Ranking the Presidents, Part One

I noticed on AOL this morning that a group of 8 presumed experts on the Presidency have issued a compilation of the best and worst of our chief executives. This is not unusual, and from what I've seen of the list it isn't too far off the mark. Yet with things like this there is always room to quibble.

Abraham Lincoln is ranked first with George Washington second. This may reflect the particular attention the Sixteenth President has garnered recently, given the new President's admiration of Honest Abe. However that may be, I must offer two comments. First, any ranking of US Presidents must have Lincoln and Washington first and second to have any objective value at all. Second, any such list should always have Washington first.

While Lincoln did much to save our nation as a nation and deserves every iota of respect which he has earned because of that, it was the great Virginian who got us off on the right foot. Washington was not labeled the Indispensable Man by one of his biographers for no reason. The people would follow his lead and respect it, while he in turn respected the people and their rights. Take him out of the equation and I have to say there would be no United States as we have it today; ergo, no Union to save. General Washington must always be seen as our greatest President.

Lincoln, meanwhile, and until someone better should come along, must be number two. He did preserve our country and the result has generated far more good than ill. We can argue about how far beyond the scope of presidential and constitutional authority he may have reached. Certainly, there have been expansions of Federal authority which I also would like to see, at least amended, if not obliterated. Yet with all due respect to the libertarians and Ron Paul fans out there, there is a doctrine which I believe every rational person must accept as part of a sane basis for good government: the doctrine of inherent powers, powers a governing body has simply because it is a governing body. As the people have certain rights which are inalienable, so do, as moral persons, governments. When the cause is just, the government has every right to reach beyond the written word in order to form a more perfect union. If folks can leave a scheme willy-nilly on their own authority, particularly when their wills are errant and self aggrandizing, what kind of a stable nation can you ever hope to advance?

FDR was third on the list. This shows that even the best people (presuming the good will of those who put this list together) need to get beyond the veneer any given individual has accumulated through the years and offer an analysis objective to that coating. Franklin Delano Roosevelt unnecessarily expanded government powers simply to ensure that he would stay in power. He was vain; he was a backstabber and a conniver; he tried to change the constitutional system simply to fit his ideas. That kind of selfishness should never be rewarded by posterity. Further, he never lifted us from the Great Depression, as so many of his admirers claim: a German madman did. Some rank him high because he led us through World War II. He sure did: right into the Cold War as he capitulated to the demands of Josef Stalin, or 'Uncle Joe' as Roosevelt so benignly labeled the Soviet dictator. FDR should be somewhere further down the list, no higher than the middle. At best.

Thomas Jefferson was listed fourth. Yet though he did significantly reduce our national debt and add Louisiana to our territory, we need to look at his other big presidential accomplishment: a depression which rivals anything we've seen recently, to say the least. His Embargo Act, which shoved the depression upon our country, had to be one of the stupidest acts rammed through Congress. Even Jefferson himself didn't think much of his presidency, to the degree that he didn't want it listed as one of his accomplishments on his grave marker. This is simply a sympathy vote granted him as the author of the Declaration of Independence. It is a marvelous document, without doubt, and significant not only in our own but in world history. But it did not make for a great administrator.

The other Roosevelt, Teddy, comes in fifth. I cannot think much of this choice, either. He was a blowhard and a braggart, his resume was far beyond what he truly accomplished, and in his own way he helped oversize government too. We don't need national parks, TR, sorry, and picking on Spain for your own vainglory is merely shallow. I will admit I liked some of his bravado: the Great White Fleet was impressive, and he would push the initiative on important projects like the Panama Canal, though there are some questions there which cannot be ignored. It was at least arguably imperial, and below the status of American presidents.

I had no intention of writing so much, but I'm beginning to like this. It must be the history teacher in me kicking in. I'm having more fun with this than I had though I might. So, I'll break this up into two or more blogs. Tomorrow, the next five of the top ten.