Top ten Best Presidents.

[coloradodem2005]

In Chronological Order:

1. George Washington
2. Thomas Jefferson
3. Andrew Jackson
4. Abraham Lincoln
5. Theodore Roosevelt
6. Franklin D. Roosevelt
7. Harry Truman
8. Dwight Eisenhower (he was a good man and a general)
9. John F. Kennedy
10. William J. Clinton

[lancdem]

1. Excellent list

I might put Woodrow Wilson in there, primarily because of all the Progressive legislation passed when he was president, but I'm not sure who I'd delete.

[carrowsboy]

2. personally

I'd place Clinton before Kennedy and Eisenhower

[coloradodem2005]

3. It is in chronological order from earliest to latest.

[carrowsboy]

8. oops

I guess we know who had too much to drink last night.

[dawgman]

15. Why? he laid the groundwork for the coming police state after OK city

and went the extra mile for "free trade." His sexual indiscretions opened the door for the current religious right president to call into question the "morality" of all dems and his presidency gave rise to the bullshit known as centrism and the DLC. The economy boomed and he balanced the budget, but we had eight years to get a liberal agenda through congress and all we got was a newly invigorated, hateful republican base and "the Contract with America."

He did nothing for ME or my class of citizen (and believe it or not more people are in my class than any other).

[Lone_Wolf_Moderate]

44. What's wrong with free trade?

His sexual shenanigans and such wounded the Party image though. You're right on that score.

[Hippo_Tron]

47. Bullshit...

His sexual shenanigans as you refer to them caused only a samll amount of Americans to turn against him. It actually brought democratic support because the Republicans were making such asses of themselves trying to attack him on this issue. In the midst of this whole thing the House went down to a 6 seat majority for the GOP, Newt Gingrich had to resign because nobody liked him anymore, Bob Livingston couldn't replace Newt because of his own sexual shenanigans, there was a joke of an impeachment trial which is probably part of what cost the GOP 5 senate seats in 2000, and Al Gore still won the popular vote and would've won the election had he not run such a shitty campaign.

[Lone_Wolf_Moderate]

58. The Repubs were a bunch of hypocrites indeed,

and the whole Impeachment bullshit was just that. But, I do think many Democrats took a hit because of Monicagate. It's absurd, but the media whores tied all Democrats to Clinton's behavior, and attacked Clinton from day one. The scandalmongering media wanted his head, and sleeping with an intern didn't help matters.

[UrbScotty]

4. Your list minus Jackson and Eisenhower

Plus James Madison, the Father of our Consatitution, and Jimmy Carter.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

6. Agreed

Madison and Carter should be in there.

[David Zephyr]

13. Madison Bragged About His Profiteering From Buying/Selling Slaves

Hardly a "great" President.

[Bush loves Jiang]

55. A bad man, maybe...

But did he do bad things as President?

[liberalnurse]

5. I like the choices above and I think....

Lincoln is the boldest, bravest and a true American hero.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[carrowsboy]

9. Reagan did not end the Soviet Union

Even more shocking are the claims that he "defeated communism."

To that I always respond with: well what about Cuba, China, No. Korea, etc?

[11 Bravo]

10. Throwing facts at a Reagan worshipper is like throwing

a football to a soccer player. You know he won't catch it and he probably doesn't even recognize it.

[salinen]

12. Not Bu$h

Not Bu$h
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[Name removed]

30. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Zynx]

41. Nonsense.

The Soviets knew their system was doomed at the start of the seventies. Internal documents show this. The Soviets tried desperately to save it from total collapse in the eighties, but even the top leaders knew that it was all in a hopeless cause.

[Name removed]

45. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[DevGrrrl]

50. Good analogy

lol

[Hippo_Tron]

48. I'd say Reagan contributed to ending the Soviet Union...

The Soviet Union was suffering hard times while we were prospering economically. He essentially outspent the soviet union which is what most presidents would've done.

[shawn703]

52. Freeper-bait

That's what I love about this kind of topic. You always manage to catch one or two of the slower ones.

