After a lengthy health related absence, here, finally are the top ten ranked Presidents on my list. I managed not to make this 7000 words of "Noooo Trump" somehow.
10. George HW Bush (1989-93)
PRO – Progressive education policy
CONS – Cuba/Panama
“Think about every problem, every challenge, we face. The solution to each starts with education.”
George HW Bush, 1991
“The great events of 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell and the communist empire in eastern Europe collapsed, showed Bush at his best. He had already established a friendly working relationship with Mikhail Gorbachev. This enabled him to avoid the mistrust that might have arisen with a less diplomatic president. Even more positive was Bush’s role in avoiding the potentially perilous consequences of German reunification. Kohl was keen to seize the historic opportunity to bring the two Germanies together, but Gorbachev, Mitterrand and – even more vehemently – Thatcher were all opposed. With the help of his skilful national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft, and of his old friend from Texas and the Reagan White House, James Baker, now his secretary of state, Bush calmed their fears and nudged the diplomatic process along to a successful conclusion.”
Godfrey Hodgson, George HW Bush obituary, The Guardian 1 December 2018
“His administration was marked by grace, civility, and social conscience. Through his Points of Light initiative and other projects, he espoused a uniquely American volunteer spirit, fostering bipartisan support for citizen service and inspiring millions to embrace community volunteerism as a cherished responsibility.”
Jimmy Carter, as quoted in The Guardian 1 December 2018
“I do not like broccoli, and I haven’t liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it. And I’m president of the United States, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli.”
George Bush, 22 March, 1990, on his soundest policy
You might be surprised to see Bush Sr so high up on this list, and to be honest, so was I.
Before looking up his list of achievements, I knew him best as the guy who hated the Simpsons, the dad of a terrible President, and the man who once puked on the Japanese Prime Minister and accidentally admitted to sex with Ronald Reagan. (I did not make that up, it’s one of those historically hilarious fluffs, as he was trying to say setbacks!) I did wonder if Bush is being compared, subconsciously, to Reagan, as anyone who did normal conservative things after the Reagonomics era would probably look better by comparison. Often George Bush Sr was a normal Conservative, but even after that fact, he achieved genuine great acts which put him above most of his fellows. (Or sometimes showed how low that bar was, but so it goes.)
If we can start with the negatives, Bush did invade Panama, he did veto the 1990 Civil Rights Act (a successful act got round the Presidential veto in 1991) and he tightened embargos on Cuba. He had a rather old school patrician view of America as seen in his preference for the Waltons over The Simpsons. Some friends would put the Gulf War here, but the original Gulf War was a collection of countries intervening against the invasion of another country (Kuwait) and Bush ended the war before regime change in Iraq (which many of the hawkier members of his government wanted) was realistic. It followed all the principles of the Powell Doctrine, in much the way the Iraq War in 2003 didn’t. Without the first there isn’t the second, but those were the sins of the son, not the father.
Some basic long awaited policy was achieved under Bush. For example, federal funding for AIDS research/sufferers and the right to free public education for all disabled children, among many other disability protections enshrined in law, both delayed heavily by the Reagan government (of which, yes, Bush Sr was a member). At a crucial moment, Bush allied the USA completely to the Montreal Protocol, and went further, implementing action against acid rain, and oil pollution. Protection of the Tongass National Forest was increased, while federal money went towards flood protection in New Mexico and new Ohio bridges. The Bush government also not only provided money for renewable energy schemes, but tax incentives for companies and people working in renewables. There were similar incentives for manufacturers of electric vehicles and for buildings to be built to energy efficiency standards.
Health wise, Bush’s era brought in food labelling standards, tobacco regulation, and an improvement and quality control in standards for mammography facilities. Internationally, his friendly relations with Gorbachev did much to aid the end of the Cold War (for a decade or so), and he opened trade with Hong Kong. Domestically, government whistle-blowers got the protection of that government, and a heavy focused literacy programme (spearheaded by Barbara Bush) led to an increase in child literacy in the US in the millions throughout the 1990s. The Intelligence Authorisation Act brought the CIA under more scrutiny, a law ironically signed by a former Director of the CIA. And while it ended in controversy two decades later, the Office of Thrift Supervision (designed to regulate savings banks to prevent a subprime crisis like we got in 2008) was a solid idea even if the execution turned out flawed. The Bush government also repatriated cultural items stolen from several Native American tribes.
It was in the area of immigration where George HW Bush was surprisingly liberal, and maybe where some conservatives mark him down! Immigration dramatically increased under his tenure as visas for skilled workers and temporary protected status visas were introduced. Not only that, Bush removed the ban on LGBT people immigrating to the USA, and, after the Tiananmen Square protests and massacres, Bush signed the Chinese Student Protection Act, meaning that every Chinese student living in America in his tenure in Office had permanent right to remain in the USA for safety. This was seen as unnecessary by critics, as most of them were unlikely to be in danger, but it’s a shining example of that rare “just in case” positive pro-immigration law, in a country more fond of exclusion acts through its history.
Through this series of policies, and his environmental and education policies, George HW Bush managed to rise above the era he came from, to be a better President than is perhaps remembered. He is also largely responsible for you reading this appraisal, as the $600 million he signed towards the National Information Infrastructure directly led to the modern internet.
He is also a handy memorial for what happens to Presidents who change their minds on a key policy, even if changing their mind was the right thing to do, as No New Taxes became an election winner and then an epitaph. Still, it is better to do the right thing and lose, than wreck a country through trying to look strong.
9. Dwight Eisenhower (1953-61)
PRO – Civil Rights Acts and de-segregation policy
“The stature of our leadership in the free world has increased through the past three years because we have made more progress than ever before in a similar period to assure our citizens equality in justice, in opportunity and in civil rights. We must expand this effort on every front. We must strive to have every person judged and measured by what he is, rather than by his color, race or religion.”
Dwight Eisenhower, State of the Union address, 5 January 1956
The Republicans constructed the 23rd Amendment, which prevented Presidents having third terms in office from 1953 until 2025, directly as a response to Franklin Roosevelt only giving up the job via intervention from the Grim Reaper. (I mean he died, not that Mitch McConnell got rid of him.) It is perhaps ironic that, no sooner had they done so, then they managed to elect as their man a guy who, had his health been better, and had he been a decade younger, could easily have been elected as often as FDR was. I Like Ike wasn’t just a campaign slogan. As the main guy behind the Allied win of WW2 (so said his PR), Dwight Eisenhower was one of the single most popular men in America at the time.
Eisenhower’s career before he became President, however, is as relevant to his tenure as the man who called out to Adlai Stevenson (his Democrat challenger) that he’d have the vote of every thinking man in America, only for Stevenson to say he needed a majority to win! Irrelevant but funny.
Eisenhower would not have made the top ten for foreign policy alone, which is a common argument against most of the Presidents. Under his authority came the coup in Guatemala (where democracy was unrealistic, said one vested interest in their export market), and the Iranian coup, the consequences of which we are still feeling. The USA stockpiled nukes at a rapid rate, provided military aid to South Vietnam, ended the Korean War in the current segregation, attempted to kill Castro the first six million times, and despite being an ardent interventionist, looked the other way when the Hungarian anti-Communist uprising appealed for help. He officially recognised and gave credence to the regime of Franco in Spain, and a took a firm line over the Suez affair, effectively ending Sir Anthony Eden’s csreer in the process. (Although that was not the UK’s finest hour.)
Domestically, while he spoke out against the McCarthy witch-hunts with the fervour modern Republicans speak out about American school shootings, his government used the fear mongering of the 1950s to crack down on LGBT people. He also refused to repeal the execution of Ethel Rosenberg, the wife of a convicted spy, which remains controversial to this day.
Positives of Eisenhower’s administration include the building of the interstate highway system, the financing of NASA’s early space missions, and federal funding towards public libraries, water pollution controls and the expansion of social security. The Refugee Relief Act allowed persecuted peoples to find shelter in the US, though through limited spaces. Alaska and Hawaii also became official US states, the latter ending a long and inglorious chapter in American imperialism. (See Benjamin Harrison and William McKinley for more details.)
