all star senate: metropolis

This region is defined by the New York metropolitan area—with New York state itself, and two states that have heavy numbers of New York commuters, Connecticut and New Jersey.  Pennsylvania and Delaware complete the set as two Mid-Atlantic states with heavy industry throughout much of its history between the steel mills and coal mines of the former, and the DuPont factories of the latter.  These states were, historically, loyal to the Union and were “doubtful states” for much of the 19^th century, ones which could swing either way in an election based on the strength of the candidate and who counted the votes.  Now more or less reliably blue states that usually elect Democrats to statewide office, let us explore the senators our Metropolis states contribute to our All Star Senate.

VI.  New York

Ah, the Empire State.  Home of about half dozen presidents, Tammany Hall, David Hyde Pierce, and the great Adirondack Mountains, its influence on national politics is almost unsurpassed.  For years, New York was a 50+ electoral vote behemoth, a legitimate swing state where a few votes here and there could determine the outcome of the election.

11.  Roscoe Conkling (Republican, 1867-1881)

It is difficult to think of a figure more at home in the Gilded Age than Roscoe Conkling.  Conkling had an effective grip on the state’s Republican Party.  Tall and handsome, but arrogant and egotistical, Conkling wore ostentatious clothes and did not make friends easily, but nonetheless enjoyed a stranglehold over New York’s state and legislative spoils system.  When you consider that most of the best-paying government jobs were in New York (the Collector of the Port of New York, for example, made more money than the president in the 1870s), this was a lucrative place to find oneself.  He became the captain of the Stalwart faction of the Republican Party, which supported and made excuses for the corrupt, back-scratching Grant administration.  For decades, the principle that “to the victor belongs the spoils” defined much of the Senate’s work, and few played this game as masterfully as Roscoe Conkling.  At the same time, Conkling was more creditably a champion of the freedman and African-American rights, showing an important link between Reconstruction and the Age of Industry.  Altruism and self-interest always coincide to some degree, as Mr. Conkling’s career demonstrates.

12.  Robert Wagner (Democrat, 1927-1949)

Wagner is the consummate “Mr. New Deal,” a liberal New York Democrat, eager to use the state to alleviate bad working conditions and regulate an often unwieldy economy.  Many of the New Deal’s signature achievements were written, or lobbied for, by Wagner—the Social Security Act, the Wagner-Steagall Housing Act, the National Labor Relations Act, which guaranteed all workers the rights to form a union.  The foundations for a mass middle class—the first in human existence– was actualized in part by the legislation that Wagner helped to pass, allowing labor a seat at the table in determining working conditions, pay, and recompense.  It ended coercive and exploitative management practices, and strengthened the hand of collective bargaining.  Many of his best ideas, though, did not pass—including a 1939 bill that would have admitted child refugees from Nazi Germany into the U.S., and a federal anti-lynching law (which was thwarted by Southern Dixiecrats.)  He also tried, without success, to pass a communications bill that would have reserved 25% of all radio channels to nonprofit broadcasters, which would have changed the nature of the best dramatically.  The unofficial “labor senator” of our group, Wagner was a significant player in the transition of using government means to redress social ills.  Before, this was strongest in the Midwestern progressive tradition.  Wagner, meanwhile, was perhaps the archetypal urban liberal, the first and arguably strongest senator of this breed.

Runners-up: Surprisingly few, although I would have liked Jacob Javits and Daniel Patrick Moynihan to earn props.  New York’s senate seats have often been used by men and women ambitious for higher office, with little hope of staying put for the duration.  Such figures include Aaron Burr, Martin Van Buren and more recently, Robert Kennedy and Hillary Clinton.

VII.  Connecticut

The Constitution State, Connecticut was home to some of the first seafaring Yankees, and slowly becoming a shipping and manufacturing center.  More recently, credit card companies, banks, and pharmaceuticals have changed the state’s demographics considerably, turning it into a “state one drives through,” a large suburb of New York City.  Perhaps this is unfair, as Connecticut proffers our All Star Senate two first-rate legislators.

