Who are your favorite U.S. presidents?

Which U.S. presidents are your favorite and why?

Here are my top 10 favorite U.S. presidents. This is from the perspective of a Libertarian, so it's different and controversial compared to most lists. It contains many unpopular presidents.

1. John Tyler: Vetoed the national bank twice, ended the Second Seminole War, negotiated free trade with China, expelled from his party (Whig) for following the Constitution, and ran a hard monetary policy.
2. Grover Cleveland: Despised imperialism, refused the annex Hawaii, valiantly fought for the gold standard, opposed protectionist tariffs, and vetoed almost everything.
3. Martin Van Buren: Avoided war with Canada, avoided war with Mexico, supported hard money, lowered tariffs, and kept laissez-faire policies during the "Panic of 1837".
4. Calvin Coolidge: Reduced the federal debt, reduced taxes, supported the "Kellog-Briand Pact", gave Native Americans citizenship, and opposed the "League of Nations".
5. Chester A. Arthur: Signed the "Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act", non-interventionist foreign-policy, opposed "pork barrel" projects, revoked excise tax, and balanced the budget.
6. Warren G. Harding: Dramatically cut government spending, cut small business regulations, pardoned Woodrow Wilson's prisoners, called for worldwide naval disarmament, and oversaw the "Roaring Twenties".
7. Ulysses S. Grant: Signed the "15th Amendment", Avoided war with Spain, lowered taxes, vetoed inflation bill, and signed the "Specie Resumption Payment Act".
8. Thomas Jefferson: Reduced the federal debt, reduced taxes, banned slavery in Northwestern territories, cut military spending, and repealed the "Alien and Sedition Acts".
9. Rutherford B. Hayes: Opposed a central bank, withdrew troops from the South, vetoed the "Bland-Allison Act", ended radical reconstruction, and proposed low taxes.
10. Zachary Taylor: Peaceful treatment of Native Americans, passed the "Clayton-Bulwer Treaty", opposed Henry Clay's "American System", non-interventionist foreign-policy, and opposed the "Compromise of 1850".

Honorable Mentions:

• James Monroe: Signed the "Monroe Doctrine", did not interfere in the "Panic of 1819", improved relations with Britain, non-interventionist foreign-policy, and vetoed corporate welfare.
• Andrew Johnson (Yes, him):Gave the Confederates amnesty, rightfully fired Edward Stanton, opposed radical reconstruction, opposed the "14th Amendment" for honorable reasons, and fought for the Constitution at the risk of impeachment.
• George Washington: Neutral foreign-policy, established the principle of constitutional veto authority, and set the precedent of presidential two term limit.
• Andrew Jackson: Advocated hard money, paid off the national debt, vetoed extensively, ended the "Tariff of Abominations", and fiercely dismantled the national bank.
• John Quincy Adams: Non-interventionist foreign-policy, lowered the national debt, humane treatment of Native Americans, opposed slavery, and endorsed "Women's Suffrage".
• Millard Fillmore: Abolished slave trade in Washington D.C., remained neutral during European affairs, and did almost nothing.

Zachary Comstock

I vote for anyone who created a national bank and raised taxes.

Barack Obama of course.

@HoolaHoopMan:

Dead presidents.

It's a toss up between Martin Van Buren and Calvin Coolidge.

Worst is easier. G.W. Bush or maybe Woodrow Wilson.

@jasean79:

Gee, I dunno. They've just all been sooooo great.

I'm Canadian,but I found Bill Clinton a good U.S. president.May I also say,I find the current U.S. prez,no fvcking good.But no offence intended to anyone who disagrees,it's just one opinion.

None of them. They all owned slaves. Even Obama.

B-But Abraham Lincoln freed the s-slaves, right?

OP's list is obviously informed by a Libertarian perspective ; not to say anyone's choices are free of bias either though.

You either agree with laizess-faire and dismantling a national bank or you don't, I guess.

Please don't tell me you're one of the people who want the gold standard back...

