Rank and Rate the Presidents

[General Mung Beans]

his is a list of the Presidents of the United States from greatest to least greatest order. I haven't ranked William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, or James Garfield because their Presidencies were so short and George W Bush and Barack Obama because they're too recent. Also I've ranked only their accomplishments as President

The Presidents in the Greatest to the Least Greatest Order:

1. Abraham Lincoln (Republican, 1861-1865) Won the Civil War, freed the slaves, and preserved the Union
2. George Washington (None, 1789-1797) Led the nation through it's most turbulent time through firm but concilatory leadership that did not fall sway to dictatorship nor a mere puppet President
3. Franklin D. Roosevelt (Democrat, 1933-1945) Helped allevate the country's economic problems with the New Deal (though not as successful as some claim) and won World War II.
4. James K. Polk (Democrat, 1845-1849) In four years almost doubled America's territory with the acquisition of all of the Pacific and Rocky Mountain West and kept all his promises.
5. Theodore Roosevelt (Republican, 1901-1909) Without degenerating into socialism, helped curb the worst excesses of the Gilded Age along with a firm foreign policy
6. Harry Truman (Democrat, 1945-1953) Presided over the end of World War II and the start of the Cold War. Created NATO and intervened in the Korean War.
7. William McKinley (Republican, 1897-1901) Kept a high tariff and expanded American territory
8. Dwight Eisenhower (Republican, 1953-1961) Built the Interstates and continued firm Cold War policy
9. Ronald Reagan (Republican, 1981-1989) Helped end the Cold War, curbed excess regulations, and restored American confidence
10. Richard Nixon (Republican, 1969-1974) Opened up China, sought a reasonable peace in Vietnam, kept the economy afloat, and passed large amounts of social legislation
11. Thomas Jefferson (Democratic-Republican, 1801-1809) Louisiana Purchase and repealing the Alien and Sedition Acts but also reduced the size of the military and devestated America's economy with the Embargo Act.
12. James Monroe (Democrat-Republican, 1817-1825) Issued the Monroe Doctrine which would preserve American security
13. George H.W. Bush (Republican, 1989-1993) Presided over the fall of the Soviet Union, crushed Hussein in Persian Gulf War, and liberated Panama
14. Lyndon B. Johnson (Democrat, 1963-1969) Tried to save South Vietnam and passed civil rights legislation but launched an excessive amount of Great Society programs which proved ineffective
15. John F. Kennedy (Democrat, 1961-1963) Very much overrated, but did cut taxes, push for civil rights, and keep up a moderate Cold War policy
16. John Adams (Federalist, 1797-1801) Defied both parties by standing firm against France but not declaring war but passed the Alien and Sedition Acts
17. John Quincy Adams (Democratic-Republican. 1825-1829) A good, decent President who kept up the American System of tariffs and internal improvements
18. Chester A. Arthur (Republican, 1881-1885) Kept a high tariff and enacted civil service reform but signed the Chinese Exclusion Act
19. William Howard Taft (Republican, 1909-1913) Kept a high tariff and continued moderate progressive policies
20. Rutherford B. Hayes (Republican, 1877-1881) A progressive President who launched civil service reform and tried to stop Jim Crow policies but failed
21. Benjamin Harrison (Republican, 1889-1893) Kept a high tariff and managed the nation well during a relatively unexciting time
22. Grover Cleveland (Democrat, 1885-1889, 1893-1897) A man of high character and principle but reduced the tariff
23. William Clinton (Democrat, 1993-2001) Reduced taxes, dismantled the welfare system, and interevened in Yugoslavia but failed to stop the genocide in Rwanda
24. Gerald Ford (Republican, 1977-1981) Did not do much and was a weak President but strength was needed
25. Andrew Jackson (Democrat, 1829-1837) Effectively ethnically cleansed the Indians in the east and destroyed the Bank of the United States causing the Panic of 1837 but did stand for the Union in the Nullification Crisis
26. Ulysses Grant (Republican, 1869-1877) Helped fight for the civil rights of blacks but was corrupt and failed to effectively reconcile the nation.
27. Woodrow Wilson (Democrat, 1913-1921) Sent the US into an unnecessary war in World War I and refused to compromise on the League of Nations
28. Andrew Johnson (National Union, 1865-1869) Strong foreign policy but did not support civil rights for blacks at all
29. Martin Van Buren (Democrat, 1837-1841) Ineffective President who did not do much during the Panic of 1837
30. Calvin Coolidge (Republican, 1923-1929) A President who did not do much and his inaction caused the Great Depression
31. Herbert Hoover (Republican, 1929-1933) Presided over the Great Depression but failed to do decisive action
32. James Carter (Democrat, 1977-1981) A very weak President who failed to restore American confidence, revive the economy, nor deal strongly with the Soviets and Iranians in foreign policy
33. John Tyler (Whig, 1841-1845) More or less betrayed every single part of the Whig agenda
34. Warren Harding (Republican, 1921-1923) Very corrupt President and ineffective, failed to join the League of Nations
35. James Madison (Democrat-Republican, 1809-1817) Led America into near suicidal conflict of the War of 1812 almost causing New England's secession
36. Milliard Filmore (Whig, 1850-1853) Accepted the Compromise of 1850 when his predecessor Zachary Taylor had stood firm and refused to do so.
37. Franklin Pierce (Democrat, 1853-1857) An effective servant of the South who supported the pro-slavery faction in Bleeding Kansas and repealed the Missouri Compromise
38. James Buchanan (Democrat, 1857-1861) Another lackey of Dixie who supported Taney's ruling the Dread Scott case, tried to make Kansas a slave state through patronage and bribes despite the fact that the people of Kansas opposed it, mismanaged the economy in the Panic of 1857, and did not do anything as the South seceded and seized federal armouries and forts causing the long, bloody four years of Civil War and 600,000 dead Americans. An absolute unqualified disaster and the worst President America ever saw.