13.  Oliver Ellsworth (Pro-Administration, 1789-1796)

Call him the Forrest Gump of the American Founding.  At every significant event along the way, Ellsworth seems to have been there, even if his presence was only dimly felt.  He was a Continental Congress delegate, invented the phrase “United States” to describe the fledgling nation, and brokered the Connecticut Compromise between large and small states that allowed a viable constitutional plan to pass.  While his colleague Langdon could be an opponent of the Washington administration at times, Ellsworth was one of its most ardent supporters.  He was the instigator of the Judiciary Act, which established a hierarchy of the national judiciary systems, allowing, for example, the federal Supreme Court to overturn decisions by the State Supreme Courts.  Ellsworth also helped to usher the Bill of Rights amendments through Congress, and was one of the key backers of Hamilton’s Financial Plan, a business-friendly agenda determined to enhance America’s economic self-sufficiency.  High tariffs, internal improvements, government subsidies, a national bank, and assuming state debts were all part of this plan, and by and large it worked, thanks in part to Ellsworth’s legislative skill.

14.  Orville Platt (Republican, 1879-1905)

Platt was in many respects a very successful reactionary.  His votes against the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, and the Eight Hour Labor Act (which established the now-standard length of the working day) do not made him look good to posterity, even to conservatives.  His most famous namesake is the Platt Amendment, which preserved the rights of the U.S. to intervene against foreign encroachments onto Cuba (and also, more pertinently to today, established U.S. rights to Guantanamo Bay.)  So influential was Platt that he and his cronies (including Nelson Aldrich) were among the Senate Four, a body of long-tenured Republicans who seemingly held the power to block any initiative of the House or the president.  Power in the Senate relies on coordinating, streamlining, and using committees and amendments to your advantage, and despite the questionable ends that Platt pursued, he played the game masterfully.

VIII.  New Jersey

My fiancé is glaring at me, so let me just limit my remarks to saying that New Jersey is a fine state, despite the many jokes I have cracked at its expense over the years.  And I actually admire my two picks from the Garden State a great deal.  Democrat-leaning for much of its history, it was implausibly in the South’s orbit in the antebellum era, while completing the transition to northeastern urban liberalism quite easily.  So, blare out the Bruce Springsteen, and give Snooki the three-snap formation, as we explore the careers of….

 15.  Theodore Frelinghuysen (Anti-Jacksonian, 1829-1835)

As much as today’s politicians may belie the fact, evangelicals were among some of the most forward-thinking and conscientious statesmen from the “Age of Jackson.”   While much of the nation’s evangelical community at the time was middle-class, Frelinghuysen was an aristocrat. Indeed, New Jersey’s list of senators and congressmen is littered with Frelinguysenii (which is my preferred plural form of Frelinghuysen).  Back to my original point, Frelinghuysen’s evangelicalism inspired a number of humane policy choices that make him look just terrific in retrospect.  He fought tooth-and-nail against Andrew Jackson’s Indian removal policies.  “God in his providence,” he once wrote,

“planted these tribes on the Western continent, so far as we know, before Great Britain herself had a political existence.  I believe, sir, that it is not seriously denied that the Indians are men, endowed with kindred faculties and powers with ourselves; that they have a place in human sympathy, and are justly entitled to a share in the common bounties of a divine Providence.  And, with this conceded, I ask in what code of the law of nations, or by what process of abstract deduction, their rights have been extinguished?”

Besides his opposition to the Indian Removal Act, Frelinghuysen was instrumental in the formation of the Whig Party, advocated temperance, and spoke out in opposition to slavery.  He ran as the vice-presidential candidate on Henry Clay’s 1844 Whig ticket, and came within a handful of votes in New York to winning.

