(dramatic string music) ♪ (woman 1) All presidents are standing on the shoulders of those who came before them.

♪ (man 1) Every president is shaped by who went before.

(woman 2) The presidency is a really strange office.

The Constitution says, actually, relatively little about what it's supposed to be.

So, for so many presidents, when they're looking for a model, the only person they can really look to are the people that came before.

♪ (man 2) You can tell a lot about a president by whose pictures are on the walls of the Oval Office.

It's like they have the dead whispering to them.

When Harry Truman took over from FDR, he took down all the stuff that FDR had on the wall and put up Andrew Jackson.

He had Andrew Jackson here, and a portrait of FDR here, and it was as if they were, like, right shoulder, left shoulder, who am I gonna talk to today?

(man 3) When Reagan came in, he immediately wanted to put up a portrait of Calvin Coolidge.

Calvin Coolidge, in many ways, was the kind of pre-Reagan Reaganite.

(man 4) When LBJ became an accidental president, he looked not so much to John F. Kennedy's leadership, but to Franklin Roosevelt's.

♪ (woman 3) The presidency runs and operates upon tradition and respect.

And no matter who sits in the Oval Office, I think they certainly look back on the paths that others had followed to learn from both successes and failures.

♪ (man 2) Most presidents, I think they talk to the dead.

Otherwise, the job would be too overwhelming.

Because there're only, right now, a few forty who've had this unique vantage point, and I think if you haven't been president, you don't know.

♪ (faint echoed voices) (Colleen) When the United States was created in 1776, there had never been a large representative or republican democracy.

This was a wholly new experiment.

♪ (John Bridgeland) At a time with kings and queens in Europe, a sultan in Constantinople, a shogun in Japan, an empress in Russia, a group of imperfect men in Philadelphia came together to create a very different system.

(Colleen) And there was this idea, I think, amongst our founders that there was gonna be a little bit of trial-and-error.

♪ Today, we're 250 years into our democratic experiment.

At In Pursuit, we have gathered a group of historians and journalists, other prominent thought leaders, and several former presidents to write short essays about the most important lessons that we can learn from our presidents and our First Ladies.

♪ The idea being to debrief the great American experiment.

(Mark) Each president, each first lady, is an American story that is reflective of who we are as a nation.

They're not the most diverse group of Americans.

Hopefully, that will change.

But we can learn from them timeless lessons about leadership.

(John Bridgeland) Presidents are put in the position of making really difficult and consequential decisions that illuminate their character.

(Lindsay) Studying the presidency can help us understand our current moment, because so much of what we have experienced in previous generations is shaping what we are seeing now.

♪ (Mark) I think you can take the best and worst of these men and women, and sort of North Star that guided us at the time, and it should continue to guide us collectively as we consider our next 250 years.

♪ (pen scribbling) (somber music) (George W. Bush) "Few qualities have inspired me more than Washington's humility.

♪ I have studied the corrupting nature of power, and how retaining power for power's sake has infected politics for generations.

♪ Our first president could've remained all-powerful.

But twice, he chose not to.

In so doing, he set a standard for all presidents to live up to."

♪ (Mark) In President Bush's essay on George Washington, he wrote about Washington's humility.

That is the character trait that most marks Washington's leadership.

(battle sounds) (George W. Bush) "After leading the United States to victory over Great Britain in the Revolutionary War, George Washington was at the height of his power.

Some suggested that he should become the king.

Instead, George Washington resigned his military commission in 1783."

♪ (Mark) George Washington chose to go back to his farm.

He didn't exactly take up the plow, in fact.

The enslaved people of Mount Vernon do that.

♪ But he did step down from power willingly.

And as the King of England said, if he does that, he may be the greatest man who ever lived.

♪ (George W. Bush) "In 1787, Washington was called back to public life, where he presided over the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia."

(Colleen) Those that were drafting the Constitution were very confident that George Washington was going to be elected and would serve as the first president of the United States.

(soft, tense music) And when you look at the Constitution, Article I, which outlines the legislative branch and Congress, is very long.

But Article II, which details the executive branch, it's much, much shorter.

The presidency was left deliberately vague.

And a lot of historians posit that one of the reasons for this was because there was a great trust in George Washington that he would fill out some of the precedents that were left unstated in Article II, and future presidents would then imitate what George Washington actually did.

