History Corner/ Book Review: 9 Presidents Who Screwed Up America: And Four Who Tried to Save Her by Dr. Brion McClanahan

Disclosure / Disclaimer: I received this book, free of charge,from Regnery History, via Edelweiss,  for review purposes on this blog. No other compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told how to post about it

Like it or not, everyone has different political opinions...

This new book presents some sound historical facts that might just change how you think...

Synopsis:

It Didn’t Start with Barack Obama

America is well on her way to becoming a banana republic. With presidents signing patently unconstitutional legislation, refusing to enforce laws they don’t like, and even making appointments without the advice and consent of the Senate, it’s clear that the federal Republic our Constitution established is hanging by a thread. And yet the chances that a president who has flouted our

founding document and the very rule of law will be impeached are slim to none.

Americans seem to have resigned ourselves to the exact form of government that the framers

and ratifiers of our Constitution feared most: the tyranny of an elected monarch. The executive branch of the U.S. federal government has grown so far beyond the bounds set for it in our

Constitution that Americans can no longer claim to govern ourselves. We only get the chance to

pick the man who will spend four years legislating unilaterally with his pen, waging undeclared wars, and usurping still more powers that the people and the states never delegated to the federal

government in the first place. 

But how did we get here?

Step by unconstitutional step, as historian Brion McClanahan reveals in Nine Presidents Who

Screwed Up America—And Four Who Tried to Save Her. McClanahan’s ranking of the presidents is surprising—because he judges them on the only true standard: whether or not they kept their oath of office to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Review:

I've had numerous arguments online and off with people over the abuse of the executive branch in our government, and how it goes in direct conflict to the oath of office and the constitution. Unfortunately nowadays, the public is led by the proverbial nose, and told what to believe rather than actually knowing what is fact and historically accurate. I look at my daughter's education and see gaps of material, that we had learned by that age (ie we only wrote in cursive by third grade, we memorized the times tables, we knew more history, etc), and know that without my showing her and helping her understand, she may never get the true understanding of what our forefathers made when they declared themselves united under one constitution.

The Constitution was ratified on a certain understanding of the office of president—of its powers, and above all of its limitations. The men who hold (the Executive) office have no right to exceed those limits. When they do so, they are breaking their inaugural oath and straining to the breaking point the very compact that our government is founded on. Achieving other goals, however laudable , can never excuse actions that violate the fundamental understanding to which “the consent of the governed” was accorded when our constitutional government was established.

In this regard, McClanahan takes apart presidents, who many hold as noble men and show just where they went down the imperial dictator path. For instance, did you know that Abraham Lincoln had Northern journalist and newpsaper editors JAILED for saying the South was right that they COULD leave the Union, and that the raising of an army against them was unconstitutional? In fact, Lincoln was the first to totally disregard state's rights, which were guaranteed by the Constitution. One wonders why Lincoln, as a lawyer, so easily went around the law and resorted to 'imperial' decrees. McClanahan does an excellent job in showing how the presidents we tend to think of as 'the best' actually were the ones who went around the Constitution willingly and often in their reigns.

But none of these men followed their oath, and in fact all of them established dangerous patterns that have created the modern “imperial presidency,”a thinly veiled elected monarchy with more power than George III exercised at the time of the American. ....Restraint requires more tenacity and backbone than rampant, damaging, and often narcissistic autocratic rule.

McClanahan shows how Thomas Jefferson, John Tyler, Grover Cleveland and Calvin Coolidge, all but the first whom we tend not to think about as great presidents, took office and did everything they could to reverse the executive orders their predecessors had made, and to return the country to its constitutional footprint. They did not have an easy time,and some of them weren't GREAT, but they were the best with adherence to their oath of office! Coolidge is the ONLY one from the last 100 years, as that is how long man's greed and power hungry attitudes have thoroughly tried to thwart our legal rights to a true Constitutional government,, with disavowement of states rights.

Before you have ANY political discussions about the men and women running for the presidency, you NEED to read this book and learn what we SHOULD expect from someone who takes the oath of office, based on the law of the land- the Constitution.

About the Author:

Dr. Brion McClanahan is the author or co-author of four books, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers, (Regnery, 2009), The Founding Fathers Guide to the Constitution (Regnery History, 2012), Forgotten Conservatives in American History (Pelican, 2012), and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Real American Heroes, (Regnery, 2012).

He has written for TheDailyCaller.com, LewRockwell.com, TheTenthAmendmentCenter.com, Townhall.com, and HumanEvents.com. McClanahan is a faculty member at Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom, has appeared on dozens of radio talk shows, and has spoken across the Southeast on the Founding Fathers and the founding principles of the United States. 

Brion McClanahan received a B.A. in History from Salisbury University in 1997 and an M.A. in History from the University of South Carolina in 1999. He finished his Ph.D. in History at the University of South Carolina in 2006, and had the privilege of being Clyde Wilson’s last doctoral student. Check out his website for more info!