Who Makes the Cut for the Worst Presidents Ever? (What a Question)

Townhall.com ^ | February 13, 2013 | Michael Medved

[Kaslin]

As President Obama prepares his State of the Union Address and the nation looks forward to a Presidents Day holiday, Americans should consider the warning examples of our worst chief executives.

While few of Washington and Lincoln's successors could hope to replicate their epic achievements, every president can — and must — focus on avoiding the appalling ineptitude of John Tyler, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan and their feckless fellow travelers on the road to presidential perdition. The common elements that link our least successful leaders teach historical lessons at least as important as the shared traits of the Rushmore Four: Broken promises and gloomy temperaments lead inevitably to an alienated public.

All the chief executives unmistakably identified as failures displayed a self-destructive tendency to violate the core promises of their campaigns. Take Tyler, the unbending Virginia aristocrat who won election to the vice presidency in 1840 and assumed the highest office when his predecessor died just a month after inauguration. The new chief executive, dubbed "His Accidency" by critics, used 10 unpopular vetoes to block implementation of his own party's longstanding ledges. Most of his Cabinet resigned in protest, and eventually they all quit while the hostile Senate voted down four new Cabinet appointments — a record that stands to this day.

Between 1853 and 1861, Pierce and Buchanan completed back-to-back disastrous terms in which personal weakness and pro-Southern sympathies shattered confident promises of unifying leadership. Buchanan pledged to stop "agitation of the slavery question" and to "destroy sectional parties." By the end of his term, seven Southern states seceded from the union and the nation lunged toward the Civil War.

After that war and Lincoln's assassination, Andrew Johnson (Lincoln's vice president) defied members of the martyred president's Cabinet and congressional leaders, ignoring commitments to lead former slaves to dignity and full civil rights.

In the 20th century, Herbert Hoover's slogan promised "a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage," but he presided over the beginning of the Great Depression. Similarly, Jimmy Carter's 1976 platform pledged to reduce unemployment to 3%, but Carter ran for re-election with more than twice that rate.

No wonder that Hoover and Carter, like other unsuccessful presidents, came across as gloomy, self-righteous sufferers. Hoover's secretary of State said that a meeting with him was "like sitting in a bath of ink." Carter staked his presidency on a notoriously sour televised address that became known as "The Malaise Speech," warning the appalled public of a "crisis of the American spirit."

None of our least successful presidents displayed the self-deprecatory humor of Lincoln or the sunny dispositions that powered the Roosevelts (Theodore and Franklin) and Ronald Reagan. A visitor described the Pierce White House as a "cold and cheerless place," noting the isolation of the invalid first lady, in deep mourning for three dead sons.

When Buchanan welcomed successor Lincoln, he plaintively declared: "My dear, sir, if you are as happy on entering the White House as I on leaving, you are a very happy man indeed."

The result of the depressing and erratic leadership of our six most conspicuous presidential failures is that all managed to estrange a once-admiring electorate within the space of a single term. Tyler,Pierce, Andrew Johnson and Buchanan all earned rejection by their own party, failed to win their own party's nominations, entering retirement as discredited figures. Hoover and Carter appeared on national tickets and campaigned vigorously but got wiped out in historic landslides, with each incumbent carrying a mere six states.

Democrats, who denounce George W. Bush as the worst president ever, along with Republicans who apply the same ugly title to Barack Obama, can't explain away the inconvenient fact that both of our most recent incumbents won re-election with 51% of the vote. Regardless of controversies blighting Bush's second term, or setbacks that might afflict Obama's, their legislative and electoral successes place them in a different category from the White House worst.

This baleful history should warn the current occupant and all successors against visibly disregarding commitments while encouraging voters to steer clear of presidential candidates with dour, inflexible temperaments. By selecting aspirants with clear, consistent agendas and cheerful, persuasive personalities, we'll face fewer shattered presidencies that leave reviled incumbents and a disillusioned electorate.

[donmeaker]

Walter Williams states that the 1859 tariff revenue was 75% from southern states.

Of course that was under the 1857 tariff act that was put through at the request of the southern representatives. Accordingly, the low tariff could not be used as an excuse for insurrection and war.

