Most underrated president in american history
 

I'm watching Oliver Stone's "Nixon" right now, and have also been reading "Worst Presidents" lists online. I know we've had threads like that before, so I decided to be a little more positive.

From what I've read, other than the (HUGE) mistakes and corruption in his regime, Nixon was an excellent president. Of course, it's hard to ignore the paranoid corruption, but it's unfair to ignore his diplomatic skills (China), social works (minimum wage), and environmental issues (land usage laws).

Anyway, I'm certainly not a historian and I know that a lot of you know more about this stuff than I do, so I'd like to read your opinions. Who is your most under-rated president ever?

Damn... I saw the title and was coming in here to say Nixon myself.

I'd add William Howard Taft. He has a pretty good resume (people don't realize he launched 90 anti-trust suits, more than Roosevelt did in his 2 terms). He also wasn't one to pass the buck, or blame others for things. He was probably too straight talking to be a good politician and Roosevelt took advantage. He strengthened the ICC and promoted the 16th and 17th Amendments (income tax and direct election of Senators). He also created the Department of Labor and in a precursor to the Marshall Plan, he supporting US investing in 3rd world infrastructure to expand their economic development.

William Henry Harrison

Calvin Coolidge

Andrew Jackson

Mackenzie Allen

David Rice Atchison (who was technically president of the United States for a day, but not in power)

So is anyone going to actually explain their picks? I love history, and would like to hear people's analysis.

James K. Polk (1845-1849)

He campaigned on his strong support for westward expansion, an issue that was hotly debated and dodged by other candidates.

Even though he only served one term (which was his intent before the election), he moved swiftly to accomplish the four primary goals that he layed out before he was elected: the purchase of California from Mexico, acquisition of the Oregon boundary dispute, the reduction of tariffs, and the re-establishment of the Independent Treasury System.

He expanded the nation's boundaries with both the Oregon Territory and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hildago, which ended the Mexican-American War and added about 1.2 million square miles of land in California, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, parts of Colorado and Wyoming.

He signed a bill (the Walker Tariff), which reversed the high rates of tariffs that were in place and brought in an era of almost free trade.

He approved a law restoring the independent treasury system, under which government funds were held in the treasury, rather than in banks or other financial institutions.

So, even though Polk isn't one of our most famous presidents, he basically said "This is what I'm going to do if I'm elected" and then swiftly followed through with it. In my book, this makes him our most underrated president.

A lot of what Nixon did was under Kissinger's influence, so I'd say that invalidates Nixon as the most underrated president because Kissinger was president more than Nixon was imo.

Polk is an excellent choice and probably my vote as well, though I have a soft spot for Monroe because I think the Monroe Doctrine is the finest piece of American foreign policy in history.

Won the Battle of New Orleans, took Florida from the Spanish, survived a duel despite a bullet lodged less than an inch from his heart and won a plurality of both the popular and electoral vote in 1824 before being screwed over by Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams. As President, averted a potential secession crisis (by South Carolina of course), and survived the first assassination attempt on a POTUS when 2 guns misfired (and subsequently chased the man down and began beating him with a cane.) Most importantly he and his supporters spearheaded the extension voting rights to all free men.

He's usually just associated with brutality toward Indians, and while he certainly did do his share of it in Florida (basically Sherman's march against the Cherokees) he also fought alongside many Indians during his tenure and adopted one as his son. The Indian Removal Act, despite its name, was designed to negotiate treaties, not forcibly remove anyone from their land.

So as a President, the two main things I associate him with are the enfranchisement of citizens at the expense of the elites and westward expansion/"Manifest Destiny". The second of which is rather controversial and Jackson thus gets a lot of bad reputation by people who are uncomfortable with how this country developed. Add in his actions before he was President and I think he's fairly underrated.


On Nixon, there are two other aspects that are rarely brought up. On the positive side, for all of JFK and LBJ's talk, it was during Nixon's administration and under his control that a lot of the the actual implementation of de-segregation happened. To his credit, he could have taken a laisez-faire attitude and let the states and towns keep segregating, but he used federal power to ensure the process kept going. On the negative side, it gets overshadowed by Watergate and the OPEC embargo, but his imposition of price-controls just to win the '72 election was terrible for the country and crippled the economy so much that it took years to recover.

My two candidates are John Tyler and Andrew Johnson.


-Anxiety

We're LAUDING the guy who's responsible for the income tax?

No way.

I know, I know..it might've passed without his signature. But still...

Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?

Woodrow Wilson is extremely underrated in importance, even if one can successfully argue he isn't underrated in terms of positive achievements.

Yes, we are. For all the moaning and bitching, it's a GOOD THING. But, if you want to go without all the various benefits the federal government provides, I'm sure there are small islands out there with no governments :p.

Ulysses S. Grant

Calvin Coolidge, without a doubt.

Clinton. i don't know where he stands in conjunction to other presidents, but 8 years of peace and prosperity means a lot to me. i always like when he speaks.

