User:Craig Teichen

a note first, on the author ... Dr. Craig Teichen is professor (if that is the correct word) of history at 80 Proof College in Last Call, Tennessee. The professor's inebriation is as notorious as are his teaching methods. In fact, one recent New Year's Eve he was so full of booze that when someone near him lit up a Winston, he became an instant blaze. It took five hours for the local fire department to put the flames out. Dr. Teichen is the most extinguished professor of history in the State of Tennessee. __________________________________________________________________________ And now for a little history about the man behind the bottle, Jack Daniel. Jack Daniel, Tennessee whiskey's namesake, was the Xth President of the United States. J. D. got his start in politics from his inspiration: a local Tennessee (the state where young Jack was born and raised) minister who happened to distill whiskey. Under the elder's tutelage, young Jack learned all he could about whiskey and its refinement and eventually struck out on his own. Poor Jack had to fight off muggers, beggars, thieves,and prohibition crusaders to make a go of his Lynchburg distillery and party platform. Dressed in his white linen shirt, black silk vest, bow tie, knee-length frock coat and high-rolled planter's hat, there he stood - as he stands today - embossed on every bottling label of that charcoal-aged whiskey - the iconic embodiment of that pioneering spirit that catapults any man into the White House. President Daniel was not the only president brewed and aged in Tennessee. Out of the Volunteer State came the racism of the 17th President of the United States, Andrew Johnson, who ascended to the throne on the murder of Lincoln (about whom I will have something to say later - maybe a lot later). Johnson, in the years leading up to the Civil War, was an adamant believer in States' Rights and, as a Southerner, defended slavery and the position that Congress could not prevent its spread to western U.S. territories. Mr. Johnson, as president, adhered to Lincoln's Reconstruction Plan and the spirit of "malice toward none" because, of course, he was, at heart, one of them - those whom the North vilified. His distrust, however, of African-Americans and his opposition to Republican Legislation to protect the rights of ex-slaves in the South became problematic for writers of high school history text books. How else to present American history to the young but without its rough edges! Shift the focus to something far more palatable - perhaps even boring: Johnson's impeachment trial over his defiance of the Tenure of Office Act when he attempted to fire Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton over Reconstruction policy: No President, without Senate approval, shall remove any office-holder appointed with the consent of the Senate. Zzzzzzz ... History as boring as golf. Please note that President Daniel (affectionately known as "President Hangover") did fulfill his term although much of it was spent in contrition (see: "The Contrition Years" by Margaret C. Latcher) in a Washington, D.C. hospital. The press took less notice of bachelor President Daniel's bedside distillery than the one big affair he was having with all the female nurses on his ward. To be sure, while most presidents serve out their terms of office in the White House, a good many have dipped into the till of titillation even there and bought off as many female White House staffers as possible.