I Quit!

One of the more astounding resignations in American History was that of Vice President John C. Calhoun during the administration of Andrew Jackson. Most historians postulate that it was due to the “Nullification” Crisis in which Calhoun’s home state of South Carolina wanted passed the Ordinance of Nullification which attempted to abrogate the Tariff of 1828. They state that Calhoun resigned so he could run for the Senate and so would be able to defend nullification. But that was not what really happened.

President Andrew Jackson’s cabinet had long been rife with divisions and rivalries. Calhoun’s wife Floride caused a great deal of problems for husband because of her actions in the Eaton Affair where she led the ladies of Washington in snubbing Peggy Eaton the new wife of the Secretary of War. This caused a permanent rift with President Jackson who remembered the execrable treatment of his beloved wife Rachel by the same prudish and judgmental members of high society. Strangely enough it also led to a rift between Calhoun and his wife since he did not countenance anything that interfered with his pursuit of power.

So the Vice President began a clandestine affair with a then young New York Journalist named Barbara Walters. Miss Walters was a pioneer in many fields. In journalism she was the first women to get a weekly column in the New York Post. She also initiated the practice of deep throating a penis to the point that her prehensile tonsils could grip the tip and milk the engorged secessionist as if she was a dairy maid squeezing Bossy’s teat. She took it in so far and so fast that she permanently damaged her vocal cords and forever after spoke with a lisp.

Calhoun was enraptured and threw caution to the winds. But their affair was doomed from the start. You see he was not aware that Miss Walters was a Jewess and that knowledge forced the racist Calhoun to end the affair. He was devastated and had to get out of Washington to recover his wits at his plantation where he could abuse slave girls at his leisure and drink mint juleps while plotting treason. Miss Walters returned to New York to continue her long career in both journalism and fellatio.
(I Quit, the History of Resignations in American History by Doris Kearns Goodwin, Pocket Books 2007)

I Quit.

The most unfortunate resignation in American History was that of Attorney General Elliott Richardson during the Nixon administration. It was in the midst of the tumultuous Watergate investigation and resulted from President Nixon’s unfortunate habit of imbibing a few cocktails and then calling up cabinet ministers to implement new policies. In some instances it had a salutary effect as in the instance when he was drunk and wanted some Chinese food. Nixon hated that they always mixed up his order so he decided he would have his lawyer call and threaten them and thinking of lawyer he thought of Jew and so he called National Security Advisor Kissinger and demanded that he get over to the Chinks and get it all straightened out. Thus détente was the direct product of a yen for chop suey.

The case of Attorney General Richardson had a much less salubrious result. The investigation that was being pressed by Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox was beginning to get close to the White House and the beleaguered President wanted to end it. After most of a quart of Jack Daniels he dialed up the Attorney General and demanded that he fire Cox. Unfortunately he was slurring and what Attorney General Richardson heard was
“No more Cox, get rid of Cox, no more Cox in the Justice Department.” The hearing impaired Richardson heard that as “No more cocks.” That could not stand since Elliott Richardson was a card carrying Massachusetts liberal weenie, he would be lost without cock. The clinical term for this malady is the “Tucker Carlson Syndrome.” So the Attorney General resigned rather than give up cock.

On such misunderstandings does history turn.
(I Quit, the History of Resignations in American History by Doris Kearns Goodwin, Pocket Books 2007)

I Quit.

One of the most famous resignations in Amercian History was of Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan at the dawn of World War One. The story in the history books was that he resigned in protest over President Wilson's handling of the sinking of the Lusitania. But the true story was that he resigned over the sinking of his broken heart into a pool of despair.

You see in his frequent trips to New York City, Secretary Bryan struck up a very close friendship with a young ingenue of the Yiddish Theatre named Molly Picon. It seems that what really attracted him to her was the fact that she had a pet monkey.
You see Miss Picon was heavily involved in the rescue attempts by animal lovers to prevent the abuse of organ grinders monkeys which where forced to work in squalid and dangerous conditions by unscrupulous hurdy-gurdy men. Now the monkey that Miss Picon rescued happened to be very talented and in fact was an excellent organ grinder in his own right which Secretary Bryan discovered in a gin soaked three way on the Lower East Side. He continued to haunt the theater and send flowers and bananas to Miss Picon to point that he became a figure of fun and derision. Such terms as "Hot Monkey Sex" and "He has a Monkey on his back" originated during this unfortunate time of sexual obsession.

Finally Miss Picon was forced to break it off with the venerable statesman who became distraught and inconsolable to the point that he resigned his office and moved back to the hinterlands.

He only came out of retirement whenever there was an attempt to destroy or somehow harm monkeys, apes or any other erstwhile simian Americans. He became a vindictive and hateful old man. But many a night he sat and rocked on his porch and dreamed about those glorious nights with his little Yiddisher momma and her monkey.
(I Quit, the History of Resignations in American History by Doris Kearns Goodwin, Pocket Books 2007)

I Quit!

The first member of a President’s cabinet to resign before the term of office was over was of course the first Secretary of War Henry Knox. General Knox served as George Washington’s Secretary of War in his first cabinet serving which such luminaries as Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. Secretary Knox was really the only “Washington” man in the cabinet as he put the Presidents interest before his own while his fellow cabinet secretaries were locked in mortal combat over their desire to chart the course of the new republic.He appealed to the President to enforce a minimum level of civility and comity in the discussion, but the President said to just ignore it and to not reply and the sniping and nonsense would stop of it's own accord. The chubby cabinet minister knew that would not work and was forced to resign and leave the cabinet to return to his mansion in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn where pursued his vocations of book binding, art and his intense interest in toilet water.
(I Quit, the History of Resignations in American History by Doris Kearns Goodwin, Pocket Books 2007)