be deposited under it." The Washington Monument was finally completed in 1884, but
Washington's remains were never moved there.
SOURCE CITATION
"George Washington." Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed. 17 Vols. Gale
Research, 1998.
Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2010.
http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC
Document Number: K1631006852