I'd put in Dwight D. Eisenhower. He handled the transition to finish off the Marshall Plan, which has led to sustained peace and great prosperity for Europe, did as well as could be expected with what he was handed with the Korea situation, oversaw the transition from a war economy to one that created the largest percentage growth of the middle class in history, and also give the famous, but unheeded, accurate warning about the unhealthy rise of influence of the military-industrial complex.

He also chose not to take us into Vietnam to help the French when his own advisors were calling for it.

As Presidential tapes were released, historians became more and more enamoured with Eisenhower, and as such, he regularly makes the top ten or higher on many historian's lists. How underrated can a President be when he is rated that highly by most Presidential historians?


-Anxiety

He is highly rated by the historians, but I don't think the general public has the same view.

Dola- let's take a closer look at the subject of rating:

C-Span sent out ratings documents to 90 American President historians, which rated Presidents in a variety of categories.

Let's take a look at how some President's mentioned here fared:

Andrew Jackson - Ranked 13 - which is a fall off in the last twenty years as other Presidents creep up the list, some have to fall. They ranked him as high as 7th in Crisis Management and in Public Persuasaion but as low as 32nd among all Presidents in pursuing justice and equality.

Woodrow Wilson - Ranked 6th. It's hard to be underrated when you are ranked by historians as the 6th best President. As high as 5th in Vision and as low as 20th on equality, and I personally find that to be a generous score to the guy who segregated the federal government.

Eisenhower - Ranked 9th. Again, hard to be underrated whn you are in the top ten. Highest score, Moral Authority with a 5th overall. Lowest score was 18th in vision setting.

Nixon was mentioned earlier - 25th ranked, right in the middle of the pack. 8th overall in foreign relations down to 40th in moral authority and also low marks in congressional relations and performance within the context of the times.


Now, here were my nominees for most underrated:

John Tyler - Ranked 36th Overall

Andrew Johnson - Ranked 40th Overall

You can see why I think these might be more underrated than a guy who the historians think of a top 10 President.

If you would like to check out this information, head over to:

http://www.americanpresidents.org/survey/

-Anxiety

Are you kidding?

Mediocre general, and a poor president, in my opinion. But, if you've got something to back up your position, I'd love to read it.

I say George Washington. He doesn't get nearly the respect he deserves for the way he established deomcratic institutions.

I also have a real problem will Cooledge. Cal's devotion to business, over a balance between business and the rights of citizens, helped lead to Hoover and the Great Depression.

I would love to go without many of the "benefits" the federal governmant provides...

And don't pull the old, "if you don't like it, move" argument...

I think Andrew Johnson was OVERrated. He gets a free pass because the 'radical Republicans' (who were dedicated to equality for blacks lest we forget) went on a Crusade against him. But, IMO, there were valid reasons to impeach him. Foremost he would pardon Confederate officers (allowing them to hold office again) for social favor. It's not too far from bribery, but the other way around. He wanted to curry their favor, so he'd be accepted into their social circle.

Many? Not all? Do you think that you'd have an interstate highway system to drive on without income taxes? Do you think regulatory bodies who are responsible for making sure companies follow the pension laws would exist without income taxes?

How can you justify cutting off income taxes when you actually agree with a few things that have resulted from such taxes (as you said, 'many', not 'all')?

I'll go ahead and explain mine.

John Tyler was an accomplished politician who actually had a conscience. He was nominated as the VP in order to garner the southern vote by the Whig party and was therefore insturmental in getting Tippecanoe elected to the Presidency.

After Harrision died shortly after taking office, Tyler rose to the office of President - the first one to do so, and as such, was often unable to meet people's expectations of what a VP does when ascending. Some thought the VP should call for a new election, some thought he shouldn't do anything at all and lay low, and some thought he should do exactly what his predecessor would have done.

Today, a VP takes over, andwe expect the Veep to run things differently like Teddy and Truman and LBJ all did. However, for the first one, it was a difficult political climate without an obvious crisis to bring everybody together, so much of Tyler's bad marks are due to this issue. Add to that, Tyler was kicked out of the party and his cabinet resigned en masse (except for Webster I beleive)

The other issue with Tyler is that he was very much his own man, and did what he thought was right, Whig party be damned. The Whigs did not even nominate him for President when reelection time came up because they had literally kicked him out of the party. The Democrats nominated someone else too. He was known as the Man Without a Party, the Acting President, and His Accidency during his tenure.

Despite the difficult political time, here are some of the things Tyler still managed to do:


1). Vetoed practically the entire Whig party platform becuase he thought it was wrong for America, including the National banking Act twice.

2). Took care of the Maine-Canada issue between us and GB when each claimed land in the other's country. Not a major issue, but no one else had been able to do it.

3). Tyler was not a reactionary when many others weren't. A short economic crisis occured before his Presidency, and Congress was quick to try and pass a variety of reactionary agendas, he vetoed them, and history proved him right, btw, they were overrached and knee jerk reaction.

