Posted on 09/28/2011 11:28:27 PM PDT by Steelers6
Who do you regard as the absolute best President in America's history? Abraham Lincoln 36% Thomas Jefferson 14% George Washington 31% Franklin Roosevelt 2% Someone else 17% 11676 total votes
I would also have to throw Andrew Jackson on that list. Read his veto of BUS 2.
I would take JQ Adams out of there. Good man, brilliant mind, terrible President.
invalid....re 0’pinhead...
Washington first followed by Davis.
George Washington.
O’Reilly’s new book about Lincoln must be elevating Abe to sainthood status (as most Northerners do). (I haven’t read it and don’t intend to, as his promos indicate it will be skewed to the views of those of the North East US.)
He was a brutal tyrant that permitted his Union Generals to wipe out the Confederate States’ abilities to own properties and engage in commerce. He is held up as the man who “did away with slavery”. Hah! He only did away with slavery in the States that had joined with the Confederacy. Slaves in Union States were still legal, and many were owned by blacks. ....He permitted his Union soldiers to raze Southern cities and then allowed carpet baggers to claim properties and wealth because the legal documents of ownership had been destroyed by the soldiers. ....I have none of the “worship” of Lincoln that so many others do. I feel the same about JFK. Neither of the two deserve the attention they now enjoy.
Washington — and it’s not even close. Soldier to statesman effortlessly. Passed on king/emperor. Walked away after two terms. Defined the role of President.
Polls= Wasting valuable time reading about and participating.
Nixon was vilified by the press, mostly for not being as handsome as JFK. LBJ, and I suspect just about every other president, did far worse. One of Nixon’s faults was loyalty to subordinates. If he had started throwing people under the bus he might have survived. He also had a deep respect for the office, that made him reluctant to sully it. He could have contested the 1960 election results in Illinois, but chose not to, to prevent people from losing faith in the electoral process.
Of course, without Lincoln, there would probably have been no need to “save” the Union, and from my reading, slavery was moribund in the South, anyway. It's not likely that slavery would have survived another generation, absent the Civil War. The real troublemakers, then as now, was the Supreme Court, with the Dred Scott decision that lead to the election of Lincoln and precipitated the Civil War. So, so unnecessary.
For the bondsman, that would have been a generation too long, but at what a monstrous price in blood and treasure was his freedom purchased. And the conditions of emancipation hardened Southern sentiment against the freedmen far more than it would have been had abolition arisen spontaneously from local conditions and suffused the Yankees with an odious and persistent self-righteousness that has lead to ever greater impositions on freedom in this Republic. (A self-rightousness absent from the modest and self effacing Lincoln.)
Still, the place of Lincoln in history is secure: he must be counted one of the great presidents because of his achievements. Another Republican would have been elected in 1860, and the South would have seceded, if Lincoln had not run, whether the alternative Republican would have been more successful or not, we cannot tell. But Lincoln did succeed.
We will be discovering “firsts” established by Washington for centuries to come. First to give medals to enlisted men (previously awarded only to officers), first to swear with hand on the Bible, first to use mules in farming (don’t laugh, this was a biggie in agricultural progress), first to create the American legend of character triumphing over power and riches which so impressed Europeans that both King George III and Napoleon declared him the greatest man of the age. It just goes on and on.
Snuck in a non-president there.
Washington, Polk, Lincoln, TR, Reagan. Not necessarily in that order.
Isn't that what you do in a war? Remove your opponents ability to wage it in any way, shape, or form?
I wouldn’t say that betraying the legitimate government of China in favor of the communists was a good thing.
My picks, except Jefferson replaces Polk.
I agree...and I am also a born and bred northerner. Lincoln used the "slavery issue" to promote the war effort...that's all.
And once the South was beaten, he was all for "kindness and brotherhood"; but during the conflict it was total war that included the killing of civilians and utter destruction of civilian targets.
In my personal opinion...I've not much use for Lincoln at all.
Right. I’m a Southern but, completely agree.
If any modern president had caused such a brother vs brother war, they would be charged with crimes against humanity and hung in the public square.
My complaint against Jefferson is that once in office he compromised some of his basic principles on government and its relationship with the states. He did increase the power of government and the power of the presidency. Polk didn't compromise. Agree or disagree with his basic beliefs, Polk entered office with an agenda. He accomplished what he set out to do. And he left office after a single term, just as he said he would.
The main reason it wasn't addressed was because the Founders believed it was not within the authority of the federal government to make a decision on slavery.
It was the purview of the States.
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