However, you all know why Dwight Eisenhower is in the American Presidential top ten. The Civil Rights Act 1957 took active steps to protect the right to vote for all citizens and established civil rights as a matter for the Attorney Generals office. The 1960 Civil Rights Act went further in providing federal oversight for voting. Eisenhower did not just rest on these late initiatives though. He declared racial discrimination a national security issue, and when his government de-segregated the school system, he ordered the army to Arkansas to protect black children going to school. It was in these moments Eisenhower proved his greatness as President, not only denouncing racism but using the power of the state to make a stance against it. In proving it was possible to make an official stand against any segregation, Ike provided a domestic legacy arguably as strong as his role in ending the scourge of Nazism.
8. Harry S Truman (1945-53)
PRO – Marshall Plan
CON – The impact of the UK loan deal.
“It is my deep conviction that we have reached a turning point in our country's efforts to guarantee freedom and equality to all our citizens. Recent events in the United States and abroad have made us realize that it is more important today than ever before to insure that all Americans enjoy these rights. When I say all Americans, I mean all Americans.”
Harry Truman, speech to the NAACP, 29 June 1947
If you know me, you know me, so the fact that Harry S Truman OK’d the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagosaki, and is still in this top ten, must mean his achievements elsewhere were bloody amazing. As a former member of the CND (they still send me their newsletter), I remain deeply troubled by the nukes, both historically and the ones living just down the road from me. However, I accept that, in the absence of nukes, the American army taking Japan island by island would likely have led to as many or more deaths, and Truman was damned whatever decision he took. Anyhow, take it as read the bright mushroom cloud shaped elephant in the room was accounted for in the overall ranking.
Harry Truman had not expected to be President. He had only become Vice President in the 1944 election, and Franklin Roosevelt promptly snuffed it months later. (Roosevelt’s inner circle had known he was unlikely to survive a fourth term, so had sounded out the popular war time senator Truman as his possible replacement. Truman was not seemingly aware of how unwell FDR was!) Truman went from touring military bases as part of a Senate Committee, to being the most powerful man on the planet, in so quick a time you could forgive him for getting whiplash.
As a result of his sudden promotion, he found himself distrusted by international allies and house Republicans alike. While he won over his international allies (Churchill would later praise him highly), the Republicans remained a thorn in his side, lowering tax rates against Truman’s own plans, and thwarting his attempts to progress social security and civil rights issues. He was also struck by repeat railroad strikes, and the emergency loan to the British government (a major ally, let’s not forget) was made so punitive by the Senate that the repercussions were felt in both countries for decades to come.
With this level of opposition early on, and an unexpected overpromotion, it would be understandable if Truman sunk under the pressure, and he had shown up at the midway point, reappraised as a try hard though achieve little President. But that would be to underestimate Harry S Truman. He had spent five years touring military bases and talking to army officials and soldiers, so he came into the Presidency with an acute sense of where and how to renew the American army. He lifted the ban on women serving in the armed forces full time, and issued Executive Order 9981, which ended racial discrimination in the US army. A similar Executive Order ended racial discrimination in federal employment. Truman brought in the National Mental Health Act in 1946, which aimed to provide funding towards support for veterans suffering health issues after the war, and also provided national funding towards the training of mental health staff, and increased the access to treatment throughout the States.
While Truman sent the army into Korea, he also fired General MacArthur who wanted to exacerbate the war like the nukes exacerbated the loss of Hiroshima architecture. Which is just as well as by this time the US were stockpiling hydrogen bombs, and, being mutually hardliner against the USSR, the Russians were doing so too.
Internationally, Truman gave backing to the International Refugee Organisation and the Displaced Persons Act, and through the Ric Pact formed a military defensive alliance between the US and Latin America. He also ended Japanese WW2 reparations, a decision which directly led to the US and Japan going from bitter enemies to valued trade and international allies within under a decade. This relationship has bloomed ever since, though recently officials in the land of the free have tried to destabilise it.
The Truman Doctrine aimed to act as a bulwark against the spread of Communism in Europe and Asia, through providing support to democracies and intervening where necessary (see Korea). As part of this he immediately recognised the state of Israel, and was a key co-founder of both the United Nations and NATO. Faced with blockades and the likely deaths of millions to starvation in Germany, Truman approved the Berlin Airlift, which sent millions of food into Europe, saving countless lives. His government also introduced the Marshall Plan, by which the US provided billions to the European democracies, and also food and infrastructure aid, to help them get back on their feet after the Second World War, and to both make them friendlier to the Americans and less likely to fall to Communism. This aid directly led to the improvements of the British and French economies, but most of all it helped West Germany, which became an economic powerhouse by the mid 1950s (partly down to the Marshall Plan, partly due to the cany statesmanship of Konrad Adenauer).
Despite his low view of Communism, Truman had tried to veto the McCarran Act, which combatted suspected communism in America and helped the vindictive rise of Joseph McCarthy and his witch-hunt trials. The Congress, continuing as it meant to go on, blocked the Presidential veto. Truman set up a Presidents Committee on Civil Rights, though he had to wait for his successors to have the political capital and ability to follow through on its suggestions. This is even more staggering with the perspective of time, as a President who openly once called himself a racist in his youth was now pushing for civil rights, showing that any of us can improve ourselves into better human beings through education and effort.
Elsewhere, while quotas were introduced on Filipino immigration, this allowed, for the first time, Flippino immigrants to become US citizens. Infrastructure towards flood controls on the Potomac River were constructed, as were many hospitals and airports. The Indian Claims Commission was founded, and free school lunches were provided to poor and needy children through a state school subsidy programme.
Harry Truman became President unexpectedly, when America needed a strong hand. Despite some well known decisions which still provide debate, he provided that strong hand, domestically and internationally, and left America and her allies, overall, in a better position than when he came in. Perhaps he is one of the greatest examples of how the best leaders are those who never wanted to be leader.
7. George Washington (1789-97)
PRO – Created most of what we know as America via precedent
CON – Fugitive Slave Act
“I have seen him in the days of adversity, in some of the scenes of his deepest distress, and most trying perplexities. I have also attended him in his highest elevation, and most prosperous felicity, with uniform admiration of his wisdom. moderation, and constancy.”
John Adams
Of all the Presidents, George Washington is perhaps the most beloved by his fellow citizens, and the most hard to judge. After all, pretty much everything we take as for granted fact about the US system was set up as a precedent by Washington. The US has peaceful transition of powers, because Washington made it so. They have Thanksgiving and a Federal Bank because he created them. They have a Bill of Rights because Washington sought one, and the first 11 constitutional amendments (freedom of speech, right to arms, etc) came under his tenure as President. The Department of War, the Treasury, the census, the postal service and the federal justice system came to being under him. It is impossible to rank him outside the top ten Presidents in history, because America still largely is the legacy of George Washington.
Which is not to say he didn’t have his own flaws in office. Whilst a supporter of democratic principles, he did not extend to this to blacks, whom he barred from naturalisation. (He also did some creative moving arounnd of his own slaves so they wouldn't be freed by State law!) The first Fugitive Slave Act, which allowed slaveowners to regain escaped slaves from non-slavery States, was also a blemish, although supporters will point to the Slave Trade Act of 1794, which prohibited new ports being constructed for slavery. It was certainly considerably down his list of priorities, and like all of the Founding Father Presidents (with the exception of John Adams), Washington owned slaves, over 200 at the time of his death in fact.
USA expansion continued under Washington, with Vermont, North Carolina, Rhode Island and Kentucky joining the Union. Washington took both neutrality during the French Revolution and sought friendlier relations with the British. The Jay Treaty with Britain settled several of the issues between the two countries over the Revolutionary War, and the borders in the north. The Treaty of Madrid sorted out similar border disputes with the Spanish. Most over, he wanted to prove that a democratic republic was a viable option for a major country in the time period, and cemented both the capital (Washington DC) and the line of Presidential Succession to that aim. To this aim, he saw the Whiskey Rebellion (over taxation and tariffs) as a threat to the new nation, and sent in the militia to end it.
Elsewhere, the Patent and Copyright Acts were introduced, and the Debtors Prison Relief Act limited prison spaces for people in debt. There were also the first House investigations (into General St Clair), and federal crimes were for the moment defined as treason, piracy, counterfeiting and…. Assaulting a US Ambassador!
By today’s standards, Washington might suffer, after all, we’ve seen great souls suffer in the social media age glare. But you have to consider him by the standards of his time. John Adams was, arguably the better man, and the standout humanitarian of his group of friends, but George Washington was the man of action, the man with a plan, and while you can look at areas where you think he failed (cough slavery cough), you can’t look at the history of America, and the future, without the blue prints which still have his signature all over them. Despite the aims of certain modern Presidents, America remains the children of George Washington, and that is his legacy, both bad and also good.
