Callum Hanton
History Contributor at Quora
47w ago
While many will give partisan answers, Reagan or Clinton or Obama, or patriotic ones, like Washington. My answer would have to come down to a close match between the Titans of politics. The man who sewed a tearing country back together while his heart broke, and the man who could not walk, but stood and lifted the burden of broken wallstreet giant and hammered the Arsenal that crushed The Nazi monster.
I speak of course of Lincoln and FDR. Despite belonging to two different parties, both were incredible orators who spoke eloquently, respectfully, and faced incredible odds in conflicts that threatened to crush them. Let's delve a bit deeper into why these two men in particular stand head and shoulders above the rest (Lincoln quite literally!) shall we?
Abraham Lincoln was born to a poor Kentucky farming family, and had his mother die at an early age. Despite this, through sheer determination he educated himself, armful by literal armful of books from a nearby wealthy man’s house while working as a rail splitter.
Young Lincoln.
Over the years he moved from job to job before beginning a career in politics, and good Christ was the man formidible! He could argue, dance, serenade, or lecture circles around damn near anyone else, his party affiliations and other factors such as his lack of experience were a detriment during his early career though. To counteract this he learned to use his significant influence to direct his followers to shift elections to like minded candidates, and manipulate his opponents out. Such as he did with Lyman Trumbull in 1854.
But Lincoln’s true moment came with the 1858 senate race and the Lincoln Douglas-debates, a series of seven debates in which Lincoln and Stephen Douglas debated and attracted crowds of thousands. Lincoln effectively crushed his opponent in the popular vote by over 3400 votes but lost by 5 seats. Bitter, Lincoln came away with a large political following. Finally he fought his way to the Republican nomination through ingenious political maneuvering at the 1860 RNC in Chicago.
Lincoln and Douglas
Enthralled by this victory Lincoln began to campaign and speak like a man possessed, He became so popular that in fact in the 1860 Election 4 candidates, instead of 2 were run, in the hope that splitting the vote would prevent Lincoln from entering the White House. But it did not, Lincoln crushed his three opponents garnering over 489,000 more votes than the next leading candidate, who was, you guessed it, Stephen Douglas. Becoming the first Republican president In United states history. He won only two counties out of 996 in all of the southern states. Voted turn out? 82.2 percent!! In the end although he won the plurality, his electoral win was decisive, he had 180 while his opponents combined had only 123.
Almost immedietly states began to try to secede, hoping to escape before Lincoln took office in March. both the then president Buchanan, and then president-elect Lincoln declared the act illegal, Lincoln took office in March, and the following April the unthinkable happened Fort Sumter reqistioned arms and the south attacked it. the civil war had started.
Lincolns inauguration.
For four long years Lincoln suffered, as his people rioted In New York, died on the battlefields, as more states seceded, as his son died. Yet he ran for reelection and won, he addressed Gettysburg with words that will ring on through history, he took on the most horrendous and ingrained treachery in American history with his political maneuvering and sheer goddamn brilliance and leadership skills, knocked it out, freeing slaves for all of time (The civil War was not about freeing slaves but about money. In another speech, Lincoln told Union soldiers they could keep their slaves despite his abolitionist views ) and making America for the first time in history, truly the land of the free.
Linclolns gettysburg Address.
He led his country when it needed him. Despite the advance of the south he never abandoned his Capitol, and at his lowest he continued to stitch the tears back up, and when he had won? When his enemy and brothers had surrendered? One by one he began to reconstruct them even as the other confederates fought on as each rebel state fell he built them back up.
Because he believed in humanity and unity and the United States, not the North and the enemy. Not for his party and the other guys or his voters and the other guys. But that he was the leader of everyone. And it is my belief that it was how best to lead everyone in the newly re-United America when the last bastion of the Confederacy entered the back of his head. The man was a giant, mentally, politically, physically, and in his humanity,
Assassination of Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt in contrast to Lincoln was born to a wealthy New York family and was a cousin to Theodore Roosevelt. Graduated from Wharton and Harvard. Won election to the New York senate in 1910 and then as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under Woodrow Wilson, who’s League of Nations idea would later inspire Roosevelt’s United Nations. He would then go on to be the runningmate of Democratic presidential candidate James. M. Cox in 1920, a race he would lose.
