Profiles in Courage
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Profiles in Courage is a book written by John F. Kennedy, describing acts of bravery and integrity by eight United States Senators from throughout the Senate's history. The profiled senators crossed party lines and/or defied the public opinion of their constituents to do what they felt was right and suffered severe criticism and losses in popularity because of their actions.
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[edit] History and background
Kennedy was a senator from Massachusetts from 1952 until he was elected president in 1960. With help from research assistants and the Library of Congress, Kennedy wrote the book at his bedside during 1954 and 1955 while on leave from the Senate to recover from surgery to treat his troublesome back.
[edit] List of senators profiled
- John Quincy Adams from Massachusetts, for breaking away from the Federalist Party.
- Daniel Webster also from Massachusetts, for speaking in favor of the Compromise of 1850.
- Thomas Hart Benton from Missouri, for staying in the Democratic Party despite his opposition to the extension of slavery in the territories.
- Sam Houston from Texas, for speaking against the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. Sam Houston was also profiled for opposing Texas' secession from the Union. For refusing to support the secession of Texas, Houston was deposed from the office of Governor.
- Edmund G. Ross from Kansas, for voting for acquittal in Andrew Johnson impeachment trial. As a result of Ross' vote, and six other Republicans, Johnson's presidency was saved, and the stature of the office was preserved.
- Lucius Lamar from Mississippi, for eulogizing Charles Sumner on the Senate Floor and other efforts to mend ties between the North and South during Reconstruction, and for his principled opposition to the Bland-Allison Act to permit free coinage of silver.
- George Norris from Nebraska, for opposing Joseph Gurney Cannon's autocratic power as Speaker of the House, for speaking out against arming U.S. merchant ships during the United States' neutral period in World War I, and for supporting the Presidential Campaign of Democrat Al Smith.
- Robert A. Taft from Ohio, for criticizing the Nuremberg Trials for trying Nazi war criminals under what Taft considered ex post facto laws.
[edit] Reception
After its release on January 1, 1956, Profiles in Courage was widely acclaimed and helped Kennedy earn national recognition. The book won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 1957 and remains one of the definitive books written on both political courage and the U.S. Senate.
Questions have been raised about how much of the book was actually written by Kennedy and how much by his research assistants. In 1957, newspaper columnist Drew Pearson appeared on ABC News' The Mike Wallace Show and claimed that the book had been ghostwritten and later named Kennedy’s "research associate" Theodore C. Sorensen as the ghost writer. Both Kennedy and Sorensen denied this claim[citation needed]. ABC News, under pressure from Kennedy and his lawyer Clark Clifford[citation needed], retracted the story. However years later historian Herbert Parmet analyzed the text of Profiles in Courage and wrote in his book The Struggles of John F. Kennedy that although Kennedy did oversee the production and provided for the direction and message of the book, it was clearly Sorensen who provided most of the work that went into the end product.
On the January 25, 2007, episode of The Colbert Report, Colbert's guest Mike Wallace claimed in a discussion about Kennedy: "You know he never wrote Profiles in Courage?"
[edit] See also
- Why England Slept (Thesis project)
[edit] External links
- Did John F. Kennedy really write "Profiles in Courage?" (from The Straight Dope)
- Photos of the first edition of Profiles In Courage
[edit] Sources
- Profiles in Courage Summary, Analysis and Discussion Study guide providing background, history, major characters, chapter summary, and other information on the work. Used for the history section listed above.