Fun fact – The Jay Act (or the Treaty of London) mentioned earlier. The co-negotiator with John Jay was one William Grenville, who a decade later became British Prime Minister and successfully fought for the end of the British slave trade. Everything is connected!
Joint 5th Place. John F Kennedy (1961-3)
PRO – civil rights approach
CON – Vietnam
“One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice. They are not yet freed from social and economic oppression. And this Nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free.”
John F Kennedy, 11 June 1963
Before I started researching this, I thought at the very least I would be able to get to the bottom of the JFK All Timer myths that have existed since his murder, and give him a fair place in the rankings.
And so here he is, in joint 5th place.
Bloody JFK, he’s clearly charming folk from beyond the grave!
Joint 5th place? Yes, because the administrations of Kennedy and his successor were so intertwined, the latter finishing achievements for which the hard work was done in the former, that it is difficult to separate them. Both had major flaws, but co-existed somehow to create genuine progressive achievements. Some of Lyndon Johnsons great achievements would have been Kennedy’s if not for a fatal day in Dallas in 1963. Should that lessen LBJ? No, I think they remain joined at the hip here.
I guess we need to start at the end here, with the assassination of John F Kennedy. It has caused a few conspiracy theories since, you might have noticed. Addressing the Oliver Stone sized elephant in the room, who killed Kennedy? The CIA? The Russians? Castro? The Mob? The little guy from Roswell because JFK wouldn’t stop aggressively flirting? My belief is that the assassin of JFK was… Lee Harvey Oswald. Shocker, I know. I did like the book about how this was a conspiracy which silenced a Pope and Khrushchev to keep its secrets, yet the author of that conspiracy book was allowed to live in peace for forty years to sell the book! No, the question was never Who Killed Kennedy, but why did Oswald do it? And thanks to the suspicious timing of one Jack Ruby, we’ll never properly know that, though a lot of educated guessing has gone on through the sixty years since (and uneducated guessing). It’s that sense of the unknown, that we’ll never know the true motive, which adds to the furore, that, and that Kennedy had seemed in public life such an alive and vigorous figure until he was suddenly and violently snuffed out.
Where do you start with achievements in Kennedy’s brief time in office? The introduction of Fulbright Scholarships, reforestation, the first communications satellites in space and the enshrinement into law for free to air TV channels for starters. The Clean Air Act, water pollution prevention funding, 100, 000 new houses built while the old slums were cleared away. Abolition of the poll tax. Abolition of the mandatory death penalty for murder. Increasing the funding for NASA as “we choose to go to the moon in this decade, not because (it is) easy but because they are hard”. There is no Eagle Has Landed, no defining American exploration achievement of all time, without the support and money from Kennedy.
Kennedy’s government took the security net seriously and expanded it considerably. Free school lunches, school milk programmes and food stamps were introduced. Social security was extended to a further 5 million needy Americans. Funding was given to the building of more nursing homes and elderly health care provisions, 3 months were added to the lowest length of time people could claim unemployment benefits. Child benefits were introduced, and the minimum wage rose as did social security payments. Kennedy built on the Mental Health provisions of Truman by funding the training of guidance councillors for the young, the training of teachers specifically for deaf children, and over $175 million was ringfenced for the training up of new doctors and nurses. He also reintroduced collective bargaining, and emergency relief for farmers, as well as expanding USDA lending on farm incomes.
In terms of foreign policy, Kennedy’s intentions were towards the liberal. His government banned sending aide to other governments which had broken human rights laws, for example. His government founded both the Peace Corps and the US International Aid Agency. The Cuban Missile Crisis, brought on by inexperience and hubris, could have led to war, yet Kennedy, in his finest international moment, talked to the USSR instead and would later sign the first arms control deal between the two countries, and the US/UK/USSR triple country nuclear test ban treaty. His government initiated the Food for Peace programme, which helped out struggling countries to prevent instability breaking out in their region, and was an extension of the soft diplomacy power Truman would execute.
On the other hand, the CIA were given the go ahead to assassinate Rafael Trujillo (dictator for life of the Dominican Republic), which signalled Kennedy’s more interventionist side. (Key side point here – Trujillo was a horrific monster, behind several massacres and attempted genocide, and this is more about the general diplomatic precedent rather than him being missed. See also Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam.)
His foreign policy relied on the idea of good and evil in the world (it was similar to Bush Jr and Blair in that respect) and the need for good to actively fight bad. This continuation of the containment policy on Communism led directly to the interactions in Laos and Vietnam, which would become the backdrop of American international interest (and disaster) for the next twenty odd years. The Bay of Pigs invasion, where Cuban expats led an attempted coup which failed abysmally, was another black spot on the Kennedy government, as Fidel Castro went on to survive around another five billion attempts on his life. (The dictator and bigot later died in his sleep of old age in 2016.) There was also extensive rearmament.
The Kennedy administrations great achievements were in civil rights however. Pushed heavily by his younger brother Bobby (who was a great humanitarian in all the ways his son isn’t), Kennedy went from politically wary of civil rights intervention to full force supporter of the necessity for them. Discrimination was banned in the post office and Navy (in fact, bans on non-white employees in both were lifted), and for contractor jobs. It was made illegal to implement the horrible Jim Crow segregation laws on American interstate transport, and it was also made illegal to discriminate for funding in social housing. As with Eisenhower before him, Kennedy sent in the troops to protect the rights of black students going to non-segregated schools in the south. The Civil Rights Act was announced, and most of the preparatory work had been done, but John Kennedy went to Dallas on a campaign trip and never lived to see it completed.
Elsewhere, the Oil Pollution Act sought to improve the health condition of the oceans, as did the River and Harbours Act with local waterways. The retirement age was made 62, and the Vocational Education Act and significant increases in funding to retrain workers helped move people out of poverty. To lower the unemployment levels, there was a public programme of works and construction announced. There was the Equal Pay Act. In line with the work by Frances Oldham Kelsey, the reviewer for the FDA who refused to pass thalidomide as safe for American use, the Kennedy administration not only gave her the President’s Award, but expanded the scope and authority of the Food and Drugs Agency. The 24th Amendment prohibited the government from increasing taxes during an election campaign. And, perhaps ironically given the very public Kennedy in office today, there was the Vaccination Assistance Act, whereby federal funding led to widespread vaccination for children against polio, tetanus and whooping cough, saving countless lives and rapidly improving the health of the nation. It’s astonishing, isn’t it, how sometimes parents and children can be so opposite.
After his death, the myth of JFK went stratospheric, and all his flaws (which we covered above) were smoothed out while his achievements were given great press. This was aided by his brother Bobby Kennedy, who became a US Senator and a heavy advocate for gun control, social security improvements, and civil rights. Maturing fast as a politician and far to the left of his deified brother, and able to talk to all the various sectors of society (a rarity for the time), Bobby seemed certain to one day be a great President himself, until he too was shot dead by a man with a stupid grudge, like JFK and Martin Luther King and Malcolm X before him. And indeed Lincoln and Garfield.
“"What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice towards those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.”
Those are the words Bobby Kennedy spoke to a crowd on hearing of the murder of Martin Luther King.
I think we’re still sadly waiting.
Joint 5th Lyndon B Johnson (1963-9)
PRO– The Civil Rights Act
CON – Vietnam
“Fuck your parliament and your constitution.”
Lyndon B Johnson, with his typical diplomatic charm, to the Greek Ambassador, June 1964
Lyndon Johnson was a US Senator, who became Vice President and then President, and inherited the legacy of John Kennedy, all the good and bad bits. He spent most of his life drinking, smoking and shagging (even more than his predecessor who was famous for it), and when told to reduce them, instead doubled down, leading to perhaps the least surprising fatal heart attack in American political history. His womanising went to such extremes he would have been cancelled thrice a week these days, and he was a known bully to get his own way. He spent much of his life being a massive, staggering racist, who would up batting so heavily for Civil Rights it torpedoed his own party in the South. That said, Civil Rights were in the balance after the assassination of Kennedy, and perhaps a swaggering git was needed to get these achievements to the end zone. We’re not judging Presidents on if they were a nice guy (if we were, Bush Jr would allegedly be much higher), but on their achievements in office. And in office, Johnson not only continued the Kennedy administration (with the same guys in office, even) but expanded on it to achieve his own greatness.
