American Heritage Gives Lawmakers a History Lesson

When Edwin S. Grosvenor heard in May 2007 that American Heritage magazine was folding, he took immediate action. 

“I called the Forbes family and said 'You can’t do it,'” he said. "'It’s the intellectual equivalent of tearing down Grand Central Station.'” 

Fortunately, the Forbes family agreed. Today Grosvenor is publisher of the esteemed publication, now , with Forbes holding a minority interest. 

For 60 years, American Heritage has featured prominent historians commenting on important events of the past.

For Grosvenor, whose family has been in the publishing business for generations and founded the National Geographic Society, it was a natural reaction to the potential loss of an intellectual landmark. “The thing that’s important about intellectual heritage is that places like Antietam tell stories," Grosvenor said. "That’s really what our magazine does. It’s important to preserve hallowed ground but it’s also important to preserve publications that interpret those events.”

In September 2010, as a budget debate heated up on Capitol Hill, it just made sense that the magazine would publish an issue that included essays on great compromises in history, he said. Five noted historians were excited to join the effort, which was meant to inform, rather than to promote one position over another.

On July 25, copies of the issue were delivered to the 15 individuals most influential in the debt ceiling debate, including President Barack Obama and members of Congress on both sides of the aisle. Speaker of the House John Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, received copies. Maryland's Steny Hoyer, Chris Van Hollen and Ben Cardin, who each hold positions in leadership and on budget committees, also received copies.

The essays speak to times when compromise was the only viable means of moving forward. Written by Joseph J. Ellis, Daniel W. Howe, Robert V. Remini, David M. Kennedy and Robert Dallek, they cover the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, the question of whether Missouri should be a free or slave state, the decision on the slave or free status of territory won in the Mexican War, the compromises involved in the passage of FDR’s New Deal, and the politics behind the passage of Medicare in 1965.

"In a crisis like the current one over the debt ceiling, neither side will emerge a total winner," Grosvenor said ina news release announcing the delivery of the so-called care package. "But compromise is usually the only way out. Although Millard Fillmore was not one of our most astute presidents, I think his description of compromise as the ‘equality of dissatisfaction’ is apt."

Click here to read the essays.