nickshepAK

I have always had an interest in who other people view as the greatest Presidents in US history. In strict particular order who are the top 5 Greatest Presidents in US History? (if you can try to take a non partisan point of view when answering, LOL...)

(A sentence or two why for each if you dont mind. Sorry highsea, I didnt say this before the first post.)

1.) ???
2.) ???
3.) ???
4.) ???
5.) ???

highsea

My top 5:

Washington
Jefferson
Madison
Lincoln
FDR

Veni Vidi Vici

ehhh I don't know.

Washington is the first on my list for obvious reasons. Second would probobly be Regan but im not quite sure.

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Praxus

1.)Washington because he was our first president and started some very important precidents.

2.)Jefferson, more because of his ideals then his presidency and resisted many of the encroachments on the Constitution being spawned by the Federalists.

3.)Madison, because he's in the same school of thought as Jefferson and helped us preserve the country in the war of 1812.

I don't really care for any others, John Adams was alright but nothing spectacular. A lot of people put FDR at the top, I have no idea why. He imprisoned innocent Japanese-Americans and is responsible for the founding of the looters (welfare) state. If there were a list of worst presidents he'd be 1st or second on the list, maybe behind LBJ.

Broken

Washington
Lincoln
FDR
?
?

There are too many good contenders for 4th and 5th to pick from. Jefferson, Adams, and Madison made their most important contributions before becoming president. Jackson, Teddy Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Reagan, Clinton, etc, etc...

wadepm

Lincoln (incredible war-time pres)
Washington (two terms and out, that showed class)
Jefferson (had the vision thing down)
Roosevelt (TR) (knew how to use the pulpit to reform)
Reagan (turned the country around)

Broken

That would be like denigrating Jefferson's contributions because he owned slaves.

FDR belongs on the list because of his "before and after" picture. Before: the US is an economic basket case. After: the US is the World's leading superpower with half the global GDP, an invincible fleet and airforce, and a nuclear monopoly. Not too shabby.

Praxus

But you see, thoose were his contributions, the good things that came, came despite him, not because of him. Furthermore he didn't own slaves as a president, but as individual and as such has nothing to do with his presidency beyond the actual issue of slavery as a whole.

FDR helped to create the economic basket case, and it didn't recover until that old fart was dead. In fact it didn't recover until 1947-1948, which is when average income (inflation adjusted) finnally surpassed the 1929 level. Just happens, that at the same time taxes were cut by more then a third, which I have explained several times.

Bluesman

1. Washington. The Indispensable Man. The American Cincinatus. A self-denying, totally-committed patriot. His sense of obligation and duty to a country that had asked for and demanded all he had was total, and served as a mark that lesser men were driven to live up to - the very definition of leadership by example. A brilliant politician, and the only man that could've mid-wifed a new nation into being with an untried political concept to undergird it. He not only saw what a President must mean to the country, he made others see it, too, and what would've probably been a short-lived experiment in political philosophy and government theory endures to this day survived only because of his personal actions, words and sheer moral force lighting the way.

2. Lincoln. No other political figure of the day could've or would've been able to preserve the Union. Indeed, almost no other figure even saw the necessity of doing so, not just for themselves and their heirs, but for the sake of the entire world. He saw it clearly: America isn't merely a place to realize personal ambitions (although it certainly is that), it's also the last best hope for all mankind. If anybody thinks that's too high-flown and arrogant...well, so did Lincoln's contemporaries, and they could see no farther, either. Enduring the unendurable, doing the impossible and giving us his genius to read as our inheritance, if he had lived, our country would not be so riven as it is today by racial matters. With malice toward none, with charity toward all...the Lincoln Memorial is freedom's holiest shrine, and his spirit radiates down the years to call us to preserve forever what he knew was our shining city on a hill and a beacon to the entire human race.

