James Buchanan

GARY CRAFT of Baltimore writes to point out that Jan. 20, God willing, there will be more ex-presidents of the United States alive at the same time than there have been in 130 years.On Jan. 18, 1862, at 12:14 a.m., these ex-es were looking over President Abraham Lincoln's shoulder: Martin Van Buren, John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan. Tyler went to the Great White House in the Sky at 12:15. Then there were four.On the next Inauguration Day there will be five again: Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George Bush.

EVERYBODY KEEPS saying of Richard Nixon, "let history judge." It already has. At least, historians have.In 1981, David L. Porter of William Penn College asked 41 fellow historians of American government to rate all the 36 presidents except Ronald Reagan, the then incumbent. The result was a listing from "great" through "near great," "average," "below average" and "failure."Nixon was 34th, one of three "failures," just ahead of James Buchanan and Warren Harding.Nixon's contemporaries in the post-war world did much better.

ALL THIS TALK about a Kerry-Edwards team in November has presidential trivia addicts reaching for the champagne and at the ready to pop the cork. Only once in the history of the Republic has the political system produced a president and a vice president bearing the same first name. The precedent-setters were John Quincy Adams and John C. Calhoun, both chosen by the House of Representatives in 1824 after a deadlock in the Electoral College. At the time there was only one viable party because of the disintegration of the Federalists once led by JQA's father, John Adams.

Nominations close Wednesday for volunteer awards The Maryland You Are Beautiful Program, with the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development, is seeking nominations for the 2003 Maryland's Most Beautiful People Volunteer Awards. The program recognizes those who give of themselves to better life for everyone in Maryland. This year's theme is "The Power of One," celebrating the impact one volunteer or group can have on a community. Each county and Baltimore solicits local nominations, recognizes those nominees and selects a representative to attend the state ceremony in Annapolis Nov. 12. Carroll County's theme for the program is "Help us find the GOLD: That special volunteer `worth his/her weight in gold' so vital to our communities and county."

SEN. BOB DOLE and Mrs. Dole have stopped going to D.C.'s Foundry Methodist Church, where the Clintons attend, because they find the pastor too liberal.Many believe Senator Dole is pandering to the religious right, which is very conservative. I agree. I think this is the most blatant religious appeal to a group by a candidate for high office since Nelson Rock-- . . . but first, let's look at some presidents' faith.President Clinton is in fact a Baptist. He goes to a Methodist Church because Hillary is a Methodist.

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER of Pennsylvania, who had a brain tumor removed last year, announced this week that he is a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.Apparently the surgeons didn't get it all. Or maybe they got too much. Arlen Specter has no more chance of being nominated for president than does the last Pennsylvanian who sought it. That would be Harold Stassen, a Minnesotan who has become Philadelphia's version of Ross Pierpont.In fact, I would say Specter has no more chance of being nominated for president in 1996 than does the last Pennsylvanian who was nominated.

IN RESPONSE to my last column, Bill Caltrider of Towson called to say that Woodrow Wilson went to Hopkins, not Princeton.No, Bill, that's not what I got wrong in that column. Wilson started his higher education at Davidson in 1873, dropped out in his freshman year, entered Princeton (then called the College of New Jersey) in 1875 and graduated with the class of 1879. He entered the University of Virginia Law School that year, dropped out, passed the bar, practiced law a while in Atlanta, then in 1883, came to Hopkins to do graduate study.

HAVING offered you Civil War history rewritten by Winston Churchill (Aug. 28) and by McDonogh School students (Aug. 31), here, as promised, is the classic of the genre.Myron Beckenstein and Neil Grauer reminded me of it. The former lent me a copy to quote from. Thanks, Myron. I needed that. This would lose something in translation if I quoted from memory.The piece was written by James Thurber. Its title was "If Grant Had Been Drinking at Appomattox." Gen. U. S. Grant, with jacket unbuttoned and one boot off, greets Gen. Robert E. Lee with, "I know who you are. You're Robert Browning the poet."

SINCE 1789, when George Washington assumed the nation' highest office, 51 inaugural addresses have been presented. There is no constitutional requirement for such remarks, but Washington felt it proper to use the occasion to present his views about the newly adopted Constitution.Like much of George's presidential activities, the inaugural speech became a precedent, but not necessarily a good one.Most of the addresses have been rich in platitudes and thin in substance. What is worse, each speech appears to have been modeled after previous ones, providing a sort of compound uninterest for the listener.

THREE DEMOCRATIC presidential candidates are single, as Susan Baer pointed out in this paper recently.They are Jerry Brown, who used to squire pop singer Linda Ronstadt; Sen. Bob Kerrey, who used to squire movie star Debra Winger, and Gov. Doug Wilder, who squires zillionaire socialite Patricia Kluge.Should one become president, he would be the first eligible bachelor to enter the White House since Grover Cleveland in 1884. Cleveland was also elected again later, in 1892, but by then he had wed. Woodrow Wilson was widowed in 1914, re-married in 1915, before being re-elected in 1916.