Presidential Rankings - The Good Ones

According to Graboyes, the Somewhat Positive presidents made positive but not earth-shattering contributions.

John Adams: A great man but mediocre president.

James Madison: Another great man who proved to be a mediocre president.

Andrew Jackson: He changed American politics and governance.  He stamped out nullification.  He might have rated among the greats but for his treatment toward Native Americans.

Ulysses Grant: He criminalized the KKK, reversed course from Jackson regarding Native Americans, and sought to stabilize the dollar.  However, his administration was plagued by corruption, which stained him though he supported investigations.

Chester Arthur: Elevated to the presidency in the wake of James Garfield's assassination, Arthur reformed the Civil Service.  Here was a man who had benefited from the existing system and knew what needed to be reformed.  He also strengthened the navy and sought to improve the lot of former slaves and Native Americans.

William McKinley: Though he wanted peace with Spain, he went to war when his efforts failed.  He also strengthened Anglo-American ties.

Warren Harding: Ended the disaster that was the Wilson years - releasing some political prisoners - and began an era of prosperity.  He appointed former President Taft to the Supreme Court and his choice of Andrew Mellon for Treasury was particularly good.  He had good bipartisan relations.  However, he died in office and was stained by stories of his adultery and the Teapot Dome Scandal.

Calvin Coolidge: Harding's vice president, Coolidge was a limited government adherent, resisting efforts of the federal government to infringe on the states.  He advocated individual rights and ran a clean administration.  Ronald Reagan viewed Coolidge very highly.

Dwight Eisenhower: Ike ended the Korean War, didn't get the US entangled in Vietnam, founded the Interstate Highway System and the US Space Program.  Also, he sent troops to Little Rock to enforce desegregation.

This list comes as a bit of a surprise.  John Adams had the Alien and Sedition Acts, which infringed on the First Amendment.  That's a big negative.  He won the Quasi-War with France and was the first president to live in the White House.  Yeah, he only ranks in the somewhat positive as a lifetime achievement award.  Likewise, James Madison's presidency was mostly the War of 1812, which was mostly a disaster.  The White House was set on fire by the British.  If not for Andrew Jackson's success at New Orleans and the amazing performance of the US Navy, Madison would look much worse.  Again, his rating among the good seems like a lifetime achievement award.  I completely agree with his rating of Jackson.  Massively consequential president but also an ass.  The Democrats use the Jackass as their symbol on account of Jackson.  Like Monroe after the War of 1812, Grant had a postwar presidency though it wasn't another Era of Good Feelings.  Though he enforced Reconstruction, there were a lot of Indian Wars in the West during his presidency.  Yes, he wasn't as anti-Indian as Jackson, but he was hardly in their corner.  He might be getting the bump to somewhat positive on account of winning the Civil War.  It starts to look as though the quintile division scheme is forcing some so-so presidents upwards.  McKinley oversaw the expansion of the US into an empire.  The Spanish American War brought the Philippines and Puerto Rico as US possessions.  There was also the annexation of Hawaii.  McKinley was ambivalent about the war; Theodore Roosevelt - who was assistant secretary of the navy at the time, accused him of having the backbone of a chocolate eclair.  Harding is often ranked much lower, but his placement here is fair.  The return to Normalcy is underrated.  Coolidge and Eisenhower definitely rank toward the top of this batch.

Vice Presidential Success Rate

When the vice president becomes president, by whatever means, how does that tend to work?  Let's take a look.

First, let's consider those elected to the presidency on their merits:

1. John Adams served as the first vice president.  When George Washington declined to run for a 3rd term, Adams was elected.  His was a tumultuous presidency and not popular.  He served only one term.

2. Thomas Jefferson served as the second vice president.  Though Adams and Jefferson were on opposite sides of the political aisle of the day, the way the system worked gave the presidency to the man who received the most electoral votes and the vice presidency to the man who received the 2nd most electoral votes.  This was changed for the 1800 election so that Jefferson and Burr ran as the Democratic-Republicans against Adams & Pinkney for the Federalists.  Jefferson proved to be far more popular and successful than the president for whom he was VP.  He served for two terms and is considered one of the great presidents.

3. Martin Van Buren was Andrew Jackson's second VP.  He was elected in 1836 and was then beset by a financial panic the following year.  He only served one term.

4. Richard Nixon served as Eisenhower's VP and ran for the presidency in 1960.  He lost.  However, he ran again in 1968 and won.  Though he was reelected, his second term proved to be a national disaster thanks to Watergate.

