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Home – Founding Fathers & American History – Victor Davis Hanson: Nixon Was the ‘Most Naturally Bright President’ We’ve Ever Had

Victor Davis Hanson: Nixon Was the ‘Most Naturally Bright President’ We’ve Ever Had

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of the latest edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words” from Daily Signal senior contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to Victor Davis Hanson’s own YouTube channel to watch past episodes.

Sami Winc: So, Victor, I’m anxious to hear about our John Tyler, but also Richard Nixon, who is probably the more infamous of the two, although I’m not sure he should be.  

Victor Davis Hanson: I don’t think he’s infamous. He’s actually enjoying a renaissance right now among young people.

John Tyler was our 10th president. He was an accidental president. He was the first president who was elevated to the presidency as vice president. It doesn’t really say in the Constitution that the vice president shall become the president. 

It said the vice president can fulfill the duties when the president is incapacitated. So, he’s kind of famous that when William Henry Harrison died after 31 days in office, he didn’t just start doing it. He said, I want to be sworn in as the president, and that wasn’t in the Constitution. But that inaugurated that and later amendments reified that.  

So, he was this Virginia slave owner, and he was in the Democratic Party. He was originally a Jacksonian from 1841 to 1845, so we’re getting very close. He’s gonna be followed by [James] Polk, and he followed [Martin] Van Buren, who wasn’t very popular. And we’re getting closer and closer to the big 1861 divide. He did nothing to slow that down. 

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He said he abhorred slavery, but he never sold his 40 or 50 slaves he had. He’s famous for having the most children of anybody. I think he had 15 children. Fifteen. He was married twice. Eight children the first time, seven the second. 

Winc: I did not know that. That is crazy. 

Hanson: Yeah, he was, and he was very … He was a hotshot young guy in the Jacksonian period. 

And he was a pillar or a primary guy in the Democratic Party, and he arose with a John Calhoun idea of states’ rights. And [Andrew] Jackson had been a big critic of the Adams family elite and the federal government, the Federalists. But once the South Carolinians said they were not gonna pay tariffs in 1832, I think Jackson became a tough Federalist. 

And same thing with the Trail of Tears. He just went in, and he did what he had to do, he thought, and he really empowered the presidency. And that Tyler was on the other Calhoun side and broke with him. But when you look at over the four years, it’s really hard to see anything that he did. He had a treaty with China. 

He tried to finesse the Democratic Party. He didn’t split with the Democrats in the North who were opposed to slavery. And he said, “On the one hand, I’m opposed to slavery. On the other hand, we have all........

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