Who has been America's worst President?

[specific_name]

well what's our criteria? here's my opinions and why, if you disagree enlighten me...I love historical debate.


I don't like Lincoln because I believe he over extended federal power. It wasn't him alone, he wasn't really a Radical Republican, but still I think he's the kind of person you either love or hate. Lincoln and the Radicals forever altered the course of the country and it depends on whether or not you agree if it's the right or wrong direction.

I'm also not a fan of FDR, his success is the reason for the current political paradigm we now live under. Essentially one in which the Fed. Govt. is a caretaker or an agency of social policy. I just don't agree with that kind of federal intervention in the economy. Depression or no.

Okay, how about worst as defined by weak rather than wrong (IMO).

Under this category I would put nearly all presidents of the Guilded Age. I won't go to far into unless we get a discussion about that era, really interesting time period.

To be fair... all time worst IMO: this really hard but I'm going to say Andrew Johnson. He couldn't placate the South or the North. Essentially a miserable failure, when a decent leader was need to bring the nation together again. (regardless of how I feel about the Civil War).

[specific_name]

James Buchanan -and this forum seriously needs some historical perspective.  As bad as some think President Bush is, I don't see him precipitating a civil war that took at least 2% of the population once it was finally concluded...   

The civil war was started under the Lincoln administration. He could have just let the South leave in peace.

They had no right to secede, and Lincoln had to preserve the Union.

Why did Lincoln have to preserve the Union? I here this often, it's repeated as a central tenant of American history and yet it's based on nothing substantial. The South could have left without a full scale war being fought. Why was the Union so important?

[specific_name]

Or that the United States fought a war to protect their right to secede from Great Britain?

No, they fought a tax revolt that got turned into a revolution.  Independence was, except for a few Yankee hotheads, not the intent of the colonists at first.

Aye. To me, the protestors always seemed like a bunch of E +9.5 whiners. They were getting a lot more from the mother country than they were giving it. But a few taxes? No, rebellion is necessary.

I hate the one-sided way in which our history textbook presented it (though, of course, that is to be expected).

I think you're kidding. But, seriously Britain was trying to make the American colonies pay for the Seven Years War (or at least in a disproportionate manner). Maybe they could have asked their ally Prussia to cover expenses