[Einzige]

Taylor was actually pretty impressive for the short amount of time he held the office; he put down a threatened secession by doing nothing more than threatening to personally lead the Army against it. I have a healthy respect for the man.

Also, I'd post my list, but it's unorthodox and I'd probably get shot down.

[General Mung Beans]

Taylor was actually pretty impressive for the short amount of time he held the office; he put down a threatened secession by doing nothing more than threatening to personally lead the Army against it. I have a healthy respect for the man.

I agree on that point.

Also, I'd post my list, but it's unorthodox and I'd probably get shot down.

Well mine's fairly unorthodox (Polk and Nixon rated quite high while Wilson and JFK's lower than usually considered).

[Einzige]

Most everybody, even partisan Democrats, accept that Wilson was a virulent racist who allowed his idealism to plunge the nation into chaos. The Palmer Raids alone reduce him to a level just above tyranny.

I strongly disagree on both Polk and Nixon: I regard both as warmongers, and in Nixon's case particular I lay the blame solely on him for courting the Religious Right and wooing it into the Republican fold. Nixon destroyed the Old Right.

[General Mung Beans]

I strongly disagree on both Polk and Nixon: I regard both as warmongers, and in Nixon's case particular I lay the blame solely on him for courting the Religious Right and wooing it into the Republican fold. Nixon destroyed the Old Right.

Nixon actually was moderate in some areas-he supported a UHC bill.

[Einzige]

I strongly disagree on both Polk and Nixon: I regard both as warmongers, and in Nixon's case particular I lay the blame solely on him for courting the Religious Right and wooing it into the Republican fold. Nixon destroyed the Old Right.

Nixon actually was moderate in some areas-he supported a UHC bill.

Right: at the expense of our civil liberties, a public atmosphere of tolerance and trust, an illegal violation of Cambodia's right to national self-determination, and a massive increase in military spending, including what I consider to be unconstitutional black budgeting. Nixon wasn't a crook; Johnson was a crook. Nixon was a monster.

[Phantasee]

Can you please explain why maintaining a high tariff was a pro in a few of your choices, and the reduction of tariffs was a con?

[Elfdart]

The best:

Washington
Jefferson
Polk
Lincoln
FDR

Without these men, the United States would not exist as anything resembling what we have now. Without Washington or Lincoln, the country wouldn't exist at all.



The worst:

Wilson
Dubya
Reagan
Pierce/Filmore/Buchanan
Andrew Johnson
Hayes

These men made the country much worse.

The others represent mean of mediocrity, though a few (such as LBJ and Nixon) have both great accomplishments (civil rights, cutting poverty almost in half, environmental protection) and colossal fuck-ups (Vietnam, Cambodia) that cancel out.

I also think some of the Presidents who have been rated badly by hack historians deserve better:

Cleveland
Carter
Ford
Harding

[TC Pilot]

I would say Teddy Roosevelt hardly fits into a "mean of mediocrity." No real "colossal fuckups" really spring to mind either. I'm also frankly surprised that Harding, of all people, would somehow be a president who didn't get the treatment he deserved.

My knee-jerk reaction is to put Bush the Younger at the bottom, but Buchanan really takes the cake here. His inability to do anything in response to the secession crisis is just abominable, if not borderline treasonous. Pierce I can at least forgive for stalling the crisis another four years. Grant is, in my view, an odd case, despite usually being regarded as one of the worst: dissapointing because of the corruption that constantly plauged him due to his cabinet and the high hopes so many placed on the savior of the Union, succesful in providing America eight years of relative peace and stability under a man who staunchly believed in the Union and detested all that the beaten secessionists stood for. Had he, and not Johnson, suceeded Lincoln, I think he would have fared far better.

