Presidents Day is upon us again -- the mashup holiday to give us all a February Monday off without being clear about just which presidents we're really honoring. 

I mean, there have been four presidents born in February -- George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, of course, though most people no longer remember what their actual birth dates were. But there was also William Henry Harrison, "Old Tippecanoe," who gave a long, forgettable inaugural address on a cold, drizzly day without an overcoat, caught pneumonia and died about 30 days later -- so that's about all to remember him for. And Ronald Reagan, the darling of "trickle-down economics," the voodoo economic theory that has caused a lot problems since then, because it really isn't true that if you cut taxes on the wealthy, the savings will dribble down to the people they employ -- the ones who really need the money.

But more seriously, we've had some presidents I would gladly work all day not to commemorate at all. 

Let's skip over Washington for now but point out that Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, James Polk and Zachary Taylor were all large slave-owners to the bitter end.  So, let's not award any of them even a little piece of a national holiday.

Then, there's our old Granite Stater Franklin Pierce. He wasn't a slave-owner himself, thank goodness, but he was just fine with all those enslaved people remaining right where they were, if that's where the Southern states wanted to keep them. In fact, just to underscore that state of mind, he appointed the future president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, as his Secretary of War, I guess so he'd get experience to help conduct a war against abolition just a few years later.  

And let's mention Woodrow Wilson while we're at it. Yes, he got us through World War I, but he also segregated the federal government and opposed women's suffrage until the bitter end. Most biographers agree that he only relented when he got tired of passing the suffrage workers standing bravely outside the White House day in and day out, then getting arrested and jailed and nearly dying because of hunger strikes to make their point. It's hard to think we'd celebrate that with a federal holiday.

So, let's go back to Washington. Yes, he was a slave-owner, too, although unlike the others mentioned above, he freed all his slaves in his will. Small consolation, I know, but for that much-different time, a radical step. And he wasn't just our first to do that; he also led his ragtag bunch of citizen soldiers against the world's most powerful army to enable this to become the United States of America, then surrendered his command and defined the office of president for all who followed him.  We'd probably still be waving a different flag if it wasn't for him. That tips the balance enough for me, but I'm willing to listen to contrary points of view. 

Then, there's Lincoln, the one I really want to talk about here and whose birthday just happens to be the day I'm tapping this out on my computer. He was down at 16th, but he enabled our United States to remain in one piece and he gave 4 million of our previously enslaved citizens at least a chance at the American Dream. In his case, those two biggies made him our American martyr, because they're also what energized John Wilkes Booth to figure that more African-American rights lay ahead, like being able to keep the wages of their labor, raise a family without having them sold away and perhaps even vote.  He couldn't have that.

Sure, Lincoln's views on mixing the races would brand him a white supremacist today and would align him with all the wrong people, but that's not because he thought African-Americans weren't human and weren't entitled to the same freedoms he enjoyed. It was because he didn't think the races could ever mix on equal terms and coexist peacefully. On that score, he was pretty much correct for all those Jim Crow years since then. And if he'd lived, he might have advanced the national conversation enough that Jim Crow would have remained a fringe element and not the majority movement it was allowed to become.

But I'm wandering from my initial point. All I'm really saying is, let's get back to recognizing the presidents who truly deserve our respect and gratitude – not also glorifying the ones who should have kept their "visions" for the country to themselves. And let's do it on our heroes' real birthdays, so the point is crystal clear.  Then, if you want a day off in February to go skiing, you decide which one.

But more seriously, we've had some presidents I would gladly work all day not to commemorate at all. 

L. Phillips Runyon III practices law in Peterborough and served as the presiding justice of the 8th Circuit Court.

]]>