4). Tyler did the same thign with the military. He chose not to itervene in minor riots in Rhode Island when everybody was clamoring for massive federal intervention. They ended a few weeks later with little bloodshed, only one major engagement occured during the rebellion. Who knows what would have happened had federal soliders fired on people protesting the new state government? Incidentally, what were thse people protesting? They wanted to right to vote in RI.

5). He brought Florida into the fold as a state and laid the groundwork for Texas.


I really like how he stood up to people in both party' and told them to knock it off. BTW, this is exactly what Teddy did as well when he became VP, but the country was ready for it by then.

-Anxiety

The income tax is not the only solution. And I'm not necessarily saying you don't have any income tax either, don't think I said that anywhere in my statement.

Just making a broad statement that this formula is flawed:

federal programs = good
income tax = federal programs
federal programs = good

So many flaws in there in my mind... MANY MANY federal programs should go away, therefore the income tax or a large portion of it should go away.

He's rated 40th overall by historians. He ranks lower than William Henry Harrision, who held the office for seven weeks and spent most of that time bedridden. How is that overrated?

EDIT: Only one person ranks lower than him: James Buchanon.

-Anxiety

Ah, so basically, you are saying that you set up a strawman and then decided to knock it down? Duly noted.

I don't think anyone said every federal program was good. In fact, I even said "If you want to go without all of the various benefits the federal government provides..." (Not the "all" in the middle there).

And, in your mind, "Many" federal programs should go away, means that some should stay. Therefore some income tax should stay to pay for those. And therefore the guy who pushed for an income tax to allow the future creation of, the interstate highway system, SEC's regulatory authority, etc. should be applauded for that.

Yeah, we could do it with, say, a big ass sales tax, but then people would complain about the sales tax just as much.


You are talking relative to other President rankings. I think you may be the only one who is. Most of the people I've seen are talking about the President's absolute rating, not relative to others who have held the job.

Wow, no votes for a Bush.

There is no such thing as an "absolute rating." What hogwash. I doubt that the general public has much of a clue what happened during the Presidency's of most people in the 1800s. The only thing we have are experts, and they rank in relation to other Presidents, which is what makes sense, btw, comparing apples to apples. There is no such thing as an absolute rating.

You may admire Clinton for trying to pass a sweeping Health Care plan, and I may deride him for the same thing, but we both have to agree that it was a failure that drove the Republican elections in 1994 and casued his party to lose Congress. That's what experts do, they find the objective truth that cannot be denied. I may think they are wrong in certain places (like ranking Lincoln so highly in foreign affairs) but at least I'm also an expert (I'm a political science professor).

The concept of an absolute ranking is highly flawed. Even the experts break up the Presidentcy into 10 different categories instead of one sweeping grade, because that's the best way to do things.

-Anxiety

I think it's a little silly to try and place any President of the last 25 years in any historical context. In fact, it's probably better to wait a good 50 years and get a generation away from the presidency to really place it in proper context.

George Washington is TREMENDOUSLY under-appreciated. The trouble with all democracies is that, in order to remain democratic, they have to have periodic revolutions. Washington, by essentially inventing term limits, made for a peaceful way for that to happen.

Of course there is. People don't look at Presidents like Lincoln, Nixon, FDR in the context of other Presidents. They evaluate them seperately. They don't say, well, compared to other Presidents X is Y. They evaluate them on an absolute rating.

Hard to believe that no one so far has picked Harry Truman.

A combat soldier (artillery captain) in WWI, he was a failed businessman and later went into politics for the highly corrupt Pendergast machine in Kansas City.

BUT as a sentor he investigated corrpution in WW2 defense contracting, aving up to $15 billion, even though the President was from his own party. When he inherited the Presidency himself after FDR's death, he made the tough decision (correct, in my view) to drop the A-bomb on Japan twice.

Domestically he strengthened social security, worked for full employment, slum clearnance and public housing. He also moved Omar Bradley into the VA, where Bradley did a ton for the millions of returning veterans.

Abroad, he created the Truman Doctrine to oppose the Soviets in Turkey and Greece and launched the Marshall Progam to rebuild Europe. He managed to keep the Korean War from going nuclear and affirmed the power of civilian control when he fired the popular but megalomaniac General Douglas MacArthur.

I'd love to hear the explanation as to why Andrew Johnson was underrated.

Yes, we all know he shouldn't have been impeached. But what makes his presidency underrated?

First off, Grant was not mediocre as a general. His Vicksburg Campaign was pretty good. Remember he was leading the Union, which was full of incompetance over a well disciplined and led Conferate force. The whole war of attrition occurred because Grant was left with few other options, plus with Sherman, he did unleash a fury into the South that hadn't been seen before with the likes of Meade (who could've ended the war at Gettysburg). He /did/ succeed in wearing down the Confederacy to the point of surrender.

