Why Do We Seem to Always Elect Millionaires to the Presidency? (redux)

Several months ago I returned to a question that has bothered me since I first studied American history: “We do we Americans elect primarily wealthy men to be our president?” I have been some research for several months and eventually found a website that gave me some surprising answers. (Had I thought about the question and the potential resources for the answer, I would have gone there first: Forbes Magazine online).

Pondering the information that I obtained, I have a probable answer to my question: We elect wealthy men as president because we have always elected wealthy men as our president, beginning with George Washington!

Our first president was also probably the richest (in relative terms) of all of our presidents and perhaps the only commander-in-chief who would have been listed on the Forbes 400 Richest in America. Not only did he inherit money and plantations from his father, but he married Martha Dandridge Custis, the “richest widow in the colonies.” When Washington died, his estate was valued in excess of $500,000.00—that is almost $15,000,000,000 in today’s dollars.

Moving right along, our third president—we skip John Adams, who was a lawyer and a farmer and had to earn his money the “old fashioned way”—Thomas Jefferson (1801-09), like Washington, also inherited wealth and Virginia plantations. He was born into one of the Virginia’s wealthiest families. Forbes reports than “only one man in Albemarle County, where he lived at Monticello, owned more slaves than he did.” Like John Adams, Jefferson was also a practicing lawyer; however, his clients were exclusively the wealthiest folks in America. Although “his income as a lawyer in the 1770s fluctuated between $1,000 and $1,800 a year," that’s still between $262,000.00 and $471,600.00 when compared with the unskilled wage earners between 1800 and 2005.

Chronologically, Andrew Jackson(1829-37)—considered to be a 

“commoner and back- woodsman” and “the common man’s president”—was the next millionaire we elected. In fact, Old Hickory was “one of the richest presidents of the 19th century.” Unlike Washington and Jefferson, Jackson didn’t inherit the bulk of his wealth. He made his millions via land speculation and from plantations he owned west of the Appalachian Mountains. Like Washington, Jackson was an army general; like Jefferson he was an attorney. According to Andrew Burstein, author of The Passions of Andrew Jackson, the real basis of his fortune were land deals that came to him in his capacity as a U.S. Army general. He and his army buddies were involved in negotiating the cession of land by Indians. "Then they went about [buying and] developing those lands," Burstein says.

Another army general who became a millionaire president was Zachary Taylor (1849-50). The son of a Kentucky planter, his family was extremely wealthy and had extensive landholdings in Mississippi, Louisiana and Kentucky. I may add that Taylor owned a plantation in Louisville and my Aunt Lill owned a house on land that was once a part of that plantation. Her house was located between the old Taylor Plantation house and the place where Zackary Taylor is buried in the Zachary Taylor National Cemetery. Though he was a career army officer and a hero of the Mexican War, he also attended to his cotton plantations. Taylor was fascinated by questions of credit and finance and came to be a master of money management. His wealth increased steadily; by the time he returned from the Mexican War his wealth was estimated conservatively at between $135,000 and $140,000. Most fortune was in slaves, valued at about $50,000. At the time of his sudden death in the White House in 1850, he was worth about $200,000—about in $973,000 2005 dollars.

Like Washington and Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt (1901-09) inherited his wealth: his grandfather Cornelius Van Schaack Roosevelt was one of the wealthiest merchants and bankers in New York City. According to Forbes, his inheritance allowed him a substantial income of $8,000 ($4,823,155.86 in 2005 buying power) per year, enough to support a large home and servants, but not enough for a townhouse in Manhattan. Roosevelt lost much of his fortune before he was president in an imprudent ranching endeavor in the Dakota Territories. After his presidency, Teddy wrote brooks in order to pay his bills.