♪ (George W. Bush) "After two terms in office, with the distrust of long-seated rulers still fresh on America's soul, Washington chose not to run again for president."

(Sharon) George Washington intentionally walks away from power, which was something that people hadn't even considered that a president would do.

That he would just voluntarily leave was such a unique idea.

People hadn't even considered that George Washington would leave after two terms.

(Mark) George Washington was the only president in the history of our country who was bigger than the nation itself.

He's the only president who ever will be bigger than the United States of America.

He could easily have created the presidency in his own image and made himself a monarch.

But because of his humility, he believed that the nation was bigger than him.

By doing what he did, he made us who we are.

♪ It doesn't surprise me that George W. Bush decided to write about George Washington.

You can see in his leadership that he was aiming for humility himself.

And I think he learned humility at the knee of his father.

George Herbert Walker Bush is sort of a naturally humble man, almost the antithesis of what we expect in a politician.

Only the second father and son to be president in the history of our country, and maybe the last.

And I think just knowing that there was somebody alive who had shouldered the burdens of the presidency before him was a very important part of George W. Bush's presidency.

♪ (pen scribbling) ♪ George W. Bush was in the presidency during 9/11.

The worst terrorist attack ever waged on our soil.

♪ And it not only changed the trajectory of George W. Bush's presidency, it changed the life of our nation, and the world, to a large extent.

♪ On September 14th, President Bush goes to New York, and he goes to Ground Zero.

This nation stands with the good people of New York City, and New Jersey, and Connecticut, as we mourn the loss of thousands of our citizens.

(man) George, we can't hear you!

I can hear you!

(crowd cheers, applauds) I can hear you, the rest of the world hears you, and the people... (cheering, applause) ...and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.

(cheering, applause) ♪ (Mark) But the moment that the public did not see is when he went to the Javits Center and met with the families of the fallen and missing.

President Bush went from person to person and family to family to hear about their loved ones.

♪ And at the end of that, the mother of one of the victims pressed into the hand of the 43rd president her son's badge, which George W. Bush carried in the pocket of his jacket, whatever jacket he was wearing on that day, for the balance of his presidency.

(somber music) (Sean) The role of a president in those moments of crisis is to lead the country.

George Bush at 9/11, he really showed leadership in that moment.

We can talk about the policy, that's a different matter.

But in the moment, he not only showed up at Ground Zero, but he actually made a speech saying, "We are not gonna blame Muslim Americans for this."

He went out of his way to undo the kind of very simplistic hatred that might have arisen coming out of that horrible event.

Leaders can do that.

♪ (Mark) And yet, President Bush made many mistakes during the course of his presidency.

His biggest mistake, I think, was the war in Iraq.

We believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

Ultimately, it was found that they did not have those weapons.

And I think our credibility as a nation, President Bush's credibility, took a blow.

♪ At the end of the George W. Bush presidency, he was enormously controversial.

♪ President Bush, he said that "History will be the judge of my presidency," and I think that's right.

Distance and perspective are needed to get a clear-eyed, dispassionate view on a president's legacy.

♪ (Lindsay) Presidential legacies take a really long time to unfold.

It takes time for Americans, and for historians, in particular, to allow some of the partisan passions or our initial ideas to fade, and it takes years to know, actually, the full story of a president's record.

(Lonnie) The presidency is an amazing institution.

And it's an institution that has evolved over time, and that some people have been good enough, and many have not.

There is not a sort of job description that says, "You need to know how to work with Congress, you need to find sectional compromises."

So, you had a lot of people who brought their own instincts, and sometimes, those instincts were wrong.

When you look at the presidents before the coming of the Civil War, almost no one had an answer.

And maybe there wasn't an answer, and maybe the Civil War was the answer.

(dramatic string music) Part of being president is, how do you handle the country at times of great difficulty?

♪ A great president really rises to the occasion.

♪ (pen scribbling) ♪ (soft music) (Barack Obama) "What is it that makes Lincoln such a seminal figure in our story?

♪ How is it that this man, born in the back woods of Kentucky, with little formal education, homely and awkward, a man given to depression and wracked by self-doubt, might come to represent so much of who we are as a people and so much of what we aspire to be?"

♪ (Douglas) President Obama really loved Lincoln and read so much about him.

Obama thought of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and Emancipation Proclamation as foundational documents, almost like the Bill of Rights or the Declaration of Independence, or Constitution.