Naturally, I agree with the triumvirate at the top: Washington, Lincoln, and Frank Roosevelt. All three guided the country through extremely perilous times, and all three left the country stronger than when they entered. Lincoln was unfortunate for his time being cut short and being replaced by a, to put it mildly, uninspiring successor.

[Temujin]

This is actually in line with an idea I have for book I'm thinking of writing.

Anyway, I don't really care to bother ranking them, but here's a simplified version of my ratings:

Great:

• George Washington
  Abraham Lincoln

Good:

• Thomas Jefferson
  James Polk
  Theodore Roosevelt
  William Taft
  Franklin Roosevelt
  Grover Cleveland

Fair:

• James Madison
  James Monroe
  John Q. Adams
  Zachary Taylor
  Ulysses Grant
  James Garfield
  Chester Arthur
  William McKinley
  Warren Harding
  Calvin Coolidge
  Herbert Hoover
  Harry Truman
  Dwight Eisenhower
  Lyndon Johnson
  Bill Clinton

Poor:

• John Adams
  William Harrison
  John Tyler
  Benjamin Harrison
  Rutherford Hayes
  John Kennedy
  Richard Nixon
  Gerald Ford
  Jimmy Carter

Bad:

• Martin Van Buren
  Millard Fillmore
  Franklin Pierce
  Woodrow Wilson
  George H. W. Bush

Horrible:

• Andrew Jackson
  James Buchanan
  Andrew Johnson
  Ronald Reagan
  George W. Bush

I rate them on the totality of their term(s), so for example, the good things that Nixon did are taken into account along with his bullshit. However, this is based on an old, and quickly made list, and thus probably needs some revising/updating.

[Simon_Jester]

Why is Taft rated highly?

[General Mung Beans]

Can you please explain why maintaining a high tariff was a pro in a few of your choices, and the reduction of tariffs was a con?

Because back in the 19th Century American industry was in it's infancy and needed to be protected.

[General Mung Beans]

Bad:

• George H. W. Bush

I'm curious why you rate Bush Sr. so low. The First Gulf War acheived all it's goals with very few casualties, and he was willing to do unpopular things to keep the economy afloat.

[open_sketchbook]

Why is George Washington so great, beyond founding father worship? All he did was lead an army of ignorant peasants to fight an uprising against a legitimate power on behalf of greedy merchants who wanted to skip out on what was ultimately fair taxes and lies about lack of representation, thus going on to establish a racist, sexist, classist joke of a democracy. As President, he barely actually did anything. Imagine how much better off the world would be if he caught a musket ball at Boston.

[Gandalf]

32. James Carter (Democrat, 1977-1981) A very weak President who failed to restore American confidence, revive the economy, nor deal strongly with the Soviets and Iranians in foreign policy.

What does that mean exactly? Is the President in charge of confidence building?

[Lonestar]

Why is George Washington so great, beyond founding father worship? All he did was lead an army of ignorant peasants to fight an uprising against a legitimate power on behalf of greedy merchants who wanted to skip out on what was ultimately fair taxes and lies about lack of representation, thus going on to establish a racist, sexist, classist joke of a democracy. As President, he barely actually did anything. Imagine how much better off the world would be if he caught a musket ball at Boston.

The easiest thing I can think of is that he set the tone for the Presidency, or tried to. He could have been King of America, instead he stopped at 2 terms which set a precedent for a hundred years.

[Temujin]

I'm curious why you rate Bush Sr. so low. The First Gulf War acheived all it's goals with very few casualties, and he was willing to do unpopular things to keep the economy afloat.

Shrub Sr. was nothing more than Reagan Lite; a kinder, gentler version of the previous 8 years of stupidity.

[Temujin]

Why is Taft rated highly?

As I recall, Taft's "good" rating has a lot to with the progressive policies he put forth. Any President during the age of the robber barons that helped to limit their power while promoting the interest of the common man gets good some good marks in my book; but he's certainly one that I would need to go back and take a closer look at.

[Temujin]

Why is George Washington so great, beyond founding father worship? All he did was lead an army of ignorant peasants to fight an uprising against a legitimate power on behalf of greedy merchants who wanted to skip out on what was ultimately fair taxes and lies about lack of representation, thus going on to establish a racist, sexist, classist joke of a democracy. As President, he barely actually did anything. Imagine how much better off the world would be if he caught a musket ball at Boston.

The easiest thing I can think of is that he set the tone for the Presidency, or tried to. He could have been King of America, instead he stopped at 2 terms which set a precedent for a hundred years.

