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The Highest Calling: Conversations on the American Presidency - Hardcover

Rubenstein, David M.

 
9781668067628: The Highest Calling: Conversations on the American Presidency
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 1668067625 ISBN 13: 9781668067628
Verlag: Simon & Schuster, 2024

Inhaltsangabe

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

From the New York Times bestselling author of The American Story and How to Lead and host of PBS’s History with David Rubenstein—David Rubenstein interviews living American presidents and top historians and journalists who reflect on the US presidency, including Joe Biden, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Maggie Haberman, Ron Chernow, and more.

For years, bestselling author David M. Rubenstein has distilled the contours of American democracy through conversations with noted leaders and historians. In The Highest Calling, he offers an enlightening overview of arguably the single most important position in the world: the American presidency.

Blending history and anecdote, Rubenstein chronicles the journeys of the presidents who have defined America as it exists now, what they envision for its future, and their legacy on the world stage. Drawing from his own experience in the Carter administration, he engages in dialogues with our nation’s presidents and the historians who study them. Get exclusive access to fresh perspectives, including:
-Original interviews with most of the living US presidents
-Interviews with noted presidential historians like Annette Gordon-Reed, Ron Chernow, Candice Millard, and more

Through “chatty, insightful, and enlightening” (The Wall Street Journal) analysis, Rubenstein captures our country’s most prominent leaders, the political genius and frays of the presidential role, and the wisdom that emerges from it.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

David M. Rubenstein is the New York Times bestselling author of How to Invest, How to Lead, The American Experiment, The American Story, The Highest Calling, and Inside the Owner’s Box. He is Cofounder and Cochairman of The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest and most successful private investment firms. An original signer of The Giving Pledge and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Mr. Rubenstein is Chairman of the Boards of the Council on Foreign Relations, the National Gallery of Art, the Economic Club of Washington, and the University of Chicago. A Baltimore native, Rubenstein is the Chairman, CEO, and principal owner of Major League Baseball’s Baltimore Orioles. He is the host of The David Rubenstein Show on Bloomberg TV and PBS, and Bloomberg Wealth with David Rubenstein on Bloomberg TV.

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Chapter 1: Douglas Bradburn on George Washington 1 DOUGLAS BRADBURN on George Washington
(1732–1799; president from 1789 to 1797)

When the Constitution was being drafted in Philadelphia in 1787, perhaps the greatest debate involved representation in Congress. Should it be by population or by state? Should enslaved people be represented in some way, and how? Should there be two legislative bodies (as in England) or just one? These issues were resolved with equal representation in the Senate and representation by population in the House, with enslaved people being counted only as three-fifths of a white person for representation purposes.

That the shape and nature of the legislature was foremost in the mind of the delegates is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that the legislative branch of government is in Article One. The discussion over how the chief executive position would operate and function—contained in Article Two—received a fair bit of discussion. The delegates did not want a king, queen, or an aristocratic figure, but instead someone who was elected, and whose powers could be checked, if necessary, by the other two branches of the federal government.

During the Convention, there were more than a few heated discussions about the powers and authority of the chief executive, to be called a president. But there probably would have been much more debate had it not been widely accepted that the first president would be none other than the man who presided over the Convention, the hero of the Revolutionary War—George Washington.

After the Convention and the ratification process, Washington was really the only person considered for the presidency. He was not universally admired during the Revolutionary War, when he lost more battles than he won, in part because he had insufficient troops and ammunition. By the war’s successful conclusion, Washington became godlike, and was the one person whom all thirteen states seemed to feel comfortable supporting for president.

But Washington was reluctant to serve. He had left Mount Vernon for eight years to fight the war, and he allowed himself to be persuaded to attend the Constitutional Convention—and to help with the ratification process—yet he wanted to stay out of further public service. Neither his father nor grandfather had lived past 50, and he was already 55.

Washington was ultimately persuaded to be a candidate, and he was elected twice unanimously, a record that will surely never be matched again. As president, he established many of the traditions that we still use today. He left office extremely popular as well—a bit of a rare occurrence now.