(Barack Obama) "Lincoln was not a perfect man, nor a perfect president.

By modern standards, his condemnation of slavery might be considered tentative, his Emancipation Proclamation more a military document than a clarion call for justice.

And yet, despite these imperfections, when it came time to confront the greatest moral challenge this nation has ever faced, Lincoln did not flinch."

♪ (Sean) Abraham Lincoln was facing the greatest crisis this country has ever faced, the Civil War.

But greatness of a president is where they can stand up to the great moral questions of their era.

And, um, in the 1850s, we had presidents who did not.

It was only when Lincoln, you know, was elected in 1860 that we had a president who was willing to stand up and to say, you know, that the great struggle we are facing now are you who think that slavery is right, and we who think that slavery is wrong.

This was facing up to the moral question before him.

♪ (Stanley) President Lincoln is this incredibly important person who is navigating the nation through this challenge.

♪ And it's interesting, because during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln had done some things which were clearly right up against the edge of the rule of law, but he did it for the sole purpose of getting the nation back to where he thought it needed to be, under the Constitution.

♪ (Lindsay) Abraham Lincoln is a central powerful figure during the Civil War.

And this is part of a pattern, where, when there is a national crisis, there is a rise of executive authority, because it is easier to have one person gather the Americans behind them and come up with solutions that are more creative than, perhaps, Congress might be able to.

So, the federal government and the executive branch expands pretty dramatically.

(soft, tense music) (Mark) Abraham Lincoln navigated through the worst, most existential crisis we will ever face as a nation.

And I think presidents look to Lincoln in their darkest hour, because they realize, no matter how dark that chapter of the country's life might be, it's no darker than what Lincoln faced during the toughest days of the Civil War.

(crowd cheering) (Barack Obama) In the shadow of the old state capitol, where Lincoln once called on a house divided to stand together, where common hopes and common dreams still live, I stand before you today to announce my candidacy for President of the United States of America.

(cheers, applause) (Douglas) When Barack Obama launched his career for president, he did it at the 1858 spot where Lincoln gave his famous "House Divided" speech.

I think he understood that there is no Barack Obama without Abraham Lincoln.

A historic first Black president.

And he wouldn't have been able to ever do that if Abraham Lincoln didn't work with abolitionists, and work during the Civil War to do away with slavery.

(dramatic string music) ♪ (Stanley) I really had the opportunity to work closely with two presidents, President George W. Bush, and then, President Barack Obama.

And they were very different personality types, but there was a commonality in how they were affected by war.

In both cases, I saw responsible people seeking the right answer.

They asked probing questions.

They listened to the response.

Both of 'em, ultimately, were in wars that were frustrating, they were unpopular, there was no clear answer.

And they had to look soldiers in the eye, and they had to say, "I will support you on the battlefield, because, I, as the commander-in-chief, sent you there."

I had great faith in the office and in those men, because I felt that they meant what they said.

And so, I thought that it was important to look at a president who had gone through a test of their leadership in the times when it gets very complicated.

♪ (pen scribbling) (somber music) ♪ The post-Civil War United States was a pretty, uh, difficult era.

♪ The South had just fought a war to keep African Americans in slavery, and now, their defeat meant that African Americans potentially were gonna get a seat at the table.

After President Lincoln is killed, President Johnson tried to bring the South back into the Union, but in a way that disadvantaged African Americans.

♪ So, it put him at odds with Secretary Stanton, the secretary of war, and in 1867, President Johnson decides Secretary Stanton is fired.

Johnson had not consulted with Congress.

There was a question on whether he had the authority in that case to do that.

And he told Ulysses Grant, then general of the U.S.

Army, "You take over as secretary of war."

Well, that was very uncomfortable for General Grant.

Ulysses S. Grant always believed that there was a greater idea in play here, the idea that the war was designed to keep the United States as one, because secession was wrong, and he believed that African American slaves should be freed.

♪ For him, it's about what was right, and what was legal.

So, instead of fighting President Johnson directly, he goes in and he does the duties of Secretary Stanton, but only what he's directed to do.

He stays as narrowly focused as he can, and as soon as Congress comes in and reinstates Stanton, he immediately turns back over the position to him.

Because, at the end of the day, General Grant had just fought a war to protect the rule of law in America, and he thought that that was sacred.

♪ (Colleen) I think Ulysses S. Grant is motivated by the same values that motivated Lincoln.