@someshinobi: That's a hilariously sensationalized vid. Congrats

@Aljosa23: Lincoln was a man of progress. He was so progressive, that he was supported and cheered by Karl Marx. The man whose ideas and writings lead to the deaths of millions worldwide. Such progress.

@deeliman: I used to think it was a stupid idea too. Until I read "The War on Gold" by Antony C. Sutton. And no, the author of that book isn't some Austrian-school of economics, lolbertarian like me.

@someshinobi So, instead of listening to pretty much EVERY ECONOMIST IN THE COUNTRY SAYING THAT BRINGING THE GOLD STANDARD BACK IS A STUPID IDEA, you base you're opinion on a 40 year old book...

You mean you take the advice of economists who've graduated from universities and colleges (a.k.a. Marxist indoctrination facilities), instead of a book that's relevant of the shadow banking elite that rule us?

[KRUGMAN INTENSIFIES]

@Ackad said:

@jasean79 said:

Dead presidents.

Jay-Z Reference?

Did you know he's friends with Barrack Obama?

Lulz where to begin?

Amazing how you try to demonize Lincoln for his views on Africans yet you list as your number one favorite US president a slave owner whose most notable accomplishment is most definitely annexing Texas which in turn resulted in the practice of slavery exploding in the newly created state. You also list another slave owner, Thomas Jefferson, who although was a gifted advocate for certain libertarian ideals, was a president - like all presidents both before and after him - that didn't govern in accordance to his self-proclaimed political principles. Jefferson was the first president to get the ball rolling on the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans, which is something I would personally describe as very un-libertarian. He also used executive power to pursue the Louisiana Purchase, an action that really doesn't jive with the Jeffersonian idea of decentralized power and states rights.

And then you have the audacity to attribute the deaths of millions upon millions of people in the 20th century to a man who died in 1883 (I should also add that towards the end of his life, Marx harshly criticized and distanced himself from those who labeled themselves "marxists"), and somehow you go even farther and use these deaths as a criticism against Abraham Lincoln.

Libertarians need to get their heads out of the past and stop idolizing long dead American politicians, especially long dead American presidents, many of whom owned slaves and all of whom agreed on the idea of manifest destiny and creating an American empire. You won't find your libertarian messiah among the ghosts of the oval office. A libertarian making a list of their favorite US presidents is like an abolitionist making a list of their favorite slave owners.

Also, I suggest you do yourself a service and educate yourself on American history. Just by skimming your OP I found a handful of historical errors and misrepresentations - for example I would hardly classify George Washington's foreign policy as "neutral", just look at what he did in Haiti during the Haitian revolution.

Yes, most of these people had slaves. Everyone had slaves during the old days. Westerners weren't the only ones to hold slaves. The Persians, Indians, Native Americans, the Chinese, and even the Africans held slaves. I've never said that any of these presidents were perfect. Each of them have committed mistakes, and some that were unjustifiably cruel (such as Andrew Jackson's forceful creation of the Indian Removal Act). But each have committed to the cause of liberty in some way and fashion. Most have opposed militarily intervene, or causing pointless wars. Even George Washington was wise enough to avoid conflict between the British and the French. Martin Van Buren even created a third-party (Free-Soil) that was committed to abolishing slavery.

How come America was the only civilized country to start war over slavery? Even Spain and Portugal, two nations that had triple the amount of slaves than of any nation, abolished the practice of slavery peacefully. Lincoln was opposed to slavery on principle, but he had no intentions of ending slavery. He even said that he would not interfere with institution of slavery in the states (which was a lie). The "Emancipation Proclamation" was a war effort that only freed slaves in areas he had no jurisdiction to do so, in order to goat the Confederates into surrendering to the federal government. Lincoln also deported freed slaves to Haiti and Liberia, which had pro-slavery laws.