As for his presidency, yes it was mired in corruption, but as for Grant's integrity, I would say it was far better than Nixon's. Does that make him a good president, I don't know, but I do think he was a good general.

well this tread is about underrated presidents, not generals

Sure, if you want to believe the fearmongers who believe in big government using him as a scapegoat...

I don't think there was a single general in the Union that could hold a candle to most of the officers in the Confederacy. Grant was not entirely incompetent, but any mediocre general with the vast advantage in resources that he commanded against the undermanned, underequipped, and underfunded Confederacy would have been able to do just as well, if not better.

Oh, and he was a crap president. Unless you liked the Kevin Kline take in Wild Wild West... then I guess he was OK.

No offense intended (truly), but you clearly don't know what you're talking about. I don't have the time right now to devote to this subject, but trust me, I'd like to discuss it further.

This is one of the main reasons why I think he is the most underrated president. Most everyone has the exact same response that you do. Again, I don't have the time to throw at this right now, but let me challenge you to tell me why he was so crappy.

Boy, you really softened the blow there Coug.

Hilarious. :D

Despite his boldness at Vicksburg, he still outnumbered Pemberton. And even then, he only succeeded in starving him out.

As for his Presidency, the buck stops with him and Johnson when it comes to reconstruction. I could go on, but like you said, we both probably have better things to do.

Going into why I think he was underrated would require a long sidestep into Reconstruction, and that's not really cogent, plus I don't want to spend an hour today talking about Reconstruction. He was no Lincoln of course, and I think that Lincoln's death allowed his enemies in his own party, and ravenous Northern liberal, who Lincoln was able to keep at bay with his political acument and moral authority, were able to come out and attack Johnson for all of the things that they were unable to hurt Lincoln for.

However, I think Johnson was right on many of his decisions, history has proven him right is many things, and based on speeches and letters, many historians believe that Lincoln would have followed a similar path in his attitude towards Reconstruction that got Johnson is so much trouble. Again, I want to dodge Reconstruction, so I am just mentioning it there, and moving on.

I did defend my Tyler pick, though :)

-Anxiety

Oh, and Johnson was muc better at foreign affairs than he is noramally ranked by experts too:

Johnson on International Relations by the experts: 37th

I'd put him 20th or so (Alaska Purchase, negiotiated thge purchase of the Dutch West Indies but the Senate blocked it, forced the French out of Mexico, wanted to settle the Alabama dispute with Great Britain but, again, the Senate kept him out). That alone would jump him up several places int eh President chain and show him as underrated.

-Anxiety

Millard Fillmore

?

When he was President, defense spending accounted for like 70% of federal spending. Today it's about 15%. Meanwhile federal assistance programs like welfare, Medicare, Social Security went from about 15% to around 70% of federal spending. Say what you will about whether those programs are a good thing, but it's pretty hard to argue that the "military-industrial complex" has been taking over federal government since Eisenhower talked about it.

Al Gore.

I mean, the man invented the internet for crying out loud.

Wow, the brilliance of the Vicksburg campaign was that the Confederacy did not have fewer troops in the theater. Grant was worried that if the Confederate generals united, he would be hard pressed to defeat them all.

Chattanooga was another brilliant battle that he won, and what about his bold strokes at Fort Henry and Fort Donaldson that opened the way into the heart of the South?

He most definitely was not a mediocre general, and many of the foremost thinkers in strategy such as Fuller and Hart rank him very highly among generals, he is considered the first "modern" general.

David Palmer.

Definitely not Charles Logan.

I would like to hear someone's take on Reconstruction, in one of my African American History classes at OSU I think the professor said something like Johnson abandoned the newly freed slaves and she basically had negative views on him. I dont exactly remember but I think it was something like he went against Lincoln's plans for radical reconstruction. Maybe I have it wrong but if someone has time I would appreciate your opinion and/or clearing up this issue for me.

Not hard for me to believe. Truman consistently ranks high on most every list I've ever seen rating presidents. He was ranked 5th in the link given in this thread. Hard for me to call him underrated.

As for Grant and his general abilities others have mentioned, I think some people need to revisit some Civil War Material.

I don't and I won't. FN is simply a f'n moron. So there.

Anybody who thinks that Lincoln was going to be a hard lined radical in Reconstruction and not lenient hasn't done their research:


1. During his Presidency, Lincoln vetoed a proposed Reconstruction plan passed by radical Republicans. (Wade-Davis Bill)

2. Lincoln proposed, near the start of the war, a very lenient Reconstruction plan, which ultimately his own party did not approve.

3. There are numerous letters and parts of his speeches where he advocates a swift return to good standing as long as certain rights, like voting, are given to freed slaves. He did not believe in vengeance.


Neither did Johnson, btw. Johnson was one of the few southern politicans who did not join the south in their secession, and he condemned them for it. One of the problems the North had with Johnson was that he was Southerner in charge of Reconstruction. Imagine that. Right after a people rebell against you and you fight a bloody war, one of them becomes your President and is in charge of bringing back the rebels, and he is more lenient than many are clamoring for. That is a political challenge so tough that its no wonder Johnson had difficulty.