And at particular points in time, we can see these aspects of character that have proven really pivotal in American history.

And when those attributes of character are missing, they affect the trajectory of history.

♪ (Lindsay) As a nation, we're actually not very old.

Two hundred and fifty years isn't that long.

That is especially true with the presidency, because so much of that office was crafted by Washington's actions, and then, when they were repeated by people like John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, they became norms and customs, and sort of serve as a scaffolding of the presidency.

And so, if we're going to understand what we're seeing in this moment, we have to understand how those norms and customs were built up over time.

♪ (pen scribbling) (John Roberts) William Howard Taft's legacy is an unusual one, because he was also the chief justice, in addition to having been president.

I'd like to think that I bring a pretty unique perspective to studying Taft, since I know a little bit about what his job at the court was like.

From the very beginning, Taft wanted to be a judge.

At a very young age, he argued the government's cases before the Supreme Court.

He loved everything about the Supreme Court.

But when Teddy Roosevelt offered him a job on the Supreme Court, he was at the time the governor general of the Philippines, and he said, "I just can't leave with all this work undone."

(soft, tense music) And then, at the end of Teddy Roosevelt's second term, Taft was Roosevelt's favorite to succeed him.

Taft's wife Nellie, an extraordinary woman, she was very much in favor of going to the White House, and I really think he sort of set aside his real ambition of becoming chief justice to please her, but also because, believe it or not, it seemed to be a sure thing.

And it was.

Taft defeated William Jennings Bryan easily.

♪ When he was in office, he thought very carefully about what authority he had under the Constitution.

Before he took any significant step, he wanted to know, "Where is that in the Constitution?

Where is my authority to do that?"

He would hold little conferences with judges to try to sort out what the legal consequences were.

And, if he weren't certain about it, he wouldn't do it.

He would leave that to the other branches of government.

He wanted to be confident that he had authority under the Constitution before doing what he thought needed to be done.

Taft had a concept of what judges were and what they should do, and he had a concept of what presidents were and what they should do.

Everybody had their own lane.

It was a remarkable contrast with his predecessor and, up to the very end, best friend, Teddy Roosevelt.

And, you know, Teddy Roosevelt has said he wasn't gonna run for president again.

(somber music) And yet, Taft, getting close to the end of his first term, all of a sudden faces Roosevelt as his competition.

Taft was betrayed by his best friend.

And the effect of that was that Taft, during that election, carried exactly two states.

The worst showing that's ever been made by an incumbent president.

♪ You could have seen him just sort of walking off the stage, never to be heard from again, filled with self-doubt or pity, but not at all.

He very much held his head high, and he was there, ready to go, when his country called upon him again, to be Chief Justice of the United States.

The job he'd always wanted.

And I think he created our modern understanding of the Supreme Court as a co-equal branch of government, which is what the framers of the Constitution intended.

♪ (Lonnie) The presidency has shaped the country in profound ways.

(soft music) All these people whose names we don't know were some of the most popular people, the most important people of their time.

And they all had a vision of what America could be, whether it was to be a strongly industrial nation, whether it's a nation that would protect the agrarian lifestyle.

(dramatic string music) What's fascinating about looking at the history of the presidency is that it tells us a great deal about who America was at that moment.

♪ And so, you can really chart an evolution of our dreams, of our hopes, of our fears, through the lens of the American presidency.

♪ (pen scribbling) (crowd cheering) I pledge myself to a New Deal for the American people.

(applause) Give me your help not to win votes alone, but to win in this crusade to restore America to its own people.

(cheers) (contemplative music) (Ken) Franklin Delano Roosevelt is certainly the most consequential president in American history since Abraham Lincoln.

♪ FDR helps lift the country out of the Depression... ♪ ...and then gets us through the Second World War with a kind of fundamental optimism.

(Franklin D. Roosevelt) Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

♪ (Ken) FDR's a funny phenomenon in American politics.

♪ He grows up pampered by his very well to-do parents.

He's the fifth cousin of Theodore Roosevelt, one of the most celebrated presidents.

But he's struck at age 39 with infantile paralysis.

So, in the midst of the Great Depression, he cannot stand unaided, period... which I'm not sure gives him humility, which you want.

All the great leaders, Washington and Lincoln had it, but it gave him a kind of empathy.

♪ Someone said that the best New Deal program was his smile.