Internationally, Johnson delayed action in the Six Day War, by which time it was all over, and then blamed Nasser for the trouble. He sent troops into the Dominican Republic to evacuate US citizens due to all the trouble there. You might recall from a few paragraphs ago that the CIA had aided the assassination of their dictator, Trujillo, in the hope that a CIA backed coup would take over the country. That coup fell apart, Trujillo’s son briefly took charge and, given the son may have been an even worse human being than his dad, this led to widespread executions and retribution, before he was deposed and ran away to France. Lawyer and scholar Joaquin Balaguer took control of the Presidency of the Dominican Republic and led in a new era of… terror and massacres. See that whole creating a vacuum in an instable region (see Vietnam, Iraq, Libya), it never goes well.
Johnson’s approach to America’s strongest allies proved that his shouting and yelling domestic stance might have struggled to translate abroad. He went on record as disliking the Special Relationship. He got on so badly with General de Gaulle that the French left NATO. He gave Harold Wilson (Michael’s socialist hero) the ultimatum of the British joining in the Vietnam War, or Johnson wouldn’t back the British pound, which was suffering from all the realpolitik since WW2. Wilson refused to get involved in Vietnam, Johnson refused support, and one of the world’s major economies had to undergo emergency devaluation. With friends like this…
But internationally you are all thinking of a certain other event. Lyndon Johnson significantly increased military involvement in Vietnam and the Gulf of Tonkin incident was used as a pretext for the Vietnam War, a long and wasteful war which was to led to America losing face (and large chunks of their younger generation) and, instead of peace, powerful dictators appearing from the ruins. A needless doubling down on the Truman containment policy, with roots buried deep in the actions of Kennedy (like assassinating the South Vietnam leader), Vietnam and all of its repercussions are a black mark on the presidency of several. The failures in Vietnam directly led to Johnson not seeking a second term. After the debacle that was the Tet Offensive, amiable old Walter Cronkite denounced the Presidency on live TV, which is akin to Ant and Dec slagging off the Prime Minister. (Which actually happened during partygate.) Vietnam is a black eye on the administration but its not one that is a surprise to anyone, and despite, LBJ is frequently ranked in or near the top ten of historical Presidents.
Let’s try and explain why.
It’s the Civil Rights Act.
While the ground work had been carried out under the Kennedy administration, Johnson still had a hell of a task in passing civil rights in 1960s American politics. So he yelled at people, he walked around nude, he leaned on folk, he flirted with other people’s wives, everything that was necessary and beyond, until he got the deal done. The Act ordered the end of segregation in America, and prohibited discrimination in employment. This was backed up by the Voting Rights Act. In 1966, Johnson hosted a White House Conference on Civil Rights, aiming to expand on the security and education aspects of the Civil Rights Act. Out of this came the Fair Housing Act and the Indian Civil Rights Act.
Johnson carried on the Kennedy legacy of vastly expanding the security net. There was increased federal funding of primary and secondary education, as well as funding to educate the children of migrants. There were rent subsidies for the disabled and elderly, housing grants, mortgage relief for army veterans and the Food Stamp Act. New federal buildings had to, by law, have disabled access toilets.
The environment was also a key agenda. The Clean Air Act came into being, as did the Air Quality Act, and Air Pollution controls, and the government started on the Louisiana Hurricane Protection Project, as well as funding to protect against beach erosion and for wilderness preservation. Conservation status was granted to the grizzly bear, the alligator, the Florida manatee and the bald eagle, as well as other species considered endangered. The Amargosa River in California was the trailblazer for the wild and scenic river preservation system, one of over 300 conservation laws put into place by the Johnson Administration.
The 25th Amendment brought in the ability to deal with an incapacitated President (in theory), the US Department of Housing and Urban Development was created, as was the US Department of Transport, and Johnson removed immigration discrimination laws against Asians which had been in place since the 1920s. $375 million was ringfenced for railway building. There was the Freedom of Information Act. There were laws against wiretapping, laws protecting consumer credit, the registration of all animal dealers, and the regulation of the allowance of animals being use in research and in exhibitions. There was even gun control legislation, as it was made illegal to sell guns to fugitives, or drug addicts, or the clinically insane, or even people with a record of domestic violence. Johnson also prohibited interstate trade in handguns. There was rehabilitation instead of prison time for non-violent drug crimes, and the decision that forcing public employees to take an oath against the Communist Party was, in fact, a breach of the first amendment all along. Who knew?
Safety standards were introduced for cars and other traffic. Hate crimes were outlawed. Memorial Day, Columbus Day and Washington’s Birthday were all made federal holidays. The interstate highway system was expanded by over 1500 miles. Legal residency was offered to all refugees from Cuba. Public Broadcasting was enshrined and protected officially by law. There was improved standards in meat inspection, a protection of the funding of NASA, the founding of National Public Radio, and the first reports linking smoking habits to lung cancer were published, and led to the first packaging warning laws. The Water Quality Act was a key first step in the move towards clean water. The Drug Abuse Control Act tried to deal with the black market for pharmaceutical drugs in the US. The National Endowment for the Arts provided grants and funding towards artists and other creators. The National Endowment for the Humanities did much the same for university research and opportunities in literature, history, law and the classics. The Museum and Libraries one funded the very same institutions, especially in poorer neighbourhoods. The National Historic Preservation Act funded the restoration of buildings and monuments.
The Jobs Corp offered education and vocational training, free of charge, to teenagers and young adults, and work experience programmes were funded. The Adult Basic Education programme did the same for older people, helping to increase their reading and writing skills to gain jobs. The federal minimum wage was increased, as were overtime pay protections. The creation of Ginnie Mae led to protected mortgages for poorer people. Title 1 funding was introduced in the school system. This is the method by which more federal money is given to schools in areas with higher numbers of poorer students. Protection against discrimination for age, the Bilingual Education Act, school breakfast programmes, the Child Nutrition Act, all of these were part of the War on Poverty, a vast array of programmes and laws designed to try and better the lives of the poorest in society, and raise the economic and health standards of the nation.
The biggest achievements of the War on Poverty were the introduction of Medicare and Medicaid. Medicare is the federal funding of medical treatment for American citizens aged 65 and older, and for those suffering permanent disabilities. Medicaid did the same for poorer income families, pregnant women and young children. From humble beginnings, today over 165 million Americans have their health care covered by the two programmes, which have saved millions of lives since.
Lyndon Baines Johnson was not the nicest man to ever be President. His failings in foreign policy stand out. However, rarely have we seen such an unbalanced Premiership, with his disastrous international dealings sitting next to a stellar domestic Presidency. Johnson took the legacy ideas that Kennedy had given him, and more than finished the deal. He changed America. He progressed Civil Rights into being, he brought in an extensive social security blanket for the neediest, he improved the environment and education and even basic TV. His biggest achievement is how matter of fact he made this. Kennedy and Johnson together completely changed the landscape of America. Within my lifetime, most of these changes are taken for granted as part of America. And that is probably their greatest achievement, to take the impossible dream, and transform it into the status quo. Ironically, Johnson was Kennedy’s running man in 1960 to shore up the South, and, in pursuing civil rights, Johnson wound up being the man who lost much of the South for the Democratic Party. And if that is his epitaph, that he did what was right over what was politically sound, then there are worse ways to be remembered.
4. Ulysses S Grant (1869-77)
PRO – Squashed the Klan, big fan of human rights
CON – Unable to make peace with the Native Americans, naïve about appointing friends
“It is preposterous to suppose that the people of one generation can lay down the best and only rules of government for all who are to come after them, and under unforeseen contingencies.”
The Personal Memoirs of General U.S. Grant, chapter 16
“My confidence in General Grant was not entirely due to the brilliant military successes achieved by him, but there was a moral as well as military basis for my faith in him. He had shown his single-mindedness and superiority to popular prejudice by his prompt cooperation with President Lincoln in his policy of employing colored troops, and his order commanding his soldiers to treat such troops with due respect. In this way he proved himself to be not only a wise general, but a great man,”
Frederick Douglass, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881), pp. 433–435
Of all the many men to hold the office of President of the United States of America, perhaps only Jimmy Carter can rival Ulysses S Grant for being the best human being to take the role. Like Carter, Grant’s life was seen as one of great success with a middling Presidency in there. Like Carter, I’d argue that if you look at the actual achievements and goals of the Grant Administration, you’d find it a sorely underrated spot in American history, especially compared to the twenty or so years that followed him.