16.  Clifford Case (Republican, 1955-1979) 

When I began this, I wanted to make sure that I had at least one example of the liberal Republican, and Case is one of its finest specimens.  If you’ve seen Mad Men, then you have at least some idea of the liberal Republican—permissive, even ground-breaking, only social issues, yet endowed with an economic moderation or conservatism.  As long as they make enough money, they will take a live-and-let-live attitude.  Case was a stalwart supporter of civil rights, and advocated having congressmen disclose their financial assets to make serious conflicts of interest more widely known.  Case’s career ended not with retirement or defeat in the general election, but by being defeated in his own party’s primary by a more conservative Reaganite Republican.

IX.  Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania’s list is surprisingly thin for a state of its magnitude.  For most of U.S. history, Pennsylvania was second to only New York in population and national influence.  With a greater proximity to the nation’s capital, and boasting the key cities of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, it does disappoint just a bit.  It seems that Pennsylvania is more of the Millstone State than a Keystone State, as evidenced by the fact that its two best senators are…..

 17.  Simon Cameron (Whig, Republican, 1845-1849, 1857-1861, 1867-1877)

A corrupt spoilsman, Cameron is credited with saying, “An honest politician is one who, once he is bought, will stay bought.”  For years, Cameron held tight strings of patronage within his party and within his state.  To nominate within Pennsylvania, and to nominate a Pennsylvanian for higher office, you had to get through him.  Cameron was even able to make a deal with Abraham Lincoln’s operatives, without Lincoln’s knowledge, during his fight for the 1860 Republican nomination, exchanging the support of the Pennsylvania delegation for a cabinet post.  Bribing Abraham Lincoln to make you Secretary of War on the brink of a sectional conflict of unprecedented magnitude is an extraordinarily badass move.  While Cameron would serve badly in this office, and Lincoln would later effectively exile him as Minister to Russia, Cameron would return to the Senate and resume his wheeling and dealing.

18.  Philander Knox (Republican, 1904-1909, 1917-1921) 

Holy crap—if you google this guy’s name, the first several hits are insane libertarian arguments that the income tax amendment was not legally ratified.  Anyway, Philander Knox’s importance runs a bit deeper than all of this Lew Rockwell-inspired tommyrot.  Knox was a point man for Theodore Roosevelt (a position that would later secure him a cabinet position during the administration of his successor, William Howard Taft), and much of his Square Deal bears his influence.  Knox was a Progressive- a somewhat reluctant Progressive, perhaps- and later in life got on the Bull Moose bandwagon, even as his party moved in the direction of Hardingite conservatism.

X.  Delaware

Tiny Delaware was once in danger of actually being engulfed by Pennsylvania and New Jersey as the borders of the United States were first drawn.  As the old joke goes, Delaware has three counties at low tide, and two counties at high tide.  Part of the eastern seaboard, yet a slaveholding state, it stayed loyal to the Union in the Civil War, and has in the last 50 years sent an almost even number of Republicans and Democrats to the Senate.

19.  Thomas Bayard (Democrat, 1869-1885)

Earlier in life, Bayard played an important role in keeping Delaware from seceding along with its fellow slaveholding states.  Bayard tried consistently throughout his career to steer Delaware between its plantation-y slaveholding past and its industrial and financial future.  He also became so well-versed in foreign affairs that he would eventually become Grover Cleveland’s Secretary of State.

20.  Joseph Biden, Jr.  (Democrat, 1973-2009) 

Literally, ladies and gentlemen, not figuratively, but literally—Joe Biden was Delaware’s senator for 36 years, an incredible six full terms, before being elected to the vice-presidency.  Biden’s election as senator at the age of 29 took place under personal tragedy—before his inauguration, his wife and his infant daughter were both killed in a car crash, living the junior senator a widower with two young boys who had just sustained serious injury.  He sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988, but failed when he forgotten to credit a speech by Neil Kinnock and soon after suffered an aneurysm.  Something happened almost immediately after—and Joe Biden transformed from a young, overly-ambitious “show-horse” to a senatorial work-horse.  He skillfully thwarted the nomination of extremist Robert Bork to the Supreme Court, he shepherded legislation such as the Violence Against Women Act and the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act.  Biden also became a senatorial point-man on foreign policy.  When a crisis went down in Pakistan in the early 2000s, the generals wouldn’t call George W. Bush or Condoleeza Rice, but they’d give a call to Joe Biden and go from there.  Despite a vote for war with Iraq that he would later rue, Biden also forcefully brought the ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia to national attention, playing a key role in the U.S. thwarting the genocide there.