[Yupster]

11. The picks of a retired history teacher, me

In order of best first.

1. Washington - could have made the office into anything. We were lucky to have him.

2. F Roosevelt - confronted with the worst disaster in US history, he gave the country hope and direction.

3. Madison - created the structure of government that still survives 200+ years later.

4. Jefferson - before his time, a forward thinker that laid the groundwork for America to become a world power 100 years later.

5. T Roosevelt - began the Progressive Era which gave us national parks, food and drug oversight. He put a human face on the growth of the Gilded Age.

6. Polk - said he'd do two things, annex Texas and settle Oregon border dispute. Did them both, then chose not to run again.

7. Monroe - won 231 - 1 in the electoral college. One elector decided unanimous should separate Washington from everyone else.

8. Truman - set the Cold War framework that eventually allowed us to defeat our rival without world war.

9. Wilson - bookends with TR in bringing the Progressive Era to a close with the entry into WWI.

10 Hoover - His RFC went further than any president before him in getting the government involved in aid and the economy. The need overwhelmed his solution, but he turned the philosophy of state around to allow government involvement that FDR would use to really tackle the depression with 10X what Hoover proposed. Best resume to ever become president.

Noticably off the list --

1. Lincoln - His bungling of the secession crisis, especially during his campaign and lame-duck period put us in our bloodiest war ever.

2. Clinton - Not much credit for an economic record which hid two pending crisis, the tech bubble, and Enron style accounting.

3. Carter - a truly bad president. Pessimistic attitude and retreat around the world left us reeling.

4. Andrew Jackson - as Jefferson was ahead of his times, Jackson was behind his. His sledge hammer style led to a calamity to the "civilized tribes," and led to the first secession crisis over S Carolina, a prelude to the one that counted.

My picks for better or worse.

[liberalpragmatist]

17. I Disagree with your assessment of Lincoln.

I recognize that you're a retired history teacher so you know about the subject, but I still cannot help but disagree.

Lincoln never said anything that a reasonable, intelligent Southerner could take to be a threat. He set out a sensible course of action -- keep slavery from spreading and let the problem resolve itself in other states in the future. Lincoln cannot, in my opinion, be blamed for initiating the secession crisis, because nothing he said should have inspired secession. It was obstinancy on the part of the South.

As for the Secession Crisis, it is my view and the view of most historians that Buchanan ought to be blamed. For that reason he is often ranked as worst or near-worst. He bungled the secession crisis, for he was president and he could have sent in troops to stop them from seceding. It is true that Lincoln could have been more cooperative with Buchanan in the transition period before his presidency, but to fault Lincoln for what was, ultimately, Buchanan's fault seems unfair.

I'll let you have the last word and I respect your right to your opinion.

[Yupster]

26. Criticisms of Lincoln are mostly two

First, you'll note Buchanon is no where near my top ten list either. He would be high on the worst list, but that's another thread.

My criticisms of Lincoln. I'll expand it to three.

1. He campaigned as a strictly regional candidate. This was not the norm in US politics. In fact, it was the norm for every northern candidate to pick a southern VP candidate and vice-versa. It would be hard to find a southerner or border stater to run as his VP? Probably, but Breckinridge running as a "Southern Democrat" found a northerner to run as his VP. He had to go all the way to Oregon which had been a state about a year to find him, but he found one. Douglas, running as the "northern Democrat" still found a southerner to run with him. Lincoln also campaigned exclusively in the north, and spoke of no specific southerners that he would put in his cabinet.

2. During his lame-duck period, a committee of thirteen was set up in the senate under Senator Crittenden of Kentucky who occupied the Great Compromiser Henry Clay's old seat. It met in December of 1860 and tried to work out a last minute compromise to keep the southern states from seceeding. By this time, only S Carolina had seceeded. On the committee were the moderate southern senators who stayed in Washington rather than return home. Included were Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, Robert Tooms of Georgia, and Judah Benjamin of Louisiana, as well as the key Republican Senators such as William Seward of New York, and the most influential northern Democrat Stephen Douglas of Illinois. The committee actually did work out a 10-point compromise, but was hamstrung because the Republican members had no instructions from the president-elect as to what they could or could not accept. Without any instructions, the Republican sentaors were unable to agree to anything or propose anything, so the compromise died. I blame Lincoln for this because there were good men on all sides who were willing to compromise. He wasn't.