-Anxiety

Dola - for more information about Lincoln and what he would've done under Reconstruction, look a the Wade-Davis Bill he vetoed:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wade-Davis_Bill


-Anxiety

I don't think it YOU that have it wrong. They teach a lot of crap in colleges, esp. being filtered from on viewpoint or agenda (red or blue, black or white, or what have you).

The Johnson Years basically boiled down to whether you let the Southern Democrats become representatives or not. Under the guise of the 14th Amendment, the political ploy by the too-powerful Sen. Thaddeus Stevens was to ensure he had the deck stacked for the Radical Reps and against the Southern Dems (by imposing strict, unconstitutional conditions for their re-admission). Johnson tried to stop him and restore the balance of power but he lost the will of the people in the tug-of-war. That does not make Johnson underrated, imo, for he really did not know how to effectively govern and form a much-needed coalition. That was Lincoln's genius, despite the odds against him.

Well, one must also distill among the garbage that gets heaped at the Radical Republicans who are portrayed as evil incarnate who just wanted to go horrible things just for spite. The thing that gets lost in all of this is that Radical Republicans were very, very strong for equal rights for blacks. They really wanted Civil Rights given to blacks and even overrode Johnson's veto of the Civil Rights Act of 1866.

It wasn't "equal" right but "more" rights. As an abolitionist, I strongly favor that war and total destruction of the Southern economy to make emancipation mean something. Much of the post-Lincoln Radical Rep agenda was motivated by spite in the occupied territories of the South and freed slaves were used as a pawn to further their agenda of ensuring a stacked deck because there were many other pro-Radical Rep agendas than the black votes. While I think the reason, for the most part, was right, the methods were wrong because in the end, it pretty much reversed itself (with the Jim Crow laws and societal enslavement). While I did not read the article linked above, I have always believed that if they didn't try to build up so much animosity during the Johnson term, the reconstruction may have gone a little bit better. Or something like that.

Thanks, Ive always been intrigued by that period of time.

Without a doubt, Polk.

Leaving out the recent presidents (and I'm going to define that as post-Nixon) on that Historians Survey, none of them jumped out at me as being particularly underrated. Most of the rankings seemed to fit reasonably well.

However - Lyndon Johnson at #10? That's way overrated by the historians, IMHO.

As for public perception - I would agree with Polk. I think the historians had Polk in pretty much the right spot, but that's a period of history that I don't think the public thinks much about.

Andrew Johnson - sorry, but he was pretty close to as ineffective as any president in history.

I would say Polk. I would say not only was Johnson overrated, but Kennedy was as well. I think a lot of the reason why Kennedy is so lionized is that he died in office, and he represented the hopes and dreams of that generation. I do think Kennedy is in the top 15 though. Wilson is another one that I think was overrated.

My top 5, not that anyone asked:
Lincoln
Washington
TR
Truman
Reagan

Oh PLEASE! This has to be backed up by something more than your statements, its just so ludicrous! The Radical Republicans were very progressive on race, but not so much that blacks were to be given more rights than whites. Not every white was tarred as a Confederate officer (and thus stripped of the oppertunity to run for office). They may have been given more rights than former Confederate officers or those who refused to swear allegance to the US, but the goal was equal rights to all other whites.


Seeing how the Klan began in 1866, I think the only thing that could be done to create equality was to crush the South. Jim Crow laws would have happened even under Lincoln's plan for reconstruction, and probably quicker. In one of Grant's best acts, he crushed the Klan in 1870, but it shows how the South wasn't simply going to say, ok you guys won, free the blacks if we were nicer.

And some of the Radical Republicans were very interesting figures in history. Here is what wiki has to say on Thaddeus Stevens' death:

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

Thanks Isiddiqui very interesting, Ill have to read up on him.

That is interesting. Good find!


-Anxiety

Imran, you misread and I didn't make the statement clear. When I said "more rights", I meant more than what they had before (not more than equal). In that society, there was no way they were going to get equal rights enforced, even if they had it on paper. Northerners, as well as Southerners, viewed the freed slaves with contempt (except for a few token do-gooders, as long as they had the few articulate ones to point to) and no way were they going to have rights to employment and property in competition with the whites, esp. the immigrants that were pouring in. They allowed them to set up their own communities, churches and businesses as long as they didn't compete with the whites. The Radical Rep favored segragation as long as they could play their political games.

Thanks for all the great info in this thread. It's been great to read.

Sorry... now I understand what you say, but I disagree with your end analysis. In all of US history, I think the Radical Republicans were with the Founders in that their main aim was a moral one over a political one (though both had political aims, I'm not saying that wasn't there). Yeah, the Radical Republicans wanted to keep Republican majorities in Congress, but IMO, they probably would have sacrificed that if they could guarentee equality for blacks. Sumner, on his deathbed, whispered to those there to make sure to pass his Civil Rights Bill. Stevens, as I've pointed out, wanted to be buried in the only mixed race cemetary in his hometown. I think we've become very cynical due to modern politics, but I do not think the Radical Republicans necessarily deserve such cynicism.