Herbert Hoover (1929-33) could have easily spoken the line of made famous by his presidential predecessor, Calvin Coolidge, “the business of America is business,” since Hoover was probably the most successful businessman among the presidents—and one of the wealthiest. He made his money as a mining consultant and then by investing in mining operations. By 1908, he was earning $100,000 ($12,307,616.57 in 2005 dollars) per year and by the time he was forty, his estimated worth was between $1,000,000 and $5,000,000 ($123,076,165.72 to $615,380,828.62 in 2005 dollars). Hoover never took a salary as president: a humanitarian and philanthropist, he donated his salary to charity.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933-45) was another president who inherited his millions. A distant cousin of Theodore, FDR also came from an old money New York family: his father was an extremely wealthy investor and his mother was the heir to a China trade fortune. Because his mother lived until 1941, FDR never controlled the family fortune; however he was certainly able to spend it: during his years as president he spent an estimated $175,000 annually from his own funds above his presidential salary and allowances just to run the White House. When Roosevelt died at age 63 in 1945, his personal estate valued at only a bit over $1,000,000 (about $25,000,000 in 2005 dollars).

Another president who inherited wealth was John F. Kennedy (1961-63). My father always said that that the Kennedy fortune came from bootlegging during Prohibition; but since my dad was a Republican, I have always taken that with a grain of salt. Actually, Kennedy's father, Joseph, was the son of a successful bar owner and sometimes banker who became one of the U.S.’s richest men. Like Herbert Hoover, JFK never accepted a salary for being president and donated it to charity. Because his parents were alive when he was assassinated in 1963, John Kennedy never inherited even any of the family fortune, which was estimated to be about $850,000,000 in 1990.

Kennedy’s vice president and successor, Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-69), made his millions from TV and radio stations and Texas real estate, all after he entered politics at age 23. By the time Johnson succeeded Kennedy in 1963, his wealth was reported as $14,000,000 ($34,982,903.51 in 2005 dollars).

George Herbert Walker Bush inherited from his millionaire father and increased his fortune through Texas oil. In 1980 he reported an estimated wealth of $1.4 million ($4,798,788.08 in 2005 dollars). I have been unable to locate any estimate of George H. W. Bush’s wealth since 1980.

George W. Bush (2001-present), son of George Herbert Walker Bush, inherited family wealth and added to it through oil and investments, primarily in the Texas Rangers baseball team. He was much wealthier than his father was when elected president, primarily due to the $15,000,000 he made by selling his shares in the Texas Rangers (his initial investment: $605,000).

Who were the poorest presidents? I’ve not yet researched that question; however, from what I have discovered while researching the richest, our least wealthy president was Harry Truman. Even Abraham Lincoln, born in a log cabin (which wasn’t that unusual in the Kentucky of those days). Fifteen years before Lincoln became president, he was reported to have $120,000 “at work for interest.”

Some links you may find interesting:

The Wealth of Presidents

Measuring Wealth Calculator

The Richest U.S. Presidents

A BRIEF HISTORY OF MONEY IN POLITICS: How Americans Have Financed Elections in the Past

PLEASE

I ain't no millionaire!

God Bless You, Mr. Lincoln

President Abraham Lincoln, February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865

I first visited the cabin in which Abraham Lincoln was born when I was about six years old. I really don’t remember the details of the visit—other than a lingering question in my mind: why did someone build a building around a building?

Since then, I have visited Lincoln’s Birthday Place National Site dozens of times. After all, it’s located less than 60 miles from Louisville. (59.7 miles from my house). It’s a neat little park, for picnicking and other (x-rated) things: I apologize, Mr. President, for making love at midnight on the grass in front of your birth place some 40 or so years ago. Of course, with your astounding grace, I rather suspect that you forgive me and even wink at me.

As a fellow Kentuckian whose birthday is but two days after his, I have read thousands of pages about President Lincoln. And with each page my respect and admiration has increased. So, today as a small celebration of the life of the Sixteenth President of the United States, allow me to share just of few of the words of President Abraham Lincoln:

"I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me."

"I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day."

"Whenever I hear any one arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally."