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all star senate: New England

All-Star Senate: New England

We are starting our ranking of the top 100 senators in the northeast—historically the land of Puritans, Yankees, revolutionaries, Federalists, Whigs,  abolitionists and latte-drinking visionaries.  Characterized by small states, a town-hall democratic ethos, and eventually large waves of immigrants—and largely Catholic immigrants at that, these states share a common heritage that is reflected in the men and women they have sent to the Senate.  These five states[i] also have long histories, and for many of them, there were some tough choices and cuts to make, if I restrict each state to exactly two senators.  So, without further ado, our first edition of the All Star Senate.

I.  Massachusetts

“ The Catalyst State” might be a more fitting name than “The Bay State” for Massachusetts.  It seems that nearly every significant movement and revolution in American thought has its origins here.   The cradle of the American revolution, a hotbed of antislavery (and anti-slaveholder) activism, and currently the state most associated with the modern liberal worldview, Massachusetts often pulls the rest of the country decisively in its own direction.  So, I have chosen two men from Massachusetts who encapsulate specific worldviews and specific approaches to American politics.

1.  Daniel Webster (Anti-Jacksonian and Whig, 1827-1841, 1845-1850) 

Webster has a place in the Great Triumvirate of senators (along with his colleagues John Calhoun and Henry Clay.)  Webster was not a saint, he accepted aid from many of Boston’s major firms and he used his gifts of persuasion in parlors and bedrooms as often as the senate floor (if you are a great orator, why not use these gifts to your advantage, right?)   But Webster is most significant, I would argue, for being the first proponent of the concept of “union” as we understand it today.  His famous reply to Robert Hayne, delivered on the Senate floor, is a forgotten moment in the transition of the USA from a theoretical connexion of sovereign states and into a nation in its own right.  Schoolchildren would once recite his reply, and be responsible for memorizing passages.  When Lincoln and others would argue that the Civil War was primarily about union, it was Webster who made such a conceptualization possible.  Pro-U.S. bank, pro-tariff, pro-union and ultimately pro-compromise, Webster used his magisterial prowess as an orator to tie the interests of the nation to the interests of his home state.

2.  Edward M. “Ted” Kennedy (Democrat, 1962-2009): 

It was said at the time of his death that Ted Kennedy had accomplished more for the average American than either of his more well-loved and well-remembered brothers.  To this day, Teddy’s name is a byword for liberalism, and is used in reverence as often as it is used pejoratively.  While his 45+ year tenure in the Senate is marked by personal screw-ups of the highest magnitude (Chappaquiddick, although there is strong evidence that Kennedy made every effort to save Mary Jo Kopechne even whilst intoxicated) and policy boners (No Child Left Behind), there is still much to commend, indeed, redeem Kennedy’s career as a senator.

Most of the eulogies on Ted Kennedy that dominated the headlines used phrases along the lines of “Liberal Lion,” and this is, to a large extent, true.  From Medicare, to the Children’s Health Insurance Program, to Head Start, to most of the recent minimum wage laws, we live in a United States where poverty stings far less, and where those who are weakest cannot be taken advantage of so easily.  Even so, he lobbied, without success, for many other worthy causes—universal health care (that is, providing it, not mandating that one buy it from private vendors), and an equal rights amendment remains unfinished.  If the essence of 20^th century liberalism is a state premised on social justice and compassion rather than ruthless self interest, Kennedy stands out as a giant among giants.  He makes my list of Top 100 Senators, but he would also make the list even if I was allowed only 10.