Ulysses Grant was the great American civil war general among a sea of revered war leaders, and the one who made emancipation one of his guiding lights. A strong believer in human rights with a hatred for prejudice and racism, Grant took those beliefs to the White House and tried to govern with them. He demanded equal rights for all citizens, stating that “human rights are the first duty” of government. He was resolutely firm against antisemitism (a rarity for the time), not only appointing America’s first Jewish Governor, Edward Saloman of Washington, but one of his rare international interventions was in Romania to publicly back the safety of the Jewish population. This was a complete U-turn from his condemnation of Jews during the civil war, which leaned on stereotype, and which proved that it is always possible to educated and better yourself. (I've said it before, but it is true.) Grant bucked with tradition by making the Commissioner of Indian Affairs an actual Native American, Ely S Parker.
On civil rights matters, Grant pursued equal rights for black people, and leaned heavily on the former Confederate states to back the 15th amendment, which prevents states denying people the right to vote based on their race. The 1870 Naturalisation Act gave citizenship to former black slaves (but not to Asian immigrants). In Grant’s tenure there were the first black-American congressmen, and the attempted Civil Rights Act of 1875, which was sadly watered down by a sceptical Congress and later did little to protect black citizens in the South. The intent was there, and when matched by Grant’s considerable skill on his day, achieved greatly, but at the same time, that particular naivety and trust Grant had in people who did not deserve that trust would bite him time and again, especially with the Whisky money scandal, and prevent even greater achievements.
That said, his finest hour may have been dealing with the Ku Klux Klan and their violent racism. Grant created the Justice Department, sent in federal troops to South Carolina, and used every federal power he had to successfully crush the Klan. They didn’t recover their power for forty years until that complete and utter Woodrow Wilson rehabilitated them.
Many Presidents speak hollow words against the scourge of racism in their midst, or offer thoughts and prayers.
Grant was one of the very few to show you can use the powers of the Presidency to declare racism a societal evil and stamp it down.
One big failure of Grant’s tenure was the resumption of the Indian Wars, as attempts at peace failed. Grant would go on to castigate Custer, but the buck stops at the top. While the discovery of gold and the greed that brings was the catalyst, Grant had a blind spot with Native American issues, and felt that the best way to end tensions would be for the Sioux and so on to naturalise themselves into the English speaking culture! Red Cloud visited the White House to talk to Grant, but neither could avoid war. Also, the Indian Appropriations Act, which made it easier for the government to take land away, did not help matters.
Ulysses Grant was surprisingly progressive on his views of women for the time. He openly supported women's rights, though he lacked the Congressional support to push them heavily. He enshrined in law the protection of married women’s properties, as before this, if the husband got into bad debt, the state could repo the wife’s own things. The Arnell Bill enshrined equal pay for equal jobs in law. In a weird moment, his anti-slavery and pro-women stances combined to lead to Grant supporting a bad law. He supported the Page Act, which banned Chinese women gaining entry to the US, because he believed it would deal with the matter of sex trafficking. What it did do was open a door for the further anti-Chinese policies of the 1880s onwards.
Where Grant is perhaps not given enough credit is in his role as the first great environmentalist President. He created the Yellowstone National Park conservation area. He prohibited the killing of the buffalo, which saved the famous American creature from extinction. Grant’s seal fur protection law was the first wildlife protection law in American history. With the Timber Culture Act, he gave financial support to those who planted vast numbers of trees. It was from these steps that future conservation gained their precedence and their starting points.
The Morrill Act established new colleges. The administration made extensive attempts to secularise the school system. The Public Credit Act paid back the bondholders from the Civil War, stimulating the economy. Indeed, Grant managed to both reduce the national debt and recover the US economy at the same time. He increased pay for federal employees, and started the reform of the civil service. Christmas, New Year, Thanksgiving and the 4th of July were all made public holidays. The government accepted Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone patent. Colorado became a US state. Ulysses S Grant and his British counterpart, William Gladstone (whose life story went from being the son of slaveowners to ending up Europe’s foremost champion of human rights, because you can always strive to improve yourself) signed the Treaty of Washington, which settled all remaining disputes between the two countries, who have been allies ever since.
An attempt to open up Korea to trade led to an American military victory but an American diplomatic defeat, as the two countries would only sign treaties well after Grant’s time in office. He also attempted to annexe Santo Domingo, which is a down point for imperialism, but given we know now that land as the Dominican Republic, perhaps Grant had access to Second Sight all along and was trying to save us from the various dictatorships and messes America left that part of the world in during the 20th Century? (see Kennedy, LBJ for reminder). Grant also hosted the King of Hawaii for a state dinner, and signed free trade deals with the country.
It is true that Grant promoted speculators to high office, that he had blind spots in his progressiveness, that he had manic highs and inglorious lows, that he failed to achieve peace with the Native Americans, that he was over fond of alcohol (though capable of long periods of teetotalness if a job needed done).
However, if you value progressive politics, Grant was your man.
If you are an environmentalist, Grant was the patriarch.
If you support the individual freedom of humanity against repression and authority, mostly Grant was there for you.
If you think it’s the economy, stupid, then Grant improved the US economy massively over his tenure.
If you think in foreign policy terms, Grant’s foreign policy was mixed, but overall, his successful treaties improved the world and America’s place in it.
By every qualification of a great President, he meets the standards, and in some, he rose the standards to new heights rarely seen since. Grant’s reputation is as a great guy who wasn’t a good President. His reputation ought to be that of a normal, flawed human being, who recognised that, and who always tried to be better, and as a result had a Presidency which the passage of time only makes more of a standout.
3. Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933-45)
PRO – The New Deal
CON – Japanese Internment.
“He was a great, great president. He had the ability to make people believe he was right and go along with the things he wanted to do, and he was also very daring in his actions.... As a person, ....I liked him. I liked him a lot. He was a very easy person to like because he was a very, very pleasant man and a great conversationalist, with marvellous flashes of humor in almost everything he said, and he had a personality that made people feel close to him.... He had defects, of course.... For one thing, he was a first-rate executive, never afraid to make those decisions he made, but he wasn't a good administrator because he just wasn't able to delegate authority to anybody else. He wanted to be in a position where he could say yes or no to everything without anyone's ever arguing with him or questioning him, and of course you can't do that in our system of checks and balances. It goes without saying that I am highly impressed by him for a thousand reasons, but a main reason is that he inherited a situation that was almost as bad as the one that Lincoln had, and he dealt with it.”
Harry S Truman
“I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people.”
FDR, coining a phrase while accepting the Democratic nomination, 2 July 1932
FDR stands as monument towards the truth that eight years is the maximum for any Presidency. Roosevelt proved an able war leader, but the stress on his health of that third term led to his death. Even today, younger Presidents are worn down by two terms in office. The Republicans meant that amendment as an electoral issue (ie they didn’t want to lose 4 elections to the same person again) but in a world where American senators womble through dementia in old age, tweeting about dead "pidgins" and still have their seat, term limits seems to me one of their more sensible decisions.
So, to talk about the elephant in the room, Franklin Roosevelt would have topped this poll, if not for the vast number of deductions he got for polices of his which were staggeringly racist. His Mexican deportation scheme not only removed due legal process for Mexican Americans, not only did it deport Americans born in the USA because of the race of their parents or grandparents, but it specifically excluded Mexican Americans from all New Deal programmes! Roosevelt refused to loosen immigration quotas in the 1930s for European Jews, and in the face of an appeasement approving Congress, supported Neutrality Acts which turned the other way as the Nazis conquered most of Europe. Indeed, America even announced US neutrality over the fate of the Sudetenland, then spent the next eight plus years chastising Neville Chamberlain for his attempts to earn a have cake/eat it deal there with no allied help whatsoever. Also, when America finally entered the Second World War, you may have heard of this, but Roosevelt’s government forcibly interned every Japanese American citizen in internment camps.
These were terrible, terrible black marks on the President, and the reason why he is only ranked third of all time once the dust was settled.
Because, once you acknowledge all these flaws, FDR was one of the great Presidents. Through the New Deal and extensive diplomacy, Roosevelt was able to change America for the better. And it was all the other Roosevelt’s fault. Theodore. Franklin grew up with Teddy Roosevelt as one of his greatest heroes. They were cousins, and when Franklin married Eleanor, Theodore walked the bride to the altar as her parents were dead. Franklin was a big admirer of the Square Deal, and felt, like Teddy, that it was unfinished work, both due to the squabbling of the Senate in Teddy’s second term and because he had been unable to gain re-election in 1912. After Theodore Roosevelt’s death, Franklin Roosevelt seemed to make it his goal in life to complete his idol’s work, and he wouldn’t let poor health (he was crippled by polio) get in the way. As a result, the crossover of the two parties began, with FDR’s Democrats supporting policies that were previously the domain of Republicans like TR and Grant and Garfield and so on. And, politics and nature abhorring a vacuum, the 1930s Republicans started to move on the space vacated by FDR. This whole process took another 30 years to properly crystallise, but in general terms, the Democrats shifted to the left and the Republicans to the right because FDR idolised his dead cousin.
