Recently I read an article from, I think, the Guardian in which a British team ranked the "best" American presidents. The number one president, by their measure, was FDR. The article (I hate searching for and linking to pages so if you want a cite, Google it) noted that the historians judged the presidents based on efficacy, image, and inspiration, or some other such nebulous notion.
I have noticed that whenever these studies come out I disagree with most of the findings. So I have decided to create my own list.
But first, some observations.
Recent presidents always fair better than old ones. In a moment I will explain that I dispute activism and even accomplishment as an adequate measure of presidents, because I equate a busy president with an intrusive one. And government intrusion in our system is almost always less productive than if the private sector had just been left alone. But since such metrics are what most folks measure politicians by, it is understandable then that Carter was ranked higher in the mid-1980s than he is now. Or that in a 1948 poll Rutherford B. Hayes was ranked higher than James Madison. Or that in 1962 Herbert Hoover was ranked the 19th best president, one spot above James Monroe. People remember active presidents, but they especially remember recent presidents.
Secondly, there is a certain deference to early presidents. James Madison and Thomas Jefferson might very well be the two most important men in the history of the country, and yet as presidents, they were not the most active, and by most conventional measures, successful. However, they are consistently placed at the top of the list. Possibly because of their exceptional contributions before taking office, or maybe just because of high recognition.
Third, Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton were not presidents. I mention this because clearly there are a lot of idiots out there. Ulysses Grant, who was a stumbling drunk throughout his time in the White House, was ranked three years ago the 18th greatest president in the history of the nation. My only thought here is that by 2008 the fifty-dollar bill, upon which Grant smiles back at you, had become commonplace in day-to-day usage because of every libertarian's greatest enemy: inflation. Maybe all of these people staring at Grant each day while paying for coffee thought there was a reason he was on their money and figured, when asked, that he was a terrific president. They did not vote for him because of his clean record in office. Under this theory then, Hamilton and Franklin, featured on the five and hundred dollar bills respectively, might also receive votes for best president ever. They are ineligible though- trust me.
So keeping in mind that people are idiots, let me get back to the idea that I reject the active President as the model by which to judge the most successful leader of the Executive Branch.
What I value most is adherence to the Constitution. The presidency is not the nation. What is most important is that the presidency, and the government as a whole, preserve liberty. The primary method of such preservation is through adherence to the Constitution.
I do value action in some situations, when it is needed in exceptional circumstances and in keeping with the Constitution, action. So, for example, Jefferson's Purchase of Louisiana, while ultimately in the best interests of the United States, was executed without any existing federal authority- something he knew as well as anyone. No points for that (as much as I like having the Mississippi River in our back pocket). Contrast this though with Andrew Jackson's measured but firm response against Senator Calhoun and his Southern allies who argued that their state legislatures could nullify federal law. Jackson, citing the Constitution, rebuffed their claims and prepared troops to enter their states to enforce federal laws. It was a bold but sound position and his ability to claim Constitutional authority allowed him to (temporarily) stave off Southern dissension.
I also give points for integrity, but by integrity I mean the real deal, not just optics and spin. Here George Washington is the king. Or rather, he was not the king. Washington had the popular support to have made himself ruler for life of the new United States. But instead he rejected such calls, served two modest terms in office, and then retired with some cautionary words which basically said "keep it real." The opposite of this would be Bill Clinton, who three years after leaving office publicly stated that he supported the idea of modifying the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution so as to obviate the two term limit for Presidents. Spoken like an aspiring Banana Republic dictator.
Okay, enough with the analysis. Here is the list:
10- Martin Van Buren: Van Buren's most notable success, in my view, was his willingness to strike a conciliatory tone with Mexico and Spain, in separate disputes. To his personal discredit though, the dispute with Spain revolved around the slave ship Amistad. He was technically correct, but it is impossible to defend someone who would have sent slaves to their certain death. He also avoided expanding the federal government unnecessarily, citing Jackson and Jeffersonian ideal of a limited central authority. But he was purported to have lived a "palatial" lifestyle in the White House. (Of course, this was 1827, so he was likely just engaging in such excesses as bathing and drinking milk twice per week instead of mead).
9- Rutherford B. Hayes: I always thought RBH sounded like the name of someone who would have played center for the Knicks in the 1950s, but he was a real president and by my measurement, one of the ten best. Hayes is a rare example of a President who did a lot, but it seems to me that what he did was Constitutional and sensible. Hayes acted in an area which desperately needed action at the time: Reconstruction. Many libertarians would oppose that idea, but with the force of three Constitutional Amendments under his belt, I would argue he had not just the moral but legal authority to do as he did and force Southern states to respect black voters and attempts to integrate them into the political world. He was also active in encouraging intrusions across the Mexican border to lash back at cross border criminals. That to me seems like reasonable homeland security, not lobbing cruise missiles at mud huts in the Arabian peninsula for $5 million a pop. He was pretty good on the currency issues too, favoring gold over inflationary policies.
8-Ronald Reagan: Ironically, Reagan probably would not want to be known for his perceived victory against the Reds as much as he would for his economic successes. Listen to some of his early speeches when running for President in 1976 and it is apparent that while he was passionately anti-Communist, that belief was grounded in free market policies and such ideas of small government were at the core of his political thinking. He implemented many of those in office, lowering income tax rates significantly, and making gestures to limit regulations. However, his fear (certainly justifiable) of worldwide Commie domination caused him to blow up the national debt and expand the military-industrial complex to paradoxical extremes. He was talking small government while presiding over a massive expansion. His "War on Drugs" was misguided and ignored the Constitution. He appointed Rehnquist and Scalia though, which might have done more to preserve liberty than any other President in the past hundred years. But I deduct points for Iran-Contra, which might have seen him subverting the Constitution and dodging the laws of the land.
