It is well known that no *sitting* president left the US until Theodore
Roosevelt (who visited Panama) and that afterwards all of them did except
for Hoover, who of course had had extensive foreign travels earlier in his
life and visited Latin America as president-elect. (Some of the
presidential trips were very brief, like Coolidge's to Havana and
Harding's stopover in Vancouver on returning from his ill-fated Alaskan
trip of 1923. Also, as president-elect, Harding had taken a cruise to
Panama, and briefly stopped off in Jamaica on his way home.)

But were there any presidents who never at any time in their lives
(including both before and after their presidential terms) left the US (or
the British colonies that became the US)? I am not counting the CSA as
"foreign" since neither the US nor any other nation recognized it as
independent..

I can only think of five such presidents:

--James Madison
--John Tyler
--James K. Polk
--Andrew Johnson
--William McKinley (maybe--see below)

Madison is perhaps the most surprising--after all, he was Secretary of
State, was always strongly interested in foreign policy, and was thought
to be a "Francophile." "Madison never left America , whether because of
the unreliability of his health , as he said , or because he was in and of
Virginia and America so completely that the need for European experience
did not exist in him." Adrienne Koch, *Jefferson and Madison: The Great
Collaboration*, p. 292.

Andrew Jackson is not on the list because of his incursion into what was
then Spanish Florida.

Some other people who are not on the list--some of whom I had expected to
include before doing some research:

(1) Abraham Lincoln just barely didn't make the list; he spent a few hours
on the Canadian side when he visited Niagara Falls.

(2) Rutherford B.. Hayes: "as a young man, "He loved to travel, went to
Niagara Falls, Canada..."
https://books.google.com/books?id=mB84AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA18

See his *Diaries and Letters*: "On the 19th with Laura to Niagara Falls
and back. Friday, 20th, by railroad to Toronto."
https://books.google.com/books?id=jhsQAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA527

(3) James Garfield: In 1853, "I stood upon the Canadian shore...I then
proceeded a few miles into Her Majesty's domains [to Lundy Lane] "
https://books.google.com/books?id=b5yYCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT23

(4) Chester A. Arthur: "Often during the 1870s , Arthur fled politics and
his family to join a number of friends , including R . G . Dun, Albany
newspaper editor George Dawson , and Judge William Fullerton of New York ,
for fishing expeditions into Canada or along the coast of Maine.." Thomas
C. Reeves, *Gentleman Boss*, p. 86.

(5) Grover Cleveland: As ex- and future president Cleveland vacationed in
Cuba in 1889. https://books.google.com/books?id=V_uwDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA203

(I don't know if in his pre-presidential days as a Buffalo resident he had
been to the Canadian side of Niagara--it seems plausible but I have seen
no evidence one way or the other.)

So that leaves Madison, Tyler, Polk, Andrew Johnson, and McKinley. Of
those five, the one I feel the most doubts about is McKinley. This
Canadian fishing club http://quinnebogfishingclub.com/about-us/ claims
that McKinley visited it but it claims to have been founded in 1897, and
most sources state that McKinley did not leave the US as president. (He
visited Niagara Falls shortly before his death but stayed on the American
side.)

Anyone have any additional information? (BTW, I don't think it's a
coincidence that the four presidents I am fairly sure never left the US
were all southerners.)

What makes this a what-if? Well, try to imagine plausible scenarios where
all the presidents left the country at some time in their lives. It is
easier with northerners than with southerners. Fishing trips to Canada,
seeing the Canadian side of Niagara, etc. were commonplace among middle-
and upper-class nineteenth-century Northerners, especially
Northeasterners. They were less so among Southerners.

(SOmeone pointed out that if Madison had been captured at Washington "he
might spend a few months abroad as a a guest of His Majesty. It would also
make him the first to leave the US during his presidency.")

--
David Tenner
dtenner@ameritech.net

On Thu, 19 Jan 2023 06:59:08 -0000 (UTC), David Tenner
<dtenner@ameritech.net> wrote:

>What makes this a what-if? Well, try to imagine plausible scenarios where
>all the presidents left the country at some time in their lives. It is
>easier with northerners than with southerners. Fishing trips to Canada,
>seeing the Canadian side of Niagara, etc. were commonplace among middle-
>and upper-class nineteenth-century Northerners, especially
>Northeasterners. They were less so among Southerners.

Given the era, how about a short war where the United States goes to
war with Spain to gain Florida? (Or for the more pacifistic, where one
of those 4 gentlemen goes to Florida BEFORE cession to negotiate with
the Spaniards)

Such a war would be more likely to be fought using troops from the
Southern states no? Any of the 4 serving as troops during the war
would seem to meet the requirements of this AHC

(for newcomers AHC means "alternate history challenge" where one
alters our history as little as possible to achieve the desired
result)

As for the references to "Lundy Lane" that's the main street of
Niagara Falls, ON so any US troops who took part in the burning on
York (now known as Toronto - this was the attack that led to the
British / Canadian strike on Washington, DC and the burning of
Congress and the White House) would have surely gone through there
since the troops that burnt York went from Niagara Falls through
present day Hamilton and Burlington en route to York.

Historical trivia: Burlington, ON (my late wife's home town - it's
just north of the western tip of Lake Ontario) was the scene of the
last execution by hanging drawing and quartering in the British empire
involving 4 men (who had acted as guides to the US troops conducting
the raid on York) and was done in Burlington's Old Town Square which
still exists (and is a bit of a tourist trap) about 2 miles from the
home she was raised. Needless to say she was not amused to hear of her
town's claim to fame in British history.

[Source of the drawing + quartering story was Pierre Burton's history
of the War of 1812 which was published first as two volumes then
reissued as a later one volume edition.]