Richard Johnson couldn’t get elected dog catcher today

I sometimes get the impression that people believe today’s politicians are scandal-ridden scoundrels while our leaders of yesteryear were paragons of virtue. The reality is generally the exact opposite.

I was reminded of this point while reading Georgetown’s Michael Kazin’s terrific review in the New York Times yesterday on Ted Widmer’s new biography on Martin Van Buren, including an anecdote that I hadn’t heard before.

[Van Buren’s] respect for fellow outsiders was such that he retained on his ticket a vice president, Richard M. Johnson, who was living quite openly with a black mistress and his two children from an earlier affair with a slave woman he’d inherited from his father. Now there’s the germ of a screenplay.

Consider today’s modern vetting process for prospective running mates. Would-be VPs have every detail of their lives dissected by teams of lawyers and researchers, looking for the slightest hint of scandal. Now consider the fact that Martin Van Buren tapped a VP who cared little who knew about his affair with his black mistress and the children he bore from a slave.

Today’s political environment is dismissed as a moral cesspool, as we slouch towards Gomorrah, but the reality is today’s political figures are practically saints when compared to their predecessors from 19th century America.