Poll: Who has been the WORST President in United States History?

[Ruthless4christ]

Nate, a discussion of the legality of secession takes the thread in a direction not originally intended

well it could help us establish whether or not lincoln was a good president. if it was thire right and he denied them it that would prove otherwise.

whether they had the right or not, they already felt that thier state rights had already been destroyed, making the constitution null anyhow.

[apr1775]

The Constitution does not make secession legal. The Articles of Cofederation made the Union "perpetual" and the Constitution then formed an even "more perfect union." It was never meant to be a Union-when-convenient.

Lincoln "used a level of violence"? The Confederates were shooting too. Lincoln and Congress tried to avoid a shooting war, with last minute compromises and assurances regarding Slavery. But it wasn't enough, and the Confederates decided to start shooting. I think nothing short of Nationalizing Slavery would have appeased the southerners at that point

.

Read the Tenth Amendment and then tell me how secession is illegal.

Of course the Confederates were shooting too, they were invaded. Now if you consider Ft Sumter to be evidence of the South starting the war, go look at the casualty count. Lincoln did make promises to not interfer with slavery in the states in which it existed, which kind of suggest that's not the primary reason for secession. What is meant by "Nationalizing Slavery" anyway?

By "level of violence" I am refering to the way Lincoln's armies took the war to the civilian population. Many thousands had their houses and everything they owned burned, and then left to die. Ever read about Sherman and Sheridan? Is this morally superior slavery, especially considering that many of the victims weren't slave owners.

[HJB]

he trampled on some of the most fundimental points of the Constitution

Lincoln did not trample on the constitution. The usual example is suspending Habeas Corpus, but that is allowed for in time of invasion or rebellion. Congress also passed a resolution suspending Habeas Corpus in 1863, and Jefferson Davis both suspended Habeas Corpus and declared Martial Law. But for some reason, only Lincoln is ever mentioned.

instead he implaced more tariffs

At the time of secession, tariffs were at the lowest rates in decades. And the Morill tariff was signed into law by Buchanan not Lincoln.

Secondly Congress did not give any kind of effort to resolve anything

The Corwin amendment, brought up in February '61 and generally approved by Lincoln though he was not inaugarated yet, guaranteed that the Federal government would not interfere with slavery in the states that already had it.

What is meant by "Nationalizing Slavery" anyway?

In the 1850's, the slave states worked to expand slavery into both the territories and into the free states, with the Kansas-Nebraska act and Dred Scott and the Fugitive Slave laws. The slave states wanted to use the power of the Federal Government to force slavery down the throat of the whole country.

The South would have defeated Lincoln in the 1860 presidential election if the democratic party had not split into two factions. The northern democrats, with Lincolns old nemesis Douglas as the candidate, were just fine with slavery spreading to the territories... as long as the settlers in each territory voted to allow slavery. The southern democrats split off because the question of slavery, they felt, should not be left to a popular vote, but forced on the territory. Lincoln would have been defeated by Douglas if the democrats had stayed united.

Lincoln did make promises to not interfer with slavery in the states in which it existed, which kind of suggest that's not the primary reason for secession

Lincoln knew that the constitution did not allow him to abolish slavery, he was just re-affirming the obvious in order to defuse the situation. Secession was all about slavery.

By "level of violence" I am refering to the way Lincoln's armies took the war to the civilian population.

Sherman destroyed the infrastructure that supported the enemy military. There really was no significant murdering or raping or any other violent crimes against civilians. It is routinely exaggerated. Shermans march was much more of a psychological dagger through the South than a physically destructive one.

[Hugh Damright]

The slave states wanted to use the power of the Federal Government to force slavery down the throat of the whole country.

That seems way off to me. I am not aware that the slave States plotted to force slavery onto free States. I think the slave States wanted slavery left up to each State i.e. they wanted the US Constitution which they had consented to. But didn't the feds start putting restrictions on new States coming into the Union? And didn't this defy the Constitution because new States were supposed to be equal with existing States? And wasn't the intent to rig it so that the slave States would be outnumbered and lose their political power? I reckon it was the federal government that tried to force something down the throat of the whole Country, while the South wanted nothing more than the US Constitution which the whole Country had consented to.

Secession was all about slavery.

Secession was all about yankees not being able to abide by anything but their own will. Jefferson warned in 1800 that is was going to be very hard for us to have constitutional government in a Union with yankees when they want nothing more than to consolidate the States into one sovereignty and to rule over it like a monarchy.