3. After the disastrous firing on Fort Sumpter, Lincoln made the equally disastrous decision to call out the militias and gave each state a quota to fill to suppress the rebellion. At the time, there were 15 slave states. Seven were in the Confederacy and eight were in the USA. Four of the five large population slave states remained in the union, and Tennessee had just voted against holding a secession convention. Once the call for troops to invade the south was made, the loyal southern states were forced to choose sides. Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina joined the Confederacy and we had a Civil War. Without those three states, the Confederacy could not have raised an army to challenge the US Army. With those states went Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Richard Ewell, AP Hill, JEB Stuart, John Bell Hood, Nathan Bedford Forrest, Joe Johnston and Albert Sidney Johnston. How long would the Civil War have lasted without Virginia, N Carolina (lost the most men of any state) or Tennessee in the CSA and with Robert E Lee in charge of the US armies?

The calling of the militia is expressly a power of the congress accoording to Article I Section 8 of the Constitution, but violating the Constitution is just a tid-bit compared to the mishandling of the whole crisis.

If anyne wants funny reading, look up the responses of the border state governors when they got Lincoln's telegram requesting troops. One governor reoplied that Lincoln needs to be careful because some fool is sending out unconstitutional requests in his name. There are about five or six of them and each one is funny as heck.

Anyway, my reason why Lincoln doesn't make my top ten list.

[lotteandollie]

63. Very interesting.

If your facts are correct, and I have no reason to doubt that they are, I learned a lot today. I'm not sure that I can blame Lincoln for not spending any effort to win over the South however.

[Faygo Kid]

33. You are wrong about Lincoln

He won the election, fair and square. He won it on a platform of restricting slavery to where it already existed, and not interfering with it where it already existed. The South didn't think that was enough; they knew slavery must expand or die. Most of the slave states seceded before his inaugural, or indicated they would do so. How about just a little criticism of those states that seceded? Maybe they bore a bit of the blame? I hope the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission is ready for you and your cohorts. I know I am.

[Yupster]

39. Responses

"He won the election, fair and square."

Of course he did. Who ever said he didn't? He got almost 40 % of the popular vote and 180 of 303 electoral votes. He won commandingly. I believe a candidate should not run a purely regional race though. I criticize him for that.



"Most of the slave states seceded before his inaugural, or indicated they would do so."

Seven of the 15 slave states seceeded before his inaugural, but in those days there were four months between the election and inaugural. In those four months, men of good will from both sides gathered to avoid secession, and Lincoln would not meet with them or even give them instructions. During that three month period he should have been barnstorming the border states and maybe even southern states. I believe southern leaders like Davis and Benjamin would have gone with him if he would have showed some willingness to talk. Instead he spent the three months barnstorming the big cities of the north. I criticize him for this.


"How about just a little criticism of those states that seceded? Maybe they bore a bit of the blame?"

I could talk at length about the foolish decisions made by the southern leaders, but that would be hijacking a thread about the ten best presidents of all time? That's what this thread is about.


"I hope the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission is ready for you and your cohorts. I know I am."

Don't worry. Lincoln will be glorified to the extreme. There will not be a balanced picture of his presidency presented. Your view will be well over-represented.

[Faygo Kid]

42. No time for an extended response - for now

I will look to continue what is apparently a civil discussion on Mr. Lincoln soon. Only will comment this time that it was not his fault that it was a regional election. Breckenridge and Douglas split the Dems; John Bell Hood and the Constitution Party really had little to contribute by that point; Lincoln and the Republicans (they were the Good Guys then)would have been more than happy to receive Southern votes, but weren't on the ballot in many states, and wouldn't receive them anyway, as you know (the "Black Republicans" - shudder). All the candidates were regional. Well, this is longer than intended. See you soon, Yupster.