That was a difficult paragraph to write, trying to separate Theodore and Franklin for you. As wise readers may notice we have two Presidents yet to come, more on TR Bear later.
Roosevelt (from now on in this entry, this means FDR) came to office in a tumultuous time. The Great Depression, which began in 1929 as Wall Street crashed, had seen no end in sight by 1933. In fact, Herbert Hoover’s policy of increasing tariffs rapidly on all foreign countries had only exacerbated the poor economic situation in America, as well as transformed the depression from an American financial issue to a world financial issue, making fixing it even more difficult. Hoover, who spent most of his life as an intervener and doer of good deeds, thought the President shouldn’t intervene, for ideological reasons, and so refused to stimulate the economy or employment figures. When ideology meets reality, its sensible to go with reality.
Anyhow, Roosevelt inherited a broken America, where 25% of the work force were unemployed, where people lived in tent cities, and where banks lingered on the edge of default.
In his inaugural address, FDR made the famous announcement that the “only thing we have to fear is fear itself”, starting twelve years of being awesome at memorable soundbytes. He referred back to this in 1941 with his Four Freedoms speech, defining the four freedoms humanity needed as freedom of worship, speech, and freedom from need and fear.
One of Roosevelt’s first acts was to end Prohibition. Prohibition had done little but make some bad people very rich, a lot of innocent folk wind up with criminal records, and had taken the nations biggest economic boost out of the economy. Financially and socially it made little sense as a law, and was gone within days of FDR taking office. He also immediately announced the Public Works Administration, a nation wide building of bridges, dams and bridges, and the building of railroads and industry infrastructure, all of which needed immediate workers, and led to 1.6 million workers finding employment before the end of 1933, which rose to over 5 and a half million by 1937 being lifted from the unemployment figures.
Roosevelt’s administration also took immediate action towards the bank crisis. The Emergency Banking Act passed in March 1933. This authorised the Federal Reserve Bank to issue banknotes, it provided Federal Emergency Relief to banks and customers, it introduced emergency bank holidays to reduce the strain on the system, and it allowed the government to regulate the bank system. FDR went on the radio, as the first of his fireside chats, to explain the law and why it would help individual Americas, and the fast action as well as the explanation of it helped to reduce the bank panic and prevented the Depression collapsing into a national bankruptcy like had happened in Europe a decade earlier. Roosevelt would also introduce mortgage relief, regulate the securities trading which had led to the crash in the first place, and underwrote savings so that the average American wouldn’t lose their money if the banks crashed again.
Elsewhere, child labour was outlawed. Overtime pay for workers was introduced, and the federal minimum wage was born. The National Labour Relations Board allowed for collective bargaining and led to vast unionisation of workers through the 1930s. Rural communities were electrified, and the telecommunications companies were regulated.
Internationally, Roosevelt described his views as that of the Good Neighbour policy. He withdrew from Haiti, he signed treaties with Cuba and Panama, and through the Montevideo Convention, the US renounced its own right to intervene unilaterally in Latin America (a decision it later ignored in subsequent decades). Roosevelt pursued friendlier diplomatic relations with the USSR, and had a friendly relationship with Winston Churchill. In fact, between finally disposing of the Neutrality Act, expanding US war production, and the Lend-Lease deals with the UK and China, Roosevelt had de facto gained a leading role in WW2 before America had even formerly entered it. He ordered an embargo on oil sales to Japan following their invasion of Indochina.
And then the attack on Pearl Harbour happened. “A date that will live in infamy”. Japan and Germany actually declared war on America first, which gave FDR the cover he needed to officially enter the War. Roosevelt wisely left the management of the war to his generals. He brought in the draft, and his administration began work on the Manhattan Project (the nuke) which we have already discussed under Truman’s time in office.
FDR condemned the Holocaust as a war crime, and, fearful of Versailles repeating itself, was against reparations on the defeated Axis powers.
He made three conference appearances to discuss strategy with Churchill and Joseph Stalin. The Arcadia Conference (1942) organised the allied war effort, focusing on defeating German as a priority and focusing on North African German positions. It also increased lend-lease to the USSR and set up the frame work for the United Nations to form after the war. The Tehran Conference (1943) agreed on the invasion of France as a new front in the war (to relieve the strain on Russia and troops in Africa and Belgium), and where the post war settlement was discussed. An international money system to prevent future collapses was also pushed by FDR. Finally the Yalta Conference (1945) decided on the carving up of Germany after the war, and the punishing of Nazis as war criminals, but also led to the expansion of the USSR and the beginning of the Cold War – both of which happened after FDR died a matter of weeks later.
All of these World War Two meetings and decisions happened during Roosevelt’s third term, which he sought amidst controversy from his fellow politicians, but which still led to him winning his third landslide election victory.
The Civilian Conservation Corps provided jobs in reforestation and flood control. Extensive expansion and funding of the National Parks and Forests schemes led to the planting of two billion new trees. There was $5 billion spent in public works funding in 1938, before Southern Democrats joined with the Republicans to block further New Deal bills. The Agriculture Adjustment Act reduced the surpluses of farm supplies, and paid farms subsidies for their losses during the Depression. Roosevelt actually reduced education spending, and cut veterans benefits in half. FDR also attempted but failed to expand the number of Supreme Court Judges, and instead focused on reshaping the court to a more liberal stance through his appointments there. The National Youth Administration provided part time work for people aged 16-25, and not only did it pay them for the work, but it was open to women too. The Housing Act (1937) created the US Housing Authority and focused on rapid building of new housing. The National Cancer Institute was founded, and preventative health care for STDs was researched (although some of the methods are now seen as a bit dubious). Roosevelt’s administration also ended the ban on Chinese migration.
The GI Bill gave protections to veterans returning from WW2, including mortgage loans, unemployment assistance, education places and other benefits. The Indian Reorganisation Act increased self-government for Native Americans, and funded education and training in the communities.
The crowning piece of the New Deal was the Social Security Act, whereby the law enshrined protections for both pensions and unemployment money. Unemployment, poor and sick pay benefits were to be funded by general taxation, making them a basic right of every American citizen who needed them. (The top rate of tax at the time was 94% for those who take the George Harrison approach to tax rates.)
Franklin Delano Roosevelt took the Square Deal and ran with it. Without his financial support, America would likely have gone bankrupt in the 1930s, and without his international financial support, Britain and therefore Europe would have likely fallen to the Nazis before America could get involved officially in the Second World War. You can be fiscally conservative in nature and still recognise the need for intervention in the mid-1930s, because the lack of intervention had been proven fatal in the years before hand. When the country is fecked, realpolitik will trump personal political ideology every time, or it ought to. Roosevelt created a more modern America, with a safety net and freedoms for all citizens, as long as they weren’t Mexican or Japanese. His Housing Act protected segregation policies, and while FDR personally supported civil rights, he wasn’t willing enough to pursue them, for fear of losing Southern votes. Which means that, for as great a President as FDR was, Lyndon Johnson was the braver man.
There’s no arguing against Franklin Roosevelt’s greatness. It’s sad however that it comes with an asterisk, and that in championing the rights of every man, he found exceptions to his own rules within the minorities in American society.
2. Abraham Lincoln (1861-5)
PRO – Emancipation Declaration
CON – Habeas Corpus Suspension
“My people didn't think much of Lincoln, but I thought he was wonderful. It took me a long time to come to that realization, however, because my family were all against him and all thought it was a fine thing he got assassinated. (Well, that's an exaggeration, but not by much.) I began to feel just the opposite after I'd studied the history of the country and what he did to save the Union.”
Harry S Truman
“No one pushed him around. He was a very skilful political operator.”
Richard Nixon
“I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel.”
Abraham Lincoln, letter to Albert G Hodges, 4 April 1864
“The bells are tolling mournfully. All is the deepest gloom and sadness. Strong men weep in the streets. The grief is wide-spread and deep in strange contrast to the joy so lately manifested over our recent military victories. This is indeed a day of gloom.”