I don't think they'd favor segregation at all in the slightest. The Liberal Republicans probably would (who outnumbered the Radicals), but not the Radicals, and at the very least not the leaders of the Radical Republicans. They also realized that the only way to get equality for blacks was to destroy the South and then rebuild it because the unequalness was embedded in the society.

While Johnson was a southerner that didn't support secession, it had nothing to do with his views on blacks. He detested them, and didn't support any kind of rights for them whatsoever. He abhorred slavery and the civil war because he thought it was nothing but poor southern men fighting for the rich plantation owners.

"He vigorously suppressed the Confederates and spoke out for black suffrage, arguing, "The better class of them will go to work and sustain themselves, and that class ought to be allowed to vote, on the ground that a loyal negro is more worthy than a disloyal white man." [Patton p 126]"

This was in 1862. Before Lincoln even took a stand in the Emancipation Proclaimation.

-Anxiety

Additionally;

"Second was the issue of which blacks should be given the right to vote. The conservatives believed none of the slaves had the experience to make them good voters. The moderates like Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson wanted some to get the vote, especially army veterans. Thus Lincoln proposed giving the vote to "the very intelligent, and especially those who have fought gallantly in our ranks." [Gienapp, p. 155]"


-Anxiety

And of course the radicals wanted all to get the vote :D.

Some more info:

"The Radicals said the only way to get experience was to get the vote first, and they passed laws allowing all the male freedmen to vote. In 1867, African American men voted for the first time"

This was the Radical view, whereas Lincoln and Johnson more moderate, wanting to grant suffrage to lesser numbers, as quoted above, beliveing that freed slaves should get education before being able to vote.

In 1873, "Many local black leaders started emphasizing individual economic progress in cooperation with white elites, rather than racial political progress in opposition to them, a conservative attitude that foreshadowed Booker T. Washington. [Foner pp 545-7]"

And then, of course:

"Booker T. Washington, who grew up in West Virginia during Reconstruction, concluded that, "the Reconstruction experiment in racial democracy failed because it began at the wrong end, emphasizing political means and civil rights acts rather than economic means and self-determination."


-Anxiety

Of course they did. Note it was absolutely in their political best interest to keep power by having a hwole new class of voters voting their way. Take a look at the radical bill that Lincoln vetoed that I linked to earlier to see what they really wanted. 50% Oath of Fealty from voters, and those who fought in the Civil War were unable to swear the Oath. Many states would be unable to meet that criteria because over half of voters fought in the war and would be unable to swear the Oath. Crazy


-Anxiety

Having their moral beliefs coincide with political gain is no vice. Of course blacks would vote Republican because, after all, who freed them? However, that should not be confused with the Radical Republicans only wanting to give blacks the vote because of that. The radicals strongly believed in equal rights for blacks, which made them a minority even among Republicans.

And the Wade-Davis Bill was only an angry response to Lincoln's 10% Plan:

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



Also recall, that the Wade-Davis Bill was passed in 1864, before the Civil War ended (and Lincoln's 10% plan was proposed as the Civil War was ongoing). This was BEFORE the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments were passed, leading to realistic fears of backsliding. Also it must be pointed out that the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments were wholeheartedly pushed by the Radical Republicans. The 13th for many years by some radicals.

I agree completely. I never said that they did it sollely for political gain, because there is no way of knowing so that would be bad history. I merely pointed out that there was significant gain to be had.

And your pointing out the Ten Percent Plan is just further evidence of my point that Lincoln was no radical. He was a moderate. Only Lincoln could pull it off, however, for the time demanded no moderation. Even the Emancipation Proclaimation didn't free all slaves, just those in the rebelling states. Other states still were allowed to have slaves (I beleive they were Kentucky, Missouri and Maryland, but I don;t remember for sure)

-Anxiety

Right... I'm the moron who disagrees because a general with superior numbers and better equipment SHOULD win a war, and not necessarily being praised just because his predecessors lost their lunch to superior Confederate tacticians.

Grant changed the way that wars were fought, with quick strikes, unrelenting attacks, and coordinated campaigns encompassing several theaters of combat - but he also had the resources to do so.

Honestly - do we praise Schwarzkopf for crushing Iraq in Desert Storm? We shouldn't - he just did his job. He had a vastly superior force, and anything short of what he did would have been unacceptable.

I think Grant pretty much falls into the same category. He did his job well - but to me, a great general is one who manages victory when nothing but defeat seems possible. That was hardly the case with the Union, and if you really disagree, you're the f'n moron.