Exactly. I'm the last person you'll find engaging in founding father worship, but despite the wankage they get from most Americans they were men of the Age of Reason/Enlightenment, and thus could be considered quite progressive, at least for their period of history.

Washington could have easily shaped the US Presidency any way he wanted, but while certainly not perfect, he did set a pretty good example for others to follow for the time, and that's why he gets high marks from me. And IIRC, it helped to keep jackass Jackson from using his popularity to break the two term limit.

[Thanas]

I am strongly tempted to boot this thread to OT, because this seems like all opinion supported by very little argument.

[Guardsman Bass]

Why is George Washington so great, beyond founding father worship? All he did was lead an army of ignorant peasants to fight an uprising against a legitimate power on behalf of greedy merchants who wanted to skip out on what was ultimately fair taxes and lies about lack of representation, thus going on to establish a racist, sexist, classist joke of a democracy. As President, he barely actually did anything. Imagine how much better off the world would be if he caught a musket ball at Boston.

I wouldn't say that. As mentioned, one of the most important things he did was set a precedent for Presidents stepping down after two terms (instead of staying in power as long as possible and warping the government around his person). It's a precedent that held for nearly two hundred years (and they changed the constitution to keep it that way after the President who broke it died).

As President, he did do a couple of important things. He put down the Whiskey Rebellion, and he did a reasonably successful job negotiating the rotten ice that was the geopolitical situation in the 1790s (among other things, the French Revolution was in full swing, with all the chaos that entailed).

Now, for the OP:

The Best Presidents

1. Abraham Lincoln - This is fairly obvious. He held the Union together in the Civil War, managed to guide the abolition of slavery (while also ensuring that foreign powers would be extremely reluctant to intervene on the South's side), and had several major domestic accomplishments. Under his watch, Congress created and passed The Homestead Act, The Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act (if you're at a state university in the US, among other schools, thank Lincoln and the Republican Congress of 1862), two major railway acts promoting the creation of the Transcontinental Railroad, the first national income tax (it was abolished after the war, but set ground for the future establishment of it), and even the first national paper currency. To be fair, those were accomplishments of Congress, not Lincoln, but Lincoln at least signed them and presided over the Congress that passed them.

2. George Washington - I mentioned the reasons above. His main accomplishment was simply keeping order and negotiating the geopolitical issues faced by the very young US government, and then stepping down willfully after two terms. He also wasn't too identified with either of the two major factions in the US - the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans - in the beginning (which made him acceptable to both as the first President), although he became much closer to the former over his Presidency IIRC.

3. James Polk - Polk is really one of the most under-rated Presidents. Regardless of what you think of the morality of the annexation of Texas and the Mexican-American War, there is no question that the territory acquired from both (plus from Polk's settling of the Oregon Territory issue) made the US far stronger in the long run as a nation.

[Thanas]

Topic moved until it shapes up.

[Phantasee]

How was Bush Sr "Reagan-lite"? I understand that he was opposed to Reaganomics, and he raised taxes when taxes needed raising. Doesn't sound like Reagan's presidency to me.

[CarsonPalmer]

Why is George Washington so great, beyond founding father worship? All he did was lead an army of ignorant peasants to fight an uprising against a legitimate power on behalf of greedy merchants who wanted to skip out on what was ultimately fair taxes and lies about lack of representation, thus going on to establish a racist, sexist, classist joke of a democracy. As President, he barely actually did anything. Imagine how much better off the world would be if he caught a musket ball at Boston.

1. I'm not exactly sure that there were "lies" about lack of representation. The colonies didn't have representation in Parliament beyond virtual representation, and they weren't going to get it for a long time to come.

2. "a racist, sexist, classist joke of a democracy"-what better was going to emerge in the Americas minus Washington?

3. "Imagine how much better off the world would be if he caught a musket ball at Boston"-Why? What makes the world a better place as a result of this? That the colonists lose the Revolution and hate the British for generations to come? That Horatio Gates or Benedict Arnold wins the Revolution and the former thirteen colonies become an unstable region, a Balkanized seaboard?

[TithonusSyndrome]

How was Bush Sr "Reagan-lite"? I understand that he was opposed to Reaganomics, and he raised taxes when taxes needed raising. Doesn't sound like Reagan's presidency to me.

It's a common misconception that because tax increases took place under Bush Sr., that he was in favor of them. The simple fact of the matter was that the increases he signed in 1990 were a result of a begrudging compromise he struck with the Democrats in the House, not something he was personally in favor of.

If you want to credit a President who is traditionally seen as conservative with having the sober acceptance of the need for new taxes and going ahead with them personally, give it to Ike. He's a personal fave to rival Teddy, IMO.