[.300H&H]

LBJ was a creep. There's the story about hinm boarding a helicopter, and boarding the wrong one. The young soldier guarding the right helicopter said said to LBJ, 'M. President here's your helicopter sir.' LBJ walked out from the helicopter he had mistakenly visited and then said to the soldier, ' Son, they are all my helicopters.' LBJ was a real creep ie. all that Lady Bird and Lucy Bird crap ie. everybody being an LBJ. He really laid an egg in Vietnam.

[HJB]

That seems way off to me. I am not aware that the slave States plotted to force slavery onto free States. I think the slave States wanted slavery left up to each State i.e. they wanted the US Constitution which they had consented to

The 1850's started with Fugitive Slave acts. This forced everyone in the free states to become accomplices in Slavery, with the Federal government threatening fines or jail to those who did not cooperate.

The Kansas-Nebraska act in 1854 scrapped the old Missouri compromise which kept slavery expansion in the territories below the 36'30 line. Now all territories could be slave, and pro-slavery interests forced the Lecompton constitution in Kansas over the objections of pro-freedom settlers.

The Dred Scott decision in 1856 ruled that a person could buy a slave in a slave state, then move to a free state and keep that slave as property! This Supreme Court decision, in effect, made the free states into slave states.

Lincoln had left politics to go back to practicing law. The K-N act and then the Dred Scott decision infuriated him so that he re-entered the public arena. He met Douglas in the famous debates first as a private citizen, not as a candidate. Then he challenged Douglas for the Senate and lost, but he did get himself noticed nation-wide.

[Citizen Carrier]

Again, one must wonder where people develop this notion that secession was not first and foremost about the preservation of slavery.

The various Declarations of Secession (those states that made them), talk first and mainly about preserving slavery. The majority of those documents declare slavery the driving reason for secession somewhere within the first four sentences of the document.

Doesn't that tell us something?

As gun people, we are continually pointing out that the Founders considered the RKBA important enough to make it the 2nd "bullet comment" in the Bill of Rights. Second only to speech, religion, and the right of public assembly.

Are we not to deduce a similar conclusion from the Declarations of Secession and the prominence of slavery in those documents?

Yes, not every state drafted such a Declaration. Some issued only an Ordinance of Secession. A simple statement.

But that leaves us the debates and speeches at the assemblies that voted on secession. The speeches given by prominent men of each state to the those assemblies are a matter of public record. Plenty of them on the internet. And what those men were speaking about was slavery.

Not tariffs or taxes. Not "states' rights" in the context of anything other than slavery. That was the state right that incensed them.

Nor was it merely anger over the economic aspects of slavery. For every speech or document you can find about the economic necessity of slavery, you can find a speech or document expressing horror that blacks might rise above their station and begin carrying themselves on the streets as if they were...regular human beings.

Let us not make secession into something other than what the secessionists themselves have told us it was about. Let us not rewrite history when the documents of it lie before us.

I'll grant that Lincoln and the North did not initiate the war to abolish slavery. That point is inarguable. It has never been necessary to dwell on what motivated Lincoln. For me, the results of his actions are more important than what induced him to undertake those actions. I don't require him to be a saint or pure of motivation.

His actions created the United States that I now live in.

And my love of this country is unconditional.

When people express regret that America wasn't split asunder with a hideous apartheid state on our southern border, I can only express bewilderment.

[nate45]

That point is inarguable. It has never been necessary to dwell on what motivated Lincoln. For me, the results of his actions are more important than what induced him to undertake those actions. I don't require him to be a saint or pure of motivation.

This is it in a nutshell, you think the ends justify the means, that trampling states rights, sovereignty and the voluntary nature of the constitutional union was ok. That the deaths of 620,000 citizens of those states was worth it, worth the creation of the overbearing centralized state we have today , a state that Marx would love and Madison, Hamilton and Jay would loathe.

[Citizen Carrier]

Excuse me sir, but both sides in that conflict were prepared to let the ends justify the means.

As I've already pointed out, secession was about the preservation of slavery.

Without the desire to preserve slavery, there would have been no secession and no war.

Again, their official documents, statements and speeches, even editorial pieces in newspapers declare in no uncertain terms that the issue driving secession was slavery.

I know that this irritates people living today. People who want the romanticism. The righteousness of "the cause".