Abraham Lincoln was committed to centralizing the U.S. government, in a country that was founded under the voluntary union of states (which Alexis de Tocqueville even stated in "Democracy in America). I used to be a Liberal, until I realized that most liberals are bloodthirsty for war and imperialism as Neoconservatives. What happened to the anti-war Left? Obama's foreign-policy isn't so much different than Bush's, he invaded Libya and continues to drone strikes civilians across the Middle-east. Obongo nearly started World War III by attempting to bomb Syria. At least Libertarians strongly oppose military intervention and wars, where as Libtards flourish them if it is for their own interests.

If you think that Lincoln didn't start the war, listen to what an lobbyist for Israel (the only country that has turned America into its bitch) has to say about it. He literally confirms Lincoln intentionally initiated the Civil War.

I agree it's a very good question to ask why the US was the only country that had to resort to all-out war to end slavery, but to blame Lincoln for the war is nonsense. The question to ask is why were American slave owners so unwilling to free their slaves? All Lincoln cared about was keeping the United States of America intact. To him, at least originally, slavery and the war were separate issues. It was the south that seceded from the union before Lincoln even took office because of an irrational fear that he would take away their slaves once president. It was the south that founded a government based on the preservation of the institution of slavery and it was the south that ultimately ended up starting a war in order to preserve said institution.

I agree with you that liberalism in America is a morally bankrupt ideology, but the nihilistic cult that is American libertarianism is only better insofar as it is impotent.

Leslie Nielsen

Andrew Jackson. Boy was he terrible at the policy side of things but he utterly kicked ass. He was one cool dude.

Benjamin Harrison. Just sounds like a cool dude.

No, Lincoln and the Republican party are mostly to fault for the war. His relief squadron ensure that'd happen.

http://www.tulane.edu/~sumter/Reflections/LinWar.html

http://www.lewrockwell.com/2013/08/thomas-dilorenzo/the-liefare-warfare-state/

The South's primary reason for succession was over taxation. The protective tariffs hampered Southern industries, as they were forced to pay 87% federal tax revenue. It was done to protect domestic and manufacturing industries in the North, while they had largely unpaid debts. The U.S. was founded on succession, even pro-federalists such as John Quincy Adams supported succession. Slavery wasn't the issue behind the Confederates, it was economics. And no, Libertarians aren't nihilistic. In fact, Libertarians were the original Liberals, the Classical Liberals, until the Progressive Era corrupted its meaning. We simply believe in persona responsibility, self-reliance, individualism, voluntary association, and self-preservation.

At least we can both agree on the hypocrisy of Liberalism (the Progressive kind).

This idea that libertarians are the "OG" liberals is a fiction. Liberals in pre-industrial America lived in a different world with different issues. A political ideology is not a static set of policy recommendations, it's (ideally) a specific tendency towards solving specific contemporary problems facing society. Liberalism in particular has always been concerned about issues of equality (something libertarians really don't give a shit about) and freedom not only in relation to one's government but also in relation to one's employer (something libertarians also don't give a shit about).

You can't take the expressed policies of 18th century politicians and activists living in a pre-capitalist world and extrapolate that into support for those same policies in the 21st century. The general idiocy of using long dead politicians to advance one's argument aside, there's good reason to believe that people like Thomas Jefferson would be vehemently anti-capitalist if they lived today; he wrote on at least one occasion, realizing the impending rise of industry, that he hoped to crush the corporations of his time in their infancy before they became too powerful. Jefferson was a man living in a feudal world - that's all he knew. It was the eventual destruction of this world at the end of the civil war that got Karl Marx's attention - he praised Lincoln not because he thought the union was some socialist utopia - quite the opposite, he praised Lincoln because he saw the civil war in purely class terms, with the industrial capitalists of the north overthrowing the feudal aristocrats of the south.

And you can't on one hand say that the primary issue that led to the formation of the CSA was economics yet deny that slavery wasn't an issue. The south had a slave based economy!