"Of all the dangers which our nation has yet encountered, none are equal to those which must result from success of the current effort to Africanize the southern half of the country."

http://www.juntosociety.com/uspresidents/ajohnson.html

Johnson attacked anti-Catholic prejudice and championed religious freedom but filled his own political speeches with vile racist language against blacks.

http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/chron...s/johnson.html

Like most white Southerners of his time, Johnson was a racist who believed whites should have firm control over society and government.

http://www.appomattoxcourthouse.com/...ntjohnson.net/

No one is saying Lincoln was a radical. Yes, he was a moderate, and it is my contention that getting shot was the best thing for Lincoln's 'legacy'. Lincoln would have had some contentious times with his Congress. Thaddeus Stevens was just as popular as Lincoln, if not more, before the assasination. Lincoln, however, could, and had, worked with the Congress. It wouldn't have been even half as acrimonious as with Johnson (and Lincoln probably wouldn't have pardoned so many Confederate Officers).

However, I think Lincoln's plan for reconstruction was flawed and off base. If it had succeeded, I doubt we'd have a 14th or 15th Amendment. At least not until, perhaps, 100 years later, if that.


Not even that far. Just in the rebelling AREAS... areas of former Confederate states that had been taken over by Union forces were not required to free their slaves. It was a good political move by Lincoln to not alienate the places already conquered while trying to mess up areas yet to be conquered... and keep the Brits and French out of the war.

Guderian wasn't a great general to you? How about Napoleon? I find that your view is not the prevalent one. Generals who introduce innovative tactics or strategy are considered 'great generals' by most military historians. Grant's techniques have led him to be considered as the first 'modern' general and I think would qualify.

As the military history, J.F.C. Fuller says about Grant:

"the greatest general of his age and one of the greatest strategists of any age."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_S._Grant

True, and I don't want to do the research but I wonder if WV would have counted then or not.

-Anxiety

I really don't know much one way or another here, but isn't this going a little overboard? Or is really considered a better General than Lee and one of the greatest of all-time?

Monroe 7th in International Relations? No way. He's in the top 3. I can definitely see the case being made for FDR and GW going 1-2, but none of the rest of them top Monroe for the #3 IR spot IMO.

I was beginning to change my views about Johnson until larrymcg421's quotes. They seem to be contradictory to the ones Anxiety supplied. Is there any clear picture on his views and attitudes?

My mind is a little fuzzy on this and I can't check it because I am at work, but Fuller felt that Lee was a good general, but he did not know how to exploit any of his victories. He was also scathing in his critique of Gettysburg where Lee did not rein in Stuart.

On the flip side, Grant wanted to push on south after Fort Donaldson, but Halleck wouldn't allow it. He wanted to push on after Vicksburg, but Halleck split up the army. It wasn't until after Chattanooga that Grant was able to do what he wanted and allow Sherman to march into Georgia, and even that was a delayed for a while.

Grant knew what his advantages were and what he needed to do to win the war. So he pushed that advantage. He was also able to adapt, after Cold Harbor, which he admitted was a mistake, he swore he would not send his troops in unsupported frontal assaults again.

Lee had no clear idea of what he needed to do to win the war. He also never won a battle in which he was on the strategic offensive during the entire war. He won battles on the tactical offensive, but never the strategic offensive.

I think FDR is the most overrated president in history. Yes, he is a top 10 president. However, if he is rated 1 or 2 in International Relations, he is way too high. Read Fuller's Military History of the Western World (I think that is the title) Vol. 3 and see where he absolutely lambastes FDR regarding the Big Three conferences and giving up Central Europe to the Russians. He has a good point because if we had gone into Berlin and Prague which we could have, the Cold War would have been altogether different and more in our favor...

Again, as I mentioned before, I think this is a reflection of the historians taking the survey. Their father's generation revered FDR as the one who got us out of the depression. He deserves a lot of credit for that, but some of his conduct during and leading up to WWII is questionable. Heck, you want to talk about someone engineering a war, it is FDR. We were basically at war with Germany in the summer of 1941 in the Atlantic, firing on and being fired at by submarines. I agree with what he did, but he did everything he could do to get us into WWII.

I won't go so far as saying Grant was the greatest general of all even though he may have been the most intelligent general in American history. Lee had one brilliant gift: to be able to anticipate the weaknesses of his opponent. That right there can win many battles for you. But Lee's weakness were 1) he couldn't adapt to the new style of warfare that the Civil War brought with its technologies (he fought in the Napoleanic style) and 2) he wouldn't strategize outside of his theatre. By the time Lee learned what Washington learned after the the NY battles (that smaller force must fight on the defense), it was too late. Both generals had their strengths and weaknesses but overall, Grant knew what it would take to win (having superior resources does not guarantee victory, i.e., Amer Rev) - from gaining strategic points early on in the war and from coordinating multi-theatre offensives later in the war.

That was the exact point I was going to make. Lee was a great tactician in battle, but not a partically good strategist. Grant, OTOH, was good in both aspects. He was probably the best strategist of the Civil War (maybe Winfield Scott was his equal, but Scott never saw the field) and had the first coordinated assault over multiple theaters of battle in the Civil War as part of his strategy. He also showed himself to be a pretty good tactician in Vicksburg and in his manuvering in the Overlands Campaign (though Cold Harbor was a horrid mistake... but Grant recovered from that and resolved to manuver around Lee into better position instead of retreating as previous Union commanders would have done).

