By Skylar Harrison The 3 Best Presidents Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln is remembered for his vital role as the leader in preserving the Union during the Civil War and beginning the process (Emancipation Proclamation) that led to the end of slavery in the United States. He is also remembered for his character and leadership, his speeches and letters, and as a man of humble origins whose determination and perseverance led him to the nation's highest office. Public debt increased 15 times over between 1961 and 1965. But under Lincoln, the Union was careful to maintain sound fiscal footing. For the first time in the country’s history, Americans would pay federal income taxes. By today’s standards, those 1861 rates seem downright quaint: 3 percent on income above $800 and 5 percent on those living outside the country. The following year the law was revised to levy a 3 percent tax on income beyond $600 and 5 percent on earnings over $10,000. But those quaint rates generated 25 percent of the Civil Wars’ costs, according to Robert Hormats, author of The Price of Liberty, which details the financing of American wars. President Lincoln endured extraordinary pressures during the long Civil War. He carried on despite generals who weren't ready to fight, assassination threats, bickering among his Cabinet members, huge loss of life on the battlefields, and opposition from groups such as the Copperheads. However, Lincoln remained brave and persevered. He didn't give in to the pressures and end the war early. He kept fighting until the Confederacy was defeated. A lesser man would have given in and stopped the war before the goals had been achieved. Lincoln did not do this. Lincoln's most famous speech was the Gettysburg Address. In the address Lincoln explained that our nation was fighting the Civil War to see if we would survive as a country. He stated it was proper to dedicate a portion of the Gettysburg battlefield as a remembrance of the men who had fought and died there. Lincoln said that the people who were still alive must dedicate themselves to finish the task that the dead soldiers had begun which was to save the nation so it would not perish from the earth. One important way Lincoln effects contemporary society is that we look back on his presidency as a role model for future generations. Lincoln's high character affects us because we compare present-day politicians to the example Lincoln set. Another effect is in the area of quotations. Politicians love to quote Abraham Lincoln because Lincoln is considered America's wisest president. A major effect Lincoln has on the U.S. today is simply through the good example he set when it came to leadership and integrity. Many American politicians in our time try to emulate his thinking by using Lincoln quotes in their speeches. Lincoln had a benevolent leadership style in contrast to oppressive, participatory, or laissez-faire. When there was disagreement among advisors and himself, his leadership style often involved telling a story that demonstrated his point. Lots of times this method worked, and people admired and respected him for it. He could virtually disarm his enemies with his highly moralistic, skillful leadership. Lincoln possessed qualities of kindness and compassion combined with wisdom. In fact, one of his nicknames was "Father Abraham." Like George Washington, Lincoln demonstrated an extraordinary strength of character, but Lincoln's unique style of leadership involved telling stories which explained his actions and influenced others to follow his lead. Lincoln rose to the top through sheer ambition and hard work. He had nearly no education at all. He spent less than 12 months attending schools as a youth growing up on the frontier. Each one was very small, and the lessons were most often taught orally, and schools thus got the nickname "blab" schools. Later when he moved to New Salem, Illinois, he began to study law books in his spare time. In New Salem he earned the nickname "Honest Abe." He was almost totally self-educated, and he became a lawyer in 1836, although he never attended college. Lincoln was a very successful attorney with a large practice prior to his election as president in 1860. Additionally, Lincoln served four terms in the Illinois State House of Representatives and one term in Congress. Probably the most important action Lincoln took was his decision to fight to preserve the Union. In the end this decision to fight the Civil War resulted in the USA remaining one nation rather than splitting into two separate countries. Although Lincoln was criticized for stepping over the traditional bounds of executive power, he was faced with the greatest threat to federal authority in the history of the country. He felt his job was to protect the Union from disintegrating. Also, Lincoln's contribution in the area of freedom for the slaves is extremely important. He got the ball rolling with the Emancipation Proclamation. We honor Abraham Lincoln for his actions in preserving the Union and beginning the process of freedom for slaves. George Washington George Washington was the first President of the United States, the Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Another paragraph, about the national debt, may be more compelling today. Washington, a Federalist, began by advising Americans to “cherish public credit” because it was “a very important source of strength and security.” In the view of most of the Founders, securing life, liberty and property was the major public good that the government had to provide, so endangering public credit, especially in the service of partisan politics, wasn’t something Washington would have countenanced. Washington closed the paragraph on national debt with a few thoughts on taxation. Citizens, he wrote, “should practically bear in mind that towards the payment of debts there must be revenue; that to have revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant.” Once levied due to “public exigencies,” however, Americans were duty-bound to pay their taxes