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Short Stuff: William King · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. Short stuff, I should say,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: I'm Josh, there's Chuck, there's Jerry. Let's get to it,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: and they're off And another shorty. So, um, I were
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: about to talk about something I had no idea about
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: previous to this. Yeah, and this one has a couple
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: of layers that are super interesting to me. Is it
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: is an onion for sure? Um, So we're going to
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: dive into the history of a guy named William Rufus
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Devane King, and he was an early senator. He was
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: a diplomat for the United States. Um, well, I think
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: he was a congressman first, then he was a diplomat,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: and then he was a senator for like twenty nine
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: years or something like that, and then eventually he became
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: vice president. And the way that he apparently progressed through
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: the ranks in the Democratic Party was by being pretty
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: middle of the road, vanilla mediocre. Yeah, and I interpreted
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: that as also he was a a good guy that
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: you know, he wasn't one of these blustery blowhards of
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: the day. Um. He was an attorney first, of course,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: probably like most of these dudes were and still are.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: And he he was described as various things tall prim
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Wig topped mediocrity, but other things that they said were
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: like he he wanted people to address each other with decorum,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: and whenever people were arguing, he was known to come
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: in and kind of try and reconcile things. So I
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: kind of like this guy's style the more I read
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: about him. Yeah, no, I'm with you, Like you know,
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: I think to be middle of the road at this
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: time was actually kind of, um, a badge of honor. Interesting.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is during the lead up to the
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Civil War. The country is not getting along very well, right, yeah,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: so he he um. He started out again in Congress. Uh.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: And then he went on to service diplomat to Russia
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: and then Naples, the Kingdom of Naples, no less in France.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: At one point too, I think, oh, oh, yeah, you're right.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: And then by eighteen eighteen he returned to the US
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: and he said, I'm going to find my fortunes way
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: out west. So we went to Alabama, which is way
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: out west at the time, and he was he was
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: born the son of a plantation owner, and he became
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: a plantation owner there. He owned five hundred slaves. Um
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: became one of the largest slaveholders in this um newly
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: formed state, and he named as the state Chestnut Hill.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: And and from there that's where he became the senator
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: for twenty nine years. He was a senator from Alabama
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: for twenty nine years UM and actually was instrumental in
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: UM ironically naming the town of Selma. Oh did you
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: see that? So there was a poem, a book of
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: poems about called like Songs of Selma, UM that he was,
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: that he loved. And when they were naming the county
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: seat of the county where his his plantation was, he
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: was basically instrumental in getting it named Selma, the city
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: of Selma, Alabama. Yeah. So he would eventually go on
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: through the Democratic Party at the time to be vice president,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: to be a presidential running mate to UM hopeful Franklin
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Pierce Uh. And this is things where things get a
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: little bit interesting because many historians and it says some
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: but I did some research on this, and most historians
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: now look back and say President James Buchanan was clearly
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: a gay man, right, And it's interesting to think about
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: our past being a little more open to that. But
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: there's a guy that wrote a book Jim Lohan called
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: um lies, teachers lies. My teacher told me everything. You're
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: American history teacher got wrong. And he clearly states that
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: that James Buchanan was gay, and not only that it
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: was not a big secret and America was actually a
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: little more open to that kind of thing and premisses
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: of that kind of thing back then, right right, It
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: wasn't like like his career, his political career wasn't ruined.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: It wasn't like blackmail held against him. And that just
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: so goes against what most people think of with history,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: that it's like arrow that progresses ever forward and that
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: by by default then like the time we live and
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: must be more tolerant, more progressive than you know, a
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: hundred something years ago, a hundred and fifty years ago,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: And that's just not the case. And this is a
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: good example of that. Yeah, So he calls it. This
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: author says that the idea that we started great and
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: just got greater and greater chronological ethnocentrism, which is a
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: fancy way of saying what you just said, which is
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: in the nineteenth century it was okay at least too
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: you know him he got elected president. Yeah, And speaking
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: of fancy, one of the um examples that they point
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: to is that this was an open secret or just
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: known around d C. Is that Andrew Jackson um had
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: a nickname for James Buchanan and William King miss Nancy
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: and aunt Fancy. Yeah, because here's the deal, Uh, Buchanan
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: never married. He and King lived together and spent a
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: lot of time together, and that was basically sort of
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: known around town that that was the deal. When Buchanan died,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: he had all of his correspondence is burned upon his death,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: which is sort of a weird thing to do. But
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: a few of the letters did survive, and one of
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: them from four addressed to a Mrs Roosevelt, said when
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: King moved to Paris to be ambassador to France, he said,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: I am now solitary and alone, having no companion in
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: the house with me. I've gone wooing to several gentlemen,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: but have not succeeded with any of them. Tough to
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: take that the wrong way it is. I mean, of
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: course we're saying, you know, it's pretty clear now, but
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: you know, who knows. They might make the argument in
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: this article that could have just been close male friends.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: But I think most people kind of agree now that