[Yupster]

46. Slip of the tongue

I know you meant John Bell when you said John Bell Hood. Hood was the Major General in charge of one of Lee's divisions of the ANV, who would later be disastrously promoted to head the AOT. Happens to everyone.

Stephen Douglas spent much of the last month of the campaign campaigning in the south, pleading with the people to not leave the union should Lincoln win. Douglas knew there weren't votes there for him, but he went anyway. Douglas also chose a VP candidate from Georgia. He knew that wouldn't win him Georgia, but he knew it was expected of a candidate in such a divided country to do what he could to keep the two sides together. Once the election was over, Douglas spent the lame duck period tirelessly criss-crossing the border states trying to keep them from seceeding. It ruined his health and he was dead within four months of Lincoln taking office, and no George Bush didn't kill him.

Honestly, wouldn't you think that Lincoln would spend the four month lame duck period in Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky and North Carolina assuring the people there that he meant them no harm? If not the south at least the border states. Couldn't he at least have shown them that he gave a damn, rather than spending the time holding rallies in Buffalo and New York City while the south simmered and then seceeded.

Sorry, but I just think that Lincoln handled the crisis abysmally. That doesn't mean it was all his fault, but he didn't do nearly as much as he could have, or nearly as much as he should have.

[Muddleoftheroad]

56. Glorified to the extreme

Lincoln SHOULD BE glorified to the extreme. He saved the union and, by the way, freed millions of my people.

[David Zephyr]

14. Andrew Jackson Practiced Genocide on Native Americans.

He should be tried posthumously for mass murder.

[jsw_81]

16. Mine

1. Abraham Lincoln
2. Franklin Roosevelt
3. George Washington
4. Thomas Jefferson
5. James Madison
6. Theodore Roosevelt
7. Harry Truman
8. John Kennedy
9. Bill Clinton
10. Jimmy Carter

[liberalpragmatist]

18. An okay list

I disagree with putting Jackson on there. He was a *strong* leader, just like Shrub is a strong leader. In fact, Shrub reminds me more of Jackson than any other President. Jackson was uneducated, ignorant, and anti-intellectual. He practiced crimes against humanity regarding the Native Americans. He had contempt of the courts, refusing to allow the Cherokee to maintain their lands, though the SC had ordered it. He also wrecked the economy and caused a financial disaster with his war against the Bank of the United States and his horrible positions on the economy.

As for Clinton, I think he was a very good president, but I wouldn't put him in the top 10. Don't get me wrong -- he was good, smart, and very competent. I was much happier with Clinton as president than Bush as president. However, I don't think he was great

[mcd1982]

19. Lincoln...

was hardly a great president. He ordered that war critics arbitraily be arrested and the Republicans denounced them as traitors. What could be even worse was, as in true Republican fashion, the rich were allowed to buy substitutes to fight in their stead for $300 while the poor man bore the brunt of the battle.

Democratic nominee for president, Gen. McClellan garnered 45% of the vote against Lincoln, even without the "Solid South" Lincoln was no popular president....

Matthew

[economic justice]

20. You fail to

place President Lincoln in historical context. The times were very different.....Lincoln's leadership hasn't been equaled since. No, not even Roosevelt. Lincoln redefined what "leadership" means.

[mcd1982]

22. If by leadership...

you mean arresting your critics, allowing the rich to sit pretty, putting one failed general after another in command of the army, then by all mean, he was a great leader.

Lincoln used to be my favorite president, and the Civil War is my favorite period of history, but I fail to see how Lincoln did anything that required vision, but rather, he did whatever would futher his esteem. Even the Emancipation Proclamation was to appease his critis on the left by switching the focus of the war to ending slavery.

