The Ten Worst Presidents

Recently, I outlined the late Gerald Ford’s view about what presidents he admired and those he did not care for during his lifetime. And then I examined the reputations of the men who have been seen by historians as the great and near great in that office. There were no surprises of course, but there is really a dearth of public knowledge in general about American history. Now we have an even more tricky collective wisdom about the very worst presidents of the previous two centuries.

On top of the list is James Buchanan who had a long distinguished career before entering the White House, but who unfortunately simply watched as the Southern states left the Union and actually sought to buy off the secessionist and slaveholding interests during his term in office. The second worst is Warren Harding whose administration has become synonomous with corruption and cronyism. He was an elegantly handsome man with not many thoughts in his head; but he was a relief from the overly challenging and moralistic Woodrow Wilson. He is followed by Lincoln’s successor Andrew Johnson who was impeached and nearly convicted for opposing the Reconstruction including the 14th amendment. He wished the Southern leaders to grovel before him for forgiveness, but granted amnesties to nearly all of them, just to show that they were indebted to a poor white. He detested African Americans, and his racism was obvious even at that time.

He is followed on the list by Franklin Piece who was a Northerner who supported the slave interests in his presidency during the 1850s. Number 5 is Millard Fillmore who in the preceding term (1850-1853) advocated a compromise fathered by Henry Clay that delayed secession by allowing slavery to spread across the lower Mason Dixon line. His predecessor, John Tyler, was a Democrat parading as a Whig who moved to admit in the Union Texas and parts of the West, and thus helped increase the power of the South in the Senate. Tyler during the Civil War actually served in the Confederate Congress, committing the classic definition of treason.

After the war, the nation wanted peace and elected a warrior who promised them peace—U.S. Grant-- who for two terms presided over an administration of corruption. Added to the list, probably unfairly, is William Harrison who was president for a month, dying after contracting an illness during his long inaugural. The historians then have named Richard Nixon (tied), Herbert Hoover (tied), and Zachary Taylor to the list to get an even ten.

It is obvious that some presidents especially in the period between Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln simply served in a time when the expectations and the powers allocated to the executive were modest. They were in turn modest men with much to be modest over. But the insistence of liberal historians on ranking Nixon on its enemies list is really historical unfair and simply incorrect. A recent edition of “Foreign Policy” is much more on the mark. It ranks Nixon as third-- only behind the great Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S Truman, who created the post war alliances, as a master of foreign policy, with his opening to China and his treaties with the Soviet Union. One may dislike his prolonging of the Vietnam war and also his complicity in the Watergate cover up, and still recognize his gifts. We don’t have to be like Nixon—a good hater. As for Herbert Hoover, he surely pales in comparison to his successor, but he had one of the most distinguished pre and post careers of any president. Even Franklin Roosevelt supported him once for president. Hoover was just not up to the ending of the Depression, but at times even FDR wasn’t either. Hoover unfortunately was a boring Teddy Roosevelt, a mild progressive who became more conservative as he came to comment on the New Deal and the welfare state. He did not do himself a service by his later reactionary comments, while FDR became more liberal and internationalist As for Zachary Taylor he was only president for a short period of time, and was proving to be a politically naïve leader who was learning the ropes when he too died abruptly.

We have for some reason decided to end celebrating Lincoln’s and Washington’s birthdays and establish something called” Presidents’ Day” , so we can sell mattresses and used cars in February. But in reality we do not want to celebrate Presidents’ Day; we want to remember the three or four truly great presidents we have been blessed with. Let us restore a commemoration to their birthdays, and forget the rest -- or at least this list.