I'm an English student studying American and European History for the last 2 years at University and 2 years prior to that in college. I've had numerous discussions with people about their opinions on the greatest American President and there have been several answers but the same names do pop up. The general consensus is Lincoln, who I rate highly but not as the best. Personally, Franklin Roosevelt deserves every bit of credit there is. The man brought an end to the economic depression that was ongoing in America and Europe, gave millions of unemployed Americans (mainly African Americans) jobs and welfare. And of course, he led America to victory in world war 2 fighting on two fronts and grew America into the most powerful nation on the planet. He did all this at a time of isolationism, which made things a lot harder for him. He also won 4 elections, an achievement that won't be replicated.

Share your thoughts.

ORLY?

Yes rly.

Have to go with FDR as well; he basically constructed the modern political system as we know it in the US. Political acumen, sweeping successful domestic reforms, presiding over a huge military victory... by most criteria, it's hard to list a lot of shortfalls, even if you weren't a fan of his policies.

I am going to side with Lincoln on this one. He, nearly single-handedly got slavery abolished in this country.

Roosevelt has an impressive list of accomplishments, but I am quite certain his policies were not what drew us out of the depression, the credit for that can go to the Japanese and the Germans. I am also rather dubious of listing "constructed the modern political system as we know it in the US" as a positive achievement.

You don't list the growth of the US government into a bureaucratic behemoth from which there is no escape as a shortfall?

Andrew Jackson.

Dude just killed it.

Bolded is extremely dubious. FDRs economic policies actually made the depression worse, WW2 is what brought us out of it. Also, unemployment for African American males has gone up since minimum wage was introduced. Finally, saying that FDR was the reason ww2 was won would anger many Russians and Truman was president when Japan was defeated.

I vote Lincoln

See the other thread about this, because it's not really sensible. What caused the US to get out the Depression was a huge stimulation of demand. Hoover tried it a tiny bit, and it didn't work (and did other stupid things like the Smoot-Hawley Tariff). FDR tried it even more, it started going OK, but he was too insistent on balancing the budget, so it started to lag. Then, WW2 comes along, and people are suddenly willing to spend massively and accept some debt in order to create demand. The war itself had NOTHING to do with this--it was just that people were more willing to accept the measures needed to reverse the Depression in the face of what many perceived to be a worse crisis (war). They could have just as easily employed everyone to build cities, highways, and power plants, but there was far more political opposition to that than there was to hire huge numbers of people to build ships, tanks, and airplanes.

I see what you are saying. But war was what increased demand, not any FDR policies. I was just pointing out that FDR and his policies didn't pull us out of the great depression like everybody, including myself, seems to have been taught in grade school

Depends what you mean. Millions of Americans saw their fortunes improve significantly as a direct result of FDR initiatives. Just because the stock market and private employment did not return to the level of 1920s until the 1940s shouldn't convince us that said policies weren't effective in at least alleviating the Depression for a good number of people. FDIC really did rescue the banking system. Rural electrification really did improve the standard of living in the South and Midwest. Social Security really did drastically reduce poverty among the elderly. The fundamental theory was correct; the issue was that the political situation did allow demand stimulation to go far enough. Now you could argue that the war would have stimulated this demand anyway, but without the earlier organization of industry and recovery of the banking system, the US might not have been so easily able to shift into a rapid wartime economy. But there is little context for comparison.

I vote for Abraham Lincoln as the worst president, and FDR as the second worst.

I gotta go with Washington. He was the only guy who could pull off being numero uno. Things were very fragile at the time and "democracy experiment" could have easily failed miserably.

But for my money one/two being Washington/Lincoln or Lincoln/Washington works for me. FDR is waaaay down on my list for many of the reasons already stated by others.

Lincoln's nationwide suspension of habeas corpus alone makes him the worst president in our history. He imprisoned thousands of civilians without due process, including members of Maryland's government.

He also shut down hundreds of newspapers who were opposed to his viewpoint.

He initiated a war that killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. Remember, this is the guy who said:

"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right – a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit." – Abraham Lincoln (from a speech in Congress January 1848)

Bad president IMO

Those poor innocent people! I mean it wasn't like they were a threat. They were just committing treason and seceding from the union.

Lincoln then FDR.

Without Lincoln, you get two, three, or four countries where the US is today. Oh, and France takes over Mexico.

Without FDR, you probably get a US unprepared for WW2 and possibly people get so unhappy in the late 30s that they follow the example of Germans to fascism or Russians to communism (which his critics scream he did, but, nah, he didn't...).

Neither guy was a stickler for following the rules, which is why they were effective politicians. And of course they made enemies (foreign, domestic, contemporary, historical).

lol. This is not an alternate history novel...

Huh? The US was in no way, shape, or form prepared for WW2. FDR kept the military in a state of disorganized disarray until we were threatened. We ramped up fast when we had to but the armed forces were is a dismal state in 1940.

I'm not sure what people you're talking about. He arrested thousands of northerners and also arrested members of Maryland's legislature. Maryland never seceded.

Awful choice of words on my part. He chose to fight the war.

Not so. In 1941, the US had one of the largest navies in the world (roughly comparable to the British Navy), and had been anticipating the Pacific conflict since the early 20th century. Roosevelt actually deployed the fleet to Pearl Harbor from San Diego to show the Japanese that the US were serious about halting the Japanese advance, having cut off supplies to them after the invasion of Indochina. However, the aircraft carriers were not housed in the docks there during the December attack, in part because they would have been too vulnerable to attack. One of the only reasons that the US was able to turn the tide of the Pacific War so early (Midway) is that they had anticipated both the scope and nature of the conflict--now, this wasn't all FDR's doing, but he definitely accepted the reality that war was an inevitability in 1939-1940.

I think people dwell far too much on the European theater when they talk about US readiness for WWII. True, they didn't have a bunch of tanks just lying around (why would they?), but the US was well aware that there would be a struggle with Japan sooner or later, essentially since the Russian defeat in the 1905 war.

There is this dude named Thomas Jefferson, he was kind of the man.

Louisiana purchase, Lewis and Clark, cranking out our Declaration of Independence, etc etc.

Truman and Nixon come to mind as they were reportedly plus ev grinders.

Truman was a great President, but Nixon..really? Everything that he did good for the country has just been over shadowed by Watergate and that's fair enough. The man was a crook, a criminal, and shouldn't be regarded as one of the best Presidents.

Theodore Roosevelt, JFK, LBJ, Reagan anyone?

Washington, Eisenhower, Lincoln, Coolidge

We should also not forget Warren G. Harding, a man who hosted poker games in the White House.

obama.

Washington gave up the crown when It was offered to him. He was hero by every definition of the word; the only issue is that he did many great things before he was president.

Of early presidents, I'd have to go with Lincoln or Washington.

Sure I'm going to catch a lot of hate for this, but of the modern ones, I think Reagan did quite a bit.

srsly tho, best president is really Franklin...