Romanticism and nostalgia is not served by dwelling on what was ultimately the craven, self-serving nature of the secession.

You'd be hard pressed to find a Confederate who upon winning the war and perpetuating a repugnant apartheid state well into the 20th Century would say that the ends did not justify the means.

And if you think Franklin, Hamilton, Adams or Washington would've been proud of our own little South Africa in this hemisphere, I think you underestimate those men.

As far as me justifying a means to an end, I'll only restate that my love of this country as it is now is unconditional. And I would not have had it any other way.

[Hugh Damright]

The 1850's started with Fugitive Slave acts. This forced everyone in the free states to become accomplices in Slavery, with the Federal government threatening fines or jail to those who did not cooperate.

The Fugitive Slave Acts were passed to enforce a provision of the US Constitution which said that runaway slaves must be returned. That is not something that began in the 1850's, but rather it is something that the States all consented to, and which the North then turned against.

The Dred Scott decision in 1856 ruled that a person could buy a slave in a slave state, then move to a free state and keep that slave as property! This Supreme Court decision, in effect, made the free states into slave states.

Dred Scott didn't change anything, it merely reaffirmed what had always been the situation. What do you imagine should have happened when a person traveled with his slave(s) into a "free state"? Should the slave have suddenly been free, able to stay in the State against his Master's will, etc? Don't you realize that the States would never have made such a compact? The Southern States did not want their slaves to be able to escape to the North and be free ... and the Northern States did not want the slaves to be able to escape to the North and be free.

Lincoln had left politics to go back to practicing law. The K-N act and then the Dred Scott decision infuriated him so that he re-entered the public arena.

It seems then that it was the US Constitution which infuriated him.

I respect Taney for his decision in Scott v Sandford, but then I expect the SCOTUS (President, etc) to follow the US Constitution as opposed to some sentiment.

[Hugh Damright]

As I've already pointed out, secession was about the preservation of slavery.

Without the desire to preserve slavery, there would have been no secession and no war.

[blah blah blah] slavery.

Why do you keep repeating "slavery" over and over? Could it be that you think that slavery was unconstitutional?? Or maybe you think that the institution of slavery was such a bogeyman that it discredits the idea of respecting a Constitution?

[Citizen Carrier]

Am I to use some sort of code word then when discussing the stated, documented reason for secession?

All I have argued here is that secession was about that institution. I am tired of people either ignoring or living in ignorance of that.

As I said, pointing that out irritates people who would rather elevate the motivations for secession to something akin to declaring independence from England.

When people declare it to be about state's rights, it is my habit to ask them what "right" in particular, by their own admission, were they willing to fight a war that claimed 620,000 people to preserve.

Somewhere around then, they point out that the "institution" was Constitutional.

At which point I ask them if it would be all right if I were able to get an amendment declaring them property.

In other words, just because somebody wrote it down on paper and said the right words over it, that don't make it right. Especially not in God's eyes.

When it comes to human bondage, waving a piece of paper in front of my face just doesn't carry a lot of weight with me.

Does it with you?

[Hkmp5sd]

Again, one must wonder where people develop this notion that secession was not first and foremost about the preservation of slavery.

Do you really think that hundreds of thousands of Southern men died so that a handfull of rich plantation owners could keep their slaves?

Slavery would have died out on its own in another 20 or so years without the war.

Lincoln stated if he could keep the Union together without freeing a single slave, he would do so.

The amount of money spent by the North to fight the war was more than enough to simply buy the freedom of every slave in the South, had that been their goal.

And the ultimate question. Why was the North so intent on having the new states be non-slave states? Not because they cared about slaves. Because in congress, slaves counted as 2/3 a person when counting how many congressmen a state had. Virtually all slave owners were Southern democrats. It was a given that slave owners in new states would also be democrats. The Northern republicans were fighting tooth and nail to prevent more democrats in the House.

[HJB]

The Fugitive Slave Acts were passed to enforce a provision of the US Constitution which said that runaway slaves must be returned. That is not something that began in the 1850's

It didn't begin in 1850 but the fugitive slave law associated with the 1850 Compromise was intended to toughen it up.

Dred Scott didn't change anything, it merely reaffirmed what had always been the situation. What do you imagine should have happened when a person traveled with his slave(s) into a "free state"? Should the slave have suddenly been free, able to stay in the State against his Master's will, etc?