5. George Bush was Ronald Reagan's VP for two terms.  In 1988, he ran as the 3rd Reagan term and won in a landslide.  In the wake of the Gulf War, he was so popular that most of the 'formidable' Democrats declined to run.  However, an economic downturn led him to have only the one term.

6. Joseph Biden was Barack Obama's VP for 2 terms.  Unlike most vice presidents, he did not seek election immediately after his stint as VP.  He was elected in 2020 and it is yet to be determined if he will complete a second term like Jefferson or be relegated to one-term status like most of the rest.

Next, there are those who took over in the wake of the president's death through illness.

1. John Tyler spent only a month as the VP before William Henry Harrison died of pneumonia.  Most of the papers referred to Tyler as Acting-President.  This was the first time the VP assumed the office of president and the exact workings were not settled.  Tyler established the ascension of the VP to President, not Acting-President.  He was not a popular president and did not win nomination for re-election.

2. Millard Filmore became president when Taylor died of cholera in 1850.  Having no mandate other than filling out Taylor's term, Filmore was bypassed in favor of Winfield Scott for the Whig Party.  In 1856, he ran as the Know Nothing nominee; he won 8 electoral votes.

3. Calvin Coolidge stepped in when Warren Harding died.  It was the Roaring Twenties and the country was humming.  Coolidge benefitted from the prosperity.  He was elected to a term of his own, serving from 1925 to 1929.  Coolidge declined to run for another term, thinking it would be too much for a man to serve 10 years as president.

4. Harry Truman had only been VP for a few months when FDR died.  He took the helm in the waning days of World War II and dropped the bomb.  He was nominated to continue as president in 1948 and - despite headlines to the contrary - defeated Dewey.  He had a successful presidency and is viewed quite favorably by historians.

Finally, there are the VPs who took office in the wake of a presidential assassination.

1. Andrew Johnson was Abraham Lincoln's second VP and had only served a month when Lincoln was assassinated.  He had a contentious relationship with the Radical Republicans and eventually found himself being impeached, something not to be repeated until Bill Clinton and Donald Trump.  Unsurprisingly, he did not have a term of his own.

2. Chester Arthur took office when James Garfield died.  He had lingered for a couple of months after his shooting.  Arthur was a machine politician who benefitted from the Spoils System and yet became the champion for reform when he was in office.  Though he might have secured a term of his own, Arthur was in poor health and didn't have strong support from the party.  He left office in 1885 and died the following year.

3. Theodore Roosevelt was McKinley's second VP, the first having died in office.  Like Garfield, McKinley lingered and even appeared to be recovering from the assassin's bullet.  Roosevelt took office and proved to be an active executive.  He easily secured a term of his own and even had enough popularity at the end of that term to select his successor.

4. Lyndon Baines Johnson became president when JFK was assassinated in Dallas.  In one of the most lopsided elections, he trounced Barry Goldwater in 1964 and won a term of his own.  However, the Vietnam War crushed his popularity.  He declined to run for a second term and his party lost the 1968 election.

Of the VPs elected on their merits, only Thomas Jefferson can be called a success.  President Biden will have to wait until next year to see if he joins Jefferson.  Of those to take over after a death, both Coolidge and Truman made the office their own and won re-election for themselves.  Of those who took over after an assassination, only Theodore Roosevelt fully succeeded.  LBJ was burdened with an unpopular war and a tumultuous era.

Generally, VPs do not provide strong presidential material.  Of course, that is true of most presidents as well.

No Progress beyond Equality

 Found on Instapundit today:

About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.

 

Calvin Coolidge on the 150th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence

 

Silent Cal could pack a heck of a wallop in a single paragraph.  Self-government reached its apogee with the Declaration and can only fall from that point.  It is great how he tosses out that line about totalitarian regimes that clothe themselves in the language of democracy [oops, I didn't copy that part]; the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, People's Republic of China, Democratic People's Republic of [North] Korea, Republic of Cuba, Islamic Republic of Iran, and so on.  It is a telling point that this practice persists 90 years later.

 

Interestingly, Coolidge was a contemporary with the original Progressive Movement that morphed into Liberalism and has now reclaimed the Progressive label (cf . Hillary Clinton).  Progressives want more power for government and therefore less to the people.  They want to progress back to the good old days when these pesky voters didn't demand Brexit, upend immigration (i.e. voter importation) laws, oppose Amnesty, or grouse about spending.  Government could get so much important stuff done if the rubes in flyover country would just shut up and realize it was for their own good.  Ah, the arrogance of power.