More than this, Ted Kennedy loved the Senate and its institutions.  He was a consummate deal-maker and negotiator, who also kept a tight focus on developments in his home state, keeping a formidable address book, and sending out thank you notes, condolence notes, memos, and reminders across his state.  What one accomplishes in the cloakroom is just as important as what one accomplishes on the Senate floor, and on both counts, Kennedy stands out.

Runners-up:  No other state has furnished so many adroit and historically significant senators than Massachusetts.  There are about six or seven of its sons who deserve a place in the 100 Greatest Senators of All Time.  Some of the most difficult cuts included John Quincy Adams for his early work on a Federalist and nationalist viewpoint, Charles Sumner for championing abolitionism, Henry Cabot Lodge for his role as foil to the Wilson administration, and Henry Wilson, a quintessential Gilded Age politician.

II.  Vermont

The character of this state has changed considerably in the last 30 years; plenty of young college students went to St. Michael’s or Middlebury College, and decided to stay in the Green Mountain State.  Now one of the most reliably Democratic states in national elections, Vermont was home of the thoroughgoing independent-minded Republican for much of its history.  Since the formation of the Republican Party in 1854, Vermont didn’t send a Republican to the Senate until 1975, and didn’t vote for a Republican in a presidential election until Lyndon Johnson’s 1964 landslide.  If Massachusetts is an elliptical state that pushes the nation in its direction, Vermonters tend to mind their own business and conduct their own affairs as they see fit and doesn’t “proselytize” its lifestyle.  With that in mind, I present…

3.  George Edmunds (Republican, 1866-1891)  

Edmunds is rarely remembered today, but he was once one of the more prominent senators of the Gilded Age, that forgotten era sprawling from the late 1860s and into 1890 or so.  In a 25-year Senate career, Edmunds was a key usher of the Sherman Antitrust Act, advocated for the rights of freedmen, and oddly enough, strove to crack down on polygamy in Utah.

4.  George Aiken (Republican, 1941-1975) 

When I saw George McGovern speak in Burlington two summers ago at a book-signing, he took time to praise his old friend George Aiken as one of the finest men he had served with in the Senate.  This short vignette demonstrates how well-regarded Aiken was among his colleagues even decades after he left.  He was so beloved in his own state that he spent less than $100 in his last Senate campaign, just enough to register his campaign in Vermont.  Even as late as 2006, Vermont Republicans like then-Gov. Jim Douglas could only win in the state by pledging to be an “independent-minded, George Aiken Republican.”  Aiken was a forceful voice for his state’s farmers and small businessmen, an advocate of food stamps, and his anti-corporate tone contrasted to others in his party at the time.  He was a Bull Moose Republican about 25 years too late, and worked in a bi-partisan fashion and forming many warm working relationships and friendships across the aisle.

Runners-up:  I gave serious consideration to three more recent guys—Batman-loving Pat Leahy, student-loan sponsoring Robert Stafford, and the deliciously socialist Bernie Sanders.  Given enough time, Sanders may replace Edmunds in this ranking.  He is the only one standing up to Wall Street excess in sufficiently strong language.

III.   New Hampshire:

New Hampshire has historically been (and remains) New England’s most conservative state, the crabby tightwad uncle at New England’s Thanksgiving dinner table.  Home of the New Hampshire Union Leader, for years the nation’s most influential right-leaning newspaper, it is also host to the nation’s first primary every election season.  It is also a state of notorious cheapskates, New Hampshire having repeatedly welshed on interstate roads and bridges, leaving its neighbor Vermont to foot the bill.  A “Live Free or Die” state, social permissiveness but economic restraint rule the day here.

5.  John Langdon (Pro-Administration, Anti-Administration, Democratic-Republican, 1789-1801)

I wanted to be sure that my list had at least one guy from the inaugural class of senators.   Given the level of top-notch revolutionary talent available at the time, this first class is an unimpressive bunch, but Langdon is probably the best of their number.  Langdon stayed in his seat longer than any other member of the Senate’s first class; while most left office within the first six years, he held on for nearly two full terms.  He was also the first president pro tempore of the Senate; the letter informing George Washington of his election as president thus bears his signature.