Dred Scott involved a slaveowner moving to, not visiting, a free state. But in either case, I think the slave states should have respected the fact that the free states did not recognize humans as property, and should not have expected to be able to bring slaves whether visiting or relocating.

It seems then that it was the US Constitution which infuriated him.

No, there had always been a very uneasy agreement between free and slave states as to the expansion of slavery. Hence the Missouri compromise. The slave states in the 1850's pushed too hard against the free states, and then left in a huff when there was a backlash.

[HJB]

Do you really think that hundreds of thousands of Southern men died so that a handfull of rich plantation owners could keep their slaves?

John Singleton Mosby, the confederate raider, acknowledged that the war was over slavery, but that he had fought for his "country."

Soldiers fight for their country, their family, their friends. It doesn't change the fact that the central cause of the war was slavery.

Slavery would have died out on its own in another 20 or so years without the war.

Maybe, but in the prewar years, the slave states were intent on expanding it.

Lincoln stated if he could keep the Union together without freeing a single slave, he would do so.

Because he knew that as much as he hated slavery, his constitutional duty was to preserve the country.

[Webleymkv]

There are so many who have caused lasting damage to liberty: Lincoln, Hoover, FDR, Kennedy, Johnson, Clinton, Bush Jr.

But the worst President would have to have help enact the single greatest threat to liberty and do nothing constructive during his administration and none of the afforementioned fit the bill. Sooooo, the (dis)honor goes to...........

John Adams Sr. for the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_Sedition_Acts

[nate45]

Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798.

Damn, there is definitely some deep flaw within the ideology and very nature of federalists, they just cannot bring themselves to abide by the constitution.

[LanceOregon]

John Adams Sr. for the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798.

What negative effect is that law now having on our nation, 220 years later????

Many historians are now ranking Adams right up there with Washington and Jefferson in terms of his greatness.

I cannot possibly see him being a candidate for the worst President.

Even with all of the attacks on Lincoln and FDR, it appears that President Carter is clearly the most despised of them all.

And here he is the only American President to ever win a Nobel Peace Prize ( 2002 ). And actually, he rightfully should have shared in the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize as well.

.

[LanceOregon]

If states do have a right to leave the Union, then what does this say for the future of our country?

Hispanic immigration has made huge changes in many states. California will soon have a Hispanic majority. And within a couple of decades, many feel that the entire southwest, from California to Texas will primarily be Hispanic.

What is there then to stop these states from leaving the Union? This is exactly what happened in Kosovo, where illegal immigration of Albanian Muslims eventually became the majority of the local population. And now the western world has supported Kosovo leaving Serbia, and becoming a new nation.

Is this the future of the United States? To become Balkanized??? Think about it.




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[Webleymkv]

What negative effect is that law now having on our nation, 220 years later????

Many historians are now ranking Adams right up there with Washington and Jefferson in terms of his greatness.

Well, for one thing the Alien Enemy Act is still in effect (apprehension and/or deportation without due process based solely on place of birth seems kind of shaky to me). Secondly, it wasn't so much what the Alien and Sedition Acts did as what they could've done. The president was given way too much power and had Adams chose to exercise them more liberally, or had three of them not been repealed and a later, less scrupulous President decided to exercise them, tyranny could've very easily ensued. I have a feeling that Adams' favorable historical portrait has more to do with his activities during the Revolution than his presidency.

Even with all of the attacks on Lincoln and FDR, it appears that President Carter is clearly the most despised of them all.

And here he is the only American President to ever win a Nobel Peace Prize ( 2002 ). And actually, he rightfully should have shared in the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize as well.

What exactly has Carter done that's propagated world peace? Was it the talks at Camp David between Israel and Palestine? They're still fighting. Was it his hadling of the Iranian Hostage Crisis? They're still our enemy. Carter has some wonderful ideas, unfortunately most of them didn't work. I'm having a rather hard time thinking of anything Carter did that showed any lasting benefit to our country or the world at all.

[LanceOregon]

“I’d organize my list in five tiers, with the top tier being the Presidents I thought were the best in maintaining the values we find in the Constitution, and the bottom tier being those who ‘took the law into their own hands.’

So that should be the sole criteria for evaluating a President's accomplishments in office?

There are numerous very mediocre Presidents within your first tier. Including all of those that served in office the years leading up to both the Civil War and the Great Depression.

Most historians rate Kennedy, Truman, and especially Theodore Roosevelt very high in terms of their success as being President. I see no grounds at all for you to rate any of them so extremely low.

