Timothy Birdnow

Recently President Trump reposted (to much wailing and gnashing of teeth) a list of the best and worst presidents, with himself at the top (naturally enough for him). It was just an o.k. list; it put Woodrow Wilson in the "great" category when he belonged in the worst, for instance, and also put F. D. Roosevelt in there as well. But it was o.k. It put both Biden and Obama at the bottom.

Wilson was a terrible President - he was the model used by Benito Mussolini, by Mussolini's own admission. Il Duce was a huge fan and it is rightly said Wilson was the proto-fascist. Wilson imposed draconian regulatory schemes and even required businesses and others to hang signs saying they agreed with his policies under penalty of fines and arrest. And he campaigned for re-election as "the man who kept us out of war" then immediately began pushing for U.S. entry into WWI. William Jennings Bryan, then Secretary of State, resigned in disgust over Wilson's enthusiastic pro-British policies. And after the war Wilson created the League of Nations and used this idea to justify the humiliation of Germany at Versailles under the theory that the League would fix it later. It fixed it alright - by giving the world Hitler. Wilson thought himself the creator of a New World Order.

This list also put Calvin Coolidge as a poor President, which is utterly daft. Coolidge was one of the very best; a man who cut taxes, reduced the madness of Wilsonism, and steered the country in peace and prosperity. It was only after Herbert Hoover took over (who belongs in the bottom tier) that the economy fell apart.

At any rate there is an American Thinker article that puts this in perspective and I largely agree with it, although he argues Abraham Lincoln should be at the top and I disagree.

Lincoln was a transformative President, no question, and he held the Union together, but it must be remembered that it was the election of Lincoln that triggered secession in the first place. Not his fault, granted, but one must consider other matters about Lincoln that were less savory.

For instance he suspended the writ of Habeas Corpus and jailed anyone who criticized him or his policies. Journalists languished in prison for months as a result of Lincoln's censorship. The Supreme Court solidly rebuked him for it, I might add.

And Lincoln was a big fat cheater. He let Nevada in as a state prior to his re-election because Nevada was solid Lincoln country and he waived the rules that kept Nevada out just so he could tip the balance. Also, it should be pointed out that polls (such as they were then) showed Lincoln was going to lose his re-election bid but he won and there were all sorts of reports of vote fraud, people filling out multiple ballots for Mr. Lincoln.

Also there is a core Constitutional reason to dislike Lincoln. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say states may not leave. It is hinted at but not said openly, and if it had the Union would never have been created in the first place. But there is something in the Constitution that says they may leave - it's the Tenth Amendment. The Tenth Amendment was put into the Constitution for just this very reason. It says that all powers not EXPRESSLY granted to the new federal government were reserved to the states or the people. The power to forcibly hold any state in the Union against their will is not expressly granted. The Supremacy Clause is overruled by the Tenth Amendment, which Lincoln simply ignored.

Lincoln was clever enough to wait for South Carolina to fire on Ft. Sumpter and thus his was not a military attack on a state but on a foreign nation which had attacked the U.S. (Of course the hypocrisy of this is striking; Lincoln's argument all along was that this was a rebellious province and not an independent country) and that justified a military response. (South Carolina argued the fort was occupied territory of theirs, and they had the better claim in that regard.)

Anyway I would argue Lincoln does not belong in the top tier for those reasons.

I also think Andrew Johnson almost always gets a bad shake. Johnson actually was a very good President at a very bad time. Yes, he was a southerner, one who remained loyal to the Union (he had been a Congressman who refused to get up and leave as all his compatriots did upon secession) and he did in fact love the Union. He loved ALL of the Union.

What Johnson did was simply try to implement Lincoln's plan for reconstruction, which was far more lenient than what the Radical Republicans sought. He had everything ready, including the new Congressmen from the fallen Confederate states at the Capitol steps. The Radical Republicans barred their entry, then declared their elections null and void and eventually stripped all Southerners of their franchise - except later the blacks, whom they gave the vote just to spite the white Southerners.

They also forced on Johnson an unconstitutional law "The Tenure of Office Act" so Johnson couldn't fire any of Lincon's old appointees. He did, and in fact it led to a standoff where Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, who Johnson fired for undermining his reconstruction policies, barricaded himself in the State Department building and had to be removed forcibly after a standoff of about ten days. This prompted Congress to impeach Johnson with no fewer than twenty charges, all of them bogus except his violation of the Tenure of Office Act. Johnson was acquitted by one vote and that Senator actually had to go into hiding to protect his life after. The Supreme Court eventually rules the act unconstitutional as Congress has no authority over the executive branch.

Had Johnson been from, say, Pennsylvania he would have had no trouble. It was just that that he came from Tennessee.

Anyway, go to the American Thinker article to see the whole list and judge for yourself. I would repost it but it won't format correctly for me.

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