♪ It took someone like Franklin Roosevelt to sort of change what the entire dynamics of the presidency is going to be.

(pensive music) The federal government had largely been absent in peoples' lives.

♪ But Roosevelt created a very muscular government that's giving young people who had jobless rates that were just through the roof a sort of alphabet soup of different programs that would put people back to work.

(narrator) Unskilled laborers, the forgotten men of past generations, now work steadily at decent wages.

(Ken) Planting a billion trees, a thousand landing strips, bridges, airports.

And the executive hasn't been this activist since his fifth cousin, Teddy Roosevelt.

And it's never going to change.

You're not going to put the genie back in the bottle.

♪ (Lindsay) Franklin D. Roosevelt greatly expanded what the federal government and the executive branch does.

He and Woodrow Wilson, they both, again, expanded executive authority in a way that the nation hadn't seen before.

And we're largely still living in that post-Great Depression New Deal state.

The federal government has not really constricted in size since then.

♪ (Ken) Somebody went up to FDR in the early days and said, "You're either gonna be the best president, or the worst president."

He said, "If I don't succeed, I'll be the last president."

♪ And I think you can make really legitimate arguments about going too far with the government's assistance, but at certain periods of time in our life, we need the government to come in and say, "We're there."

♪ If we turn away from the needs of others, we align ourselves with those forces which are bringing about this suffering and which we must eventually try to defeat.

(Ken) And it doesn't hurt that FDR's married to a woman who has the greatest conscience, maybe, at that moment in the United States.

♪ (pen scratching) ♪ Although December 10th is the day when we commemorate the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Eleanor Roosevelt and the other drafters understood that human rights means much more than just political freedom.

She wanted to honor the inherent dignity and value of the human being, which to her, meant equal rights for every man, woman, and child.

Freedom from want and fear.

The opportunity for every person to develop his or her full God-given potential.

(soft music) ♪ (Anita) Eleanor Roosevelt was an incredibly impactful first lady, a trailblazer by every explanation of the word.

She was always focused on human rights and on civil rights.

That's fundamental to who she was.

And Eleanor was a very independent woman.

She had a life.

She had a career before she came to Washington.

(Eleanor) Today, ladies and gentlemen, I am very glad to have this opportunity to talk to my friends among the women in America during the next few weeks.

Every Tuesday and Thursday... (Anita) She had a radio broadcast.

She had a daily column.

She was very involved in politics.

She didn't want to be relegated to the social role of first lady.

And she begged her husband to give her an official role, which he did not want to do.

(gentle music) But, ultimately, he saw her value.

♪ And so, Eleanor Roosevelt became the eyes, and ears, and legs of her husband.

(announcer) When Mrs.

Franklin D. Roosevelt visited Norris Dam, she was keenly interested in the operation of the cable wagon.

(Anita) She was traveling the country to see all the New Deal programs in action and bring this information, of course, back to her husband.

And Eleanor's playing a role as a wartime first lady, too.

(announcer) Mrs.

Franklin D. Roosevelt in the field uniform of the American Red Cross visits United States-based hospitals in the South Pacific.

(Anita) She also went to London during a time that was very precarious under the Nazi threat.

(Eleanor Roosevelt) I'm interested, of course, in the work that the women are doing, because we have not developed that as you have done.

(Anita) Of course, she was very concerned about and tried to guide her husband against the internment of Japanese here in the United States during World War II.

And to her, that was a big mistake.

And in fact, she visited the internment camps.

I mean, very courageous woman.

She established a model for first lady activism that was tough to follow.

Thank you.

(intriguing music) (applause) Severe mental illness cripples the mind that is at the very heart of the human condition.

It's time to bring about fundamental change, control our nation's soaring healthcare costs, and provide security for American families again.

Here in the United States, concerned citizens are spreading the word about our moral obligation to defeat malaria.

The role of first lady, and I know this from covering so many First Ladies over the years, is defined by the person who occupies that job.

And who knows, one day, we may have a first gentleman.

♪ But I've watched first ladies like Betty Ford, Rosalynn Carter, Nancy Reagan, Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama.

Each one of them has defined it differently.

We're all here today because we care deeply about the health and well-being of not just these kids up here, but for all kids like them all across the country.

(Judy) It is an opportunity for someone with a huge public platform to focus on the things that matter to them, and to bring public attention to them.

And sometimes, to move policy.

