Greatest presidents by century.

[Deep13]

As I was still basking in the awesomeness of the President, I wondered about who the greatest (best, most effective, most beneficial) president was for each century. So here's my analysis.

18th century: We only had two, Washington and Adams. As much as I admire and respect Adams, I have to go with Washington. After leading coalition forces to victory in the Revolution, he was pulled out of retirement to preside over the Constitutional convention. Following that he was trusted to be the first executive officer of the new Federal government. Unlike many first presidents, he did not abscond with the Federal treasury or become dictator for life. He navigated several crises that could have sunk the new, weak nation and demonstrated how to effect a peaceful transfer of power. Ironically, it was Adams that set Washington's feet onto the path of greatness. As a way of convincing the Continental Congress to declare independence, Adams from MA proposed that Washington from VA be put in charge of the American army, most of which was fighting in New England and NY.

19th century: It has to be Lincoln. Had he failed to preserve the Union, the powerful nations of Europe would have carved us up into spheres of influence just like they were doing in China. We would return to being defacto colonies. In addition he recognized that slavery was incompatible for either a free or a prosperous nation. And he recognized slavery as the root cause of the conflict even if the combatants refused to admit it to themselves. His diplomatic efforts prevented foreign recognition of the Confederacy (which is what won American independence from Britian.)

20th century: FDR, of course. He was in office longer than anyone else and his humanity, courage and resolve saw us through a decade-long depression and a monsterous threat to freedom. He put America back to work, fought disease and hopelessness at home and monsterous evil abroad. And to top it off, he did it from a wheelchair. I heard Jesse Jackson say once that he preferred Roosevelt in a wheelchair to Reagan on a horse any day. His final contributions to this nation were Harry Truman and FDR's wife, the first lady of the world, Eleanor Roosevelt.

21st century. We have only had three so far. Clinton was president for 20 days of this century and Obama has been in office less than a month. Obviously, Bush screwed us so badly, I'm not even considering him. There is a case to be made for each Clinton and Obama. What Clinton has on his side is that he was at the end of a reasonably successful two terms where we had a lot of prosperity, a Federal surplus and peace (for the most part). He did his best to expand the work Carter did in the Middle East and had a firm grasp of the threats facing this country. Bush failed to take advantage of either of these things. Of course, there were a lot of missed opportunities under Bill too. Obama represents a real break from the past, the end of the Reagan era. He has been in office less than a month and except for winning the election has not yet accomplished much. Nevertheless, everything about him says "not the same old shit." In a month he may rank next to FDR, but that remains to be seen. Plus he is actually a 21st century president and not just marking time for 20 days into a new century. I'm not making a conclusion because it is a judgment call and any opinion I make might be overruled by the events of the next few months.

[MADem]

1. Too soon. WAY too soon.

If you force a pick from the three so far, I vote for Clinton.

It's a pointless excercise, though.

[Deep13]

2. I guess picking Lincoln over Jefferson was a bit impulsive.

It wasn't much of an excercise, but thanks for the off-hand dismissal.

[damonm]

3. I wouldn't dismiss it, but...

It IS a mite early for the 21st Century. Obama's shaping up well, though. We'll revisit this after his crushing landslide victory in 2012. :toast:

As to your others:
Lincoln over Jefferson? Give you that one.
As to 20th Century, FDR gets the nod, but SQUEAKS by Truman. All Truman did was set the course for a radically changed post-WWII world,force the military to accept desegregation (setting the stage for it in the larger society) and predicted both the troubles in Lebanon and the outcome of the Cold War. So I'll give you FDR - barely.

[Bok_Tukalo]

9. Lincoln over Jefferson? Polk beats them both.

<POE>

[MADem]

10. I was referring to your "21st Century" attempt. Not the other centuries.

That's pretty clear from my response. We've only had three Presidents in this century thus far. Of the three, I regard Clinton as the best...thus far, anyway.


But it's just foolish to even try to pick. Who knows what great challenge will loom in, oh, 2090? I won't be here to see that year, but that doesn't mean that there won't be far greater challenges to a future leader than some economic woes, simmering feuds, and low level wars.


It's just sensible to wait until the century is pretty close to over before you start making those kinds of appraisals.

[Deep13]

11. Well, you can wait until 2101 if you want.

And in my OP I declined to pick.

[emilyg]

4. Too soon.

[Deep13]

5. I've got four centuries listed...

...and I admit that it is too soon for the 21st.

[Bicoastal]

6. I don't want to be a know-it-all, but we had TWO 18th century presidents...

John Adams took office in 1797 and left in 1801. Still, out of the two, Washington was definitely the better President.

[Deep13]

7. You're right. nt

[jeff30997]

8. 19th century: I can't choose between Lincoln and Jefferson.

Thomas Jefferson:

The principal author of the Declaration of Independence and one of the most influential Founding Fathers for his promotion of the ideals of republicanism in the United States. Major events during his presidency include the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–1806) and the Louisiana Purchase (1803).

It doubled the Union's territory for $15 millions.That's an incredible deal.


And I love this quote from JFK:

"President John F. Kennedy welcomed forty-nine Nobel Prize winners to the White House in 1962 he said, "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent and of human knowledge that has ever been gathered together at the White House – with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."

:)

[Occam Bandage]

12. Lincoln is an interesting case.

Reading through history books and old papers on microfiche, I find him on occasion infuriatingly incompetent, brutishly dictatorial, and prone to making rash threats his ass can't cash. In his first year or so in office, he was very much like George W. Bush: he was universally mocked for his rude and unrefined manner, he made a number of absolutely terrible appointments, he listened to political allies instead of to McClellan regarding the Virginia theater (with disastrous results), he threw dissenters in jail to rot, he cast his principles regarding slavery aside to expedite his prosecution of the war, and he nearly accidentally started a war with Great Britain through his failure to reprimand a captain who had boarded an unarmed British ship to abduct some Confederate diplomats. We cannot give Lincoln too much credit for keeping Europe out; our corn exports, British abolitionist sentiment, and Napoleon III's political weakness did most of the work for us.

Still, though, for all his failings, Lincoln had a few titanic advantages. Despite his self-doubt, family tragedies, and the rising chorus of anger in the Union, he was (again like Bush) able to maintain his focus and stay the course. And, emphatically unlike Bush, he was able to learn from his mistakes, and continuously challenged himself and his generals to rethink both strategy and tactics; for all his blunders through the first year or so of his Presidency, he was sterling beyond that, and was always able to blunt his defeats and maximize his victories. Perhaps any other President loses that war, and sets the stage for decades more strife.

I suppose I do feel Lincoln was the greatest President of the nineteenth century; he was the right man for the right time. I also feel, however, that if he had been President at any other time, or if by chance the Union had lost the war (if, say, the Confederacy had gotten a string of good luck in the Virginia theater, or if the fortunes of crop booms and busts had favored the South instead of the North as regards European affairs), then Lincoln would quite possibly be remembered as the most abysmal President in history.