You know the republic is off the rails when we have holidays devoted to presidents rather than Speakers of the House. The way I read (and teach) the Constitution is that Congress has more power — way more — than the executive branch. Presidents used to be figure heads that we wheeled out for ribbon-cutting ceremonies. Then war happened — whether on rebels, poverty, drugs, or communism. There went the legislative branch as the most important in the national government.
But for anyone wanting to be a little devilish on this holiday, why not rival George Washington and Abraham Lincoln with the First Speaker of the House — wait for it — Frederic Augustus Conrad Muhlenberg (and all subsequent Speakers of the House):
MUHLENBERG, Frederick Augustus Conrad, (brother of John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg, uncle of Francis Swaine Muhlenberg and of Henry Augustus Philip Muhlenberg, and great–great–grand uncle of Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg), a Delegate and a Representative from Pennsylvania; born in Trappe, Pa., January 1, 1750; pursued an academic course; attended the University of Halle, Germany; studied theology and was ordained by the ministerium of Pennsylvania a minister of the Lutheran Church October 25, 1770; preached in Stouchsburg and Lebanon, Pa., 1770-1774, and in New York City 1774-1776; when the British entered New York he felt obliged to leave, and returned to Trappe, Pa.; moved to New Hanover, Pa., and was pastor there and in Oley and New Goshenhoppen until August 1779; Member of the Continental Congress, 1779-1780; member of the Pennsylvania state house of representatives, 1780-1783, and its speaker, 1780-1783; delegate to and president of the Pennsylvania state constitutional convention in 1787 called to ratify the Federal Constitution; elected as a Pro-Administration candidate to the First Congress, reelected as an Anti-Administration candidate to the Second and Third Congresses, and elected as a Republican to the Fourth Congress (March 4, 1789-March 3, 1797); Speaker of the House of Representatives (First and Third Congresses); was not a candidate for renomination in 1796; president of the council of censors of Pennsylvania; receiver general of the Pennsylvania Land Office, 1800-1801; died in Lancaster, Pa., June 4, 1801; interment in Woodward Hill Cemetery.
Old Life 