With Presidents Day coming up on the 19th Balladeer’s Blog has been presenting some seasonal posts. A fair amount of our past presidents had served as Secretary of State in earlier administrations so that is the tie-in to the upcoming holiday.
1. TIMOTHY PICKERING (1795-1800)
Served under: Presidents George Washington and John Adams
Noted for: Conspiring with Alexander Hamilton to undermine some of the policies of the Washington and Adams administrations. When Adams discovered this he ordered Pickering to resign, but Pickering refused, forcing Adams to fire him. Pickering remains the only Secretary of State to officially be fired by the President.
2. HENRY CLAY (1825-1829)
Served under: President John Quincy Adams
Noted for: Fighting a duel with Senator John Randolph, one of Clay’s critics who felt he had struck a “corrupt bargain” with Adams to get this prized cabinet position. Also for completing the first commerce treaties between the young United States and the various nations in Scandinavia and Latin America.
3. JOHN FORSYTH (1834-1841)
Served under: Presidents Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren
Noted for: Obtaining long-disputed reparations from France for U.S. commercial losses suffered during the Napoleonic Wars. Also for threatening to resign early in Van Buren’s administration before his relationship with the new president improved.
4. DANIEL WEBSTER (1841-1843 and 1850-1852)
Served under: Presidents William Henry Harrison, John Tyler and Millard Filmore
Noted for: Negotiating a treaty which set the boundaries between Maine and New Brunswick, encouraging a popular uprising in Hungary and for dying in office in 1852. But mostly for his distinguished Senate career and for his fictional role in the story The Devil and Daniel Webster.
5. WILLIAM MARCY (1853-1857) Continue reading
5. FLASHMAN ON THE MARCH (2005) 
That expedition is being launched to free British captives being held and tortured by the (historically) unhinged Emperor Theodore II of Abyssinia (Called Ethiopia today). 
Flashman’s guide, translator and fellow warrior will be the beautiful Ethiopian woman Uliba-Wark, half-sister to the country’s Queen. Uliba-Wark has a small domain of her own and is up to her neck in Abyssinia’s countless political and sexual intrigues & rivalries. 
For Elfidd at As The Rooster Crows Blog ( always a great read, by the way) here is my belated congratulations to his Philadelphia Eagles for their franchise’s first Superbowl Victory! 
President’s Day is coming up in 11 days so here’s yet another seasonal post. It’s one of my random takes on one of our Presidents. Or in this case just one aspect of one of our Presidents. More will be coming, some positive and some negative, including my close personal friend Barack Obama. 
DEMOCRATS SAY “OUR POLITICAL PARTY, RIGHT OR WRONG!” – Read any of the Watergate books that you choose and a very striking difference stands out: some Republican office-holders of the era openly expressed disgust over the Nixon scandals despite him being a member of their own political party. Not so the Democrats with the current flood of Hillary/ Obama scandals.
DEAL WITH IT – Speaking of the Watergate and Vietnam War era, I will point out again that those times forced some of the political right in America to face up to the flaws in their vision AND in their heroes. 
F.B.I. = S.C.U.M. – More and more comes out on a daily basis regarding how the weak, inept and crooked little man named Barack Obama “fundamentally transformed” every arm of the government into a replica of the Chicago Political Sewer he slithered out of. 
4. FLASHMAN AND THE DRAGON (1985) 
Or at least that’s what she TELLS him is being smuggled. It turns out instead to be an arms shipment for the Taipingi rebels who have split China into a blood-soaked Civil War for the past decade. Flashman doesn’t realize the true nature of the contraband he’s transporting until he’s forced to fight off a band of Macao pirates. 
AARON BURR
3. FLASHMAN’S LADY (1977) 
Synopsis: As the story begins Harry Flashman is still enjoying War Hero status and converting that fame into easier access to the bedrooms of various ladies. Presently the scoundrel finds himself pressed into playing on a Cricket team with some of his former classmates from Rugby School in Warwickshire. 
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