with “a spirit of acquiescence.” Historians have written about Washington’s commitment to American independence and that he frequently referred to it as “our glorious cause.” And Washington walked the talk. Henry Steele Commager once observed Washington’s sacrifice for America was supported by the facts that he served as commander of the Continental Army without pay and was nearly bankrupt by the time he returned home to Mount Vernon after serving as the country’s first president. On one occasion when approached by soldiers who wanted to overthrow the wartime government and set up Washington to lead the country, he met with them and made it clear that the thought of overthrowing the colonial American government was repulsive to him and under no circumstances would he consider it. Like many great leaders who inspire their followers, George Washington valued the people he led rather than thinking of them as means to an end. Richard Neustadt, Presidential Scholar at Harvard University, once observed the following about Washington: “It wasn’t his generalship that made him stand out . . . It was the way he attended to and stuck by his men. His soldiers knew that he respected and cared for them, and that he would share their severe hardships.” Edward G. Lengel, described Washington’s leadership during the extraordinarily cold winter of 1777–78 at Valley Forge as “sacrificial” and noted that “he took great care in seeing that his soldiers were well housed.” Washington was confident, yet humble. His humility was reflected in the way he gave people a voice by seeking and considering their opinions and ideas. David McCullough wrote that during the Revolutionary War, Washington listened to the advice of his war council, a group of soldiers who reported directly to him, and their advice helped him avoid what would have been costly mistakes. Historians have noted that during the Constitutional Convention over which Washington presided, he rarely said a word other than to intervene and make decisions to break a logjam in the deliberations. The foregoing historical observations paint the picture of a leader who inspired the confidence of the people he led. Joseph Ellis wrote that with all the brilliant individuals surrounding him—John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and others—Washington was the one to whom they indisputably looked as the greatest leader among them. George Washington’s reputation even held up under the critical scrutiny of the tough and thorough, two time Pulitzer-prize winning historian Barbara Tuchman. While writing The First Salute, her gripping account of the American Revolution, Mrs. Tuchman struggled with the onset of blindness. With help from her daughter, she persevered to complete the volume that included a leader who truly inspired her. In an interview with Bill Moyers, Mrs. Tuchman spoke of how much she admired George Washington’s courage and perseverance despite the enormous obstacles he faced and how she and her daughter encouraged one another with the rallying cry, “remember George.” George Washington, like all effective leaders, communicated an inspiring vision and lived it, valued people and gave them a voice. Under his leadership the colonists pulled off one of history’s greatest upsets by defeating the preeminent military power of their age with an under-trained, under-resourced militia. Franklin D. Roosevelt The United States has never had another leader like Franklin D. Roosevelt. Serving for 12 years, far longer than any other president, he had such a profound impact on the nation and the world that he is widely recognized as one of the transformational figures of the 20th Century and one of America's best presidents. In "No Ordinary Time," historian Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote, "The Roosevelt years had witnessed the most profound social revolution in the country since the Civil War – nothing less than the creation of modern America." By the time he left office, the United States had become a superpower, able and willing to exert its influence around the globe. It was a nation of newfound prosperity; a country where the federal government, with the people's support, had become the engine of change in nearly every sphere of national life and would build on that power for many years. In the process, FDR made the Democrats into a ruling party. The underpinning of FDR's New Deal remain in place today, including a powerful executive branch and a culture of celebrity surrounding the president, carefully enhanced and nurtured by FDR during his long tenure. Although the national debt increased during his presidency, he did assume presidency while they were in war. One of FDR's most important attributes as a leader was his ability to empathize with his fellow citizens, to show that he cared for them and would do everything he could to help them This enhanced his political power by connecting him irrevocably to everyday people. It's something that presidents have tried to do ever since, but few have accomplished it as well as Roosevelt. He had contracted polio in 1921, at age 39, and never recovered the use of his paralyzed legs. Eleanor, his wife, said this experience of struggling and failing to conquer the disease broke him out of the isolation of his background as a patrician who had lived a life of ease and privilege. In his experience with polio, he learned what it was like to struggle, and fail, but to persevere. FDR said it was the president's "duty" to "keep in touch, personal touch, with the nation...to try to tie together in my own mind the problems of the nation." As president, FDR was an eager student of what was going on around the country, reading the newspapers, listening to members of Congress, staff members and friends, and most of all paying close attention to what his wife observed during her many fact-finding trips in the United States and visits to American troops abroad. FDR also knew how to manage the news media to rally support for his agenda. He cultivated newspaper reporters, and even though