♪ (Lonnie) Some use the presidency like Eleanor Roosevelt did to raise issues.

Could be education literacy, like Laura Bush.

And a first lady's work, in a certain way, it opens doors of possibility for other people.

♪ Now, you can make an argument that Eleanor Roosevelt, with the issues she grappled with, her commitment to peace and social justice, opened the ideas for many other women.

(sentimental music) (Anita) We really can no longer look at the arc of American history and not include the stories of these women and their contributions, and their legacies, their impact.

♪ (Mark) These women, we might not have known before, made their own contributions to our country at a time when it was very difficult for women in our society, when women didn't have the rights that they have today, including the right to vote.

But so many of these presidents would not be who they were but for their wives.

♪ (Lonnie) First ladies, along with the presidency, are symbols of what's possible in America.

♪ (pen scratching) ♪ (Ronald Reagan) Good evening.

I'm a candidate for the Republican nomination for president.

But I hope that you, who are Independents and Democrats, will let me talk to you also tonight because the problems facing our country are problems that just don't bear any party label.

(David) Politicians win the presidency, in my view, when the man meets the moment.

Ronald Reagan came into office at a time of intense pessimism and loss of faith, kind of like our period today.

And if he'd come along maybe a decade later, he would've been wrong for the times.

(dramatic music) (Jimmy Carter) It is a crisis of confidence.

People talk, but they ain't doing nothing.

You know?

It's the same old thing every day.

(Judy) The economy was struggling.

There was a huge spike in oil prices.

And Jimmy Carter is blamed for that.

(David) We had a presidency in Jimmy Carter that had failed.

We had a president before that that had ended in scandal.

So, there was this cratering of the American spirit.

And Reagan comes along on 1980 at exactly the moment when American culture begins to shift and Americans begin looking for a new alternative.

Reagan effectively said, "Our future's gonna be more religious.

It's gonna be tougher.

It's gonna be more free market.

We're gonna be the opposite of Europe in a lot of our economic and welfare policies.

And that was totally unexpected.

♪ And he was just totally optimistic.

"Yeah, of course we're gonna come through this."

♪ I believe that history will remember this as an era of American renewal, remember this administration as an administration of change, and remember this Congress as a Congress of destiny.

(applause) (David) You know, I think Reagan is an enigma, 'cause it's often hard to see where his genius lay.

He was a guy who believed in ideas but was not intellectual.

He was friendly, but was friendless.

And so, it's weird that he had all these internal contradictions.

You're never quite sure what made him so great.

(Ronald Reagan) Mr.

Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

(cheers) (David) When people looked at Reagan from abroad, there were bitter fights over placing missiles and things like that in Europe, about the confrontation with the Soviet Union.

So, they didn't look at Reagan and think, "Yeah, he's my kind of guy."

But they couldn't argue with the fact that he was impeccably American.

He did believe in the American project, that America had a unique mission in the world, to spread democracy, and freedom, and human dignity.

And he did believe that America was the land of the future, and things could come true.

(announcer) It's morning again in America and under the leadership of President Reagan, our country is prouder, and stronger, and better.

(sentimental music) (David) Like a lot of Midwesterners who grew up in that era, like Walt Disney, Reagan thought, "People are good, dreams come true, and there's no place on Earth better than a small town in the Midwest in the 1930s."

(pensive music) He had this fundamental faith in America and he had a fundamental faith that Americans could take care of their problems if you gave them a chance.

And he believed in happy endings.

♪ Reagan was one of the five or six presidents who bent the arc of events, in part because he just was simple-minded enough to do it, and in part because the old order had stopped working for people.

♪ (Sean) Ronald Reagan had tremendous influence, obviously, in terms of charting the next 30, 40 years of American politics.

Things shifted dramatically to the right under Reagan.

He was the anti-New Deal in many ways.

Reagan set the tone for a long time thereafter.

♪ (David) You know, I think we've had presidencies that were transformational and not transformational.

And what I mean by transformational, they bend the arc of history.

♪ And Reagan was a transformational president.

Washington's presidency was obviously transformational.

Andrew Jackson was transformational.

He took a country that was really overly dominated by the East Coast elite and he introduced a populist turn.

Theodore Roosevelt was transformational.

He took a country that was screwing up industrialization, was allowing massive corruption, concentration of wealth, massive poverty in the urban cores.

He began to turn around with a progressive era.

