Posted on 10/31/2008 4:51:21 PM PDT by BGHater
Who is the greatest of them all? While Barack Obama and John McCain battle to become the 44th President of the United States, we asked a panel of experts from The Times to rank the previous Commanders-in-Chief in order of greatness.
1. Abraham Lincoln
1861-65 (Republican, National Union)
The No 1: our panel chose the radical Republican who kept the fledgling nation alive when it could have collapsed altogether.
The first Republican President, Lincoln led the defeat of the Confederate states in the American Civil War and freed around four million slaves by issuing the Emancipation Proclamation. The formal abolition of slavery in the US was ratified soon after his death.
He succeeded in unifying the nation militarily as well as laying out a moral imperative for its governance in his Gettysburg address. During the final days of the civil war he was shot dead by John Wilkes Booth.
"Fought and won a just war, kept the United States united and created the ground for a country which could live up to its constitution." Camilla Cavendish, columnist.
"Had the coolest-sounding presidential name of all time." Chris Ayres, Los Angeles correspondent.
2. George Washington
1789-97 (No party)
Washington led the army that vanquished the British during the American Revolutionary War before presiding over the drafting of the Constitution. When it came to elect the first US President he was chosen unanimously by electors representing the 11 states of the Union.
He was celebrated as the Father of the Nation after expanding the Union and overseeing the creation of a taxation system, a national bank and the first Supreme Court judges. His Farewell Address also became one of the cornerstones of American democracy but he still missed out on top spot in our rankings.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
The Founding Fathers would disagree.
“In 50 years Iraq will be studied as the gold standard in dealing with an asymmetric enemy.”
Or alternatively we will abandon Iraq, as we did Vietnam, and it will return to being another stinking cauldron of islamic death culture.
The mess will be blamed on Bush, on the GOP, etc.
Obama may very well do just this.
Just curious. What do you think happened as Union troops advanced into areas covered by the EP? Did not the slaves in those areas become free? In practical terms, did not any slave who managed to reach the Union lines become free?
In the EP Lincoln confiscated enemy property as a war measure. He had no constitutional right to confiscate property of those not warring againt the federal government. It is perfectly plain that he repeatedly pushed for first compensated and then uncompensated emancipation via constitutional amendment.
Are you really criticizing the man for insisting on constitutional procedure?
This is like saying a woman wants a divorce to prove that she can get one.
As with a divorce, the relevant issue in secession was the underlying factor causing the states to want out. Everybody at the time was agreed that this underlying issue was slavery and the conflicts flowing from it.
James was great at the Constitutional Convention.
He was a poor president. In particular, he was far and away the worst war president in American history. How many other presidents managed to allow their own House and Capitol to be burned by greatly inferior forces?
Thanks for the ping. The General usually doesn’t rank that high when these things are done stateside. He’s often ranked after Jefferson and FDR...but I’ll take it!
Truer words were never spoken.
Reagan well deserves his place in the top 10, though I'm always puzzled that Woodrow Wilson always places so high. Kennedy is overrated, as usual. Clinton's too high and Carter should be a lot closer to the bottom than he is, should be one of the 40's.
How did you miss this part?
"That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom."
If you place George W. Bush over Ronald Reagan then you, sir, are a fool.
Do you have a pre-rebellion quote from any of the Southern leaders indicating they believed slavery was a dying cause?
It was completely about States’ rights.
A state's right to do what?
The North’s brutal campaign against the South is inexcusable with such atrocities as Sherman’s march.
The confederacy started the war, Sherman ended it.
How did YOU miss it? Notice it only applies to states or parts of state sthat were “in rebellion”; in other words, in states over which he had no authority or control. I also see you conveniently neglected to mention that the EP specifically DID NOT apply to those parts of the “rebellious” states that were under Union control at the time; nor did it apply to border states or northern states where slavery was still practiced (for example, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware). If Lincoln had the authority to ban slavery over states and areas he did control, why didn’t he do it? Why did it take the adoption of the 13th Amendment in December, 1865, after the war had ended, to abolish slavery?
Your first fallacy "over which he had no authority." As President of the United States Lincoln had authority of all the states, including those engaged in rebellion. As for the control part, that was rapidly working itself out as Union armies regained more territory from the forces of the rebellion.
