The death of America’s greatest president, Abraham Lincoln, resulted in an outpouring of national mourning, the apex of which came in late April of 1865 when a specially outfitted train carried his body on a thirteen-day, 1,700-mile, eleven-city funeral procession from Washington, D.C., to his home and final resting place in Springfield, Ill.  Approximately 12 million people — nearly one-third of the population at that time — watched the train go by, while more than 1 million people viewed the open casket at the train’s various stops.

Unsurprisingly, many cities had petitioned to be included in the procession’s route, and the officials in the cities that were included — Baltimore, Md.; Harrisburg and Philadelphia, Pa.; New York City, Buffalo and Albany, NY; Cleveland and Columbus, Oh.; Indianapolis, In.; and Chicago and Springfield, Ill. — wanted to honor the president with a ceremony that was both moving and memorable.

Yet no city officials prepared for Lincoln’s funeral procession quite like Cleveland’s, whose ceremonial arrangements were one part bureaucratic overkill, one part “Keystone Kops” absurdity, and a dash of egotistical one-upmanship sprinkled in.

For starters, Cleveland’s city council appointed a five-man committee, the General Committee of Arrangements, to prepare for the funeral train’s arrival.  Not to be outdone, Cleveland’s Board of Trade then appointed its own, larger committee to coordinate planning with the five men on the Committee of Arrangements, who — sensing they were outnumbered — promptly expanded to 23 members.

They then met to create nine subcommittees with specific duties, as evidenced by their committee titles:  “On Reception,” “On Procession,” “On Entertainment,” “On Music” (apparently separate from entertainment), “On Decoration,” “On Military,” “On Carriages,” “On Location of Remains,” and “To Meet the Remains.”

Next they created the “Civic Guard of Honor,” which they divided into several squads, the main purpose being to ensure that every single civic-minded citizen in Cleveland got to serve in some official capacity.  As a result, as historian James Swanson has written, “Cleveland created more levels of bureaucracy to receive the remains … than the U.S. War Department needed to plan and staff the entire thirteen-day trip.”

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I have written before that if John Quincy Adams’ presidency had been as notable as his career in public service before and after he was president, he likely would have been on Mt. Rushmore.  He was, arguably, America’s greatest secretary of state — in that position he, not President Monroe, wrote the Monroe Doctrine that gave America primacy in the Western Hemisphere, and he engineered several treaties that brilliantly, and peacefully, gained America increased territory and prestige.

He was also among the greatest politicians ever to serve in Congress, which he did after he was president, entering the House of Representatives in 1831.   There “Old Man Eloquent,” as he was called, led the opposition to slavery, working tirelessly, and ultimately successfully, to end the so-called “gag rule,” which had allowed Congress to “table” — to put aside without debate or vote — the many petitions Congress was receiving demanding slavery’s end.

And in 1848 he passionately opposed then-President James Polk’s war with Mexico, which Polk had provoked in order to gain the Mexican-held California and New Mexico territories, thereby completing America’s continental expansion to the Pacific.  Adams supported America becoming a continental nation, but he also knew that these territories, forcibly taken, would exacerbate the conflict over slavery as southerners and northerners argued over whether the new states that would eventually be created from these territories would be free or slave states.  Adams also objected to Polk’s outmaneuvering Congress to start the war, clearly violating Congress’s exclusive constitutional war-declaration authority.

Which is why Adams yelled “No!” when, in February of 1848, the Speaker of the House called for a vote to honor the U.S. officers who had waged the war.  Rising to explain his vote, Adams suddenly collapsed from a stroke.  He died two days later, on February 23, 1848.

The upshot of which was that “No” was the last word Adams uttered in public even though, as a proud Whig, he was a positive progressive.  Like all Whigs he called for an activist government that supported “internal improvements,” meaning funding for new roads, bridges and canals to better move goods and services across the country.  He also advocated government support for science, education and industry, as well as legal recognition of rights for Indians, blacks and women.

Interestingly, Adams’ views on all of these issues were shared by another proud Whig who, in 1848, was also a member of the House of Representatives.  Abraham Lincoln was his name and unlike Adams his congressional career was undistinguished — he served just one term.  Then again, unlike Adams, his presidency from 1861 to 1865 was the most notable in our history.  So notable, in fact, that it made him a shoo-in for Mt. Rushmore.

This week (Jan. 20) in 1961, John F. Kennedy was inaugurated as our 35^th president, and his tragic death by assassination notwithstanding, his was a mediocre presidency that, undeservedly, became the stuff of legend — in part because of his assassination.

The myth of “Camelot” is well known; the handsome, inspirational president cut down in his prime, thereby cutting short a good presidency destined for greatness.  In truth, however, the Kennedy administration, while long on rhetoric, was short on accomplishments.  Indeed, in the latter category, historians point to the establishment of the Peace Corps, the injection of purpose — and funding — into the U.S. space program, and tax cuts that helped stimulate the economy.

Yet on the big issues of the day, Kennedy was either AWOL, or blundered badly.  On Civil Rights he was a reluctant president who kept a low profile on an issue that he thought would hurt him politically, especially in the segregationist South, which in 1961 was the core of the Democratic Party.  Kennedy played hard to get with civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr., meeting with them only infrequently and usually surreptitiously, and although he made the perfunctory noises about civil rights legislation, it was his successor, Lyndon Johnson, who actually had the muscle, and the moxie, to enact the 1964 Civil Rights legislation into law.

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