Chapter 13, Statesmen, Chapter 14, American Immortals Summary and Analysis

Mencken admires many American statesmen. He lavishes praise on George Washington for scorning foreign entanglements, enjoying whiskey, avoiding piety and ignored the private morals of his neighbors. In the United States today, he would be eligible for no office. Mencken wonders whether Lincoln was a Christian; perhaps he only rejected the Methodist and Baptist dogmas of his time. Lincoln has become an American myth, but he was a practical politician of great talent; he was a dark horse with great rhetoric. Further, Lincoln was simply wrong to hold that the Union soldiers died for the self-determination of Americans; the Confederates ended up being dominated.

Mencken covers President Grant and the corruption in his administration, along with his military prowess. He called Grover Cleveland a "good man in a bad trade." He was obsessed...