Ranking of U.S. Presidents by historians

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl

My nomination would be a tie between Washington and Jefferson, with Andrew Jackson as a runner-up.

I haven't studied Jackson that much, but I would disagree on Jefferson. I'm a huge fan of the man, and as I've said before I read seven different biographies of him between July 2006 and December 2007, including Dumas Malone's titanic 3500-page 6-volume Jefferson the Virginian.

While I admire him as a philosopher and scientist, I believe that both he and Madison were brilliant politcal theorists who weren't all that good when it came to actually doing the job. They both had their good points as presidents, but they both suffered from short-sightedness as well. Jefferson's embargo against England hurt American merchants without affecting the British at all, and his idea of doing away with the ocean-going navy in favor of a bunch of gunboats was silly at best.

Now that I think of it, I always put Washington first because of his qualities as a man, but as an actual politician I think he was weak. He did manage to keep the US neutral in the Anglo-French war, but as soon as Jefferson stepped down as Secretary of State he succumbed to Madison's finagling and authorized that awful Jay Treaty.

As for Lincoln, you make some interesting points. I prefer to see him as willing to do what needed to be done to keep the country together.