Ranking of U.S. Presidents by historians

Originally Posted by Torvald Von Mansee

How did this become a Civil War thread!?!?!?!?

My fault I guess. Just pointing out that the ranking of Presidents is flawed depending on where you go and who you talk to. Others posted to argue my stance on why Lincoln and Grant should be further down on the list. But oh well, that's how these threads work sometimes. People feel the need to force those of us without the popular opinion into their large group of lemmings. Sorry, but I don't want to be a member of that cliche. It just leads to hypocritical changes when they eventually fall. Sooner or later the unpopular opinion will become the popular one and I'm gonna laugh when all these folks jump ship and join up with those they opposed for so long. There's nothing better than watching the Clinton two-step take place! It's become quite a popular political dance I hear!

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Because someone with an axe to grind wasn't satisfied with saying he didn't like two presidents, but felt the need to rant about his pet cause.

That's the way it happens sometimes.

And YOU'RE NOT guilty of the same exact thing? How dishonest of you! But I expected nothing less.

BTW, to answer a part of your very tiresome post from earlier. It was called the "Fugitive Slavery Clause". It was in the US Constitution. Look it up if you're unaware of what this is or what it was. Only a few states (3 of them) had banned slavery (all of them up North) but it was Federal law that the government had to help slave catchers retrieve their runaway property even in states that weren't participating in the slavery trade.

Also, Lincoln never got around to imposing the tax on the South. He stated before his election what he would do if he was elected. Of course when he got elected the South knew what it was facing. An Obama of the past, Lincoln was a tyrant who sought to steal from the wealthy and give to the poor. Lincoln was the nations first socialist puppet. Really, he didn't care about slavery, or that it existed, he cared that it wasn't making him or any of the people up north rich. Just like the people of today don't really care who's rich or not. They just care that they aren't and are bitterly jealous they don't have any money. Of course when they get money they want to convert to the republican/pro-capitalist side of thinking since it benefits them. Why would they want to give their money away to any poor person? And there's the Clinton two-step for ya if you didn't know how to do that dance.

[razark]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

At the bottom, I would say. On the other hand, Like LBJ, Nixon was a good administrator. His biggest problems seems to have been paranoia.

As to Impeachment, two presidents have been impeached so far, and in both cases it was a witchhunt by opposing parties. And in both cases they were exonerated. Being found guilty and removed from office would have been bad for them, but since "impeachment" does not equal "conviction", I don't rate them because of that. I'm not a big fan of either one of them, but I don't think that's the criterion that should be used here.

So, impeachment is above resignation, and resignation is above impeachment with conviction, then? Seems this ranking system could be improved. As could any ranking system.

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Besides, it's never good to rate someone of your own generation. That is best left for the future.

And each generation will rank the preceding ones differently. I don't think there will ever be a definitive best-to-worst presidential ranking system.

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by thorn69

And YOU'RE NOT guilty of the same exact thing? How dishonest of you! But I expected nothing less.

BTW, to answer a part of your very tiresome post from earlier. It was called the "Fugitive Slavery Clause". It was in the US Constitution. Look it up if you're unaware of what this is or what it was. Only a few states (3 of them) had banned slavery (all of them up North) but it was Federal law that the government had to help slave catchers retrieve their runaway property even in states that weren't participating in the slavery trade.

So pray tell why the fugitive slave act was passed?

[tater]

Originally Posted by razark

Where does "resigned" fall in this ranking?

Resigned would certainly chuck you down a notch as well, unless it was for some legit reason (sickness, etc).

So Clinton is a two termer, Impeached, so chuck him in the 1-termer pile, perhaps. And Nixon is a 2 termer who resigned under impeachment, so he's a 1-termer in terms quality as well. Both are at the bottom of the 1 termers, though, or even underneath for the same reason.

Fair?

[tater]

thorn69 posits something that no thinking person can agree with, hence instant derailment.

SS has no agenda at all. Gotta love thorn69 saying that he'd be a nazi supporter had THEY won. Absurd. Facts are facts. Southern secession had the fate of slavery as the primary cause.

Thorn claims it was the Morrill Tariff that made the South break apart, even though it was passed AFTER the bulk of States had already left (which is precisely how it passed (signed 2 days before Lincoln took office, BTW) since the reduced congress was unbalanced to the North politically then.

Quit while you're only behind a lot.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by thorn69

My fault I guess. Just pointing out that the ranking of Presidents is flawed depending on where you go and who you talk to. Others posted to argue my stance on why Lincoln and Grant should be further down on the list.

Not at all. You have every right to your opinion on Lincoln and Grant, and I fully support your right to that opinion. You didn't wait for someone to disagree; you launched into a tirade on slavery right from the start.