(inspirational music) ♪ (pen scratching) ♪ (Bill Clinton) I was elected to a presidency that knew, in no small measure, to follow in the lead of Theodore Roosevelt.

He helped the U.S.

adapt and grow to meet the challenges unimaginable to many of Roosevelt's contemporaries while consistently striving to enlarge and expand the definition of "We the People."

(Sean) Teddy Roosevelt was the first of the progressive presidents.

He was using the federal government to expand the public good.

♪ There were many, many injustices coming out of the heavy industrial era.

There was child labor, and there was no regulation of safe food and drugs.

The progressives saw that only, only the federal government could curb those abuses.

(Bill Clinton) He saw government as an engine of progress, rather than just a collection of powerful special interests.

And he believed, as I do, that in a capitalist system that is constantly evolving with new discoveries in a world that's increasingly interdependent, only our government with all its faults has the ability to do what needs to be done.

♪ (Sean) Bill Clinton was quite explicit about how the work that he was doing in Washington had been very much inspired by Theodore Roosevelt.

(Bill Clinton) But Roosevelt's definition of "We the People" did have real limits.

Limits rooted in racial and gender beliefs that even by the standards of his own time left much to be desired.

(Colleen) A major challenge of American democracy is who we count as part of "We the People."

Those first words in the Constitution, that has changed extraordinarily over time.

We are not the same "We the People" that we started with 250 years ago.

And President Clinton sees Teddy Roosevelt as a moment of expansion of this notion of "We the People."

♪ (Bill Clinton) Every generation inherits not only the progress, but also the unfinished business of our ancestors.

And every generation must decide whether to widen the circle or let it close.

♪ (pen scratching) (applause) When our founders boldly declared America's independence to the world and our purposes to the Almighty, they knew that America, to endure, would have to change.

Not change for change's sake, but change to preserve America's ideals.

(spirited music) (Sean) Clinton comes along as a liberal in the Deep South.

He was still dealing with a nation, that by a landslide, had elected Ronald Reagan.

And he was gonna have to deal with a Congress that was strongly Republican and strongly conservative, especially after the midterm elections of 1994, when the Republicans had huge success.

It seemed like a great counter-revolution against Bill Clinton.

So, he's at a low ebb, where he had to really establish his relevance.

(reporter) President Clinton, Republicans have dominated political debate in this country since they took over Congress in January.

Do you worry about making sure that your voice is heard in the coming months?

The Constitution gives me relevance.

The power of our ideals gives me relevance.

The president is relevant.

(Sean) And it was thought of as kind of pathetic.

♪ (siren wailing) (announcer) Good evening.

Dozens are dead.

Hundreds are missing after the worst terrorist attack in U.S.

history.

(somber music) (Sean) The very next day, there was an explosion at the Alfred Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, which changed everything.

(announcer) This is being called the deadliest terror attack ever on American soil.

It has devastated this community and sent a chill through Americans across the country.

(Sean) There was a great loss of life.

A children's daycare center was blown up.

Just a horrific scene.

And people are trying to make sense of it.

Who could've done such a thing?

(announcer) It was mid-afternoon when we began to learn more about the man who'd been arrested and with whom they may have been associated.

♪ It was an act of cowardice and it was evil.

♪ (Sean) It was a horrible moment for the country.

I mean, it was the kind of domestic terrorism on a scale that the country had never seen before, and had not seen in any way, really, since the Civil Rights movement.

The bombing of the church in Birmingham, the loss of the four little girls.

♪ That was the last kind of thing like this that people had seen.

And this was on an extraordinary greater scale.

I mean, the loss of life was much greater.

The destruction was much worse.

How is the country going to deal with that?

(sirens wailing) Bill Clinton knew that, first, he had to comfort the people who were deeply, deeply hurt and deeply, deeply in sorrow.

♪ But he also knew in the back of his mind that this was a national political crisis, as much as it was an emotional crisis, because the same forces that had led Timothy McVeigh to his terrorism were also threatening not only his administration, but the entire democratic order.

But he didn't do it right away.

He waited two weeks, and then gave a speech at Michigan State University.

There is nothing patriotic about hating your country or pretending that you can love your country, but despise your government.

There is nothing heroic about turning your back on America or ignoring your own responsibilities.

If you want to preserve your own freedom, you must stand up for the freedom of others with whom you disagree.