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: James Buchanan was our our first gay president. Yeah, which
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: is pretty awesome actually, Yeah, of course. Um. And then
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: that same letter, Chuck that you just wrote a quote from,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: goes on to say that, um, if this keeps up,
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: he may very well just marry an old maid who
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: can cook and care for him, and w would expect
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: ardent romance from him in return. So yeah, there's just
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: the evidence is that what little evidence there is certainly
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: points to this, and and the idea that, as this
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: article puts it, that this is just like a bromance
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: or something, and that seems pretty thin, all signs point
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: to him being gay. But also in defense of this
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: article on how stuff works, they say that, um, that
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: that had zero bearing whatsoever on his political aptitude. U. Um,
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: it was just an interesting fact of history that kind
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: of makes us examine our own times a little more. Yeah.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: And I'll tell you one thing, Um, I don't know
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: much about the nineteenth century, but I do know that
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: gay men existed and bromances did not. You know, that's
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: a stupid modern conceit. Yeah. And I think what you
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: just said is a T shirt to a long T
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: shirt maybe front and back, the sleep shirt all right,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: So we're gonna take a quick break and we're gonna
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: come back to let you know why we titled this one. Um,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: how King actually took his oath of office in Cuba
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: right after this. So so William King, I want to
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: call him Rufus King so bad because it's William Rufus
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: Devan King. But it's not not what he's called, Josh
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: now what he's called. But William King had another claim
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: to fame historically, and that he was the only person
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: in the United States history elected to high office, um
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: who was sworn in off of US soil. And that
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: was the way that it happened. Is it's interesting, but
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: it's not anything that William King wanted. No, he got tuberculosis,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: got very sick, and from the time of his election
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: in November eighteen fifty two as Pierce's vice president to
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: when he would eventually take office in March of eighteen
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: fifty three, this was sort of the time when they
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: were like, um, go to a good, hot, warm climate
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: because that will will help you out, which is, you know,
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: it probably does help along, but it's not a cure
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: all you know. Yeah, the muggy air of Cuba will
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: really clear out your tuberculosis. It doesn't that doesn't seem
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: it doesn't seem right to me. Yeah, that's true. I
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: didn't think about the amity, but that's where he went.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: He went down to Havannah to to restore his health
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: between the election and the swearing in, but his health
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: just got worse and worse and worse. And by the
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: time he was to be sworn in within like a
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: week or so, I think maybe even more than that,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: because he wouldn't have been able to make it from
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Havannah to d C within a week of that time
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: on a boat. Yeah. Um, but within that time he realized, like,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to be able to make it to
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: d C. I'm still too sick. The time is too short.
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  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna have to ask if I can be
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: sworn in down here. And Congress said, you know what,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: we like you will. We think you're great. We give
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: you a lot of a lot of bs about you
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: and Buchanan, but we think you're a pretty great person.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: So yeah, we're gonna pass an Act of Congress to
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: make that happen. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. They passed this
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: legislation allowing him to be sworn in in Cuba, and
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: on March eighteen fifty three, he did just that at
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: an office near uh Matanzas. Matanzas has a little more flair. Uh.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: And this is a seaport town about sixty miles east
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  Speaker 1: of Havana. He was so sick he couldn't even stand
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: up without help, but he repeated the oath. He became
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: our thirteen vice president, which is pretty remarkable on Cuban soil.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: And then after about a month he was like, I
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: really would kind of like to get back to the US.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: Set sail for Alabama. Yeah. Yeah, and imagine this, Chuck,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: can't you see like a Cuban sea captain. Go, you
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: want to go into Alabama? Okay, I like your Cuban
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: sea captain. Thank you. That's great. I've been working on
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: it all day. Uh. Oh, is that why you're wearing
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: that shirt? Very nice? Now it all makes sense. So
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: he set sail and uh. Eventually he would die April eighteen,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: the day after he got back to United States soil. Yeah,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: he made it back to Chestnut Hill and expired post taste. Yeah,
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: and here's something I didn't know. Apparently you didn't really
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: need a vice president back then because we went four
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: years without one. Well, I don't know if you didn't
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: need it or not, but Franklin Pierce is, in my opinion,
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: the worst president of the United States has ever had.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: He and um King were elected because they were so
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: middle of the road and so vanilla and so plain
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: on the especially on like the slavery issue. That that
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: they were elected to try to keep the U s
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: from civil war, but they will not. Not King, but
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: definitely Pierce laid the groundwork for it almost single handedly
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: with this terrible administration. So um he, Franklin Pierce is terrible,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: and I could see him being like, I don't need
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: a vice president. Can screw it all up myself like that.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: I didn't know about your long standing Franklin Pierce scrudge.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: It's it's hot. You got anything else? Now? That's it. Well,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: thanks for hanging out with us for this brief time
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: for you while you made it through your bag of
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: carrot sticks on your lunch break. Um, if you want
• 12:00
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• 12:01
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• 12:03
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• 12:05
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• 12:08
  Speaker 1: next time. Everybody by