Top Ten Best Presidents
David Letterman has his top 10s, I have mine....
B"H
Top Ten Lists are by necessity very subjective. This one is no exception. But as a longtime presidential trivia buff, I feel qualified to judge the presidents on their contributions to society and the world.
Why I wrote this lens
I'm a presidential trivia buff. My brother and I used to play with Presidents' statues, color in Presidents' coloring books, read Presidents' books. In our pre-teens, we could rattle off the Presidents of the US in order and knew which ones were related (for the record, the Johnsons were not related but James Madison and Zachary Taylor were second cousins). We knew who died in office and who was assassinated. We could tell you the names of all the Presidential wives. And, at one point, we could name all their Vice Presidents.
So, when the most recent presidential election came up, I decided to put together my list of my top ten favorite presidents.
Top Ten Presidents
Since my criteria for who are the ten best presidents in totally subjective and might not have anything to do with what happened during the specific president's tenure as president, I have listed them in chronological order (according to "what number president" each was) -- I also have listed why I consider each one as part of this list:
- George Washington:
I hate to be cliche (and I probably will be with others on this list), but Washington set the tone for what a president is and would be. Because he was also part of the congress that created the constitution (though Madison was called the Father of the Constitution), Washington was the first president under the Constitution and he was the president who set the precedents that led to the best government in the world (in my humble opinion) - John Adams:
I have John Adams on this list mostly for what he did before he was president. As a person, he makes my list for many reasons -- for his contribution to the Continental Congress, for his diplomatic service, for his relationship with his wife, Abigail, who was an early feminist, for his prodigious letter writing to Abigail and their son John Quincy, for his intelligence, hutzpa, support of Jews and women, for playing second fiddle to Washington and, oftentimes, to Jefferson, for his eloquent writing, for his general honesty and integrity. Though his presidency was largely a disaster (the Alien and Sedition Acts being the lowest point), he was the first president to live in Washington, DC, in the Executive Mansion (which we know as the White House). - Thomas Jefferson:
While I'm not fond of Jefferson as a person (his opinion of Jews and women being mostly negative, his ownership of slaves, though not unusual in his time, in the scheme of things isn't what one would like to see in a leader, his aristocratic opinions, etc.), I feel the need to put him on this list simply for acquiring the Louisiana Territory and the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Ironically, this served to weaken his own (and the South's) State's Rights position by strengthening the Federal Government. - John Quincy Adams:
Again, as with his father, I would put "Quincy" on the list mostly for what he did before (and, in Quincy's case, after) he was president. While his presidency was mostly lackluster (thanks to crazy man and future president Andrew Jackson's use of congress to sandbag anything Adams tried to do legislatively), his life before and after was anything but. To just list a few of his accomplishments: - a European diplomatic career in his youth
- Harvard education and also a prodigious letter writer
- Monroe's Secretary of State (it was in this capacity that JQA wrote what is now known as the Monroe Doctrine, one of the strongest foreign policy statements in the history of the US)
- Return to the House of Representatives post- presidency
- He defended the blacks of the Amistad who mutinied against their captors
- He was an ardent abolitionist and argued for the freeing of all slaves years before the Civil War
JQA really earned the nickname Old Man Eloquent. See more about both Adamses at John and John Quincy Adams
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