Had he wanted to, Washington could have been elected to a third term or more. However, he decided eight years was enough. That became the unofficial limit on presidential service until Roosevelt broke it during World War II. (Now a constitutional amendment, the Twenty-Second Amendment, enshrines the two-term limit. Upset that Roosevelt broke the unwritten two-term limit, Republicans worked hard to get that amendment approved by Congress and ratified by the states. Ironically, many Republicans did not like the amendment as much when they realized that Eisenhower could have easily won a third term but was prohibited from seeking it.)

There are a large number of outstanding books on Washington, and it is hard to narrow it to one definitive book that everyone should read. In recent years, one won the Pulitzer Prize—the biography written by Ron Chernow, who has become better known for writing a book on Washington’s Revolutionary War aide and later secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton. (His book on Hamilton inspired Lin-Manuel Miranda to write his award-winning musical Hamilton.) For this book, though, I decided to interview Doug Bradburn, the director at Mount Vernon, the historic home of George Washington that was purchased by the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association in 1858 and restored to its current, excellent condition. He is an American history scholar who previously ran the George Washington Presidential Library. I interviewed him on July 5, 2023.

DAVID M. RUBENSTEIN (DR): What is your responsibility as president and CEO of George Washington’s Mount Vernon?

DOUGLAS BRADBURN (DB): I am charged with maintaining the mission of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, which is our corporate name, and the mission is to preserve this estate to the highest standards and educate people around the world about the life, leadership, and legacy of George Washington. I oversee a staff of about 600 employees and 300 volunteers. Our annual budget is around $60 million.

DR: When was Mount Vernon originally built?

DB: The original estate house, the Mansion House, was built in 1734. It was about a story and a half tall, and George Washington expanded it over his time running Mount Vernon in the 1750s, and then into the 1770s. The final mansion was completed by 1789.

DR: For whom is Mount Vernon actually named?

DB: It’s named for an English admiral named Edward Vernon. George Washington’s half brother Lawrence Washington served on the same ship with Admiral Vernon while he was the commander of British forces attempting to conquer the Spanish Main. Lawrence Washington came to greatly admire him, and changed the name of the estate from Little Hunting Creek to Mount Vernon in honor of Admiral Vernon.

DR: How did George Washington come into ownership of it?

DB: Lawrence Washington died, and George Washington started renting it from his widow in 1754. Essentially, he came into full ownership in 1761, when Lawrence Washington’s widow and daughter died.

DR: What was Mount Vernon during Washington’s lifetime? Was it a plantation, a farm?

DB: George Washington’s Mount Vernon was a plantation. It was a combined agricultural business, which had outlying farms producing crops for market as well as mills, distillery, ultimately fisheries. It had multiple economic purposes, all of which were agricultural.

DR: How big was it?

DB: By the time he died in 1799, it was 8,000 acres. When he inherited it, it was 2,200 acres. He expanded it over the course of his lifetime.

DR: Was it a place where the work was essentially done by enslaved people, and if so, how many slaves were there?

DB: Yes, in line with every other eighteenth-century Virginia agricultural plantation, the labor was enslaved. Over the course of his lifetime, over 540 people were enslaved there. When he died, there were 317 at Mount Vernon. When he started at Mount Vernon, there were probably about 70.

DR: What happened to Mount Vernon when Washington died in 1799?

DB: The 8,000 acres were divided up in three ways among different family members. Many of the enslaved people were freed; others moved with the Custis family (the relatives of Martha Washington’s first husband), whom they were owned by.

DR: Who was Miss Cunningham?

DB: Ann Pamela Cunningham was a South Carolina woman of some distinction, that is to say, some wealth, some family recognition, and she was the first regent of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association. She created the organization that purchased this place from the last descendants of the Washington family and made it public for visitation.

DR: Where did she get the money to purchase Mount Vernon? How much did she spend on it?

DB: She created the association, which in 1858 began a national fundraising campaign to raise the money. Ultimately, they raised $200,000, which in the nineteenth century was a substantial...

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Verlag
Simon & Schuster
Erscheinungsdatum
2024
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1668067625
ISBN 13 
9781668067628
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
496
Kontakt zum Hersteller
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