By contrast the Morill tariff had higher duties, and the fees were a fixed amount for certain items. The law was written that way because the tariff act of 1857 charged a fixed percent of the putative value of items, and importers routinely cheated by reporting low values for their imports as they paid the tariff.

The Morill tariff was written in part by Davis, of Maryland, and passed after the southern representatives withdrew to support the insurrection. Accordingly, the tariff could not have been a cause of war, as it was not in place as they started their war. Lincoln, though supporting the tariff, did not sign it as he was not president when it was passed. Accordingly, the tariff could not be Lincoln’s fault, and the insurrection began before Lincoln took office.

So, why did the Slave Power commit insurrection and declare war?

[editor-surveyor]

It wasn’t slavery; that was a red herring created by the press. Slavery was in its death throes due to the industrial revolution, which was another nail in the south’s coffin. Agriculture didn’t produce enough wealth to afford the necessary hardware without crushing debt.

It was esentially the same issues that confound us today: State/local control, and taxation.

[Tau Food]

It wasn’t slavery; that was a red herring created by the press.

Mississippi's Declaration of Secession began as follows:

"In the momentous step, which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery - the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product, which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin."

Are you sure that the authors of Mississippi's Declaration of Secession were confused about what motivated them to secede?

[BroJoeK]

the OlLine Rebel: "Looked for Walt Williams’ column."

These Lincoln quotes from Walter Williams have all been posted on Free Republic threads many times, by our pro-Confederates, as if the quotes were great and shocking revelations, which should convince everyone that Lincoln was a monster, not a saint.

In fact, Lincoln's quotes simply reflect the views of your average anti-slavery northerner in those days.
Yes, most northerners hated slavery, but not because they loved slaves, just the opposite.

They hated the institution of slavery because it represented a clear and growing competitive threat to their own high-priced "free labor".
Any work which slaves could do well, drove down the value and drove out the work of relatively unskilled white workers.

And over many years slaves became increasingly valuable, expanding into many different lines of work, driving out free white workers.
That's why northerners would not stand for letting slavery expand into states or territories where it did not already exist.

So Lincoln's quotes are unremarkable for his time.
But what is notable is that: mild as Lincoln's views were towards slavery, they were totally unacceptable to the Southern Slave-Power.
Those people called Lincoln a "Black Republican", warned that if he were elected president, they would secede, and then immediately did so, beginning the process within a few days in early November 1860.

But the one thing Williams said which I'm certain is flat-out wrong comes at the very end:

"During the 1850s, tariffs amounted to 90 percent of federal revenue.
Southern ports paid 75 percent of tariffs in 1859."

This subject has been debated many times on these threads, by people more knowledgeable than I am, but the bottom line is that (to pick a year, say in 1859), the nation's largest ports were New York, Philadelphia, Boston & Baltimore all serving populous northern states (Baltimore served Ohio and points west via the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad).
Yes, Southern ports like New Orleans and Charleston were somewhat important, but they in no possible way accounted for, in William's words "75% of tariffs in 1859".
A better estimate would be 25%.

So William's suggestion that Civil War was all or only about tariffs, amounts to nothing more than pro-Confederate propaganda.

[BroJoeK]

editor-surveyor: "Slavery was in its death throes due to the industrial revolution, which was another nail in the south’s coffin.
Agriculture didn’t produce enough wealth to afford the necessary hardware without crushing debt."

You could not be more mis-informed.
In fact, by 1860 Southern slave-states, especially the Deep-South, had experienced generations of steady increases in their slave-based wealth and prosperity.
One proof of that is rising prices for slaves over all those years.

Economic studies based on the 1860 census show that average Southerners, even non-slave holders, were considerably better off economically than their northern cousins.
The value of slaves themselves represented nearly half their wealth, a number only exceeded slightly by the value of their lands.

Indeed, world-wide demand for slave-produced products -- i.e., cotton, tobacco, rice -- had grown so strong that Confederate leaders believed they could influence foreign powers like Britain and France to support the Confederacy, simply by cutting off exports of cotton.
It didn't work, but clearly shows how confident the Slave-Power was by 1860 in the value of its "peculiar institution."

[donmeaker]

Slavery was not in its death throes due to the industrial revolution. Rather it was in a renaissance due to the Yankee invention of the cotton gin, and industrialization of the weaving and sewing cloth, that created the demand for cotton.