6.  Styles Bridges (Republican, 1937-1961)  

There is no better emblem of New Hampshire’s peculiarly conservative approach than Styles Bridges.  In fact, so well known was Bridges’ rancor towards the New Deal that FDR’s opponent in the 1936 election, Alf Landon, sought him out as a running mate.  He was rejected, though, for fear that the Democrats would lambaste the ticket as “Landon-Bridges falling down.”    Over the course of his career, Bridges opposed labor unions and anyone he suspected of being “soft on communism”, while maintaining power as the chair of the Appropriations Committee and the Armed Services Committee—ironically giving one of the Senate’s most outspoken conservatives a significant say in the distribution of federal largesse.

IV.  Maine

“Where Maine goes, so goes the nation.”  So went the popular phrase throughout much of American history, since Maine would traditionally vote for president a month or two before the rest of the country, so that early winter snowstorms would not impede voters on Election Day.  It was second to Vermont as the most reliably Republican state in the nation for much of the postbellum age, never even giving its votes to FDR in any of his four presidential elections.  Never forthrightly conservative, it now sends two of the last moderate Republicans, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, to the Senate every six years.

7.  Hannibal Hamlin (Democrat, Republican, 1848-1857, 1857-1861, 1869-1881)

A rare Jacksonian state in New England at one point, Maine hopped onto the sectionalist and abolitionist bandwagon very early, changing its allegiances to the Republican Party.  Nobody emblematized this change better than Hamlin, who left his party with sharp words, and began carrying a pistol with him for protection (evidently fearing physical retribution from his colleague from Mississippi, Jefferson Davis.)  After serving an undistinguished term as Abraham Lincoln’s first vice-president, Hamlin eventually returned to the Senate for two terms after the war, served as Minister to Spain, and died while playing cards in a club in downtown Bangor.

8.  Margaret Chase Smith (Republican, 1949-1973) 

Margaret Chase Smith was the first significant female senator in U.S. history, but beyond this distinction, there is much to commend her career.  Her finest moment, though, was her Declaration of Conscience, which castigated Joseph McCarthy, a member of her own party.  Smith’s statement was one of the only genuinely prophetic acts of the 1950s Senate (prophetic in the sense of articulating moral truth, and holding a people accountable to that truth, rather than its more commonplace meaning of predicting the future.)  The statement reads in part:

Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism —

The right to criticize;

The right to hold unpopular beliefs;

The right to protest;

The right of independent thought.

The exercise of these rights should not cost one single American citizen his reputation or his right to a livelihood nor should he be in danger of losing his reputation or livelihood merely because he happens to know some one who holds unpopular beliefs. Who of us doesn’t? Otherwise none of us could call our souls our own.

Runners-Up:  I really, really wanted to include Ed Muskie, whose photograph serves as my avatar for this blog.  Muskie made the Democratic Party viable again in Maine during the late 1950s, and eventually became its governor and later, its senator.  Muskie was chair of the formidable Budget Committee during the 1970s, and was one of the first advocates of environmentalism even before it came into vogue.

V.  Rhode Island

A tiny little city-state, Rhode Island has been home to some of the only viable northern slave plantations, shipping magnates, and the summer homes of countless  captains of industry.  Since then, Rhode Island became one of the first New England states to transition from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party, around the 1920s, predating the New Deal.

