Favorite President (1837-1861)

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Recognized as a time of weak leadership, I'm wondering who y'all's favorite President is from the era. Eventually I'll add a poll to this thread, but I'm on my iPod, so it's hard to do the conpkicated stuff on it. The options are:

Martin Van Buren (D-NY) 1837-1841

William Henry Harrison (W-OH) 1841

John Tyler (W-VA) 1841-1845

James K Polk (D-TN) 1845-1849

Zachary Taylor (W-LA) 1849-1850

Millard Fillmore (W-NY) 1850-1853

Franklin Pierce (D-NH) 1853-1857

James Buchanan (D-PA) 1857-1861


I'm going on memory, so I hope I got everything right.

[tpfkaw]

William Henry Harrison.  One could make the case he was the best ever.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

William Henry Harrison.  One could make the case he was the best ever.

...Because he didn't have enough time to expand government, right?

[tpfkaw]

William Henry Harrison.  One could make the case he was the best ever.

...Because he didn't have enough time to expand government, right?

Exactly!  Though preferably instead of having dying people put into power, you could have already dead people.  The Soviets were ahead of 'us' in that regard.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

John Tyler gets a bad rap..

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Poll's up.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

So we have:

*A president who failed to take action in a depression but was somewhat redeemed by his run in the Free Soil Party

*A guy who died before he could do anything.

*A right-wing slave owner who was universally hated due to basing his party entirely on who he happened to like

*Another slave-owner who tried to extend slavery under the guise of "manifest destiny"

*A slave-owning general in a war of aggression who died from eating poisonous cherries

*A xenophobe who was otherwise somewhat rational and pragmatic

*An ineffective Southern sympathizer who put party before morality

*Another ineffective Southern sympathizer who put party before morality

Yeah, they were all sh**tty. Fillmore was the least sh**tty, I suppose.

[RogueBeaver]

Polk FTW. One of the underrated greats IMO.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Of the presidents listed: Harrison.  No, he didn't get anything done, but he didn't do anything to expand slavery or something.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Van Buren and Fillmore are highly flawed but they're the only ones who weren't in some way downright horrific (no matter how big a crush one of my favorite American Romantic writers had on Pierce...).

[tpfkaw]

Van Buren and Fillmore are highly flawed but they're the only ones who weren't in some way downright horrific (no matter how big a crush one of my favorite American Romantic writers had on Pierce...).

Aw, Nathaniel Hawthorne.  A truly great freedom fighter.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Van Buren and Fillmore are highly flawed but they're the only ones who weren't in some way downright horrific (no matter how big a crush one of my favorite American Romantic writers had on Pierce...).

Aw, Nathaniel Hawthorne.  A truly great freedom fighter.

I love his writing but his political opinions, uh, left something to be desired, in my opinion. Perfectly understandable why you would disagree.

[minionofmidas]

One great if somewhat flawed man, three jokes (one of them admittedly likeable), four utterly horrid people. Not a hard choice.

[Antonio the Sixth]

So we have:

*A president who failed to take action in a depression but was somewhat redeemed by his run in the Free Soil Party

*A guy who died before he could do anything.

*A right-wing slave owner who was universally hated due to basing his party entirely on who he happened to like

*Another slave-owner who tried to extend slavery under the guise of "manifest destiny"

*A slave-owning general in a war of aggression who died from eating poisonous cherries

*A xenophobe who was otherwise somewhat rational and pragmatic

*An ineffective Southern sympathizer who put party before morality

*Another ineffective Southern sympathizer who put party before morality

Yeah, this is a pretty uninspiring list if there has ever been one. I guess I'd go with Van Buren.

[Lief 🗽]

Polk is probably the greatest one-term President. So I vote him.

[Rooney]

Van Buren or Pierce. Both were fine statesmen. I voted for Van Buren, however, due to the fact that he rejected war with Britain on three seperate occasions and battled inflation effectively while in office. Also, his Independent Treasury system is, in my opinion, one of the most stable banking systems the United States has ever had.

