Dr. Balcerski yes. The congressional Temperance Society, in a way, is a reflection of a Larger Movement at this time in america, that is to say the temperance movement. It is almost a phenomenon to this Larger National movement. There was an Organization Called the american Temperance Society, which was founded in the 1820s with the goal to lessen the consumption of alcohol. They were not yet committed to full abstinence or tea totaling. So that the congressional Temperance Society founded in the next decade, the 1830s, was essentially an outgrowth of those early efforts of this First AmericanTemperance Society. Host all of this in essence a precursor to the Prohibition Movement in the early 20th century. Dr. Balcerski yeah. It is a long history. One could think of the history of temperance as being a precursor to prohibition, but i like to think of them as stages in a series of a social movement that will lead to one of the greatest constitutional revolutions in American History, thats right, with the 18th amendment. Temperance is aptly named. It is the early 19th century version of the movement to remove alcohol from american society. And temperance has been, and was, debated in terms of what it meant. The early temperance reformers were not so much against all abstinence just yet. That will come a little bit later. Then prohibition as a legal prescription against alcohol is the logical outgrowth for many of the temperance reformers. Host if we were to roam the halls of capitol hill in the 1830s or 1840s or 1850s and saw members of the house and senate, all men at the time, where did they drink and who was most prominent in terms of drinking in congress . Dr. Balcerski an excellent question. Because in a congress that was a lot smaller than our time in a building that was physically more contained than our modern chambers, we first have to imagine what it wouldve been like to be in the Old House Chamber and the old Senate Chamber, which are both part of the tour of the capital today. You get a sense of how intimate they were. And at the same time, that historic capitol building, as you know from a tour, had lots of nooks and crannies that one can go in and out of in the rotunda. In the case of congressmen in the capitol of the 1820s and 1830s at this time, there were three different places one could get a drink. Right on the capitol grounds. A room aptly called the hole in the wall outside the Senate Chamber and house chamber, and in the basement, a larger cafeteria where one got both food and spirits. Host how did that compare to the use of tobacco, chewing tobacco, cigars, cigarettes . Dr. Balcerski its good to connect the two topics. Because when one thinks about vice in the capital, tobacco and alcohol are related. Whereas alcohol was illicit in the sense that one could not have open container on the floor of the house or senate, one could still consume alcohol in the capitol, although it would eventually be prohibited by a joint rule in both the house and senate. Tobacco, on the other hand, was commonly consumed and you might say promoted. When a congressman walked on to the floor of the house or senate on either side of the door would be a snuffbox. Snuff is a finely pulverized version of tobacco that can be consumed and snorted. Smokeone could open tobacco through cigarettes and chewing tobacco was the third form. And spittoons were commonly put out nearby on the floor of the house and senate. So alcohol and tobacco are twin vices in the eyes of reformers, but in the eyes of users, they go handinhand even as they were regulated differently. Host as you tour the capitol, the spittoons are still visible. Let me ask you about the congressional calendar, because it is important we View Congress in session, 10 or 11 months out of the year, it was a very different calendar back in this time period. Can you explain . Dr. Balcerski think about it this way. I like to think that congress is on a two year cycle. Which is to say the term of the house of representatives. As we know from the constitution, the original senators were set up on three twoyear cycles to space them out. Even today, we have 1 3 of the senate elected every two years. Within that twoyear cycle, you start in a way with the election, the federal election in november, and then you think about when a congressman might be asked to show up for his first day of work. The election cycle was often spaced in reverse. Some states would elect representatives nearly a year before they would go on to their first session. But typically, the session would run from december until in the summer off in june, july, or august, and the very latest september. Thats the main session of a twoyear term. Thered be a second session called the lameduck session which came back the following december and would run until the expiration of the twoyear term in march, because again there, too, remember, the Inauguration Day for the president and the changeover for the house and senate was in march and not january as it is today. In a two year term, the average congressman would spend fewer than 12 months in the capital. Host in researching all of this for your presentation, what surprised you the most . What is your number one takeaway . Dr. Balcerski well, again, the congressional Temperance Society was the big surprise. That somehow this burgeoning National Temperance movement was able to convince a series of politicians to take on what i thought at that time was a fairly early reform movement. By comparison, abolition, which