This is my annual President's Day post - actually the 10th time I've posted this. The rankings are based on a simple question: did the President leave the Republic better off or worse off? This eliminates many fascinating people like John Tyler who basically infuriated his own party that they expelled him. But he didn't clearly leave America better or worse off, so he doesn't make the list. It also does not delve into bad decisions made by the best presidents or wise decisions made by the worst - it's only whether they left the Oval Office better or worse than they found it. Your mileage may vary, void where prohibited, do not remove tag under penalty of law.
Also, it's not a real President's birthday (Lincoln was the 12th, Washington is the 22nd), but everyone wants a day off, so sorry Abe and George, but we're taking it today. But in the spirit intended for the holiday, let me offer up Borepatch's bestest and worstest lists for Presidents.
Top Five:
#5: Calvin Coolidge
Nothing To Report is a fine epitaph for a President, in this day of unbridled expansion of Leviathan.
#4. Thomas Jefferson.
Jefferson is perhaps the last (and first) President who exercised extra-Constitutional power in a manner that was unambiguously beneficial for the Republic (the Louisiana Purchase). He repealed Adam's noxious Alien and Sedition Acts and pardoned those convicted under them.
#3. Grover Cleveland.
He didn't like the pomp and circumstance of the office, and he hated the payoffs so common then and now. He continually infuriated his own party by vetoing pork spending (including for veterans of the War Between the States), so much so that he was defeated for re-election, but unusually won a second term later. This quote is priceless (would that Latter Day Presidents rise so high), on vetoing a farm relief bill: "Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character."
#2. Ronald Reagan
He at least tried to slow down the growth of Leviathan, the first President to do so in over half a century (see entry #5, above). He would have reduced it further, except that his opposition to the Soviet fascist state and determination to end it cost boatloads of cash. It also caused outrage among the home grown fascists in the Media and Universities, but was wildly popular among the general population which was (and hopefully still remains) sane.
#1. George Washington
Could have been King. Wasn't. Q.E.D.
Bottom Five:
#5. John Adams.
There's no way to read the Alien and Sedition Acts as anything other than a blatant violation of the First Amendment. It's a sad statement that the first violation of a Presidential Oath of Office was with President #2.
#4. Woodrow Wilson.
Not only did he revive the spirit of Adams' Sedition Acts, he caused a Presidential opponent to be imprisoned under the terms of his grotesque Sedition Act of 1918. He was Progressivism incarnate: he lied us into war, he jailed the anti-war opposition, he instituted a draft, and he was entirely soft-headed when it came to foreign policy. The fact that Progressives love him (and hate George W. Bush) says all you need to know about them.
#3 Lyndon Johnson.
An able legislator who was able to get bills passed without having any real idea what they would do once enacted, he is responsible for more Americans living in poverty and despair than any occupant of the White House, and that says a lot.
#2. Franklin Roosevelt.
America's Mussolini - ruling extra-Constitutionally fixing wages and prices, packing the Supreme Court, and transforming the country into a bunch of takers who would sell their votes for a trifle, sending American citizens to concentration camps. At least Mussolini met an honorable end.
#1. Abraham Lincoln.
There's no doubt that the Constitution never would have been ratified if the States hadn't thought they could leave if they needed to. Lincoln saw to it that 10% of the military-age male population was killed or wounded preventing that in an extra-Constitutional debacle unequaled in the Republic's history. Along the way, he suspended Habeas Corpus, instituted the first ever draft on these shores, and jailed political opponents as he saw fit. Needless to say, Progressives adore him.
So happy President's Day. Thankfully, the recent occupants of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue haven't gotten this bad. Yet.
I am reading Ron Chernow's biography of Washington as we speak. Only about 700 pages to go, but Chernow does an excellent job with his subject. I always like to bring up your choice for worst president, it usually elicits amazement and shock.
ReplyDeleteI believe Coolidge will always remain one of the most underrated presidents of all, because just like any great master, the understanding that less is more is one that totally escapes our media saturated society.
ReplyDeleteLincoln did not have the first draft in the USA. Some states had drafts for the American Revolution.
ReplyDeleteMy thoughts go to this regarding the great emancipator Lincoln:
ReplyDeleteAbraham Lincoln -- "I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, [applause]-that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality.
Fourth debate, 9/18/1858, Charleston, Illinois)
https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/debate4.htm
I always think James Polk is a greatly underrated President. He was pro-slavery, which landed him in the dustbin of history. However, aside from that political position of his, he annexed Texas, gained New Mexico, Arizona and California from the Mexican War and negotiated the settlement of the Oregon border in negotiations with Great Britain. He established the final shape of the continental U.S.
ReplyDeleteAside from that he kept tariffs as revenue sources rather than punitive measures to protect American industries. Relied on the States rather than the Federal government to finance internal improvements (he thought Federal funding would be too ripe for corruption), although he did sign-off on the creation of the Department of the Interior which still gives D.C. control over a lot of land in the west.
Plus, he did that all in one term having promised to not run for a second when he first ran for President.
Please don’t, even accidentally, gloss over LBJs waste of 57,000 young Americans and who knows how many Vietnamese in a senseless war. He was not the only hawk in this era but he was the commander in chief.
ReplyDeleteFDR and pals gave the Soviet Union the bomb or at least the tools and materials to build it a decade ahead of time.
ReplyDelete"sending American citizens to concentration camps."
ReplyDeleteTo this day, there are a few people who were put in those camps that are still alive--and, somehow, are rabid Democrats. Talk about Stockholm Syndrome.
Rick C,
ReplyDeleteWoodrow Wilson sent German-Americans to concentration camps, seized their assets (and sold them to friends of the administration) and everything FDR did, before FDR did it. Seriously, Wilson's policies, including medical experimentation on 'non-whites,) was repeated by FDR, just more bigly.
Hmmmm.
ReplyDeleteUp here in Soviet Canukistan, Lincoln and FDR walked on water. Guys like Ronnie, Dubya and Orange Man all hung upside down in dark caves during the day, and come out at night to feed on the blood of children and puppies.
Lincoln seems to me, from what I’ve seen… like he never really planned anything. He flapped in the breeze and tried to tell people what they wanted to hear. He paid for it too…
"There's no doubt that the Constitution never would have been ratified if the States hadn't thought they could leave if they needed to."
ReplyDeleteHuh... guess they would have never entered a "perpetual union" then... oh, wait.
Yeah, Wilson deserves to be on the worst list, IMHO.
ReplyDeletePerpetual Union appears in the Articles of Confederation but not he Constitution. So it is not as clear cut as that, it seems. Hence Borepatch's comments about honest Abe.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to your comments on Lincoln, remember that his regime gave us the first income tax (later declared unconstitutional, hence the 16A, Wilson having the honesty to do the deed via constitutional amendment), public higher education (Land Grant Universities), and massive corporate welfare (take a look at the checkerboard pattern of land ownership in the West).
ReplyDeleteIf we once believed that a government draws its just powers from the consent of the governed, Lincoln set us straight on that!
ReplyDeleteReagan was a fraud. Go look up Murray Rothbard's comments about Reagan's new taxes and other nonsense as CA governor.
ReplyDeleteLincoln is one of the worst just for suspending habeas corpus, but his party 150 years later also gave us the misnamed PATRIOT acts and the TSA which has been used against genuine patriots. It's amusing to note there is an old picture of Lincoln featured at one of the American Communist Party's yearly meetings.
thanks for outing lincoln never learned any of this in school history class
ReplyDelete