My toughest calls were between #7 and #8, and between #9 and #10.
Ultimately, I gave Cleveland the nod over Teddy because he not only was the first president to draw a clear line between government and crony capitalism, he did it in a far less ham-handed way than egotistical Teddy.
Fillmore, OTOH, gets a slight edge over Coolidge because he not only forestalled a domestic crisis which America wasn't prepared to deal with at the time, but he also had an oversized impact on the history of Asia by bringing Japan, kicking and screaming, into the modern world. Since 1945, Japan has been a tremendous force for good in the world and even for the 80 years from 1853-1933, it has been more positive than negative.
I understand. Coolidge’s virtues were of the negative sort, negative not as in “bad” but as in “not active”. It was what he didn’t do that I appreciate, which is a lost and gone mentality among politicians of every stripe these days. They always have to “do something”. I suppose that’s the only way to build legacies, but it certainly doesn’t do our freedom any favors.