{"id":37883,"date":"2026-02-09T15:38:22","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T20:38:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/?p=37883"},"modified":"2026-02-10T12:24:34","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T17:24:34","slug":"history-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/?p=37883","title":{"rendered":"History first"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last Post: 250th Birthday \u2013 History 1st, AI 2nd<\/a>
\nNext Post: AI Second<\/a><\/p>\n

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I have forty pages to read in American Lion above. I have been scratching my head wondering why the first half has not yellow marker in it. So I typed in the book title and discovered I bought the book after listening to the audible version a decade ago. That’s my greatest objection to Audible. I can’t go back and skim my markings. I sure am filling the last 100 pages with them.<\/p>\n

You see four books here. the first, The Great Triumvirate I marked as read on my reading list<\/a> in 1995. This is a book about the three also rans of the Jacksonian Era who were likely presidential timber but had to be content with being great movers and shakers. When I finish Meacham’s Lion I’ll review the triumvirate again which will probably take several hours. I have a book On Sam Huston who won independence for Texas from Mexico. Jackson was a fan of his and a fellow President as Sam took on that role in the short lived nation of Texas before it joined the Union in Jackson’s follower James K. Polk. Claudia and I visited both these Tennesee President’s homes right after the 2024 election.<\/p>\n

Jackson’s Hermitage
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James Polk’s more modest childhood home
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Ten years is plenty of time to forget a book but in Jackson’s case in the last five years I’ve read a half dozen books along the lines of the Trail of Tears so Jackson’s ferocious eviction of Indians is much on my mind. I mentioned two that dealt with Native Americans in this post from 2022<\/a><\/p>\n

And I almost forgot the fourth book in this photo. Its a fictional account by Robert Penn Warren of Huey Long the Trump like populist who ruled Louisiana during the Depression and who had his eyes on the Presidency. I’ve read FDR was more worried about Huey than any other politician. I saw the movie with Broadrick Crawford on Television in my teens. I’ve read about him in magazines like my American Heritage but I haven’t much dived into fiction because I want the real history. And yet fiction is a way of telling truths that journalists resist because tittle tattle is bad form. I was 12 when Kennedy was assassinated but almost 21 before I heard about his gangster boss girlfriend and Fiddle and Faddle the secretaries who met the needs of a great many men in the White House or the suspicions of Marilyn Monroe with her breathy Happy Birthday Mr. President. <\/p>\n

I’ve read a couple famous books recently along side their French versions for my French as much as famous novels. Warren’s book is a big one and the other night I read the first five pages to get a taste of it. The N word was copiously and honestly conspicuous as it would have been in the South in 1946. That sent me to AI to inquire about it where I learned its date of publication and more about Penn Warren’s literary accomplishments. <\/p>\n

Claudia ordered this for me with credit earned from other purchases. The book is weathered but free. I will not be in as big a hurry to finish it as a half dozen history books I plan to read. I have another half dozen unread books on America’s first fifty years sitting on my shelves. I also plan on ordering a book in another era I’m a little soft on the beginning of the Gilded age and our first president with two terms separated by four years and a campaign defeat, Grover Cleveland.<\/p>\n

It will be a busy semisesquicentennial.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last Post: 250th Birthday \u2013 History 1st, AI 2nd Next Post: AI Second I have forty pages to read in American Lion above. I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37883"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37883"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37906,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37883\/revisions\/37906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}