I’m a history buff. I’d guess that I’ve been avidly reading American history, and Western European history that has ties to American history, since about the third grade at St. Joseph’s Catholic School in Sioux City.

Much of the history taught during my eight years at St. Joseph’s had a hint of Catholicism interwoven into the fabric. Even at that young age I began judging the good and the bad sides of the men — white, Catholic, and Protestant — who made history. I recall a hint of “Black History” via the story of George Washington Carver’s scientific work with peanuts.

Back in those years, we celebrated two of our nation’s most well known presidents with individual recognition of their birthdays: George Washington, born Feb. 22, 1732 (That was according to the Gregorian calendar, which superseded the Julian calendar, according to which he was born on Feb. 11, 1731), and Abraham Lincoln, born Feb. 12, 1809. Now we celebrate Presidents’ Day, on the third Monday in February.

Back in those growing up days, I always considered Lincoln the greater of the two. My rationale was simple: Washington owned slaves; Lincoln freed the slaves. Obviously, too simple.

Checking the Mount Vernon website, and having visited Mount Vernon again in 2023, I learned that Washington had inherited slaves from a variety of sources. Upon his death in 1799, Mount Vernon had 317 slaves living on the estate. Washington owned 123 of them and his will provided for their release from bondage.

While Lincoln freed the slaves, at the time of his assassination in April 1865 our nation’s African –American population was a long way from the civil rights they would be granted during the terms of future presidents. How many more of those civil rights would have been granted had the Great Emancipator lived another term in office? 

Over the 70-plus years since I was introduced to American history, I’ve continued to pursue it. I’ve had some great in-the-classroom history teachers and a lot of great in-the-book history teachers whose writings live in our nation’s public libraries.

And  our Brookings Public Library is one of those.

As the 2024 presidential election draws closer, I find myself wondering how well-versed in American history the average voter is. Whatever the answer is, we could always take a refresher course. While there’s controversy as to biography being history, I’d suggest there’s some symbiotic relationship here. Since time is short between now and November, I suggest beginning with some biographies of our chief executives — learn about the good, the bad and the ugly, which I suspect all of them possessed to some degree.

A good place to start is our own public library, which has more than a dozen biographies in the The American Presidents\Series: Included are Washington, Lincoln (written by George McGovern), Andrew Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry S Truman, John F. Kennedy and both Bushes.

These brief bios are well written by recognized authors, relatively easy to read and give you a feel for what each of these men is about. Each is billed as a “distillation of his life, character, and career.” And each carries the same introductory essay by noted historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr who waxes philosophically as to what the presidency is all about. The volumes are easy to find: each is shelved by the number 921 and the first three letters of the subject’s surname: e.g, 921LIN or 921TRU.

If you read one of these shorter volumes and you find it of interest, you can move on to larger, more in-depth studies. After I read McGovern’s take on Lincoln, I went on to read two more books about him, written by Jon Meacham: “The Soul of America: The battle for our better angels,” published in May 2018, and “And there was light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle,” published in October 2022.

I read the first Meacham book early in 2020 just as the COVID pandemic was starting to kick in and Donald Trump was in the last year of his presidency.  While the book had a lot of good stuff to say about Lincoln and our better angels (or lack of them?), Meacham wrote about Trump in a less than flattering fashion. Did his words lose Trump some votes?

I just finished Meacham’s second book: a tome, with a very in-depth look at Lincoln and the good, bad and ugly elements of a very complicated moral man, astute politician, man of God and knower of human nature.

While there is no mention of Trump in this second volume, I had to wonder if the author was somehow juxtaposing the troubled time of Lincoln with the troubling time of Trump. “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” said Lincoln. It took a civil war to validate those words and piece the Union back together.

Are we in America today a house divided against itself? An argument could be made that we are. And if we are, who can put the house together? Both the Republicans and Democrats are at each other’s throats. Both parties look pretty much headed to their national conventions ready to rubber-stamp presidential candidates who are, to put it mildly, well past their sell-by dates. Can they be stopped? Probably not.

But … time for some thinking — probably unreal and too little, too late — outside the box. Let both the GOP and Dems go to their national conventions with a determination that it’s time to help both Trump and Biden off the bus. Then, having read some biographies of America’s past presidents and Schlesinger’s intro in each volume, let them as Lyndon B. Johnson once said, “ … sit down and reason together.” And come up with the best candidate for the job.

They might also consider Dwight D. Eisenhower’s words: “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”

Have a nice day. Read some American history.