[rasputin1952]

32. Read Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address...

I am convinced, that if Booth would not have shot Lincoln, (or anyone else for that matter), Reconstruction would have been 180 degrees from what it became. The South suffered even more post-CW, simply because a zealot, that did not have the fortitude to put on a uniform and fight for what he said he believed in, (Chickenhawk for the South?), shot Lincoln from behind, as most cowards do. This set up the brutal Reconstruction we read about today.

It was not until the 1930's that the Southern States got to where they were before the CW, in population and production.

O8)

[Faygo Kid]

38. And it wasn't until the 1960s that blacks could vote

without fear of their lives. Reconstruction was not so "brutal" as you think, but I agree that had Lincoln lived, it would have been a much better process - if imperfect - for the entire nation.

[Yupster]

40. I agree about Lincoln's death

and the Confederate leaders agreed too. Jefferson Davis was in North Carolina when Lincoln was killed and instantly commented that it would be a disaster for the south. He was right. He didn't know Lincoln, but did know and hated Andrew Johnson.

[Faygo Kid]

34. Read his Cooper Union speech

If you have not done so, I commend it to you.

[David Zephyr]

21. Eisenhower's Record is Terrible if not Criminal.

First, Eisenhower was terrified of Joseph McCarthy and sat by as the sitting President of the United States for far too long while McCarthy terrorized good Americans and ruined their lives.

Eisenhower approved the 1953 overthrow of the secular President of Mohammad Mossadegh which installed the criminal murderer, the Shah.

Eisenhower approved the 1954 overthrow of the democratically elected President of Guatemala on behalf of the United Fruit Company.

American intervention in Vietnam began with Eisenhower's approval of dividing Vietnam into two "nations" and violating our previously signed treaty to permit a national election.

I urge anyone remotely interested in Eisenhower's record as President to read the Pentagon Papers or check out the Rosenberg Trial.

[renegade000]

23. list minus Jackson

definitely pursued a rather racist agenda against native americans to say the least.

[mot78]

24. I have an issue with putting Jackson on there

Even though he founded the Democratic Party. However, Jacksonian Democracy did give rise to competitive parties, and he kicked SC's ass when they tried to nullify a tariff, which would have undermined the Union.

[David Zephyr]

25. There Weren't Ten, But...

In spite of their many faults, I'd give John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt pretty high marks.

On a second tier below those, I'd list Thomas Jefferson with a near-good mark.

On a third tier below Jefferson, I'd list Jimmy Carter and John Kennedy with a fair to good mark.

[baggypants]

27. Clinton? He did more to hurt this party than any one....look at the

win/loss record in the House, Senate and White House since he pulled his shinanigans.

[Hippo_Tron]

49. Yup Bill Clinton's shinanigans really hurt us in congressional elections

:eyes:
Avoiding not to post the EXACT same thing that I posted above but.

1992 - Clinton is elected dems loose seats in both houses.

1994 - Dems suffer major losses in house and senate, GOP takes control.

1996 - Dems loose senate seats, pick up 3 in the house.

Shinanigans start here

1998 - Dems pick up House seats and break even in the Senate

2000 - Dems pick up in the house and pick up 5 seats in the Senate.

Yup Bill Clinton's darn shinanigans kept us from winning congressional majorities.

[are_we_united_yet]

28. Delete Jackson

[1monster]

29. Andrew Jackson: Indian Killer Extrordinaire

He is on my list as one of the absolute worst Presidents for misuse of the office and his power as President.

This man refused to uphold Federal laws which prevented the states from making laws for or about Native Americans.

He encouraged the states to disposess the Native Americans of their lands. The Choctaw and the Cherokee Nations were forced from their homes in the middle of winter without adequate clothing, food, and shelter. They were forced to march hundreds of miles, prodded every step by Federal troops. Old and young, men, women, and children. Thousands died miserably on those marches.

And Jackson had the ultimate responsibility.

[ithinkmyliverhurts]

31. Hmmm, your list is obviously colored by pure historical revisionism.

Also chronological.