New York Times, Our Great Loss, 16 April 1865
You might have heard of Abraham Lincoln, he won a war and got shot in a theatre.
He also freed the slaves.
For some reason, despite critics pointing to flaws in his Presidency, for example, the suspension of habeas corpus, his legacy seems Teflon.
He ended slavery.
There seems to be something about Honest Abe which fills one with respect and admiration, even when you accept he was just a human being and not a flawless God.
He emancipated the slaves.
Yeah, if any President has one defining achievement which is their legacy for the rest of time, Abraham Lincoln’s is forever connected to The Emancipation Proclamation. On January 1st, 1863, Lincoln did what no other President before him had done, not even those on the abolitionist side. He announced by Presidential executive order that “all persons held as slaves are and henceforeward shall be free.” In the middle of a civil war over secession, Lincoln had transformed it into a fight for the rights of man, with himself in the role as liberator. As with most of Lincoln’s famous stances, it was both an ethical move and a political move. But in the violent times of the 1860s, it was also a brave decision, and it was one that was to cost Abraham Lincoln his life.
The Civil War is a long and complicated subject which many extensive books only scratch the surface of, so excuse the cliff notes version. Tensions had built up over the 1850s over the abolitionist movement, with activists on both sides going to extreme measures (particularly in Kansas) to protect their side of the argument. James Buchanan, Lincoln’s immediate predecessor, had sat back and done little while the States started to crumble, and had in fact thrown gasoline on the bonfire by supporting the awful Dred Scott decision. When Abraham Lincoln, a known abolitionist, won the 1860 election, a number of slave States left the Union and became the Confederate States of America. A bloody civil war began, which ended in 1865 with a decisive win for the Unionist side over the Confederacy. Despite the best efforts of Andrew Johnson, slavery was ended through the re-combined US, although racial discrimination, prejudice and violence would continue.
During the civil war, Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, originally to protect Congressmen travelling to the Capital but later it was used to jail critical journalists. The Supreme Court, the same Supreme Court who ruled that black people could not be considered the equals of whites in the Dred Scott case, ruled that the suspension of habeas corpus is unconstitutional. In fact, and I have to thank Chris Mowery of Vlogging Through History for bringing this to my attention, the US constitution, as written by James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, states this:
“The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”
And Abraham Lincoln was most certainly facing an armed rebellion and invasion of public safety. So the wrong Robert B Taney, Chief Justice, was wrong on Dred Scott, wrong on this, and wrong on his breakfast choices.
I don’t know what they were, but I don’t trust them based on his fumbling of the big decisions.
However, as you might have guessed, as supportive of the law was to Lincoln’s suspension of fair trial, that doesn’t mean I agree with it, being a long term supporter of basic human rights, and yes, while war is awful, I do view the extension as an overreach. I’m also not keen on conscription, being directly related to a conscientious objector (and indeed, a grandfather who would have died at Passchendaele had his life not been saved by a German POW). Also, the American Indian Wars were on going at the same time as the Civil War, and so the Sand Creek Massacre, where 150 Cheyenne people, mostly women and children, were murdered by the US Army, is a massive black mark.
During Lincoln’s tenure in office, Nevada became a State, and the Arlington National Cemetery was opened. Swift diplomacy managed to defuse the Trent Affair between the Union and the UK, despite then British Prime Minister Lord Palmerstone being sympathetic to the Confederacy. The National Bank was founded. The Pacific Railway Act funded the construction of transcontinental railway. The Department of Agriculture was established, and the National Academy of Science founded. The peace treaty with the Chippewa was signed. Lincoln was also a rarity in that his immigration Act actively supported a vast increase in immigration to the US, to fill vast shortages in the manual labour markets. The Freedmens Bureau was designed to aid former slaves. The Homestead Act encouraged people to move to the West coast through land incentives. Lincoln signed the Yosemite Valley over to California.
It is also worth noting that under Lincoln, the Union army fought under the Lieber Code, which demanded the protection of civilians, the humane treatment of prisoners of war, and was an early prototype of defining what we know as war crimes, which were prohibited.
The 13th Amendment abolished slavery, as set out in the Emancipation Proclamation.
Abraham Lincoln did not get to enjoy winning the Civil War. In April 1865, he went to see a comedy play at Ford’s Theatre. There, mid-laugh, he was shot point black in the back of the head by John Wilkes Booth. Likely he would have had no idea what happened, but the rest of the world knew.
Abraham Lincoln was first and foremost a politician, who did things for political gain. That doesn’t detract from his abolitionist views, which he appeared to hold deeply, and doesn’t mean that just because there was a political dimension to Emancipation, it is less of an achievement. Because it stands as one of the greatest achievements by any American President, and essentially, in doing so, Abraham Lincoln became a martyr for the civil rights movement.
We will never know what Lincoln would have done as a peacetime President. Maybe he would have been like Grant. It’s easy to postulate hypotheticals on something that never happened. We do know that he won a Civil War, he ended slavery, and he prevented a war with Britain. A few years back, a documentary followed some American students as they learned that, far from the mythical figure of history, Lincoln was a normal human with normal failings, and this blew their mind, hurt their faith. If anything it should strengthen it. Abraham Lincoln remains proof that a normal flawed human being is capable of great things which improve society, and this should be celebrated.
1. Theodore Roosevelt (1901-9)
PRO – Extensive conservation campaign
CON – Brownsville Affair and recurring weakness on civil rights
“We must ever bear in mind that the great end in view is righteousness, justice as between man and man, nation and nation, the chance to lead our lives on a somewhat higher level, with a broader spirit of brotherly goodwill one for another. Peace is generally good in itself, but it is never the highest good unless it comes as the handmaid of righteousness; and it becomes a very evil thing if it serves merely as a mask for cowardice and sloth, or as an instrument to further the ends of despotism or anarchy. We despise and abhor the bully, the brawler, the oppressor, whether in private or public life, but we despise no less the coward and the voluptuary.”
Theodore Roosevelt, summing up his own life philosophy in his Nobel Prize lecture, 5 May 1910
“There was something about him which frightened the timid and the conventional and the men who in their walks, never stray from the well-trodden and dusty paths of party platitudes. The commonplace thought him violent, the pedantic thought him unprincipled, the correct thought him undignified, the kind of stern party men that treat the party headquarters as if they were the temple of their faith thought him simply wicked. But the common people heard him gladly, and they thronged to greet him and to listen to his speeches.”
David Lloyd George, in the Sunday News, 13 June 1926
“More than a century ago, President Theodore Roosevelt recognized the danger of massive wealth and income inequality and what it meant to the economic and political well-being of the country. In addition to busting up the big trusts of his time, he fought for the creation of a progressive estate tax to reduce the enormous concentration of wealth that existed during the Gilded Age.”
That well known Republican Bernie Sanders, quoting Roosevelt as one of his own, Our Revolution (2016)
Theodore, because he hated the Teddy nickname.
Though you know a man is embedded in pop culture when we name the bestselling children’s toy of the last hundred years after the one animal Teddy didn’t shoot.
At least, we think he didn’t shoot it.
Never mind, we didn’t so much publish the legend as print “cuddle me Elmo “ over it.
Roosevelt is a difficult man to understand in the 21st Century though. He was an avid hunter (see his trip to Africa post-presidency, or better yet, don’t), yet he promoted the biggest widescale improvement in wildlife conservation in American history.
He loved a good war (he fought in the Spanish War) yet as President his legacy was shaped by the wars he successfully prevented, the latter of which led to this most hawkish of leaders winning the Nobel Peace Prize.
His Square Deal had a lot more in common with the British welfare state than he or his supporters would publicly claim, which led to the Senate crushing most of the far-reaching elements of it in his second term, yet they would inspire much of the New Deal of the 1930s.
He is a President who remains a hero to Republicans yet is the meme President adored by young progressives.
He wasn’t so much aware of his own mythical status as deliberately creating it, decision by decision. And sometimes fate intervened, after all, this is the man who was climbing a mountain when he officially became President, and, on one famous occasion, was shot, but continued to give a speech for an hour before walking to hospital.
As a hunter who spent great periods of time in the wilderness, and who post Presidency may have shortened his life by catching malaria when trekking up the Amazon Rainforest, Theodore Roosevelt was heavily into environmental policy. His government created the US Forest Service, and five new National Parks, as well as 51 bird reserves and another one hundred and fifty national forests. He used his executive orders to protect wildlife, creating the Pelican Island refuge for seabirds with one. The Inland Waterways Commission led to irrigation projects in seventeen states. The circa 930 km of land put under official protection and conservation by Roosevelt constitutes around 10% of the entire USA land. To say he was an extensive environmentalist is putting it mildly.