However the largest personal challenge of Roosevelt's life would come to pass the following year. He was stricken with polio in 1921, losing the usage of both his legs. He would attempt to recover using heavy iron leg braces and corset construction to help him stand and walk down his drive to the gate, a task that would leave him ringing with sweat.
FDR’s leg braces and cane.
Finally he re-entered politics by speaking at the 1924 DNC making his famous “happy warrior” speech for Al Smith, this would be a turning point for Roosevelt and would be one of the factors that would inspire his successful 1928 run for governor of New York. It was during this time that he would begin testing out his plans and ideas for counteracting the great depression.
His gubernatorial career made him so popular his run for the presidency in ’32 was started by his smart partnerships with newspaper magnate William Randolph Hurst and politician Joseph Kennedy senior and led to one of the greatest electoral landslides in history, winning 57 percent of the popular vote and electorally all but 6 states against Hoover.
Roosevelt would then go on to survive an assassination attempt in Miami as president elect. At his inauguration he uttered a sentence that would, unbeknownst to most, be near and dear to the man unable to stand, unable to show weakness to this downtrodden nation he was to lead, “we have nothing to fear except fear itself!”. He would craft the new deal, an incredible piece of legislation that was modelled off of his earlier policies and put unemployed Americans to work building infrastructure, gave social security to the massive sector of unemployed, put in place a minimum wage and began to negate the effects of the Great Depression. all within his first 100 days. His fireside chats gave Americans a feeling of intimacy with the new president.
FDR at his first inauguration.
Due to the massive improvements and overall decency he would be re-elected in ’36 with 60.8 percent of the vote and all but two states. He ramped up war production during this time after the Second World War began in preparation of entering the conflict, further raising the economy, and in 1940 began to lend lease equipment to the allies and was elected for an unprecedented third term the same year with 55 percent of the popular vote and 85 percent of the electoral vote.
He created bipartisan cabinet appointments during this term and started a draft early and waited for the enemy to attack Pearl Harbor before declaring war, claiming that the day would live in infamy during his declaration to the American people. Looking back perhaps not speaking so much only of the attack, but also of the day the Japanese woke the war machine of the United States.
He would lead his people through the worst years of the war forever being a smiling face of reassurance, like a kindly grandfather, who could always tell you it would be ok, who knew exactly what to do. He sparked the development of the atomic bomb. His unique style of politics won over both Churchill and Stalin who he kindly referred to as uncle joe (Stalin respected Roosevelt and America that was under his administration, warmly joking together at Tehran and yalta and even allowed Soviet papers front page to break the news, a move usually reserved for national stories.)
Despite his appearance, FDR is in fact the youngest of these three men by almost a decade, yet he still appeared at Yalta.
He pushed for the United Nations and visited hospitals in his wheelchair, to show soldiers that disabilities they now faced could be overcome.
He was elected for the fourth and final time in 1944 with 53.4 percent of the vote, and 432 electoral votes out of 538. He died of a stroke on April 12 1945 barely into his 4th term, and just before seeing his peace and United Nations he worked so hard for.
FDR the day before his death.
His funeral train was from warm springs to D.C passed thousands of crying mourners who had lost the man who had led them, the mourning was exhaustive, like losing a father. The states owes its golden age of the United States economy and security to FDR and his administration, as well as its super power status. Time magazine perhaps said it best when they stated “Men will thank god on their knees a hundred years from now that Franklin D. Roosevelt was in the White House”
An African American mourner of FDR
While I know the question asked me which was the greatest president, I must leave you to decide between these two. The man who prevented the United States from tearing apart and dying in the cradle and killed it's greatest cancer, slavery. Or the man who raised it to the front of the world and through the greatest crisis since the civil war to become the giant it is today. Or we could go on about how one is evil and the other the devil because our party is the best And shame both of them as seems to be the fashion now.