But oh well, that's how these threads work sometimes. People feel the need to force those of us without the popular opinion into their large group of lemmings.

An interesting accusation, but you still have provided no facts for any of your claims, about the war or about me. And you end with another attack. I could care less about opinions, popular or otherwise. Facts are what I'm interested in. Where are yours?

Originally Posted by tater

thorn69 posits something that no thinking person can agree with, hence instant derailment.

SS has no agenda at all. Gotta love thorn69 saying that he'd be a nazi supporter had THEY won. Absurd. Facts are facts. Southern secession had the fate of slavery as the primary cause.

Thorn claims it was the Morrill Tariff that made the South break apart, even though it was passed AFTER the bulk of States had already left (which is precisely how it passed (signed 2 days before Lincoln took office, BTW) since the reduced congress was unbalanced to the North politically then.

Quit while you're only behind a lot.

Believe what you want but you're only making yourself look foolish. The South didn't secede from the north over slavery. It was their constitutional right to buy and own slaves at that time. You're logic doesn't make any sense at all. Unfair taxes targeted at wealthy Southerners is what caused the Southern states to secede from the north. All of it falls under states rights and US Constitutional rights. Slavery was mixed into all of this because people had the right to buy and sell slaves, but that one thing had very little if anything to do with the want to secede from the Union.

@Tak Shin - I've said before that slavery was thought to be a necessity for building the foundations of our nation. This is why it was added to the Constitution. The north depended on slavery just as much as the South. But once people got jealous about how prosperous people in the South were getting off slavery - something had to be done to stop it. It was never the fact that those people grew a heart and wanted it to stop. They were bitterly jealous of the growth in the South and making only a few coins in a sweat shop up north as a white man didn't seem right when you saw another white man in the South living the high life off doing very little himself.

But what's changed? Today we don't call it slavery but in essence everyone is a slave to somebody. You make like 1/1000th that your employer makes most likely. You work for him just like a slave had to work for his master. You hate him for being rich and powerful and making you work so hard for your keep but you remain quite about it because you know that only fools bite the hand that feeds them! So we don't call it slavery and before someone states that you're not forced to work I think you're wrong. Try to live a life without a job in the country and see if you don't land in jail eventually. You still owe taxes believe it or not. Imagine all the homeless people going to go to Federal prison under Obama's health care plan. Can't pay for health care you get fined. Don't pay the fine - Go to prison and still get fined! That's freedom? Give me a break!

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by thorn69

And YOU'RE NOT guilty of the same exact thing? How dishonest of you! But I expected nothing less.

Derailing threads? Only all the time. And every time someone has called me on it I've apologised.

You expected "nothing less"? You seem bent on branding me as opinionated, and yet you haven't once backed up any of your opinions with facts. Fair enough, a little about me. I came to a point some time ago where I realized that I knew a lot less than I thought I did. If you had read my sig last month you would have seen "They say the more you learn the less you know. I've reached a point in my life where I've learned so much I don't know anything." While couched in humor, I fully believe that to be true. If I can't show facts, I try not to espouse an opinion, because I've been wrong far too many times for my own satisfaction. I once had a sig that was mildly offensive to some. When someone pointed that out I immediately apologised and took it down.

Does this mean I think I'm a good person? Not at all. I like to say I could never be an "ist" of any kind because I would first have to find someone who was lower on the scale than I am.

I read from you 'Stones' thread that you are married. Are you a good husband? If you have children, are you a good father? If so, then you are a better person than I am. I was a lousy husband and a mediocre father. I'm not overly bright, but I am blessed and cursed with an outstanding memory. Blessed because I can remember where I read things and know where to look them up; cursed because I still remember stupid things I did fifty years ago. That's embarrasing.

These days I try not to have an opinion on anything. If there aren't facts to show it, then I don't know and neither does anybody else.

Is there a God? I don't know. I won't deny it, but I would like to see some evidence.

UFOs? Kennedy conspiracy? Trade Center? OJ? I don't know. I look at the evidence that is there and it's inconclusive in every case.

BTW, to answer a part of your very tiresome post from earlier. It was called the "Fugitive Slavery Clause". It was in the US Constitution. Look it up if you're unaware of what this is or what it was. Only a few states (3 of them) had banned slavery (all of them up North) but it was Federal law that the government had to help slave catchers retrieve their runaway property even in states that weren't participating in the slavery trade.

I'm well aware of the Fugitive Slave Law. Again, it was a compromise that was forced by the Southern States if they were going to join. Are you saying that part of secession was about that? If so, then it was about slavery after all.

Also, Lincoln never got around to imposing the tax on the South. He stated before his election what he would do if he was elected.

