American Presidents: Farewell Messages to the Nation, 1796-2001 (review)

Because it is convenient to have all presidential farewells in one volume, libraries may be tempted to purchase this book. That would be unfortunate. First, all of the messages in this volume can be found in the various editions of James D. Richardson's Messages and Papers of the Presidents and in the Public Papers of the Presidents, with the exception of Andrew Johnson's farewell address, omitted from Richardson's compilations.

Second, the general introduction and the headnote preceding each message are filled with undocumented historical and psychological speculations. In the introduction, for example, Whitney notes the rarity of formal farewells addressed to the nation between 1869 and 1953 and explains: "Upon reading Andrew Johnson's farewell in 1869, the people perhaps perceived a decline in the quality of the genre. . . . Until memory of that address faded, perhaps future presidents did not want to be associated with the formal farewell at all" (3). During this time, however, presidents made farewell comments in their final annual messages, undeterred by Johnson's vituperation. Subsequently, Whitney writes: "Prior to the middle of the twentieth century, the limits of technology may have reinforced the tendency to do less speechifying. Orations could not be easily delivered to the whole nation until developments in radio in the 1920s and television in the 1940s" (4). The telegraph came into general use in the 1840s and enabled presidential messages to be printed the following day in newspapers throughout the nation. Similarly, "Adams must have decided at some point that a formal farewell would not be needed, that his fourth annual message provided sufficient closure to his years in office" (31), another bit of undocumented mind-reading. He adds: "The Adams precedent would exercise a hold on most future presidents up to Harry S. Truman" (31). Apparently Andrew Jackson's 1837 farewell set no precedent.

The historical weaknesses of this book are pervasive. For example, there is no reference to Polk's defense of the presidential veto and its constitutional significance, no indication of the links between Buchanan's final annual message and Lincoln's first inaugural in terms of the power of the presidency. Referring to Andrew Johnson's farewell, Whitney writes that "It was through rhetorical technique alone that he evoked America's most famous political document, the Declaration of Independence" (192), and points to the anaphora Johnson used in enumerating the crimes of the Congress. Notably, however, Johnson quotes directly from that document and describes Reconstruction as "a condition more intolerable than that from which the patriots of the Revolution rebelled" (196). The headnote on Hayes reports the news that "the sectionalism that concerned George Washington was still a major challenge after a century of nation-building" (211), but only in the subsequent headnote to Arthur's final message do readers learn about the disputed Hayes-Tilden election; however, no information is provided about the "compromise" that elected Hayes conditional on his promise to remove federal troops from the formerly rebellious states.

Surprisingly, Lincoln's Second Inaugural is included as a farewell. The justifications are that it was delivered about six weeks before his assassination, that Lincoln had premonitions of death in dreams, that the address speaks of final things (6), and that Lincoln might have suffered from Marfan syndrome, a disease "identified and named in the late nineteenth century, after Lincoln died. This makes speculation dicey" (188), Whitney modestly comments. In the headnote, Whitney refers to "one of Lincoln's famous dream-visions, the one in which he saw a double image of himself in the mirror. Circumspection must be brought to the historical analysis of dreams" (189), but such dicey speculations are the basis for the inclusion of the speech. Let me add that the book cover reports that Whitney has a Ph.D. in history from the University of Michigan.

Whitney admits that farewells are rhetorical documents, then rehearses the commonest attacks on rhetoric as "hypocritical, self...