Best president poll

[Svengoolie 3]

Ok, who was the best president america ever had?

It's not completely fair but I think Washington deserves the title. He did something incredible and unprecedented for his time: He served a limited time as highest power in his country and voluntarily stepped asides when his term was done. At the time people tended to remain in power until dead or too ill to continue. Power is addictive, and few walked away from it. Washington did, and set a special precedent for america.

No one else had the chance to be the first one to walk away from power, so Washington has an unfair advantage.  If I wwre to pick a different best president, well, his last name would be Roosevelt.

[indianasmith]

Washington was a great man, but I will give first place to Abraham Lincoln.
All your choices are pretty good, although I would not put Lyndon Johnson anywhere near greatest.
Above average, yes.  He did a few great things, but he also pulled some pretty bonehead stunts.

It is interesting to see how historical ratings change; when I was a kid, Woodrow Wilson was up there in the top four.
Today most historians rank him around 12th-15th place.
Theodore Roosevelt has risen from 8th-10th up to the top four in the last two decades.

[Svengoolie 3]

 

Washington was a great man, but I will give first place to Abraham Lincoln.
All your choices are pretty good, although I would not put Lyndon Johnson anywhere near greatest.
Above average, yes.  He did a few great things, but he also pulled some pretty bonehead stunts.

It is interesting to see how historical ratings change; when I was a kid, Woodrow Wilson was up there in the top four.
Today most historians rank him around 12th-15th place.
Theodore Roosevelt has risen from 8th-10th up to the top four in the last two decades.

.

Lincoln was a good man,  but oh lord if some of the truth abiut him we're known by more peolle there'd be a hellstorm of outrage.  History has chosen to overlook some things about him and his views on race.

But,  in the end,  he was not  a vindictive man. He was willing to let the civil war end without further punishment being inflicted on the south. He was willing to put down the sword and pick up the scalpel.  I think his intent served as a model for the post ww2 era.  If he did inspire the more positive and less vindictive policies towards the axis after ww2 he achieved a great good some 80 years after his death .

When booth pulled the trigger on Lincoln he brought down untold wrath and suffering on his precious former confederacy.

Johnson helped complete what Lincoln started,  and I kinda like his honestly and lack of pretensiousness.  He saw himself as a common man in an extraordinary position,  not an extraordinary man. His notable lack of arrogance and pompousity would be most welcome today.

[Rev. Powell]

Lincoln.

If Lincoln's private views on race disqualify him, then most Presidents are disqualified. We'd probably only be considering Presidents from FDR on. George Washington actually owned black people. Lincoln did more for the cause of blacks in America than anyone. The jump from property to second-class citizens is huge.

[ER]

Lincoln belongs in one of the two top spots among Presidents, sharing it with Washington, but Lincoln presents a difficulty for me. I find him personally admirable, shrewd, kind, humble, a visionary, a pragmatist, a great man whose greatness came amid terrible times both privately and in his nation. I admire him. I find huge tragedy in his murder and the timing of his death. And yet I do believe the Confederacy was a legitimate nation and should have been respected as such, since it is the basest hypocrisy for a nation that got its own start in rebelling against the lawful order of its parent country to claim another group of people had no lawful basis for revolt against it. If the South is to be condemned for slavery alone, remember, the United States---the North---had legal slavery under Lincoln during every single day of the Civil War, and beyond. So I admire Lincoln but I disagree with him about a number of things.

[indianasmith]

Even if secession was a legal and Constitutional act (which I frankly don't think it was), really, the South seceded for the sole purpose of preserving and extending slavery.  All the other flowery language was window dressing, IMO.  That's got to be the WORST basis for forming a nation I can think of.

[ER]

Even if secession was a legal and Constitutional act (which I frankly don't think it was), really, the South seceded for the sole purpose of preserving and extending slavery.  All the other flowery language was window dressing, IMO.  That's got to be the WORST basis for forming a nation I can think of.