Quote please? When did he say this? If I'm wrong of course I'll admit it.

Lincoln was a tyrant who sought to steal from the wealthy and give to the poor. Lincoln was the nations first socialist puppet. Really, he didn't care about slavery, or that it existed, he cared that it wasn't making him or any of the people up north rich.

Again, please give actual evidence. You seem to like to accuse people without any.

Also, please actually answer my comments in the other thread. The Southern States' Declarations of Causes? Any real comment, or just more diatribe?

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by thorn69

@Tak Shin - I've said before that slavery was thought to be a necessity for building the foundations of our nation. This is why it was added to the Constitution. The north depended on slavery just as much as the South. But once people got jealous about how prosperous people in the South were getting off slavery - something had to be done to stop it. It was never the fact that those people grew a heart and wanted it to stop. They were bitterly jealous of the growth in the South and making only a few coins in a sweat shop up north as a white man didn't seem right when you saw another white man in the South living the high life off doing very little himself.

And so, the Fugitive Slave Act was part of the Compromise of 1850, which sought to achieve political balance between states relying upon forced labor and those not. This five-part legislative peace lasted until the Kansas-Missouri Act of 1854, which insenced both sides of the argument. At it's core was the economic reality of the slave-based agricultural system and it's survival. As such, the right to own slaves was the central issue of every event that lead to the beginning of the American Civil War, even by your own admission.

Quo erat demonstratum.

[tater]

Originally Posted by thorn69

Unfair taxes targeted at wealthy Southerners is what caused the Southern states to secede from the north.

What taxes, name them.

You said Lincoln imposed the taxes and therefore caused them to leave, yet the bulk of the Confederacy was already formed before Lincoln actually took office.

So you are claiming that Lincoln taxed the South which caused them to secede before he was elected. Also, the tax to which you almost certainly refer was passed into law AFTER they seceded, so I guess you think they were overtaxed after they left?

Slavery was the primary cause. Everything else was secondary to it, or related. There were mostly rich southerners entirely because of slavery (reinvigorated after the cotton gin was invented). So even southern wealth relates to slavery. The "State's Right" they wished to protect was SLAVERY. Nothing more.

Your take is revisionism, and makes serious conservatives (like myself) look like idiots when we're painted with the same brush.

[Bilge_Rat]

I would rank Abraham Lincoln in the top 3 with Washington and FDR and would personally rank him no. 1

A great president is one who had a profound influence on the history of the USA.

In 1861, the USA was a collection of individual states heading towards anarchy. 13 states left before he even took office. The federal government was powerless. Every governor, congressman and senator had his own idea on running the war. Members of his cabinet thought him a country fool and openly plotted to replace him. His own generals were generally a bunch of incompetent drunks. Foreign governements were hoping the CSA would win, etc.,

Despite all these problems, Lincoln turned out to be a very smart politician and statesman who managed to win the war and change the country for the better, despite fighting the bloodiest war in america's history. Even his decision to rid the country of slavery was more of a smart political calculation than an ideological decision.

There were countless times during the Civil War when the Union could have fallen apart if a weaker or less able person was in command. He was the right man at the right time and he created the modern USA that we know today.

[razark]

Originally Posted by thorn69

@Tak Shin - I've said before that slavery was thought to be a necessity for building the foundations of our nation. This is why it was added to the Constitution.

To be clear, the northern states kept slavery because with out it, the southern states wouldn't have ratified the Constitution.

The northern states considered slavery necessary for the foundation of the country, not for "building the foundations of our nation." There's a difference.

[Sailor Steve]

Bilge_Rat, I agree about Lincoln, but there actually are a couple of things that make me rate Washington first.

1. Lincoln was a much more astute politician than most of his contemporaries gave him credit for. In his inaugural address he swore he wouldn't fire the first shot, and then carefully manipulated President Davis and Governor Pickens into doing just that. He wasn't the country bumpkin he played himself to be, and he was good at what he did. That said, I think he honestly believed that the Union had to be preserved at any cost, including slavery and including his own life.

2. He was a lawyer.

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Bilge_Rat, I agree about Lincoln, but there actually are a couple of things that make me rate Washington first.

1. Lincoln was a much more astute politician than most of his contemporaries gave him credit for. In his inaugural address he swore he wouldn't fire the first shot, and then carefully manipulated President Davis and Governor Pickens into doing just that. He wasn't the country bumpkin he played himself to be, and he was good at what he did. That said, I think he honestly believed that the Union had to be preserved at any cost, including slavery and including his own life.

2. He was a lawyer.

I'd agree with that. Abraham Lincoln was a politican, and a shrewd one at that. There is no reason that a great politician would not make for a great politician.