Probably Lyndon B. Johnson.

Every now and then you guys make me realize my idea that I'm a Civil War "buff" is not even close to true...

I love reading these discussions between the real buffs...

Grant’s brilliance as a military commander can be seen on multiple levels. As a grand strategist, he grasped what was necessary to defeat the Confederacy as an entity and then put the required assets into place to do it. That was by no means as simple as it sounds.

As a campaign strategist, his Vicksburg and Overland campaigns are widely regarded for their brilliance and are still used as examples in military education. To say that the capture of Vicksburg was only the result of superior forces and ended only with the starving out Pemberton’s garrison is, frankly, ignorant. Read a few of the excellent campaign histories available on the subject and then get back to me. As for the Overland Campaign, Lee himself recognized that it was only a matter of time once Grant’s strategy began to unfold. Plus it’s imperative to keep in mind that one of Grant’s primary objectives in that campaign was to pin Lee’s army down and bleed it while Sherman undertook his operations in the deep south. Toss in the operations to capture Forts Henry & Donelson, and the Chattanooga campaign (turning disaster into victory), and you’ve got a pretty damn successful strategist.

Tactically, I think Grant’s best asset was his ability to rapidly respond to the ever-changing situations on the battlefield with a clear sense of what had to be done. His orders were prompt and clear. His awareness and “vision” of the battlefield, the terrain, and the positions of the armies was at times almost spooky. When problems arose – usually due to the blunders of inferior subordinate commanders – he plugged the gaps, rallied his troops, and salvaged success from disaster. Fort Donelson and Shiloh are the two obvious examples, but Champion Hill (Vicksburg campaign) is another one. In the east, Spotsylvania was a near miss (almost blind luck that Lee was able to grab the town before Grant’s troops got there), and trace Lee’s breakout attempts during the siege of Petersburg to see how well Grant responds to those.

Finally, he was never daunted by the threat of defeat. He was not afraid to lose. When rebuffed, he continued to press on toward the overall goals of the campaign or the war as a whole.

Not really.


-Anxiety

That's the ironic thing about Johnson's presidency. He was expected to act one way, but then he flip-flopped on the key Reconstruction issues. Thus the impeachment proceedings.

I'll step into the fray a little since the thread has successfully veered into Civil War discussions. I'm somewhere between Coug/Bucc and FN. IMO, Grant was a great strategist, but seemed occasionally lacking on the battlefield itself. He could recognize what his goals were and what steps he thought he needed to take, but his results occasionally were a mess. He also had a tendency for being sucker-punched (Shiloh, Chickamaugua) when he wasn't ready for it.

Vicksburg is probably his best campaign as he managed to successfully outflank his opponent from an unexpected direction (floating past Vicksburg and then invading interior Mississippi from the southwest), then winning a succession of battles that bottled up the opponents in the city.

As for his Overland campaign, his grand design was brilliant on paper (three-pronged assault in central Virginia, the Shenandoah Valley, and the Peninsula), but was not very well handled, mainly due to the commanders and the command structure imposed. Remember, Grant was not actually in direct control of the Army of the Potomac when Lincoln elevated him. He was at a higher position and Meade was still commander of that army. Problem was, Burnside and his 9th Corps couldn't be part of that structure because Burnside technically outranked Meade, so Grant kept the two forces split and tried to manage both to bad effect. Combine that with the fact that just about every corps commander in the AoP was worthless during the campaign (along with Sigel screwing up in the Valley and Butler screwing up down on the James) and the results were lost races to critical junctions (Wilderness, Spotsylvania) , bloody assaults that were ineffectual, and missed chances (because Lee himself was also making mistakes). Grant also didn't do a very effective job managing Sheridan and his cavalry, which he almost allowed to work too independently as a raiding force rather than a recon force, which might've saved him some grief at critical points.

Still, Grant was not a "butcher" as had been much characterized. Grant always sought to maneuver Lee out of position and it was Lee who managed to keep up and usually forced battles when Grant didn't want them. Once the conflagrations erupted, Grant wasn't given to half-measures, though, and tried slugging it out, usually with bloody results and not much to show for it. Still, he recognized that time and numbers were on his side, so he was willing to keep maneuvering, looking for that battle that would finally break everything open, though it never came and eventually resulted in the stalemate at Petersburg.

Interesting comments, Wolfpack.

One minor quibble: Grant was not in command at Chickamauga. That was the Army of the Cumberland, under Rosecrans and - famously - Thomas (The Rock of Chickamauga).

Right, right. For whatever reason, I always put Chick/Chatt together so I tend to think the players were the same on both. Still, he did take a beating at Shiloh because he wasn't ready for it. Could also argue that Wilderness was a similar sucker punch because Grant was too busy trying to get through to think that Lee was going to suddenly drop on his flank and bust him up like he did.