Something you and I have disagreed about for a long time, my friend, lol. Treason ain't ever legal, but if you win it mysteriously ceases to be treason. I don't like it down south, too hot, but I do take the disinterested view that the Confederacy was legitimate.

[Svengoolie 3]

Even if secession was a legal and Constitutional act (which I frankly don't think it was), really, the South seceded for the sole purpose of preserving and extending slavery.  All the other flowery language was window dressing, IMO.  That's got to be the WORST basis for forming a nation I can think of.

Yes,  slavery  was written into the constitution of the confederacy an an unalterable and unabolishable instution.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_States_Constitution

I know we're drifting off topic here but the sad fact is contrary to opinion,  very few southerners owned slaves.  Slavery was very much a big business in the old south and only the wealthy owned slaves.  The southerners who died in the war were  dying for the privelige of the rich,  it'd be like asking people in america today to fight and die for yacht owners.

[ER]

Even if secession was a legal and Constitutional act (which I frankly don't think it was), really, the South seceded for the sole purpose of preserving and extending slavery.  All the other flowery language was window dressing, IMO.  That's got to be the WORST basis for forming a nation I can think of.

Yes,  slavery  was written into the constitution of the confederacy an an unalterable and unabolishable instution.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_States_Constitution

I know we're drifting off topic here but the sad fact is contrary to opinion,  very few southerners owned slaves.  Slavery was very much a big business in the old south and only the wealthy owned slaves.  The southerners who died in the war were  dying for the privelige of the rich,  it'd be like asking people in america today to fight and die for yacht owners.

Wrong. Look at the stats for South Carolina. Slavery was more common than many like to admit. Remember, the population figures should be about HOUSEHOLDS< not comparing the number of whites versus blacks. No, slavery was not uncommon and plenty of middle class families owned slaves.

[indianasmith]

Good point.  The 1860 Census returns include the number of slaveholding households; in the cotton states it averaged 40%, and in a couple it was over 50%. I've written substantial essays on that topic.

[ER]

Slavery was not as confined to the South as history likes to make it sound. Connecticut had legal slavery into the 1850s, and while illegal, slave auctions flourished in northern border states. Look at newspaper ads from Antebellum times if you doubt that. Henry Ward Beecher used to take his congregation from Pilgrim Church in Brooklyn down to the dockyards and show skeptics that blacks were openly sold there. It was a complicated business.

[RCMerchant]

I voted FDR.

[Allhallowsday]

...
It's not completely fair but I think Washington deserves the title. He did something incredible and unprecedented for his time: He served a limited time as highest power in his country and voluntarily stepped asides when his term was done. At the time people tended to remain in power until dead or too ill to continue. Power is addictive, and few walked away from it. Washington did, and set a special precedent for america.

No one else had the chance to be the first one to walk away from power, so Washington has an unfair advantage.  If I wwre to pick a different best president, well, his last name would be Roosevelt.

WASHINGTON exemplifies the personality of an ideal American President, a man of character and values.  I feel ABE LINCOLN deserves to be included, and doesn't deserve "other", so I voted more subjectively, more in view of modern values. 

[Svengoolie 3]

Y'know I get that JFK was nit a long serving president,  and that he was hated by the right (A huge plus in my opinion)  but I think he does deserve special recognition for being the first president to face the possibility of a nuclear war and stand firm in it.  His strength in the missililes of October crisis was a real test and he passed.

I admit I didn't like him pulling air cover in the bay of pigs but maybe he felt he'd pushed the russians as far as they would go.

[indianasmith]

Eisenhower also faced the real possibility of nuclear war with the Soviets, but managed to forestall it.  I recently read a great book called IKE'S BLUFF that detailed how he managed to keep the peace through the 1950's when many were calling for war.

Kennedy did stand strong in the Cuban Missile Crisis, but I do think that the whole thing could have been avoided if he'd not made so many missteps regarding Cuba early in his presidency.