Who Was the Greatest President?

[GHook93]

Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower (great economy, added AK and HI to the union) and JFK (the fiscal conservative we wish we had today)!

I have to say Eisenhower, TJ and JFK are 3 of the most under-rated Presidents of all time!

 

[GHook93]

Lincoln. He held the nation together, and defined it's nature after the Civil War.

If my wife left me, and I hunted her down, beat her sensless, then chained her to the basement, all in the name of saving my union, and that is considered a good thing... then Lincoln was a great president.

Your African American no? I can't believe anyone would say that about Lincoln!

That would be like an African American insulting Fredrick Douglas or MLK!

 

[Oldandtired]

Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower (great economy, added AK and HI to the union) and JFK (the fiscal conservative we wish we had today)!

I have to say Eisenhower, TJ and JFK are 3 of the most under-rated Presidents of all time!

JFK underated? He was a great man with great charisma...and a vision perhaps.....but underrated?

If anything he is in Obamas class....considered great based on what he MIGHT do...not based 0on what he did.

Both are over rated if anything.

 

[Oddball]

Your African American no? I can't believe anyone would say that about Lincoln!

That would be like an African American insulting Fredrick Douglas or MLK!

Pffffft!!

Lincoln was an unabashed racist, and thought blacks were incapable of self-governance.

 

[nodoginnafight]

I have to go with George Washington edging out Abraham Lincoln.
So much of the office was ill-defined at that point. And given the norms of the time and what the people were accustomed to, I think he could have very easily established the presidency as a sort of elected monarch had he wanted to. So for his restraint, I'd have to go with him.

Lincoln was obviously a very conflicted man, but he confronted his own conflicts - as well as the conflicts of our nation - and generally emerged with the right solution imho. A close second.

I think judging Lincoln by today's standards is a mistake. He must be judged in relation to HIS time and place. And I also don't think it was Lincoln's fault that after his death folks deified him in a way that no reality could possibly justify.

 

[Oddball]

Conflicted nothing...He was a racist, warmonger and an extreme egomaniac, plain and simple.

 

[Elutherian]

Lincoln. He held the nation together, and defined it's nature after the Civil War.

If my wife left me, and I hunted her down, beat her sensless, then chained her to the basement, all in the name of saving my union, and that is considered a good thing... then Lincoln was a great president.

Your African American no? I can't believe anyone would say that about Lincoln!

That would be like an African American insulting Fredrick Douglas or MLK!

Now that tickled my funny bone right there.

I'm supposed to support dishonest abe just because I'm black? I guess I'm supposed to support Obama too. Well let me tell you something, I ain't Lincoln's ******, and I ain't Obama's Bitch. I'm an independant thinking human being... but I do love Douglas and MLK, even if I disagree with the latter on economics.

Lincoln was a racist, and he wanted to ship all my ancestors to Liberia and Haiti or some shit. He didn't fight the war for slavery... that's bullshit. The Emancipation Proclamation was a rhetorical document, didn't mean a damn thing. The 13th ammendment ended slavery (personal slavery anyhow, we're still enslaved to the GUNverment).

Not to mention that Lincoln had slaves in the White House... but that's another story.

 

[Dr.Traveler]

Pffffft!!

Lincoln was an unabashed racist, and thought blacks were incapable of self-governance.

And yet he still managed to do more for African American slaves than any other person of his time.

True story: A very old friend of the family is a minister. He's one of the bravest guys I know. Served in WWII after lying about his age to join the service and came home to take up the ministry. During his youth he worked with African American churches in the South and was frequently under death threats for being a "traitor to his race." In short, this guy is no racist, and not a coward.

We had a conversation 10 years back at his kitchen table where he confessed to me that among the many amazing things he'd seen in life was the fact that a black man's blood could be put into a white man, and vice versa.

Point is: Is Lincoln racist by today's standards? Maybe. But for his day and age, for the world he lived in, he was ahead of the game. The amazing thing is how far we've come, and people like Lincoln helped get us here.

 

[amrchaos]

Washington--he set the precedent of leaving office when the term is up!!

Think about it, If Washingtos would have refused the Republic and made himself King? He had a popular appeal that could have made it possible.

The history of dictatorships in this hemisphere usually starts with some "freedom Fighter" liberating a nation from its oppressive overlords. Only to become an oppressive overlord themselves. It takes an impressive man to look at power and say--"Hey, I had my turn. Let see what the next guy do."

I guess this means that Washington was not a partisan jerk.....

 

[nodoginnafight]

Conflicted nothing...He was a racist, warmonger and an extreme egomaniac, plain and simple.

It's a common mistake among amatuer historians - trying to apply contemporary standards to historical figures.

 

[Oddball]

Pffffft!!

Lincoln was an unabashed racist, and thought blacks were incapable of self-governance.

And yet he still managed to do more for African American slaves than any other person of his time.
.

"Free" to be sharecroppers.

And he really didn't free anyone....The 14th Amendment pretty much made us all co-equal slaves to the District of Criminals, rather than freeing anyone.

 

[Oldandtired]

Conflicted nothing...He was a racist, warmonger and an extreme egomaniac, plain and simple.

It's a common mistake among amatuer historians - trying to apply contemporary standards to historical figures.

See? You and I CAN agree on something.

 

[Oddball]

Conflicted nothing...He was a racist, warmonger and an extreme egomaniac, plain and simple.

It's a common mistake among amatuer historians - trying to apply contemporary standards to historical figures.

The definitions of racist, warmonger and egomaniac have changed while I wasn't looking?

More likely that the chin-stroking so-called "historians" of academe like to change the meanings of words, to suit their politics.