would become one of the most divisive issues politically in this period, wont have its proponents in congress until the 1840s and more so by the 1850s. To imagine in the early 1830s with there was a group of congressman in favor of temperance was the greatest surprise. Then try to think about politically what that meant to be an early temperance reformer in the 1830s. What i have found was that perhaps it was 1 10 of the senate or the house at this time, so it was a minority position. What is interesting, as compared to abolition, as compared to antislavery politics, temperance will decline. Whereas temperance starts out strong in this period, by the time of the civil war, they move on to prohibition politics, but even that will have its day and decline after 1855. Its sort of like the movement i think is somewhat almost like a catalyst to other reform movements, particularly slavery. Host i asked you where members of congress would have a drink on capitol hill. What about the social life in this time period, and was there a drink of choice . Dr. Balcerski radiating from the capitol itself, those bars around the capitol, one did not have to go far to obtain alcohol. There were different kinds of purveyors of alcohol. Dram shops and porterhouses and Grocery Stores that sold different kinds of alcohol. Once you got behind the commercial center into the boarding houses, that is where you also found alcohol of various kinds. So the boarding house culture it is important to understand the antebellum congress. Because most congressmen lived in communal living arrangements, so one could go from a drink at the capitol to a drink at home. And for many users of alcohol, that would probably be their course during the day. Beyond boarding houses, beyond the day to day life, there were lots of social occasions, formal parties, levies, gatherings at the white house and other boarding houses, so that in the high season, in those winter months, january, february, march, congressmen would attend multiple social gatherings a week in addition to the terms of the alcohol consumption, the daily consumption that took place at work and at home. Host that included everything from a madeira wine to hard cider to whiskey, i suppose. Dr. Balcerski yeah, and one thinks about the wide variety of options for consuming alcohol, one wonders if there was mixing of alcohol consumption. What i find is the type of alcohol one consumed was probably less various than we might think. There were only a few basic kinds of alcohol consumed at this time. You mentored three of them. Yes, hard cider was more regionally popular in the north because apples were more common in the north. John adams started his day with the tankard of hard cider. That was on the decline. Because washington was not as proximate to the production of cider. It was more recently consumed. Whiskey, by contrast, was that drink that traveled most easily. And particularly as you think about the nations growth, the transappalchian west, corn could most easily be transported as a distilled spirit or whiskey as we would call it, so corn whiskey. Madeira, there has always been a class element, a kind of elitist take on wine, that continues today despite other marketing efforts. Wine has always been the spirit of the refined palate. Madeira, although today we would not think of it as a wine snobs wine, was at that time the wine of the elite. Madeira is a fortified wine. It takes a wine grape, fermented, and brandy is added. It is a higher alcohol by volume. Perhaps a quicker way to get drunk, we might say. But madeira was commonly served in boarding houses. And the people that i studied, certainly madeira was the drink of choice. Host certainly, congress was smaller and the country was smaller. Do you have a sense of what percentage approximately had families back in their districts or states versus those who were bachelors . Dr. Balcerski that is an excellent point, because with buchanan and king, we get to the core of what it meant to be a bachelor in this period. They were not the only bachelors in congress. From my sense of studying various biographical entries of the congressman. Seven to 10 congressmen during, say, a 15 to 20 year period show up as bachelors or widowers. When you do the calculations, between 4 and 7 . That being said, one did not have to be unmarried to live as a bachelor. The conditions made it so that congressmen essentially liked to live as bachelors. The connection there is if a family stays at home and if the congressmen come to the capital without his wife or family or children, those conditions are rife for a bachelor style lifestyle. Drinking and tobacco usage, these are two things that fit within that bachelor lifestyle. One was more likely to drink to excess when one was away from wife and children. Which might be a more moderate influence. Host lets turn to your book. Bosom friends the intimate world of James Buchanan and William Rufus king. James buchanan, our 15th president. What did you learn about him, and explain who mr. King was. Dr. Balcerski bosom friends was an effort and a way to learn how male friendships work between bachelors. I would like to think your audience has heard of buchanan before and do not know who king was. Let me start with him. Actually, William Rufus king was the Vice President of the United States, elected on the ticket with Franklin Pierce in 1852. But because he was terminally ill with tuberculosis, he actually never served in office. He was inaugurated and famously