7-William Henry Harrison: This is the guy who died thirty-one days after taking office. It was the least invasive Presidency ever (well, maybe not for him- he spent a good deal of time in office being leeched). It was cheap though. Even the funeral was low cost, compared to Lincoln's regal departure.
6-Dwight D Eisenhower: General Eisenhower was not exactly a small government kind of guy, but he is worthy of recognition for his famous "military-industrial complex" speech. There has been great debate recently about just what he meant here, but any way you look at it the speech makes clear he had concerns about the possibility of subversion of the political process by false market actors subsidized by the state. It was a prescient and insightful observation and almost makes up for his interventionist, big USG policies. (To be fair though, his expansion of the Federal Highway System is one of those examples of a valid and useful federal exercise of power).
5-Thomas Jefferson: On paper Jefferson resisted a strong central government, favored states rights, passionately supported a separation of church and state, and understood the value of liberty as much as anyone who ever walked the earth. He had an innate distaste of slavery, yet held slaves. Also against him, he rejected the idea of women being involved in politics. As President his impact was limited, which is not the worst thing. One of his least known but finest achievements was shifting federal revenues sources from taxes to customs, sticking it to foreigners instead of our boys at home (a true libertarian would say this is merely moving the taxation to a less direct source and reducing spending and abolishing the taxes would be preferred, but Jefferson's intentions were good). Jefferson supported a national bank, but he also opposed the federal government carrying debt. Jefferson deserves applause for avoiding involvement in the Napoleonic Wars.
4-Andrew Jackson: Like Jefferson, Jackson's greatest quality was that philosophically he opposed a centralized, omnipresent federal government. He did not always practice hat he preached though, using federal authority to cruelly relocate Indians. His opposition to a national bank and reduction of the federal debt to its lowest ever level is praiseworthy though. He also acted as an able administrator. His spoils system was seen as a political award system, but the original intent was to prevent career bureaucrats from entrenching themselves in office. He loses points for encouraging a bit of a cult of personality and being overly democratic- he wanted to get rid of the electoral college. But he was also a man of the people returning the White House to the place the president lived for eight years, not the House of the President.
3-Calvin Coolidge: Best known for cutting the federal bureaucracy, Coolidge deserves serious points for keeping us out of both the World Court and the League of Nations. And he also opposed generous farm subsidies, which was political suicide at the time. Coolidge's greatest accomplishment though was simultaneously lowering taxes and reducing expenditures to cut the federal debt. In his two terms the debt was reduced nearly a third. Coolidge had great personal integrity too, refusing to grandstand for political reasons (well, not too excess, as every other "statesman" did at the time) and openly protecting the rights of persons oppressed because of their race. Republicans tried to draft him to run again in 1932, but like Washington, he passed (although since he had only been elected once, acceding to the office after Harding had died, he could have probably reassumed the Presidency without violating the spirit of Washington's precedent).
2-Grover Cleveland: Nothing is more boring in American history, with the exception of the Arts and Crafts movement, than discussions of the gold standard and tariffs. Yet as a liberty loving patriot, I know these two concerns are at the intersection of the political and economic worlds. Cleveland took the libertarian road on both counts. He opposed diluting the currency by flooding the nation with silver and inflating the dollar. He also resisted tweaking and twisting the tariff system to game the economy. Cleveland's greatest achievement though was his refusal to act. He vetoed bills like Elvis sending back girls from the Jungle Room. Bill to help vets? Vetoed. No Congressional authority. Bill to help starving farmers? Vetoed. No Congressional authority. Bill to create a national health insurance system with a penalty for those unwilling to participate, based on the authority of the Commerce Clause? Hah! If he had seen that he would have vetoed it so hard it would have been felt in Central America, where Cleveland refused to engage in interventionist policies to create a transoceanic canal. On top of this Cleveland was unimpeachably clean, known throughout his entire public career as immune from corruption. He is a rarely heralded President, but one who deserves more attention than he receives. He also appointed Justice John Marshall Harlan, the lone dissenter in Plessy versus Ferguson, the case which established the "separate but equal" standard.
1-George Washington: as stated, he passed on a third term. He was also a custodian as a opposed to an intellectual, understanding that the President was supposed to be an administrator and not a minister. He tried to refuse accepting a salary, seeing his job as public service. But he was convinced to take one, after realizing such a precedent might preclude less wealthy men to run for office. Despite a career fighting the British, he rejected attempts to reengage in war and normalized trade with the Crown, seeing the state's role as less imperial than many of his successors. Probably his least appreciated action was his rejection of political parties; Washington understood not just the danger of factionalism, but the professional nature of party cronies, and he rejected their attempts to make careers out of sinecures.
Honorable mention..... Bill Clinton (seriously)- despite his desire to turn the presidency into his life-long career, the eight years he spent in office were relatively innocuous. His health care plan would have been a disaster, but it never passed. Instead he debated midnight basketball and Don't Ask Don't Tell, which kept him and the rest of the USG so busy it gave the economy time to grow nicely...... Harry Truman- he nuked the Japanese, which more than any other time demonstrated a president's willingness to put Americans before anyone else, he cut the military budget significantly after the war, resisted the witch hunt for Communists, and after office drove himself around and licked his own stamps. Against him- the Korean War was probably not necessary, his willingness to get involved in the Middle East put us front and center for Arab hostility for the next seventy years, and his strong support of national health care was FDR 2.0.
One other observation here: presidents must act Constitutionally and practically. Absent authority, all action is incorrect. But even with authority,an action might not be proper.
I might try next a list of the ten worst. And here is a teaser: George W. Bush would be on it, but at this point Obama would likely not.
Sensible libertarian views on nearly everything- except foreign affairs.