You also seem to have forgot that there have been two Presidents named Bush.

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[Webleymkv]

Most historians rate Kennedy, Truman, and especially Theodore Roosevelt very high in terms of their success as being President. I see no grounds at all for you to rate any of them so extremely low.

While I don't take issue with TR being quite good, I see Truman and Kennedy as being mediocre at best. Most of the accomplishments that Truman took credit for were already in motion before he was president. Other than being a martyr, I can't think of a single thing that Kennedy accomplished that had a lasting positive effect on our country. Matter of fact, if you look at Kennedy's arrogance and outright disdain for others in Washington before his assasaination and the conspiracy theories thereafter (regardless of their truthfulness), it could be argued that Kennedy cause lasting harm to our country. Afterall, when a President is murdered sucspiciously after such great friction between himself and the rest of Washington, it's bound to make his successors at least a bit hesitant to challenge the establishment at all. Perhaps if Kennedy wasn't so unwilling to work with anyone, our mediocre-at-best Democratic and Republican parties would be less dogmatic.

[copenhagen]

Quote:
As I've already pointed out, secession was about the preservation of slavery.

Without the desire to preserve slavery, there would have been no secession and no war.

[blah blah blah] slavery.

Why do you keep repeating "slavery" over and over? Could it be that you think that slavery was unconstitutional?? Or maybe you think that the institution of slavery was such a bogeyman that it discredits the idea of respecting a Constitution?

Same reason Al Gore keeps on talking about Global Warming. If you say something long enough, people will start to believe you...:barf:

Hispanic immigration has made huge changes in many states. California will soon have a Hispanic majority. And within a couple of decades, many feel that the entire southwest, from California to Texas will primarily be Hispanic.

What is there then to stop these states from leaving the Union?

By all means, let them go...

[LanceOregon]

What exactly has Carter done that's propagated world peace? Was it the talks at Camp David between Israel and Palestine? They're still fighting. Was it his hadling of the Iranian Hostage Crisis? They're still our enemy. Carter has some wonderful ideas, unfortunately most of them didn't work. I'm having a rather hard time thinking of anything Carter did that showed any lasting benefit to our country or the world at all.
__________________

Oops, I really had a major brain fart, and mixed up different Nobel Prizes in my head.

I was actually thinking of the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize, that was shared by Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin for the peace agreement between Egypt and Israel. Carter was very instrumental in those negotiations, and should have shared in the Peace Prize for that year too.

Egypt and Israel still remain at peace today.

It was President Clinton who was cheated in the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize. He definitely should have shared in that award. Although as you point out, the Palestinian situation is still not resolved.

When President Carter got the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, the Nobel committee listed these accomplishments:

"President Carter and The Carter Center have engaged in conflict mediation in Ethiopia and Eritrea (1989), North Korea (1994), Liberia (1994), Haiti (1994), Bosnia (1994), Sudan (1995), the Great Lakes region of Africa (1995-96), Sudan and Uganda (1999), and Venezuela (2002-2003). Under his leadership The Carter Center has sent forty-five international election monitoring delegations to elections in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. These include Panama (1989), Nicaragua (1990), Guyana (1992), Venezuela (1998), Nigeria (1999), Indonesia (1999), East Timor (1999), Mexico (2000), China (2001), and Jamaica (2002)."

I think that one can clearly argue that President Carter deserved the Nobel Peace Prize far more than Al Gore deserved getting it last year.

The Nobel committee must have been doing drugs when it made the 2007 Peace Prize choice.

.

[Webleymkv]

President Carter and The Carter Center have engaged in conflict mediation in Ethiopia and Eritrea (1989), North Korea (1994), Liberia (1994), Haiti (1994), Bosnia (1994), Sudan (1995), the Great Lakes region of Africa (1995-96), Sudan and Uganda (1999), and Venezuela (2002-2003). Under his leadership The Carter Center has sent forty-five international election monitoring delegations to elections in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. These include Panama (1989), Nicaragua (1990), Guyana (1992), Venezuela (1998), Nigeria (1999), Indonesia (1999), East Timor (1999), Mexico (2000), China (2001), and Jamaica (2002)."

None of the dates listed fall within Carter's presidency. Likewise, many of the nations listed remain shall we say "less than stable." Likewise the governments of Mexico and China remain either notoriously corrupt or shady at best.