"As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy."

"You think slavery is right and should be extended; while we think slavery is wrong and ought to be restricted. That I suppose is the rub. It certainly is the only substantial difference between us."

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan - to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations."

"...I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord's side."

"Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them."

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."

"Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser - in fees, expenses, and waste of time. As a peacemaker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man.”

"The demon of intemperance ever seems to have delighted in sucking the blood of genius and of generosity."

"I am rather inclined to silence, and whether that be wise or not, it is at least more unusual nowadays to find a man who can hold his tongue than to find one who cannot."

"It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: 'And this, too, shall pass away.' How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction!"

"...that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

"I leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are created free and equal."

Abe Lincoln reads the Bible to his son, Tad

I don’t know where you plan to click to next. May I suggest that you continue the celebration of President Lincoln’s birthday by following THIS LINK to Kat’s blog, Keep the Coffee Coming, and invest a couple of minutes listening to this grand song celebrating the grace of President Lincoln on the occasion of the ending of the Civil War, Let the Band Play Dixie.

Why Do We Seem to Always Elect Millionaires to the Presidency?

Several months ago I returned to a question that has bothered me since I first studied American history: “We do we Americans elect primarily wealthy men to be our president?” I have been some research for several months and eventually found a website that gave me some surprising answers. (Had I thought about the question and the potential resources for the answer, I would have gone there first: Forbes Magazine online).

Pondering the information that I obtained, I have a probable answer to my question: We elect wealthy men as president because we have always elected wealthy men as our president. Beginning with George Washington!

Our first president was also probably the richest (in relative terms) of all of our presidents and perhaps the only commander-in-chief who would have been listed on the Forbes 400 Richest in America. Not only did he inherit money and plantations from his father, but he married Martha Dandridge Custis, the “richest widow in the colonies.” When Washington died, his estate was valued in excess of $500,000.00—that is almost $15,000,000,000 in today’s dollars.

Moving right along, our third president—we skip John Adams, who was a lawyer and a farmer and had to earn his money the “old fashioned way”—Thomas Jefferson (1801-09), like Washington, also inherited wealth and Virginia plantations. He was born into one of the Virginia’s wealthiest families. Forbes reports than “only one man in Albemarle County, where he lived at Monticello, owned more slaves than he did.” Like John Adams, Jefferson was also a practicing lawyer; however, his clients were exclusively the wealthiest folks in America. Although “his income as a lawyer in the 1770s fluctuated between $1,000 and $1,800 a year," that’s still between $262,000.00 and $471,600.00 when compared with the unskilled wage earners between 1800 and 2005.

Chronologically, Andrew Jackson(1829-37)—considered to be a “commoner and back- woodsman” and “the common man’s president”—was the next millionaire we elected. In fact, Old Hickory was “one of the richest presidents of the 19th century.” Unlike Washington and Jefferson, Jackson didn’t inherit the bulk of his wealth. He made his millions via land speculation and from plantations he owned west of the Appalachian Mountains. Like Washington, Jackson was an army general; like Jefferson he was an attorney. According to Andrew Burstein, author of The Passions of Andrew Jackson, the real basis of his fortune were land deals that came to him in his capacity as a U.S. Army general. He and his army buddies were involved in negotiating the cession of land by Indians. "Then they went about [buying and] developing those lands," Burstein says.

Another army general who became a millionaire president was Zachary Taylor (1849-50). The son of a Kentucky planter, his family was extremely wealthy and had extensive landholdings in Mississippi, Louisiana and Kentucky. I may add that Taylor owned a plantation in Louisville and my Aunt Lill owned a house on land that was once a part of that plantation. Her house was located between the old Taylor Plantation house and the place where Zackary Taylor is buried in the Zachary Taylor National Cemetery. Though he was a career army officer and a hero of the Mexican War, he also attended to his cotton plantations. Taylor was fascinated by questions of credit and finance and came to be a master of money management. His wealth increased steadily; by the time he returned from the Mexican War his wealth was estimated conservatively at between $135,000 and $140,000. Most fortune was in slaves, valued at about $50,000. At the time of his sudden death in the White House in 1850, he was worth about $200,000—about in $973,000 2005 dollars.