publishers were often against his policies, he got favorable coverage from the journalists who actually wrote the stories about him. He would hold two or three press conferences per week and had the reporters gather around him, informally, as he sat at his big Oval Office desk. The reporters loved the access and the personal connection to the president, and they became fans of FDR. He pioneered the use of radio, an increasingly popular medium in the United States. He held 30 "fireside chats" during his 12 years as president, addressing the country directly as if he were talking with a household after a family dinner. He didn't want to overdo it, knowing that any politician could wear out his welcome with too much exposure. But the fireside chats were eagerly anticipated and made FDR, with his pleasant, distinctive voice and boundless optimism, a welcome guest in countless homes. When he died at age 63 of a cerebral hemorrhage at his Warm Springs, Georgia, vacation home on April 12, 1945, immense grief spread across the country. It was only a few weeks after FDR had been sworn in for an unprecedented fourth term, and many Americans wondered if anyone could replace him. As his funeral train made its way across the nation, a man was found weeping along the route, and was asked if he had known FDR. "I didn't know him," the man replied. "But he knew me." This was a feeling shared by millions of Americans. The 3 Worst Presidents James Buchanan April 23 marks the birthday of James Buchanan, the man regarded by many historians as one of the worst—if not the worst—presidents of all time. Today, most people know Buchanan for three things: He was single for his entire presidency; he’s the only president from Pennsylvania; and he was the president before Abraham Lincoln. It’s that final point that has been the lasting part of the Buchanan presidency, with his apparent indifference to the onset of the Civil War, that has riled up so many academics. In his inaugural address, Buchanan called the territorial issue of slavery “happily, a matter of but little practical importance.” He had been tipped off about the Supreme Court’s decision in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case, which came shortly after the inauguration. Buchanan supported the theory that states and territories have a right to determine if they would allow slavery. (There were also reports Buchanan may have influenced the court’s ruling.) The Dred Scott decision angered and solidified Buchanan’s Republican opponents, and it drove a wedge into the Democratic Party. The country also went into an economic recession as the Civil War approached. In his State of the Union message to Congress, Buchanan said he believed the South’s secession wasn’t legal, but the federal government didn’t have the power to stop it. “All for which the slave States have ever contended, is to be let alone and permitted to manage their domestic institutions in their own way. As sovereign States, they, and they alone, are responsible before God and the world for the slavery existing among them. For this the people of the North are not more responsible and have no more fight to interfere than with similar institutions in Russia or in Brazil,” Buchanan said. Buchanan also explained why he wasn’t actively involved in the secession battle as president. “It is beyond the power of any president, no matter what may be his own political proclivities, to restore peace and harmony among the states. Wisely limited and restrained as is his power under our Constitution and laws, he alone can accomplish but little for good or for evil on such a momentous question.” Buchanan did little else during the crisis. Part of his Cabinet resigned. And although he wouldn’t give up Fort Sumter, his inaction gave the new Confederacy time to organize. Buchanan had other issues during his presidency, including an obsession with Cuba and a controversy involving a war with Mormon settlers in the Utah territory. Buchanan retired to his estate in central Pennsylvania and lived to see the end of the Civil War. Just before his death in 1868, he said, “History will vindicate my memory from every unjust aspersion.” Even before he became president, he supported the various compromises that made it possible for slavery to spread into the western territories acquired by the Lousiana Purchase and the Mexican War. (Particularly hurtful to the cause of restraining slavery's spread was the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, for example, allowed settlers to determine the status of slavery in their proposed state constitutions.) In his inaugural address, the 15th president tacitly encouraged the Supreme Court's forthcoming Dred Scott decision, which ruled that Congress had no power to keep slavery out of the territories. More damaging to his name, though, was his weak acquiescence before the secessionist tide—an unwillingness to challenge those states that declared their intention to withdraw from the Union after Lincoln's election. Sitting on his hands as the situation spiraled out of control, Buchanan believed that the Constitution gave him no power to act against would-be seceders. Warren G. Harding Warren G. Harding's claim to infamy rests on spectacular ineptitude captured in his own pathetic words: "I am not fit for this office and should never have been here." A former newspaperman and publisher who won a string of offices in his native Ohio, he was an unrestrained womanizer noted for his affability, good looks, and implacable desire to please. It was good, his father once told him, that he hadn't been born a girl, "because you'd be in the family way all the time. You can't say no." Harding should have said no when Republican Party bosses in the proverbial smoke-filled room (a phrase that originated with this instance) made him their 11th-hour pick for the highest office. He was so reassuringly vague in his campaign declarations that he was understood to support both the foes and the backers of U.S. entry into the League of Nations, the hottest issue of the day. Once