Posted on 05/28/2017 3:23:09 PM PDT by blam
I am a sucker for lists.
A few weeks ago, sparked by reading yet another claim that Donald Trump is the most "fill in the blank" in American history, I Googled "the worst American in history." I thought there was a list for everything some where in Googleland, but there was no decent list for this.
So I decided to construct a respectable ranking of the five worst Americans in history. I surveyed a group of about 30 academic and popular American historians, political scientists and law professors, asking them to nominate five figures from American history. Contemporaries were eligible, but had to earn their place against over 200 years of stiff competition.
I purposefully sketched only loose criteria for being the "worst." I asked that nominations include only people who held positions of public responsibility or power -- elected officials, business magnates, judges, polemicists, generals and so forth. I was not looking for the most evil people such as serial killers and sex criminals.
Lists are fun but also edifying. They reflect both the times in which they are made and the stories, not always the truths, that endure. You can be the judge of what this list suggests.
The list is not mine. It reflects the results of my little highly unscientific survey.
--Richard M. Nixon: Nixon was the clear winner (or loser). His nominations often included remarks such as "obvious" or "of course." However, several people noted they didn't include Nixon because he had many redeeming accomplishments (opening relations with China, domestic initiatives that are now considered liberal).
(snip)
--Donald J. Trump (tie for second): I tried and failed to steer the survey panel away from contemporary figures. As one historian wrote, "No, it is not too early to tell." We'll see.
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at arcamax.com ...
Woodrow Wilson?
Didn’t he the keep us out of The War?
braahaaaaa.
Good list except Oswald—a patsy.
I suggest replacing him with Woodrow Wilson or FDR (a closet socialist who took US far down the path to destruction, and then gave away over half the world at Yalta).
Leni
Good list.
Glad I’m not the only one that includes FDR in the WORST.
FDR did more harm than Oswald. Very much in agreement. We are still paying for his bs as well as LBJ’s “Great Society”
“Woodrow Wilson”
Exactly. We don’t need a list.
You win by mentioning Hugh Hefner. How many people have lost their souls because of the if it feels good it’s OK philosophy?
It constantly amazes me how some people routinely scapegoat the blame for treasonous acts upon the man who stopped them. Abe was a hero - davis was a zero.
Author of the article.
The country was increasingly becoming divided over slavery since the Mexican War and the question it created of whether to permit the expansion of slavery into the newly acquired territories. The Dred Scott decision was badly argued, but Taney was hoping to use the Supreme Court to oppose the tendency towards disunion--which backfired. The people who brought the case were hoping to score a victory against slavery in the courts which they could not achieve through the political process--if they cared about Dred Scott they could have bought him from his owner and set him free years earlier.
A lot of things happened in the 1850s that led to the Civil War. I think John Brown's raid, and the apparent approval of it by a lot of Northerners, had a larger role in the coming of the Civil War than the Dred Scott decision.
The Republicans very nearly won the 1856 election. That the fire-eaters in the South would secede the first time a Republican got elected was probably a given, Dred Scott case or no Dred Scott case.
The 2009 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to President Barack Obama for his “extraordinary achievement of not being George W. Bush.”
Oswald would have done more damage throwing that rifle at JFK.
The FBI expert at the Warren Commission makes it clear that the gun was almost unusable.
Not true. The shot has been duplicated many times. I was in Dealey Plaza about a month ago, the second time I’ve been there. He could have shot him with a pistol.
Lists are silly, but:
1. Abe Lincoln
2. Abe Lincoln
3. Abe Lincoln
4. Abe Lincoln
5. Abe Lincoln
Hey, I’m a Southron!
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