9.    Nelson Aldrich (Republican, 1881-1911)

Aristocratic and overbearing, Aldrich was a man who was not afraid to tinker with financial and social systems to produce better outcomes.  Nobody lobbied harder than he for an aggressive system of tariffs and protections—these helped the factories in Providence and Woonsocket by kneecapping foreign competition, but also made prices artificially high.  Aldrich was also an early architect of the income tax and the Federal Reserve.  Libertarians hate these programs with a passion, but my reading of history convinces me that their effect on American society has been more salutary, forging an American economy that can better absorb the shocks of a volatile market.   Aldrich has significant weaknesses that need to be taken into account.   He was a tool of the American investor, to be sure, held the common man in contempt, and bankrolled Belgium’s King Leopold’s inhumane imperial actions in the Congo.  A complicated man from a complicated era, Aldrich has a foot in the self-serving corporatism of the Gilded Age, and another foot in the managerial Progressive Age.

10.  Claiborne Pell (Democrat, 1963-1997) 

[ii]  In our all-time greatest Senate, Claiborne Pell occupies an important role as “The Education Senator.”  An aristocrat like Aldrich, Pell was motivated by a greater sense of altruism.  He is most famous, of course, for the Pell Grants, a significant means by which young men and women from low-income families can attend college.  He was also a key foreign policy man in the Senate, as a chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, an early skeptic on the Vietnam War, and a stalwart supporter of the United Nations.  An odd man who wore threadbare suits and held a lifelong fascination with UFOs, John Kennedy once called Pell the “least electable man in America,” and Rhode Island voters spent nearly 40 years proving him wrong.

Runners-up:  Lincoln Chafee was the last real liberal Republican, and the only Republican in his caucus to vote against sanctioning the Iraq War.  While he only served in the Senate for a shade over one six-year term, he still deserves a shout-out.

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[i] In order to divide this list into 10 sets of five states, I’m grouping Connecticut with a New York City-region group of states that I am calling “The Metropolis.”  I do acknowledge, though, that The Constitution State is often placed with New England.

[ii] Damn, I love the senatorial class of 1963.  Lots of great senators were first elected at that time— not only Pell, but also George McGovern, Birch Bayh, Daniel Inouye, Gaylord Nelson, Abraham Ribicoff, Thomas McIntyre.  Pell was one of the only ones to have survived the 1980 senatorial slaughter of the innocence that swept liberal Democrats from conservative states out of office, only to be replaced by jokers like Jim Abdnor, Dan Quayle, Bob Kasten, Brock Adams, etc.

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all star senate: introduction and caveats

I tend to follow politics and political history in the same way that most people study sports and sports dynasties and pantheons.  In a certain light, this makes sense.  Both are filled with larger than life figures—baseball has iconic figures like Ruth, Mantle, Jackson, DiMaggio, while the U.S. Senate can boast of Olympians like Clay, Russell, Webster, and LBJ.  The rise of the Fantasy Congress has given the “politics-as-sport” junky even more ammo to work with.  The site allows you to choose a certain number of Congressmen (so many from each party, so many from leadership, so many veterans of so many years) that cunningly mirrors the restrictions placed on a fantasy league.

Making my way through Bill Simmons’ The Book of Basketball for the second time, I began to wonder if I could construct a senatorial equivalent of the “Best Fantasy Team of all Time” for baseball, basketball, football, etc.  So, I have decided to do something that nobody, to the best of my knowledge has done before.  I will put forward my suggestions for the All Star U.S. Senate.  I will scour through each state’s history and choose who I believe are its two greatest senators, and reveal my decisions by region (New England, Pacific West, Deep South, etc.) over the next couple weeks- resulting in 100 total.  But there have been almost 2,000 senators since the institution first met in 1789.  How does one choose from this long list of statesmen?  To address the problem, here are my criteria:

1.  Legislative Record:  To what extent did the senators at hand initiate, vote on, defend, or critique the major issues of the day?  What key decisions from their era show their handiwork?

2.  Historical Significance and Symbolism:  How did the senator contribute to the long-term development of the United States?  While Barry Goldwater, for example, didn’t have a terrific record of legislation behind him (partly by being an ideological outlier during much of his tenure), he was also the godfather of the modern conservative movement.  That has to count for something.  Ditto with someone like Robert LaFollette, whose work helped to usher in the Progressive age.  Yet, as a caveat, this refers to their historical significance and symbolism within the context of the Senate. While John Kennedy, Barack Obama, John Glenn and many others are historically significant, it is not chiefly because of their time in Congress.

