The American Presidency is seldom out of the news, but in recent weeks it's been relentless. The forthcoming election, the assassination attempt on Trump, the Biden withdrawal, the introduction of Harris and also the selection of Vance (who I have blogged about here a few times). The Ulster dimension of the Presidency has been well known for over 100 years, but it also has been exaggerated and over-stated too.
The 1942 book Ulster Links with the White House shown above proposed a list of 14 Presidents that it claimed were of Ulster Scots descent (replete with wonderful pencil portraits of each by Frank McKelvey). However the research was dubious in places, as the first three it featured - John Adams, James Monroe, and John Quincy Adams - were not of Ulster descent at all, and were dropped from the 'canon' by later writers. And, as time went on, subsequent Presidents were added. We're at about 20 now.
Excellent genealogists have meticulously traced roots, but amateur ones have overstated them.
The strongest case can only be made for those Presidents who in their own writings or speeches self-identified their Ulster-Scots roots. That might make the Ulster Presidents list shorter, but also stronger.
For example, in recent years I have read people insisting that the controversial President Andrew Jackson only ever described his ancestry as 'Irish', not 'Scotch-Irish', as a wedge from which to de-legitimise the concept of Scotch-Irishness. But, this is merely a present day retro-fitting of a modern idea, a culturally narrow and exclusive definition of what is meant by 'Irish'. 'Irish' does not have to be a mono-cultural and ethnic term, which is sadly what it has often become. Regardless of that issue, during Jackson's own lifetime, one of his closest friends wrote a biography of him, in which it said –
“The family from which General Andrew Jackson is descended were ... among the emigrants from Scotland to the province of Ulster. They were strict adherents to the Church of Scotland, and transmitted their religion, as well as their dialect, to their descendants of the present age.”
– From Life of Andrew Jackson, by Amos Kendall, 1843. (Kendall was one of Jackson’s ‘Kitchen Cabinet’).
So, in an era where self-identification is all-important, self-identification is the only credible way to list the Presidents of Ulster-Scots descent. They were the ones who were aware of it themselves, and for whatever reason, regarded it as culturally and politically important.
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