1. William Henry Harrison
2. James K. Polk
3. Zachary Taylor
4. Millard Fillmore
5. Rutherford B. Hayes
6. James A. Garfield (perhaps the most unerrated of ALL TIME).
7. Chester A. Arthur
8. Benjamin Harrison
9. Taft (do we really need his first and middle?--just Taft, baby).
10. Warren G. Harding

[Faygo Kid]

35. Can you explain these choices?

Looks rather curmudgeonly to this curmudgeon. Admit to a soft spot for Arthur; Garfield barely got his feet wet, although he might have done well. Still, given his time in office, how can you say he was "unerrated (sic)?"

[ithinkmyliverhurts]

53. I was just goofing.

Most of these guys didn't serve out a first term (as I'm sure you know). I just thought it would be funny to refute Licoln, for example, with Harrison.

But one thing did strike me as I was being farcical. My list, as you can tell, is made up of individuals who didn't make it through a first term. I guess I'm wondering why Kennedy is up on the list. Is there not ONE other president who did something more definitive in his one or two terms that kennedy did in two years? Do we judge Kennedy based on his potential (and do we collectively add Bobby to his memory)? He seems more mythical than anything else. He seems to be the baby-boomers' "golden-child" of a "golden-age." I sometimes wonder if admirers know just how ironic it is to refer to Camelot when referring to the Kennedys?

Unerrated? Yeah, aren't typos grand? If unerrated were only an unintentionally funny or typo, then I could imply that I was simply being wry. Alas, I was just being lazy.

[Faygo Kid]

59. Your point on JFK is well taken

As a baby boomer (12 when he was assassinated), I agree with your assessment. But, "potential" is a rare quality in a president. He showed more capacity for growth than most, by far. The world was rapidly changing, then, and there was an energy lacking in subsequent administrations. A president should lead and inspire. JFK did that, for all his faults (he was also highly intelligent and curious about the world around him, unlike the current occupant). As for Bobby, understand the time: 1968. He was a visionary and a fighter for social justice. And who did we get? Nixon. It's human nature to want inspiration, and an appeal to the better angels of our nature. Don't underestimate those qualities as real achievements.

[NavajoRug]

36. Two of these guys don't belong on this list . . .

1. JFK. A close look at his presidency will show that it was remarkably devoid of any real accomplishments. Part of the issue was that he didn't even serve three full years in office, and part of it is that we tend to have a nostalgic view of what the world would have been like "if only he hadn't been assassinated."

2. Clinton. He may well go down as one of the great presidents, but there's no way to accurately assess a president so soon after he leaves office. A great president's most important accomplishments often don't become clear until years after they've departed.

[Zynx]

37. Good List

This is ranked in terms of having a positive effect on the United States.

1. George Washington
2. Franklin Roosevelt
3. Abraham Lincoln
4. Thomas Jefferson
5. Harry Truman
6. Dwight Eisenhower
7. James Monroe
8. Andrew Jackson
9. Teddy Roosevelt
10. Grover Cleveland(I think he made the right decisions and showed excellent character)

[Lone_Wolf_Moderate]

43. Solid list,

even if it wasn't chronological. I'd switch Lincoln and Washington though, and keep T.J at number 2, if of course, the list wasn't chronological.

Oh yeah, and lose Jackson from the list.

[Zomby Woof]

51. Zomby's Top 10 Presidents

I have participated on most of these lists, and although no 2 are probably alike, very few revisions have been made. I am a former history and government teacher, but I don't think that gives my insights any precedence over yours if you aren't - so don't be afraid to do your own research nor be hasty in deferring to my judgment. Trust your own.

1. Abraham Lincoln. In short: Preserved the union, permanently resolving the secession problem, and freed 3.5 million Americans from slavery. Perhaps the greatest political genius to occupy the White House, and certainly the most underestimated upon taking office. His Second Inaugural and the Gettysburg Address are in my top five greatest American speeches. Each speech is sublime, of supreme moral clarity, and visionary, with compassion radiating from his soul. Had he lived, he would have moderated the impulses of the radical wing of his party from punitive Reconstruction measures.

2. Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Though I wasn't even remotely alive back in 1932, I can only imagine the possibilities and promise of his campaign, and what they meant to a people beaten down. At a time when despots like Hitler were seizing power, and the world was spiraling downward into the worst economic depression of the modern age - FDR appealed to what Lincoln termed "the better angels of our nature". This is a dictum all too often forgotten in politics, or in every day life. Though he was a master politician himself - I still consider his attempt to pack the Supreme Court one of the biggest blotches on his presidency, and one of the worst misfires of ANY president, considering he had far fewer than average. Leadership through the Depression and almost all of World War II assures him of immortality among the presidents.

3. James Monroe. The last man to run unopposed, for his second term back in 1820, as the Federalist party slid into irrelevance and evaporated. The author of the Monroe Doctrine, although corrupted by later presidents, was a bold step forward for a still fledgling republic, establishing hemispheric autonomy and self-determination for the nations of Latin America gaining their independence from Spain. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 could be considered just a way of hedging civil war for 2 more generations, but at the time was a major achievement, but still the only truly bad blot on his record, although not in its time.

4. Theodore Roosevelt. The trustbuster was his own biggest mythmaker, and although I have great reservations about his jingoistic rhetoric and how it set the cowboy tone of our empire since, he himself never led the nation into war in his almost 8 years, and established peace between Russia and Japan. He also was the best environmental president of all time, with the national parks and other notable areas getting their best federal protection in our history. The last Republican president I could have voted for, since it has been downhill in the century plus that followed as they got more and more conservative and corporate-friendly, and hostile to the environment.

5. George Washington. My most serious revision, with this being his first appearance in my top five. I have some strong reservations about Washington, particularly as historical evidence has shown that he was not much more than Alexander Hamilton's puppet in his 8 years in office (my judgment of Hamilton varies widely, so that could be both good and bad). But I must note, that the ONE area he resisted Hamilton's pull was in how he assumed his responsibility as a model for future chief executives, namely, by rejecting a monarchy or monarchial trappings (Hamilton was a monarchist in federalist clothing), and by his own initiative, stepping down after two terms to show the world that this upstart young republic could indeed have a bloodless transfer of power - no small feat against the backdrop of the times. He held the newfound republic together, suppressing several rebellions (though justified rebellions in many ways, the bigger picture of making this republic work in the long term or revert to a monarchy or anarchy was at stake - too much was sacrificed to get this far). A Virginia Federalist, a rare breed, and a man of conscience.

[economic justice]

57. Excellent summation of Lincoln <eom>

[Faygo Kid]

62. Not an excellent summation of Lincoln

Good til the end, but I disagree with the "punitive Reconstruction measures" conclusion. Sounds like something from "Gone With the Wind." I believe Lincoln would have effectively insisted that blacks not be terrorized, and that they be given the right to vote. By his firm measures, he might have saved us 100 years of terror, Jim Crow and insistent backwardness in the South. And, he had the credentials and cohonas to do it, unlike the clumsy and ineffective Johnson. What was punitive? The powerful retained their powers; the poor whites continued to be exploited, and the ex-slaves continued to be terrorized. And we lived with it until the 1960s.

[mndemocrat_29]

54. My list

Chronologically:

1. George Washington
2. Thomas Jefferson
3. James Madison
4. James K. Polk
5. Abraham Lincoln
6. Woodro Wilson
7. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
8. Harry Truman
9. Lyndon B. Johnson
10. William J. Clinton

[JohnLocke]

60. Wilson?

[WoodrowFan]

61. He's on my list (no surprise given my nick!)

In chronological order

1. George Washington
2. James Monroe
3. John Quincy Adams
4. Abraham Lincoln
5. Teddy Roosevelt
6. Woodrow Wilson
7. FDR
8. Truman
9. Eisenhower
10. Clinton

thought about Grover Cleveland and Andrew Jackson but Cleveland didn't do anything to ease the suffering of the average person during the great depression of 1893-96 and Jackson's Indian policy was just too awful for me to overlook.