3.  Longevity:  The Senate is a body where power and influence are partly products of getting elected and staying elected.  Historically (although this is less true nowadays), rookies and journeymen had almost no say in the day to day affairs of legislation.  True power came with securing a committee chairmanship, where all pertinent legislation would typically have to go through you in order to carry the day.  Longevity alone isn’t enough to get on this list, but it is a useful way to give oneself the tools necessary to become a great senator.

4.  Collegiality:  Very few appreciate how the Senate has been, historically, an exclusive coterie, an insular club of gentlemen.  As we are finding out with the recent gridlock, the Senate runs smoothly in an atmosphere of mutual respect, friendship, courtesy, and cordiality.  It collapses into dysfunction if it does not have these qualities.

5.  Courage:  It isn’t my intention to turn this post into a series of Seneca’s moral lessons on civic virtue, nor to recreate JFK’s Pierre Salinger’s Profiles in Courage.  (And many of his choices are suspect and politically motivated.)  Yet, the ability to chart a distinct moral course, and challenge one’s party, or prevailing institutions and philosophies like chattel slavery, McCarthyism or the post-9/11 surveillance state should all be recognized and commemorated here.

Objections:

1.  “Won’t this list be biased, Alex?”  I sure hope not.  But there are a couple elements that skew the list.  First of all, the Senate just wasn’t that good, or at least didn’t produce very memorable or historically significant figures, in the antebellum era and the Gilded Age.  Yes, you had the great triumvirate- Clay, Webster, and Calhoun- during that era, but more often than not, state legislatures picked sycophants who would tow the party line, and replaced them if they did not, or if it was someone else’s turn.  It can’t be a coincidence that we start getting much more compelling figures with bolder stances, more independent mindsets, and stronger work ethics once the process is democratized and the public at large was allowed to select their own senators during the Progressive Era.  So, accordingly, my list will be short on figures from the Founding and the Early Republic and also the Gilded Age, because the quality of senators from those eras was quite low, and its members were in constant flux.

The more immediate question is: won’t an avowed McGovernite come up with a list of largely Progressive figures.  There are a number of great liberal senators from the 60s and 70s that will show up here.  Partly, this is because it is my conclusion as a historian that this is an unrecognized Silver Age of the U.S. Senate, when it is stacked to the brim with visionary figures who put together legislation that often had a salutary effect on the lives of their constituents.  For this reason, I am morally compelled to give props to senators from this era (both Democrats and Republicans) that championed or voted for, say, the Civil Rights Act, or the McGovern-Hatfield Amendment, or the early environmental legislation, and disinclined to vote for the senators (both Democrats and Republicans) who did not.  Hey, it’s not my fault that progressives are usually right.  But that doesn’t mean that this list will be devoid of influential conservative figures.  Look for Barry Goldwater, Richard Lugar, Orrin Hatch, Bob Dole, and a number of others to surface on this list.

2.  Isn’t this unfair?  Two from every state regardless of what they’ve contributed?  Some states have a long record of significant senators that makes choosing only two a heartbreaking decision.  I’ll give you this one.  Consider Massachusetts as an example.  It’s been a state since the very beginning and in almost 250 years, it has given us John Quincy Adams, Caleb Strong, Daniel Webster, Charles Sumner, Edward Everett, George Hoar, Henry Cabot Lodge the elder, Henry Cabot Lodge the younger, John F. Kennedy, Ted Kennedy, and John Kerry among many, many other senators.  In comparison, Alaska has been a state in the union for barely 50 years and has had under a dozen senators total, none of whom were especially good at their jobs.  Fair?  No, but alas, the Senate is all about equality among the states, and not numerical fairness or proportionality.

With all this in mind, look for the first installment of the All Star Senate to begin soon!

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