in the White House, the 29th president busied himself with golf, poker, and his mistress, while appointees and cronies plundered the U.S. government in a variety of creative ways. (His secretary of the interior allowed oilmen, for a modest under-the-table sum, to tap into government oil reserves, including one in Teapot Dome, Wyo.) "I have no trouble with my enemies," Harding once said, adding that it was his friends who "keep me walking the floor nights." Stress no doubt contributed to his death in office, probably from a stroke. Harding was an Ohio newspaper publisher who eventually rose to become U.S. Senator; he preferred poker, socializing and, it was said, womanizing to working. Republican bosses favored Harding, however, finding him charismatic and pliant, and he won the presidency in 1920 promising to restore pre–World War I "normalcy" (his mangling of the word normality was ridiculed by critics). Once in office, Harding admitted to his close friends that the job was beyond him. The capable men that Harding appointed to his cabinet included Charles Evans Hughes as secretary of state, Andrew Mellon as secretary of the treasury, and Herbert Hoover as secretary of commerce. But he also surrounded himself with dishonest cheats, who came to be known as "the Ohio gang." Many of them were later charged with defrauding the government, and some of them went to jail. Though Harding knew of the limitations of men like Harry Dougherty, the slick friend he appointed attorney general, he liked to play poker with them, drink whiskey, smoke, tell jokes, play golf, and keep late hours. In office, Harding appointed a slew of corrupt officials, prompting the Teapot Dome bribery scandal, which for the first time sent a Cabinet secretary to prison. An accused adulterer, Harding was the subject of a best-selling memoir by a woman who claimed to be his mistress and the mother of his illegitimate daughter. Harding died in office. He lives on partly as a cautionary tale told by author Malcolm Gladwell. In his book Blink, Gladwell says the "Warren Harding error" led supporters to assume he'd be a good President simply because he appeared stately and presidential. It didn't quite work out that way. Most historians regard Harding as the worst President in the nation's history. In the end, it was not his corrupt friends, but rather, Harding's own lack of vision that was most responsible for the tarnished legacy. Andrew Johnson Andrew Johnson has risen in scholarly dis-esteem since the publication of Arthur Schlesinger's 1948 poll probably because the post-Civil War Reconstruction has enjoyed a thorough scholarly face-lift, and Johnson is now scorned for having resisted Radical Republican policies aimed at securing the rights and well-being of the newly emancipated African-Americans. Before he was president, historian Woodrow Wilson did a lastingly thorough job of sullying Reconstruction, depicting it as a vindictive program that hurt even repentant southerners while benefiting northern opportunists, the so-called Carpetbaggers, and cynical white southerners, or Scalawags, who exploited alliances with blacks for political gain. A native North Carolinian of humble origins, Johnson worked as a tailor and eventually settled in Tennessee, where he entered politics as a populist Jackson Democrat. He was elected to several high offices, including U.S. senator. Though no abolitionist, he was a staunch supporter of the Union and the only southerner to retain his seat in the Senate after secession. For his loyalty, Lincoln appointed him military governor of Tennessee, where he set about suppressing Confederates and championing black suffrage. (Tennessee became the first southern state to end slavery by state law.) Lincoln selected him as his running mate in 1864, and Johnson became the 17th president only a month after being sworn in as vice president. Unfortunately, his subsequent battles with Radical Republicans in Congress over a host of Reconstruction measures revealed political ineptitude and an astonishing indifference toward the plight of the newly freed African-Americans. In addition to vetoing renewal of the Freedman's Bureau and the first civil rights bill, he encouraged opposition to the 14th Amendment. An increasingly nasty power struggle—in which Congress wrongly attempted to strip him of certain constitutionally delegated powers—resulted in the first presidential impeachment and a near conviction. Failing to be renominated, he returned to Tennessee and was again elected to the U.S. Senate. History's current verdict may prove to be overly harsh, but it is fair to say that Johnson did turn a blind eye to those southerners who tried to undo what the Civil War had accomplished. In Johnson’s case, Lincoln was a tough act to follow, and his failed role in obstructing much of the GOP’s Reconstruction plans was a tough pill for historians to swallow. After becoming president, Johnson fought with his own Cabinet and party members over the scope of readmitting secessionist states and the voting rights of blacks. Johnson favored a very lenient version of Reconstruction and state control over who could vote, according to their race. He also openly opposed the 14th Amendment. Although Johnson had supported an end to slavery in the 1860s, he was a white supremacist. “This is a country for white men, and by God, as long as I am President, it shall be a government for white men,” he wrote in 1866. In the end, the Radical Republicans won control over Reconstruction and Johnson became a pariah.Johnson vetoed the Civil Rights Bill, but Congress overrode the veto in an unprecedented move. Somehow, Johnson survived the impeachment trial, possibly because there was no vice president to replace him, and moderates feared Benjamin Wade, the Senate president pro tempore who would have replaced Johnson. The Radical Republicans also eventually failed, and Reconstruction had ended within a decade. Racial discrimination continued on into the middle of the following century.
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