Roosevelt’s record on civil rights was mixed. He did invited Booker T Washington to dine at the White House, against fierce opposition, but rowed back from further dinners after the press complained. He was openly anti-lynching, but didn’t do much in office to improve civil rights in the country. And his involvement in the Brownsville Affair, where a segregated black army outfit in Texas was framed for the murder of a bartender, and Roosevelt supported the men's dishonourable discharges from the army, was far from his finest moment. And yet, this was the same President who went out of his way to prosecute government officials who had cheated Native Americans out of land. He supported Chinese student scholarships, in an era where Chinese exclusion acts were the norm, and used reparations from the Boxer Rebellion to fund them.
For a man who enjoyed a good square go, Theodore Roosevelt became internationally famous for all the wars he didn’t have. He pursued the Great Reproachment diplomacy with the UK. When France and Germany looked to go to war over Morocco, Roosevelt was there to smooth things over and prevent it. When the UK, France, Germany and Italy combined to impose a naval blockade against Venezuela, Roosevelt sent the US Navy to Venezuela as a show of force, then agreed a diplomatic solution in Berlin, preventing another war. (This was aided by the fact that Roosevelt, like his European counterparts, was spending massively on increasing his Navy.) A fine example of soft voice/big stick diplomacy.
After the Venezuelan Crisis, Roosevelt announced what was known as the Roosevelt Corollary, by which the US would act as a last resort guarantor of debts Central American countries had to European countries. This would prevent the threat of European imperialism on the continent (which always got in the way of American imperialism), and the first test case, Dominican Republic, is now one of the fastest growing economies in the Caribbean. Although you might recall, they had trouble for the better part of fifty years under two tyrannical dictators, and then suffered through several nasty hurricanes, and while the Corollary was a good, if political idea in practice, this is more designed to remind you of the fascinating but tragic history of the Dominican Republic, which has shown up far more often than I had expected in this episode!
It should also be stated that, like the Monroe Doctrine, the Roosevelt Corollary mantra was picked up by successors to involve the US in more murkier situations. Also, while the world has benefited from the existence of the Panama Canal, the open machinations of Theodore Roosevelt to get the thing underway and under his control are another point to those who think he was closer to Sith than Jedi. Although, Roosevelt may have created a subservient country taking land away from a rival in the process, but he did not put Gustav Eiffel up in a show trial for his men catching malaria, as the French did when their Panama Canal attempt failed in the 1880s.
Roosevelt’s great international moment was during the Russo-Japanese War, where, asked to pick sides, he defied expectations by remaining peaceful with Japan, and ended up helping to negotiate the end of the war, for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize. As Prizes go, it was slightly more earned than Henry Kissingers. Incidentally, I once heard a learned academic tell an audience that there was no lasting reaction to the Russo-Japanese War in Russia, and had to be kicked by my wife to stop intervening in the lecture. The loss here led to the Tsar rushing into World War One, which was the last straw in a long list of events which directly led to his downfall, the rise of the USSR, the Cold War, and eventually, the success of Tatu’s All The Things She Said*. In 2002, when Japan defeated Russia in the World Cup, there was rioting on the streets of Moscow, and Japanese students were attacked. I think it is safe to say there was a bit of a lasting reaction to this defeat!
*While several writers who wish to be regarded as academic, say those writing Eruditorium Doctor Who articles, write this sort of thing deadly seriously, I wish to convey that this is what is known in writing circles as a joke.
After the war, Roosevelt arranged a Gentleman’s Agreement with Japan, whereby Japan put quotas on the number of Japanese immigrants who entered the US per year, and Roosevelt in turn desegregated Japanese American schools in California. (Incidentally, if you are wondering about Roosevelts blind spots in all of this, it was in turning his back to Japanese imperialist intent on Korea!)
The Roosevelt administration spent heavily on public health and safety. There were slum inspections, and funding to prevent the spread of contagious diseases. The Meat Inspection Act, and the Pure Food and Drugs Act, both took measures to improve the quality and safety of food consumed. Roosevelt had denounced writer Upton Sinclair as a crackpot and a socialist (remind me who was behind the Square Deal again?) then he actually read The Jungle, decided he agreed with much of Sinclair’s summation of the food industry, and went to work on it. Sinclair had actually intended the book to champion the socialist cause instead, bemoaning that he had “aimed at the public’s heart and hit them in the stomach”.
Roosevelt and Sinclair had more in common than either would have admitted.
With the disdain of someone who would not have seen eye to eye with Elon Musk, Theodore Roosevelt denounced the “malefactors of great wealth” who aimed to shape government policy so they could “enjoy unmolested the fruits of their own evil doing”. (Roosevelt incidentally inherited a fair amount of money from his father, and was what we would call, fairly well off, himself!)
The Panic of 1907 seemed to have triggered something in Theodore Roosevelt, and he spent the last days of his Presidency trying to push Congress to accept old age pensions and unemployment insurance, which you might recall was the central pillar of the New Deal, and advocating for the redistribution of wealth from the upper classes to prevent social unrest in the country. He was not only advocating for policies later carried out by FDR, he was advocating for some of the polices of Clement Attlee!
As Teddy Roosevelt fought the 1912 election campaign on a platform of female suffrage, social security and better workers rights, somehow this one time Republican became a louder advocate for socialist reform than many of the actual socialists of his time, and it makes you wonder what might have been, had he not made the rash promise that he wouldn't stand for re-election in 1908. He would have probably won, given Taft won, and Roosevelt was considerably more popular.
It's just frankly insane that a Conservative fan of the bully pulpit would wind up champion of all the best Upton Sinclair causes. You can point to Roosevelt's conservative legacy, his progressive legacy, and they all co-exist in the same multiverse.
There was restriction of child labour, tax bands to protect the working classes, wage security, and mine safety regulation. There was federal protection for workers from work place accidents, and regular boiler inspections, and the founding of the Public Health Service. Foreigners married to American citizens could gain US citizenship. There was regulation of the oil companies the creation of the Department of Commerce and Labour… hell, Roosevelt was the first President to actively settle a labour dispute himself during the Coal Strike. He founded the Carnegie Foundation to improve teaching, and self-governance for the Philippines. Naturally the big fan of hunting brought in anti-hunting laws to preserve the Alaskan wilderness. The Hepburn Act regulated the railroads, and the Federal Employers Liability Act made the employers liable for railway workers injured in the line of their jobs. Roosevelt also invented the White House press briefing.
Theodore Roosevelt was best known domestically for trust busting and the Square Deal. He extensively used the Sherman Act to break up monopolies. He broke up the Northern Securities Company, among over forty other anti-trust suits over his time in office. The Square Deal, described through a number of policies above, was designed to improve consumer protection and would go on to inspire the New Deal. It focused on improving labour rights, health and welfare, and conservation, as well as taking on the monopolies.
“Please. I went through my T.R. phase in first grade.”
Lisa Simpson
The internet is not short of Teddy praise. It’s almost a cliché to have him ranked as your number one president. However, I am by nature a socialist, I look towards social and progressive policies which improved the lot of your country. This is a recurring theme throughout my top ten, but in Theodore Roosevelt I find its most unapologetic champion. I’m also an conservationist, so extensive environmentalism will find its way to my heart. I am also a fan of avoiding war. I have my issues about his stance on civil rights, and Korea, and in general am not an imperialist.
However, I note that if I were conservative instead, Roosevelt would likely still be my top choice, for his focus on improving the economy, for his American first diplomacy, and for his stance on the military.
There’s a reason Theodore Roosevelt shows up in the Night at the Museum films, why The Simpsons reference him, why he has a mountain, a kids toy and an asteroid named after him.
It’s because he once got shot, stood up, gave an hour long speech, then walked to hospital and lived to tell the tale.
It’s also because, in a history of Presidents who spoke more than they acted, one who acted as he spoke was a rarity.
Theodore Roosevelt not only achieved a number of great things, he inspired many of his successors to achieve great things built on the work he had done. And as time goes on, and we whitewash the less savoury bits, he’s going to carry on being a symbol of how America likes to see itself, even when perhaps it fails to live up to those ideals: self-assured, trend setting, and caring.
If in doubt, print the myth. It's what he would have done.
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