the only Vice President or president to be inaugurated outside of the United States. He did so in cuba. But he returned to the United States to die in april of 1853. Buchanan, the 15th president , succeeded president pierce and will be in office from 1857 to 1861. Hes often blamed for allowing the civil war to happen. This is a somewhat unfair criticism. Part of what my book tried to do is understand how these two men were so successful in National Politics and in an indirect way get at the political conditions of the period, to answer the big question about to what extent they were personally responsible for this massive tragedy that was the american civil war. I started with their early biographies, started with them as young men, followed their college years, their entry into politics, meeting and friendship in the senate, their various overseas adventures as ministers abroad, and their success in National Office as Vice President and president , respectively. Host were they noted drinkers . Did they share lots outside of congress . Dr. Balcerski they did. Both men were madeira drinkers. Buchanan enjoyed whiskey. At home, in lancaster, you can find barrels of the old j. B. Whiskey. J. B. Are the initials of James Buchanan, but it stood for a local producer, jacob bower. But buchanan likes the coincidence. He was fun to point out the initials. Fond to point out the initials. Buchanan was an inveterate drinker. He was noted to give public toasts. He never left a drop in his glass. As they say, no heel taps. Which was a playful way to talk to a man who was a senator or president. But alcohol was a great leveling force in politics for the Democratic Party and buchanan was savvy enough as well as physically and constitutionally capable enough to handle his alcohol. King was also social and im sure wouldve been right there drinking alongside buchanan. There is less known about his drinking at home. He was known to give large barbecues and parties as part of his electoral politicking. Southern culture and the political culture of barbecues is fascinating in that it was a known time for binge drinking. Both men benefited from drinking. They enjoyed drinking, and it became part of their identity. Host you reference no heel tapping. You need to explain. Dr. Balcerski there are so many little references and stories about these men in our High Political Office being served drinks. One could imagine if one is constantly drinking, one may not finish ones drink. Some of the glassware was different than the kind we have. It would not be a clear glass where one could see the bottom of the cup. So, essentially, what that would mean is saying you have to finish your drink. The heel tap is like the heel of a boot, referencing the bottom part of the cup that contains the last drop. It was a way, like peer pressure works today, to pressure someone to take every last drop of a drink that was served. Host i want to get back to James Buchanan. Cspan is conducting a survey of the american president s with some of americas leading historians. James buchanan is more often than not at the bottom of the list. Why . Dr. Balcerski steve, if i could answer that question, i think i would be something of a mystic. I actually have studied how people and how historian psychology works, but it does require that. You actually have to go back to the 1960s to arthur shlesinger, senior, and his son. They conducted the first poll. Of president ial greatness. At that time buchanan was , somewhat higher. He has gone down since that time. In that first poll, dwight eisenhower, who is today considered great or near great, was near or below average. So why do historians in an anonymous poll put James Buchanan last . My best answer is this, it has become wisdom to do so. I have participated in polls for president s. When you are in the moment, writing down your answer, you have to sort of create a beginning and an end, a kind of narrative of greatness. It is easy to make buchanan the worst president because he has been the worst president. At a recent conference of the organization of american historians, there was a whole panel dedicated to the question of the worst president , and buchanan by most accounts should not be ranked last. But, again, when we are talking about who is worst and we are throwing out names, it gets kind of sad. Host the professor joining us from new york. He is a professor of history at eastern connecticut state university. His book bosom friends the intimate world of James Buchanan and William Rufus king. Thanks for joining us on cspan3s American History tv. We appreciate it. Dr. Balcerski thanks, steve. History tv,merican exploring our nations past every weekend on cspan3. C our series real america, the last bomb, a Board Department film documenting the final months of the super fortress campaign against japan. It concludes with the august 1945 atomic bombings of hiroshima and nagasaki. Historian talks about american dueling culture before and after the civil war. At 6 00 eastern, medal of honor on hisreflects experience in world war ii and the sacrifices made by american soldiers throughout the nations history. Professorstern, a bar talks about the 1956 southern manifesto, a document written by congressional members who opposed the Supreme Court 1954 brown beevor of education brown v. Board of education rulingunconstitutional. That is what is coming up here on American History tv. Narrator early in 1945, our b29s began fullscale operations against japan. 1500 miles of targets