3. Reagan. At a time of low national confidence, when it appeared that our enemies were surpassing us and enjoyed the elan and esprit-de-corps that used to be an American hallmark, this man came along and made us believe in ourselves again. Not only did we BELIEVE it...we DEMONSTRATED it. Gone was the malaise and the falling expectations for the future, and in their places were acknowledgement of our power and a realization that what's wrong with the world wasn't America - we were the best thing on this rock. If not for American leadership under his hand, a worldwide Dark Age of the 20th Century - the century that saw the rise of the Totalitarians - would've set the course of the 21st Century. Most of Europe hates him to this day...and owes him more than they'll ever acknowledge.

I'll leave it to my top three. I got a bit verbose, and I think I'm boring everybody.

If one wants to see examples of what that hard-to-define word "LEADERSHIP" means, these men are archetypes of constancy and exemplary self-confidence. They personify American ideals of manhood and community spirit. And they were all given to us by a benevolent God, or else one has to believe that this nation is a mere accident of random historical events and all of our People are just really, really lucky from our beginning right up until the present day.

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Broken

???

The Great Depression started in 1929 and hit bottom in 1933, the year Roosevelt was elected. The economy grew back to 1929 levels by 1936, at the end of Roosevelt's first term. Roosevelt cut back on his New Deal a little prematurely (with the help of the SC declaring some of his programs unconstitutional) and the economy slid in 1938. Roosevelt launched a "second New Deal" and the economy grew until his death in 1944. Even if we ignore WWII, GDP growth in Roosevelt's first 2 terms was 6.4%, a rate which no other president has matched since.Data
To believe that, you have to ignore the evidence in the above Bureau of Economic Analysis data. But you ignored this very same data last time I posted it, so it probably won't trouble you to ignore it again.

nickshepAK

Id like to hear #4 and #5....


Im suprised Truman hasnt made anyones list. Was he overrated or just not top 5? More like top 10? Same goes for Kennedy...?

Praxus

I didn't say anything about GDP growth. I have already explained in a different thread that it is not an acurate measurement of economic growth, at least in a mixed economy. GDP is the ammount of money exchanged in an entire economy, which should represent the overall desire for good's and services in an economy as a whole. The problem is that when you have a Government that takes money through taxation (ie. Through FORCE) and uses this money on public works projects, it is taking money which in part wasn't going to be spent and is spending it. So it artificially increases the GDP. Furthmore the natural market influences which direct the allocation of resources and money has no hold on a Government, so the money will not be best used to serve the interest of the rightful holders of that money. The problem with this is that not only is it short term growth, but it does nothing to increase the average standard of living.

Broken

Truman made the big mistake of buying into Churchill's doomed attempt to restore the former European colonies (such as Vietnam). You can blame some of this on Roosevelt, who died without warning Truman of Churchill's neo-colonial attitudes. Critics's of Roosevelt would do well to blame him for not "mentoring" Truman properly, but Roosevelt's single-minded attention was on the war.

I don't know if Truman could have prevented Mao from ousting the Nationalists from China, but he could have kept a tighter leash on MacArthur in Korea.

Kennedy was a very shrewd man, but he died before having enough impact to qualify as a great president.

highsea

I almost put Jefferson ahead of Washington. Author of the Declaration of Independence. Come on man!

As President, he was a champion of States rights. He made the Lousiana Purchase deal with Napolean. He funded the Lewis and Clark expedition that opened up the West. And he abolished the tax on Whiskey!

Who cannot put Jefferson on the list?

Confed999

Tossing out some Presidents that are omited from most history...

Peyton Randolph 1774 and 1775 - Twice President of Congress. Teacher of patriots like Patrick Henry. Helped to sow the seeds of revolution, but died before independance.

John Hanson 1781 to 1782 - The first President under the Articles of Confederation. Held a fragmented, broke country together. Made Thanksgiving a federal holiday.

Elias Boudinot 1782 to 1783 - The second President under the Articles of Confederation. He did his best to keep the federal government small.

Thomas Mifflin 1783 to 1784 - The third President under the Articles of Confederation. Risked his life to stand against a tyrant, in the tyrant's own halls. A Major General in the American Revolution, in his life he was part of the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention.

Richard Henry Lee 1784 to 1785 - The forth President under the Articles of Confederation. Part of the group that prepared and wrote the Declaration of Independance. Outspoken in his dislike of slavery.

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