I also see you conveniently neglected to mention that the EP specifically DID NOT apply to those parts of the “rebellious” states that were under Union control at the time; nor did it apply to border states or northern states where slavery was still practiced (for example, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware).
Because Lincoln, as President, lacked the authority to free those slaves. The Emancipation Proclamation got its power from the Confiscation Acts passed in 1861 and 1862. That gave the government the right to seize without compensation any private property used to further the rebellion. Slaves were certainly used to do that. Those areas not in rebellion, or which had already been freed from the confederacy, were quite rightly excluded. The slaves there were freed by the 13th Amendment.
If Lincoln had the authority to ban slavery over states and areas he did control, why didn’t he do it?
Again another common Southron fallacy. Lincoln didn't ban slavery, he freed the slaves. A fine legal distiction, but important under the powers given by the Confiscation Acts. Banning slavery didn't really occur until the 13th Amendment was passed.
Why did it take the adoption of the 13th Amendment in December, 1865, after the war had ended, to abolish slavery?
Well there is this little thing called the Constitution....
Gotta love the nonconformist thing. But British burned the Capitol and White House during Madison's Presidency. I know the country recovered, but still, I'd have to put him near the bottom.
I'll bite on Adams. What did he do wrong?
I put Wilson and Polk and Tyler and Carter lower than the Times does.
But what's the point in even rating William Henry Harrison, who only served for one month (except maybe to keep Carter out of the bottom ten)?
They may have rated Clinton too high, but seeing him right there under Chester A. Arthur does the heart good, though.
Their comment on Grant seems to me wrong, as well as misspelled:
"Allowed the south to institutionailse racism after reconstruction, setting the scene for 100 years of oppression of the supposedly free." -- Camilla Cavendish.
It looks like Martin Van Buren is this year's Andrew Johnson -- a once respected figure that the bottom fell out on.
And FWIW, they rate Johnson higher than most of today's historians would.
Whaddya say, Nicollo? Fair or foul?
Reagan got ‘Borked’ and saddled the Supreme Court with lousy judges; Bush played Harriet Myers as a throw away hand then ran the table with two of best and most conservative judges ever.
Reagan cut and ran from the terrorist; Bush fought the terrorists and destroyed them.
You, sir, have forgotten history.
While at the same time raising spending, then raising even more. George W. Bush's legacy will be $6 trillion in additional debt and huge growth in government.
Reagan got ‘Borked’ and saddled the Supreme Court with lousy judges; Bush played Harriet Myers as a throw away hand then ran the table with two of best and most conservative judges ever.
ROFLMAO!!!! Bush thought Myers was the best person for the court, and it wasn't until his choice was treated with the derision that she deserved that he got real and accepted recommendations on who to choose. We got two good justices recently in spite of Bush, not because of him.
Reagan cut and ran from the terrorist; Bush fought the terrorists and destroyed them.
Reagan won the cold war. Bush pissed away several years, thousands of lives, and billions of dollars before blundering into Petraeus. We're winning the war in spite of Bush, not because of him.
You, sir, have forgotten history.
You, sir, obviously never knew it to begin with.
pprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Republican Administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that—
I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.
During the war he had to formulate numerous policies concerning slavery and the disposition of slaves in captured territory. Rebel states were treated differently than states that remained in the union. Lincoln did not believe he had any authority over slavery in states that did not rebel. His policy towards slavery in rebel states evolved over the years of the war. Near the end of the war the union even had army units of former slaves.
McPhearson's "Battle Cry of Freedom" has a pretty good analysis of the slave problems Lincoln had to confront.
Lee and other confederate generals may have believed that but the political leadership did not. The secession of both S.C and GA was entirely about slavery; or so say their proclamations.
“Your first fallacy ‘over which he had no authority.’ As President of the United States Lincoln had authority of all the states, including those engaged in rebellion.”
You are an avowed Southern-hater from long ago, as everyone who has ever read your long line of posts in that regard knows. Your pathologigal hatred blinds you to the fact that the South, upon secession and the adoption of the Constitution of the Confederate States of America, was an independent and sovereign nation, over which Lincoln had no control, other than by conquest.
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