 

[Maple]

I wasn't sure whether to post this here in politics, or in History, but I figured I'd just go with it here.

Who do you think the greatest president in U.S. History was and why?

Reagan was. He inherited a recession passed an across the board tax cuts which created 20 million new jobs. He conquered communism without firing one shot. He deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, along with Martin Luther King and several others besides Obama.

 

[manifold]

The MOST overrated president is definitely Lincoln. Nobody else is even close. IMO he's at or near the bottom but because he signed the emancipation proclamation he's everybody's darling. Most people don't even realize that the only reason he signed it was to follow through on his threat. Had the south backed down, he never would have signed it and slavery would have continued for at least a little while longer, more than likely past his presidency.

 

[nodoginnafight]

Conflicted nothing...He was a racist, warmonger and an extreme egomaniac, plain and simple.

It's a common mistake among amatuer historians - trying to apply contemporary standards to historical figures.

See? You and I CAN agree on something.

I HOPED we could get there!
You are to reasonable a guy for me to disagree with EVERY time!

 

[nodoginnafight]

Conflicted nothing...He was a racist, warmonger and an extreme egomaniac, plain and simple.

It's a common mistake among amatuer historians - trying to apply contemporary standards to historical figures.

The definitions of racist, warmonger and egomaniac have changed while I wasn't looking?

More likely that the chin-stroking so-called "historians" of academe like to change the meanings of words, to suit their politics.

No what has changed is the zeitgeist - asking Abraham Lincoln to embrace today's vision of civil rights and equality while he was living in (and a product of ) 19th Century America is holding him to unreasonable standard that no one could possibly achieve.

It would be like me asking contemporary Americans to embrace things that are so far out of the norm for today's standards as to be almost inconceivable. The study of history is pursuit of understanding people, places, and events within their own context - NOT trying to extend judgement based on contemporary norms.

 

[GHook93]

Your African American no? I can't believe anyone would say that about Lincoln!

That would be like an African American insulting Fredrick Douglas or MLK!

Pffffft!!

Lincoln was an unabashed racist, and thought blacks were incapable of self-governance.

He freed the slaves! Fought an unpopular war! Invited the first black man to the white house - Fredrick Douglas (excluding those who build it). He was a big reason for the 13th and 14h amendment, not to mention the Civil Rights Act of 1868!

Yea he was a HUGE asshole to African Americans!

 

[Elutherian]

Your African American no? I can't believe anyone would say that about Lincoln!

That would be like an African American insulting Fredrick Douglas or MLK!

Pffffft!!

Lincoln was an unabashed racist, and thought blacks were incapable of self-governance.

He freed the slaves! Fought an unpopular war! Invited the first black man to the white house - Fredrick Douglas (excluding those who build it). He was a big reason for the 13th and 14h amendment, not to mention the Civil Rights Act of 1868!

Yea he was a HUGE asshole to African Americans!

He didn't free the slaves cause he loved them so much, he did it because he was a free-soiler (a racist ideology that advocated removing all blacks, free or slave, outside the United States), and he only wrote the Emancipation Proclomation to further his cause for war.

And your right, the war was unpopular, because he micromanaged the killing of southern civilians. He even signed an order making every woman in New Orleans a prostitute so the invading northern armies could legally rape them.

The war was about States Rights and Economics, not slavery.

BTW, the 14th ammendment was passed after he had died, over the Veto of his successer... Johnson. I actually blame Northern policy for the institutionalization of segregation in the south, which had originated in the Northern States.

I highly recoment Thomas DiLorenzo's "The Real Lincoln" and "Lincoln Unmasked". Great informative books.

 

[American Horse]

Conflicted nothing...He was a racist, warmonger and an extreme egomaniac, plain and simple.

My own opinion is that Lincoln was a great president. Two years back I started a thread titled "Lincoln Good President, or Bad President" at another forum.

One of the responses, which was drawn from a review of a book by Lerone Bennett, Jr, a book highly critical of Lincoln - answers and explains most of these criticisms of Lincoln. Here's a LINK to the REVIEW of Forced Into Glory

Here's a short excerpt on one of the slams of Lincoln mentioned above:
"Bennett correctly points out that Lincoln was a supporter of colonization. But supporting colonization is not the same as preferring it. Lincoln believed it was one small answer to the larger problem confronting Blacks in a racist society. What the readers of Forced Into Glory should know is that Lincoln advocated voluntary colonization. No Black was forced to leave the country against his or her free will. Only those who wanted to leave were offered the opportunity. The great majority declined, a few did not.

In one instance, Lincoln had approved a contract with an unscrupulous contractor to set up a colony on the Ile de Vache off the coast of Haiti. When Lincoln learned that several hundred Blacks had been abandoned without proper support, he ordered the United States Navy to bring the Blacks back to the United States. If Lincoln's plan was to rid the country of Blacks by deportation, he showed poor judgement in returning those Blacks who had already been deported.

Whatever Lincoln believed in his heart regarding social equality, he believed slavery was morally wrong, and he said so on numerous occasions: "If slavery is not wrong, then nothing is wrong." His views were well known to southern leaders, which is why they rejected his presidency. When Confederate peace commissioners met at Hampton Roads in 1865, Lincoln was willing to entertain terms of peace and reunion, but only on the condition that slavery was not a negotiating point. Lincoln insisted that any peace proposal include ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery."

And Here's a link to the full thread "Lincoln Good President, or Bad President" if you want to see some of the responses I got

Washington was the greatest of presidents, for all the reasons mentioned, but remaining president beyond any election was not an option for him; he simply didn't let it become an issue, because it would've destroyed the "union".