But you also must stand up for the rule of law.

You cannot have one without the other.

(applause) (Sean) That was really a turning point in his presidency.

(soft music) After that, he was able to build on the goodwill that he had pulled up not only in consoling people, but in defining what the politics were... ♪ ...that the politics, or division, are essentially destructive in a democracy like this.

♪ And when you purposefully go about governing with division, well, then you end up with a civil war.

Maybe as a Southerner, Bill Clinton understands that better than most.

(yelling) (melancholic music) ♪ He was right there in Arkansas, in 1957, when the troops had to be called in.

And so, for him, the Civil Rights movement was absolutely formative to his whole outlook on the presidency.

And to the extent that Kennedy was a part of that too, or at least became part of that, I think that that was a lot of what Clinton saw in Kennedy that was inspiring.

(JFK) One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves.

Yet, their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free.

(yelling) (Sean) Kennedy was president when the country faced a genuine moral crisis around Civil Rights.

Now, it took him a long time to do it, and people will not, you know, maybe won't forgive him how long it took him.

But on June 11th, 1963, after Birmingham, he said that every American had to examine his or her conscience.

The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.

♪ (Sean) Look, there was still a long way to go from there and the struggle was going to continue.

(Dr.

Martin Luther King, Jr.)

I have a dream that one day... (woman) Yes!

...this nation will rise up... ♪ ...live out the true meaning of its creed.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

(applause) ♪ (Lyndon B. Johnson) It's all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice.

♪ And we shall overcome.

(applause) ♪ (Barack Obama) The single most powerful word in our democracy is the word "we."

♪ "We the People."

♪ We shall overcome.

♪ Yes, we can.

That word is owned by no one.

It belongs to everyone.

♪ Oh, what a--what a glorious task we are given... ♪ ...to continually try to improve this great nation of ours.

♪ (pen scratching) (soft music) ♪ (Douglas) President Barack Obama won an extraordinary election back in 2008.

♪ He thought he was part of a continuum of precedents.

He was a protector of the heirlooms established by Theodore Roosevelt, FDR, and Lyndon Johnson.

Things like public lands, national parks, social security, and Medicaid and Medicare.

(applause) (Barack Obama) 1910.

Teddy Roosevelt came here to Osawatomie... ♪ ...and he laid out his vision for what he called a new nationalism.

Today, we are a richer nation and a stronger democracy because of what he fought for in his last campaign.

♪ An eight-hour workday and a minimum wage for women.

♪ Insurance for the unemployed, and for the elderly, and those with disabilities.

(applause) (Douglas) Roosevelt set in motion for a president like Obama to then push the Affordable Care Act to make sure that Americans have access to healthcare of one kind or another.

That's why it's important, the lineage of presidents, because we always think quickly of what is successful, what's a win, and how are you ranking in the polls.

And sometimes, the great things you did don't get the proper spotlight on them until 10, 20, 50 years later.

Obama's inheriting all of that history.

And I think President Obama understands that presidents are custodians of time.

And then, the story of history moves on.

(gentle music) (Barack Obama) None of this unfinished business will be completed in the next 14, 15 months.

It's not going to be completed within my presidency, or the next, or the presidency after that.

But that's the thing about America.

The task of perfecting our union is never complete.

♪ (Colleen) In order for historians to really evaluate presidencies, we feel as though there has to be a period of time that has gone by to be able to have an objective lens.

♪ So, the project ended with President Obama.

♪ But our history requires constant participation by citizens, constant reevaluating of the democratic experiment... (pensive music) ...because democracy is not a static enterprise.

♪ (Lindsay) Each president of the United States is just one chapter in a much broader story.

It's because the office is not about one person.

It's the most powerful office in the world, but it is not supposed to be a cult around that one person.

That's a king.

And Washington rejected being a king, John Adams rejected being a king, and almost every single president since then has followed that model.

♪ And yet, we see the rise of executive power continue.

And in the current moment, there is a question of, "Does it make sense to have all of that authority in one person?"

And those are bipartisan, multi-administration questions that I think future generations will have to answer.

♪ (Lonnie) The president's job is to make real those amazing ideals of the founding fathers.

♪ There are good presidents who have done solid jobs.

There are presidents who have failed.

But the great presidents are ones that sort of help us imagine what is yet to be.

♪ ♪ This program is available with PBS Passport and on Amazon Prime Video.