Congressional Giants
Congressional Giants
Influential Leaders of Congress and How They Shaped American History
J. Michael Martinez
LEXINGTON BOOKS
Lanham • Boulder • New York • London
Published by Lexington Books
An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
6 Tinworth Street, London SE11 5AL, United Kingdom
Copyright © 2020 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020932593
ISBN 978-1-7936-1607-4 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-7936-1608-1 (electronic)
For William Donald Richardson,
who was there at the beginning, and at every step along the journey
Recognize at all times the paramount right of your country to your most devoted services, whether she treats you ill or well, and never let selfish views or interests predominate over the duties of patriotism.
—Henry Clay
Contents
Introduction and Acknowledgments
12 Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill Jr.
| Figure 1.1 | Henry Clay |
| Figure 1.2 | Daniel Webster |
| Figure 1.3 | John C. Calhoun |
| Figure 2.1 | Stephen A. Douglas |
| Figure 3.1 | Thomas B. “Czar” Reed |
| Figure 4.1 | Joseph G. “Uncle Joe” Cannon |
| Figure 5.1 | Alice Roosevelt Longworth and Nicholas Longworth |
| Figure 6.1 | Robert A. Taft |
| Figure 7.1 | Sam Rayburn |
| Figure 8.1 | Richard B. Russell |
| Figure 9.1 | Everett Dirksen |
| Figure 10.1 | Lyndon B. Johnson |
| Figure 11.1 | Mike Mansfield |
| Figure 12.1 | Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill Jr. |
Introduction and Acknowledgments
In March 1989, the eminent historian David McCullough addressed a joint session of Congress to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the institution. During his speech, McCullough observed that “our knowledge, our appreciation, of the history of Congress and those who have made history here are curiously, regrettably deficient. The plain truth is historians and biographers have largely ignored the subject. Two hundred years after the creation of Congress, we have only begun to tell the story of Congress—which, of course, means the opportunity for those who write and teach could not be greater.”1
Setting aside the relative obscurity of its history, the Congress of the United States is unquestionably one of the most successful legislative bodies in the history of the world. Yet, it routinely garners negative reviews from virtually everyone and anyone who renders a verdict. Public opinion surveys repeatedly find that a large majority of Americans rates the institution about as trustworthy as used car salesmen and bottom-feeding lawyers. Political scientists