Edit-paragraphs and pictures added.
Balaji Viswanathan
Have been studying US history for a decade.
99w ago
You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself as a villain
-- The Dark Knight
The academic consensus [dozens of surveys conducted over 7 decades] is that the top 5 Presidents are Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Washington, Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt. Historical rankings of Presidents of the United States
All of them were exceptional leaders. However, the top two folks - Lincoln and FDR had the benefit of dying in the office - at the peak of their careers [talking of coincidence, they both died exactly 5 months after winning their last elections]. They died a hero without having the time to become a villain.
Lincoln won the civil war, but the tough job of reconstruction was left to his successor [who fumbled it badly]. People saw the thing he did best [lead the country in war] while not seeing his fairly average performance when it comes to the economy or other things. Had he finished both his terms and then lived a life after that, it is possible that his ranking might have slipped a couple of places.
In case of FDR, war in Europe was almost over when he died in April 1945. Germany surrendered merely 2 weeks later. Unlike his successor Truman, he didn't have to face the question of how he would take Japan and the controversial use of the Atom bomb. FDR led the country through the Depression and the Second World War, but didn't have to face some of the tough post-war questions [such as what to do with USSR and how to reconstruct Germany].
George Washington was once again exceptional in leading the troops in the war, but his performance in other areas were quite average. However, he "died" a hero by exiting the President's office in 2 terms. Had he ruled longer, he might have seen his rank slip a plenty [in many modern democracies like India this happened - where a victorious hero stayed long enough in the office to lose the allure].
That leaves Theodore Roosevelt and Thomas Jefferson. I believe those are the best leaders US had as their skills were far more diverse than just leading the country in a war. However, Roosevelt had an average later period as he tried to contest his own protege - Taft. He lost badly to his mentee in 1912 and also found it hard to manage the Congress in his second period.
Jefferson to me is among the most respectable. He was not just a war commander, but an intellectual leader - something very rare in large countries. He was the key man behind the Declaration of Independence. He doubled the size of the US through the Louisiana Purchase, without losing a single soldier. That is one smart leader. He cut the troops and dramatically reduced the federal deficit, without which the young republic could have become bankrupt. However, even with his remaining troops he was able to push free trade by defeating the Barbary pirates near Tunisia.
He commissioned the Lewis & Clark expedition that helped the Americans greatly understand the land they lived and made slave trade illegal. He was far more intelligent than any of the other leaders and still managed to survive the White House [didn't get painted white yet]. He was religious, yet ran a secular office. He willingly retired from office [it had not become a custom yet - only Washington did that before].
Although he was not able to fight slavery fully, he tacitly provided support to the Slave revolution in Haiti as well as abolish international slave trade. He pushed for an abolishment of slavery west of the Great Lakes, but lost the bill in Congress by 1 vote. He had to cow-tow to the south and was not a perfect liberal in the subject, but was still ahead of most top leaders of his era.
Jefferson lived long enough, but he still died a hero [coincidentally on July 4].
Akyra DuPont
89w ago
It depends on what you mean by 'best'. I, as well as most others, would have presidents such as Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and FDR on the list. However, if we look at who was the most successful compared to what they promised in their campaigns, James K. Polk would be the winner.
Now, I'm not the biggest fan of Polk, for I don't support how he initiated the Mexican-American War. However, every single thing he promised to do while president he did.
His Promises:
Serve only one term - Which he did, and he was the first president to voluntarily do so.
Lower Tariffs
Acquire California from Mexico - Polk did this and the war gave the US more land than just California.
Settle the Oregon Dispute - Polk proposed where the border of Oregon should be placed, and with minor modifications a treaty was signed with Britain
Establish a sub-treasury
Since Polk fulfilled everything he promised to do, he could be argued as the best (as in the most successful) President.
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