Like Washington and Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt (1901-09) inherited his wealth: his grandfather Cornelius Van Schaack Roosevelt was one of the wealthiest merchants and bankers in New York City. According to Forbes, his inheritance allowed him a substantial income of $8,000 ($4,823,155.86 in 2005 buying power) per year, enough to support a large home and servants, but not enough for a townhouse in Manhattan. Roosevelt lost much of his fortune before he was president in an imprudent ranching endeavor in the Dakota Territories. After his presidency, Teddy wrote brooks in order to pay his bills.

Herbert Hoover (1929-33) could have easily spoken the line of made famous by his presidential predecessor, Calvin Coolidge, “the business of America is business,” since Hoover was probably the most successful businessman among the presidents—and one of the wealthiest. He made his money as a mining consultant and then by investing in mining operations. By 1908, he was earning $100,000 ($12,307,616.57 in 2005 dollars) per year and by the time he was forty, his estimated worth was between $1,000,000 and $5,000,000 ($123,076,165.72 to $615,380,828.62 in 2005 dollars). Hoover never took a salary as president: a humanitarian and philanthropist, he donated his salary to charity.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933-45) was another president who inherited his millions. A distant cousin of Theodore, FDR also came from an old money New York family: his father was an extremely wealthy investor and his mother was the heir to a China trade fortune. Because his mother lived until 1941, FDR never controlled the family fortune; however he was certainly able to spend it: during his years as president he spent an estimated $175,000 annually from his own funds above his presidential salary and allowances just to run the White House. When Roosevelt died at age 63 in 1945, his personal estate valued at only a bit over $1,000,000 (about $25,000,000 in 2005 dollars).

Another president who inherited wealth was John F. Kennedy (1961-63). My father always said that that the Kennedy fortune came from bootlegging during Prohibition; but since my dad was a Republican, I have always taken that with a grain of salt. Actually, Kennedy's father, Joseph, was the son of a successful bar owner and sometimes banker who became one of the U.S.’s richest men. Like Herbert Hoover, JFK never accepted a salary for being president and donated it to charity. Because his parents were alive when he was assassinated in 1963, John Kennedy never inherited even any of the family fortune, which was estimated to be about $850,000,000 in 1990.

Kennedy’s vice president and successor, Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-69), made his millions from TV and radio stations and Texas real estate, all after he entered politics at age 23. By the time Johnson succeeded Kennedy in 1963, his wealth was reported as $14,000,000 ($34,982,903.51 in 2005 dollars).

George Herbert Walker Bush inherited from his millionaire father and increased his fortune through Texas oil. In 1980 he reported an estimated wealth of $1.4 million ($4,798,788.08 in 2005 dollars). I have been unable to locate any estimate of George H. W. Bush’s wealth since 1980.

George W. Bush (2001-present), son of George Herbert Walker Bush, inherited family wealth and added to it through oil and investments, primarily in the Texas Rangers baseball team. He was much wealthier than his father was when elected president, primarily due to the $15,000,000 he made by selling his shares in the Texas Rangers (his initial investment: $605,000).

Who were the poorest presidents? I’ve not yet researched that question; however, from what I have discovered while researching the richest, our least wealthy president was Harry Truman. Even Abraham Lincoln, born in a log cabin (which wasn’t that unusual in the Kentucky of those days). Fifteen years before Lincoln became president, he was reported to have $120,000 “at work for interest.”

Some links you may find interesting:

The Wealth of Presidents

Measuring Wealth Calculator

The Richest U.S. Presidents

A BRIEF HISTORY OF MONEY IN POLITICS: How Americans Have Financed Elections in the Past

I ain't no millionaire!