Southern prosperity was in part due to their theft of intellectual property from Eli Whitney. They were very prosperous, and thought it was a good time to start an insurrection. It wasn’t.

[Neoliberalnot]

Save your breath. No one will ever convince me that killing my fellow Americans is justified to satiate the lust for power and money , the hallmarks of every politician lawyer who can’t be satisfied until they squeeze the citizenry for more and use them for their personal aggrandizement.

[Jay Redhawk]

1. Lincoln: Had a choice and chose war killing 700,000
Americans.
2. Obama: Busy destroying America as we speak.
3. Wilson: Racist and advocate of big government
regulation. The Federal Reserve, income tax, and the
war on drugs began with this pious pseudo-intellectual.
4. Teddy Roosevelt: Embraced labor unions and government
regulation. Imperialist.
5. Franklin Roosevelt: The New Deal is enough said.
6. Ulysses S. Grant: Incompetent and disinterested.
7. Andrew Johnson: Racist, provocateur, and incompetent.
8. Jimmy Carter: Recession and inflation ran out of control
while he stood by smiling like a Georgia peckerwood.
9. Lyndon Johnson: Great Society programs and proven liar.
10. Bill Clinton: Perhaps the most dishonest president
ever.

[rockrr]

1. Lincoln: Had a choice and chose war killing 700,000 Americans.

Davis: Had a choice and chose war killing 700,000 Americans.

Fixed in the interest of accuracy.

[rockrr]

“No one will ever convince me that killing my fellow Americans is justified to satiate the lust for power and money”

You’ve just captured the essence of the confederacy. Bravo.

[Jay Redhawk]

Who invaded who? Davis made his mistake with Ft. Sumter, but nobody died from combat there. Lincoln did not have to send troops down the road to Richmond, which killed several hundreds of men on both sides. Both sides could have forgotten Ft. Sumter and chalked it up to the stupidity of Davis, but neither side could walk away after Lincoln’s foolish march into Virginia.

To fix something it helps to be accurate.

[donmeaker]

So why did the Confederates do it?

They started the insurrection. They started the war.

Why would they do it? To make a little more money off kidnapping, rape and torture?

Why did the Confederates decide to make their filthy money by supporting treason for slavery?

[donmeaker]

There is that little matter of the confederate declaration of war on the US.

I guess we should have ignored Tojo’s mistake at Pearl Harbor, rather than fighting. Oh, that little mistake at Bataan too. Submarine war? Another mistake. Just ignore it. German declaration of war on the US? Ignore it.

[donmeaker]

Your argument is with the Confederate VP, Alexander Stephens, or the Mississippi legislature at that time.

They seemed to think it was about slavery.

Even at the end of the war, given a choice of having the slaves fight or running out of men, the confederates chose to run out of men.

[rockrr]

Lincoln did not have to send troops down the road to Richmond, which killed several hundreds of men on both sides.

Yes he did - after the south declared war against the United States. The debate, the friction, and the war were the inspiration of the southron slavers and Lincoln merely responded to their actions. If anyone is to blame for the misery it is the slavocracy.

[editor-surveyor]

Throughout the war there were whole companies of slaves fighting.

You’re stuck in dreamland.

[Jay Redhawk]

It was clear the Confederacy had no intention of invading the North, so what you have is the usual bogus argument that the apologists of Lincoln always fall back on. Lincoln was betting that the South was bluffing, and that if fighting did occur it would quickly bring about a reconciliation. Lincoln was wrong and he ignored the advice of his military advisors who told him he was making a mistake.

Ft. Sumter was not Pearl Harbor, but as you probably know Lincoln goaded Davis into firing on the fort so that Lincoln could claim the South started the war. So actually Lincoln is responsible for that declaration of war.
If Lincoln were around today he would be the biggest rino in the Republican party. I suspect that currently the fans of Lincoln are/were fans of McCain and Romney.

[GeronL]

It was clear the Confederacy had no intention of invading the North

They tried later (Gettyburg) and that didn't turn out too well.

[Jay Redhawk]

You are right about that. Heck, I thought Teddy Roosevelt would be the most controversial president on that list.