Moreover, why libertarians decide to waste so much time and energy spouting neo-confederate revisionist history about the civil war is beyond me. Tell me, what region of the country had a freer society in the year 1860, the industrial north or the feudal south? In which society would you have rather been at the bottom of the social ladder? There is no greater tyranny than the institution of chattel slavery and yet libertarians when talking about the civil war only seem to talk about how Lincoln was this oppressive dictator while conveniently being quiet about the fact that a third of the population of the "country" that he was fighting was literally in chains.

Teddy Roosevelt... By far.

You still seem to ignore the fact that Lincoln caused a false flag to provoke the war.

Besides, we should continue this argument later when I create the "Who are your least favorite U.S. Presidents" list. I foolishly went off topic by sharing my views on Lincoln, when I should have saved it for my next thread. We should stay on topic about our favorite presidents. Just share your list of favorite U.S. presidents. And no, I won't argue against your for having Lincoln as one of them.

Well then, where's the fun in that?

And you can't honestly describe fort sumter as a false flag. To put it bluntly the CSA started the war. Did Lincoln egg on the initial attack in some respect? Perhaps, but shame on the CSA for falling for it. Lincoln didn't force Jefferson Davis to give the order to attack, don't blame Abe for the tactical ineptitude of his Southern counterparts.

Like I said, til' next time. ;)

For not, let me just celebrate "muh free-market", "muh Ron Paul", and smoking weed everyday.

Well I can at least agree with one of those things.

The only good libertarian is a stoned libertarian.

>implying being stoned is a bad thing

lolwut

I would never imply such a thing

I took a tour of Fort Sumter several years ago. The guide kept on referring to the Civil War as 'The War of Northern Aggression'. At least the food was stellar in Charleston.

Isn't that kind of stuff part of the South's charm though?

Martin Van Buren. I used to run with the Van Buren boys and I'm a VB boy 4 life.

If that's true show us the sign.

Nobody gives William Henry Harrison any requisition.

Hell if I know, I'm not very knowledgeable on the various presidents' accomplishments and policy failures (at least not enough to happily champion the merits of a particular president). However, despite some of the criticisms of Ulyssus S Grant's presidency (I've heard him referred to as one of the worst U.S. presidents of all time and that his cabinet was rampant with corruption), he seemed to have a lot of good intentions and ideas (I know that doesn't count for shit performance wise) as well as a very similar personality to myself, so I like the guy.

@Master_Live said:

@wiipants said:

Martin Van Buren. I used to run with the Van Buren boys and I'm a VB boy 4 life.

If that's true show us the sign.

*starts running*

Grant and Harding receive more flak than they deserve. They were ran under corrupt administrations and were friends with some nasty federal employees. But they weren't corrupt themselves, as they had little to no affiliation with the scandals that were occurring under their desks. Ulysses S. Grant was total softy, he was the badass with a heart of gold. Grant was squeamish around blood, he provided amnesty for those he fought against, was a happy drunk, sobbed profusely during his daughter's wedding, and he was very loving family man.

Do you have a (informed) reason for disliking fiat currency? There's a reason no major economy on the planet follows the gold standard. I'd suggest you brush up on your macroeconomics before you start preaching that gold standard nonsense. Hell, a rudimentary understanding of the "multiplier effect" would be a good start.

On topic, and in no particular oder...

Clinton, Washington, Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Lincoln, and Jed Bartlett.

Calling business schools like Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and Harvard "Marxist indoctrination facilities" is one of the dumbest things I've read in a while...which is an accomplishment for the OT. I minored in Finance (Purdue University, 2001) and political indoctrination was hardly in the curriculum in my accounting or economics courses.

The only people that want a return to lassiez faire economics are people who are ignorant of history or idiots that want a return of the robber barons...

Oh, boy. People are still believing in the "Robber Barons" myth. [MARXISM INTENSIFIES]

Am I correct in assuming since you consider universities "Marxist Indoctrination facilities", you don't posses a college education? Good golly gosh! Some dude wrote a book about it, so it must be true!

1/10 See Penn Jillette after class.