The Best and Worst Presidents

The Best and Worst Presidents

Thomas Allen

Below are my lists of the ten worst presidents beginning with the worst and the ten best presidents ending with the best. Along with the name of the president, his party, years of his term, and a brief reason for inclusion on the list are given.
The hardest part about compiling these lists was deciding whom to leave off the worst list and whom to include on the best list. These lists are not partisan. Five Republicans and five Democrats are identified as the worst presidents. One Federalist, two Democratic-Republicans, two Whigs, three Republicans, and two Democrats are named as the best presidents.
The presidents named in the list of the worst presidents not only ignored their oath of office, but they also grossly violated it. However, the presidents in the list of the best presidents strove to keep their oath of office to defend the Constitution.
With this revision, Jackson has been removed from the list of best presidents and Cleveland has been added to the list of best president. The ranking of the best presidents has been reordered. Revisions have been made to Lincoln, Roosevelt, Johnson, Wilson, Bush, Nixon, Obama, Jefferson, Tyler, Washington, Coolidge, and Monroe.

The Worst Presidents
1. Abraham Lincoln, Republican, 1861-1865: destroyed the Constitution; caused the death of more than 600,000 men to impose his protective tariff; gave the country legal-tender paper fiat money; established the imperial presidency; gave the United States their (“its” in his mind) first conscription law; committed treason according to the Constitution when he levied war against States that he calmed never left the union; suppressed opposing opinions even with imprisonment without trial.

2. Franklin Roosevelt, Democrat, 1933-1945: brought fascism to the United States; ruled like dictator; virtually destroyed the family farm with his regulations; stole the people’s gold (real money); lied the United States into World War II; placed the United States economy on a wartime footing from which they have never left; recognized the Soviet Union and thus aided Stalin in his tyranny and butchery and gave Eastern Europe (really Central Europe) to the communists; laid the framework for the United Nation and the globalist foreign policy that followed.

3. Lyndon Johnson, Democrat, 1963-1969: brought the Civil Rights Act, war on poverty, the welfare state, an immigration law that favored non-Whites while discriminating against Whites, and other programs to enslave Blacks and to bring down Whites; enacted the Gun Control Act of 1968; reduced the States to mere provinces of the federal government; lied the United States into an expanded war in Vietnam; probably the meanest president ever and a co-conspirator in the assassination of Kennedy.

4. Woodrow Wilson, Democrat, 1913-1921: brought the interventionist foreign policy to the United States and thus globalism to America, the federal reserve system, direct election of senators (17th Amendment), the income tax (16th Amendment), and draconian laws that destroyed free speech and other liberties in the name of national security; lied the United States into World War I; dictatorially controlled the United States economy and nationalized the railroads and radio broadcasting to control information; established the regulatory state where regulatory agencies enacted rules (legislative), enforced their rules (executive), and decided if their rules had been violated (judicial).

5. George W. Bush, Republican, 2001-2009: allowed 9-11 to happen, established the Department of Homeland Security, with his war on terrorism brought the police state to the United States and sweeping spying on the American people; lied the United States into a war with Iraq; bailed out the big banks; gave the American people Agenda 21 by which they will lose all control of their property.

6. Richard Nixon, Republican, 1969-1974: ended the last connection that the dollar had with gold; recognized communist China and, by that, began China’s growth into a major world power; extended the Vietnam War for political purposes and abandoned American-Vietnam-War prisoners of war in Laos, adopted guaranteed income; imposed wage and price controls; created the EPA and OSHA; enforced force busing, ushered in affirmative action and racial quotas.

7. Barack H. Obama, Democrat, 2009-2017: destroyed what little the previous presidents had left of the United States, thus fundamentally transforming the United States; according to the Council on Foreign Relations, his was the “most multilaterally-inclined US administration in history;” made appointments without the advise and consent of the Senate.

8. William McKinley, Republican, 1897-1901: lied the country into war with Spain and made the United States an imperialistic country with the Spanish-American War and thus overthrew the tradition of the American foreign policy of nonintervention.

