In the spirit of the moment here are a few questions for history enthusiasts. See how many you can answer before looking them up or checking the comments. I will post the answers tomorrow.
* Who was the last president elected by the US House of Representatives?
* Excluding those who died in office, which presidents did not attend the inauguration of their successors?
* Two men ran against each other for the office of Vice President. The Republican won and the Democrat lost. Both would go on to become President of the United States. Who were they?
* Who was the last third party candidate to actually win one or more states in the Electoral College?
* Who was the only president to formally join a church while in office, being baptized, confirmed, and receiving Communion all in the same day?
6 comments:
I think Teddy Roosvelt was the last third party candidate to win one or more states. I admit to trying to look up no.3. I didn't discover an answer .
I'll take a stab at no.3. Grover Cleveland (Dem) and Benjamin Harrison (Rep).
***SPOILER***
Here are the answers. Do not read on if you planned to take a guess.
Q. Who was the last president elected by the US House of Representatives?
A. John Quincy Adams in 1824. There were four candidates with most of the votes both popular and electoral being split between the top three. Andrew Jackson won a plurality of both the popular vote and electoral votes but it was not the constitutionally required majority so the election was resolved in the House where Adams had the most supporters. Jackson was furious and denounced the election as corrupt. He came back and took his revenge four years later. The election of 1876 was hotly contested and thoroughly corrupt, but it was resolved by the electoral college after the Democrats agreed to accept the election of Hayes in exchange for the end of Reconstruction and the military occupation of the South.
Q. Excluding those who died in office, which presidents did not attend the inauguration of their successors?
A. John Adams in 1801: He and Thomas Jefferson were barely on speaking terms at the time. Andrew Johnson in 1869: General Grant detested Johnson and snubbed the outgoing president by refusing his invitation to the White House after the election and publicly declared he would not ride with Johnson in the same carriage to his inauguration. Johnson decided to just skip the whole thing and remained at his desk until noon and then walked out of the White House, climbed on his horse and quietly left town. Woodrow Wilson in 1921: Wilson had been crippled by a stroke in 1919 and was a virtual invalid. A letter, almost certainly written by his wife, was sent to President-elect Warren Harding asking that he be excused from the inaugural ceremonies. Mr. Harding was very gracious and understanding in his reply. Richard Nixon in August 1974: Nixon left the White House by helicopter about an hour before his resignation came into effect. Gerald Ford was sworn into office in the East Room of the White House.
Q. Two men ran against each other for the office of Vice President. The Republican won and the Democrat lost. Both would go on to become President of the United States. Who were they?
A. The election was 1920. The Republican VP candidate was Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge. The Democratic VP candidate was Woodrow Wilson's Assistant Navy Secretary, Franklin D Roosevelt.
Q. Who was the last third party candidate to actually win one or more states in the Electoral College?
A. Segregationist George Wallace in 1968 who carried Georgia, Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi. Nixon still won by a comfortable margin.
Q. Who was the only president to formally join a church while in office, being baptized, confirmed, and receiving Communion all in the same day?
A. Dwight D. Eisenhower. Ike had been religiously indifferent most of his life. He wasn't an atheist. He actually considered atheism to be un-American. He just wasn't interested in religion very much and only rarely attended services with his wife. When he was elected president in 1952 he became concerned over the matter as he believed presidents should set a high moral standard and be a public role model. That meant he needed to start going to church. On February 1, 1953, just 12 says after taking office, Ike was quietly baptized confirmed and communed as a member of the Presbyterian Church in Washington DC. While I don't think anybody would call him a religious fanatic, Ike took the whole thing seriously and for the rest of his life was a regular churchgoer. But on nice summer days he was known to grumble that he'd rather be golfing.
Interesting. Ike's parents were Mennonites according to Stephen Ambrose. But then, Mennonites are Anabaptists who do not baptize infants. Could be he got off to West Point without.
I read somewhere, years ago, that Ike's parents were Mennonites who were strongly attracted to the "Jehovah's Witnesses" sect, and it was that "attraction" that put their children off on religion.
Ike's parents drifted religiously and eventually wound up in a sect called the Bible Student Movement. These were a strain of Millennialist and Restorationists closely linked to Charles Taze Russel. They are generally seen as the forerunners of the modern JWs and the Watch Tower cult. From what I have read, Ike had something less than zero interest in joining this group.
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