[Jerseyrules]

William Henry Harrison.  One could make the case he was the best ever.

...Because he didn't have enough time to expand government, right?

But of course   In all seriousness, Fillmore: avoided Civil War until the radicals from both sides of the aisle became idiots

[Mechaman]

So we have:

*A president who failed to take action in a depression but was somewhat redeemed by his run in the Free Soil Party

*A guy who died before he could do anything.

*A right-wing slave owner who was universally hated due to basing his party entirely on who he happened to like

*Another slave-owner who tried to extend slavery under the guise of "manifest destiny"

*A slave-owning general in a war of aggression who died from eating poisonous cherries

*A xenophobe who was otherwise somewhat rational and pragmatic

*An ineffective Southern sympathizer who put party before morality

*Another ineffective Southern sympathizer who put party before morality

Yeah, they were all sh**tty. Fillmore was the least sh**tty, I suppose.

I think this post mostly says it best.  Though Fillmore's joining of the proto-fascist Know Nothing Party would probably make him unacceptable to me.  That and I've always had a soft spot for Van Buren.

[Хahar 🤔]

Recognized as a time of weak leadership, I'm wondering who y'all's favorite President is from the era. Eventually I'll add a poll to this thread, but I'm on my iPod, so it's hard to do the conpkicated stuff on it. The options are:

Martin Van Buren (D-NY) 1837-1841

William Henry Harrison (W-OH) 1841

John Tyler (W-VA) 1841-1845

James K Polk (D-TN) 1845-1849

Zachary Taylor (W-LA) 1849-1850

Millard Fillmore (W-NY) 1850-1853

Franklin Pierce (D-NH) 1853-1857

James Buchanan (D-PA) 1857-1861


I'm going on memory, so I hope I got everything right.

Tyler was a Democrat.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Tyler was whichever party could tolerate him at the time. By the time he had been President for a little while, that was neither of them.

[traininthedistance]

Wow, uh, not a single one of these presidents was any good.  I do appreciate Van Buren's later Free Soil run, but his actual Presidency wasn't that great; Polk was easily the most effective, but he was effective primarily by waging an unjust war in the service of expanding Slave Power, so screw him.

I'm going with WHH almost by default, with the expectation that his policies would have been decent had he lived.  Keeping in mind that those policies basically would have been "whatever Henry Clay tells him to do", and it would have been nice to see the American System in action.

[RosettaStoned]

 James Knox Polk.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Wow, uh, not a single one of these presidents was any good.  I do appreciate Van Buren's later Free Soil run, but his actual Presidency wasn't that great; Polk was easily the most effective, but he was effective primarily in the service of waging an unjust war in the service of expanding Slave Power, so screw him.

I'm going with WHH almost by default, with the expectation that his policies would have been decent had he lived.  Keeping in mind that those policies basically would have been "whatever Henry Clay tells him to do", and it would have been nice to see the American System in action.

It was put into action by the Republicans during the ACW. The Pacific Railway Acts, the protective tariff, and even a National Bank Act (though not on the same scale as the BUS)

[Cincinnatus]

Recognized as a time of weak leadership, I'm wondering who y'all's favorite President is from the era. Eventually I'll add a poll to this thread, but I'm on my iPod, so it's hard to do the conpkicated stuff on it. The options are:

Martin Van Buren (D-NY) 1837-1841

William Henry Harrison (W-OH) 1841

John Tyler (W-VA) 1841-1845

James K Polk (D-TN) 1845-1849

Zachary Taylor (W-LA) 1849-1850

Millard Fillmore (W-NY) 1850-1853

Franklin Pierce (D-NH) 1853-1857

James Buchanan (D-PA) 1857-1861


I'm going on memory, so I hope I got everything right.

Tyler was a Democrat.

At one point, but not during his Vice Presidency/Presidency IIRC.