9. Ulysses S. Grant, Republican, 1869-1877: resided over most of Reconstruction with one of the most corrupt governments the country has ever had; brought the Long Depression, 1873-1879, which by some measures was worse than the Great Depression; accepted Sherman’s genocide of the plains Indians; ended the free coinage of silver, i.e., the Crime of ’73 (he claimed that he did so unknowingly, but he did not try to correct the problem once he became aware of it — a problem that was never corrected).

10. Jimmy Carter, Democrat, 1977-1981: probably the most incompetent president ever, admitted before he was elected that his presidency would be a failure (he said that if any Trilateralists were found in his administration that it would be a failure; then he proceeded to fill his administration with Trilateralists); established the Departments of Education and Energy.

The Best Presidents
10. James Monroe, Democratic-Republican, 1817-1825: was the last one standing after all the others were eliminated; generally followed Jefferson’s philosophy of government.

9.  John F. Kennedy, Democrat, 1961-1963: must have had something going for him since the CIA, FBI, the military-industrial complex, Lyndon Johnson, the Texas oil men, the Israelis, French, South Vietnam (Diem regime), Cubans (Castro), Russians, and others wanted him dead.

8. Warren G. Harding, Republican, 1921-1923: said no to the bankers when they wanted him to intervene to assuage the Depression of 1920-21, which was more intense than the Great Depression, for them; unlike the presidents who followed Franklin Roosevelt, he took the country off a wartime footing; eschewed the imperial pretensions of Woodrow Wilson; launched a disarmament movement that resulted in reducing the world’s navies and the Kellogg-Briand treaty to outlaw war.

7. Rutherford B. Hayes, Republican, 1877-1881: ended Reconstruction, though it was a political deal to give him the presidency at least he kept his word; ushered in returning to the gold standard (although the law to do so was enacted during the Grant administration).

6. Calvin Coolidge, Republican, 1923-1929: proponent of limited government,  protected the balance between the federal and State government, last president who truly favored States’ rights; pushed to reduce or eliminate the war taxes and unconstitutional regulations enacted during the Wilson administration; opposed farm subsidies because they were unconstitutional and would destroy the farmer’s independence and would increase supply while decreasing consumption; supported permanent peace and therefore opposed foreign adventurism and entangling alliances and thus opposed entering the League of Nations and refused to join the world court; the last president who tried to save the country; the last president to believe the Constitution as ratified.

5. George Washington, Federalist, 1789-1797: a republican at heart; could have been king but chose not to; set a policy of not entering into any entangling alliances; avoided getting involved in the war between Great Britain and France; thought that the veto should be reserved only for unconstitutional enactments.

4. Grover Cleveland, Democrat, 1885-1889 and 1893-1897: the last Jeffersonian president; attempted to return the country to constitutional government, vetoed more unconstitutional laws than any other president, took his oath of office seriously; supported limited government, frugal government, sound money, honest and responsible public servants, limited corporate privileges; opposed the federal government usurping powers reserved by the States or the people, handouts to special interests, the annexation of Hawaii against the will of the Hawaiian people; appointed Confederate veterans to his administration; refused to intervene to support the banks and big businesses that suffered from the Panic of 1893

3. John Tyler, Whig, 1841-1845: Abandon the Whig’s government-business partnership philosophy and adopted a strong states’ right philosophy (he became the president without a party); adhered to the Constitution better than any other president (no other president took his oath of office as seriously as he) and, therefore, some consider him to be the best president ever; supported secession; vetoed unconstitutional bills for a central bank, internal improvements, and protective tariffs (all of which were Whiggish programs); opposed patronage, i.e., the spoils system; presided over the annexation of Texas.

2. Thomas Jefferson, Democratic-Republican, 1801-1809: perhaps had the most frugal government of all presidents; perhaps came closer to obeying his oath of office than any other president (at least during his first term); believed in executive restraint, rejected the notion that the president should be involved in legislation (the president job is limited to making recommendations, Congress and not the president should the primary body for setting policy); opposed the Supreme Court usurping the authority to declare a law unconstitutional; opposed centralized banking.

1. William Henry Harrison, Whig, 1841: was not in office long enough to do any damage.

Copyright © 2017 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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