Rating System - Franklin Pierce

[A18]

Rankings so far:*

Theodore Roosevelt - 4.4=Above Average/Near Great
Harry Truman - 4.4=Above Average/Near Great
Grover Cleveland - 4.1=Above Average/Near Great
Calvin Coolidge - 4.0=Above Average
James Garfield - 4.0=Above Average
Ronald Reagan - 3.8=Average/Above Average
Dwight Eisenhower - 3.8=Average/Above Average
Bill Clinton - 3.8=Average/Above Average
John Kennedy - 3.7=Average/Above Average
Chester Arthur - 3.3=Average/Above Average
William McKinley - 3.1=Average/Above Average
Franklin Roosevelt - 3.0=Average
Abraham Lincoln - 2.9=Below Average/Average
Richard Nixon - 2.6=Below Average/Average
Gerald Ford - 2.6=Below Average/Average
George H.W. Bush - 2.5=Below Average/Average
Lyndon Johnson - 2.1=Below Average
Ulysses Grant - 2.1=Below Average
William Taft - 2.0=Below Average
Rutherford Hayes - 2.0=Below Average
Warren Harding - 1.9=Near Failure/Below Average
Herbert Hoover - 1.9=Near Failure/Below Average
Jimmy Carter - 1.9=Near Failure/Below Average
Woodrow Wilson - 1.7=Near Failure/Below Average
Benjamin Harrison - 1.5=Near Failure/Below Average
Andrew Johnson - 1.5=Near Failure/Below Average
James Buchanan - 1.4=Near Failure/Below Average

* - Broke ties by whoever got the largest share of the vote

[Cashcow]

Miserable failure - America's worst President

[Schmitz in 1972]

Actually he was one of the best we ever had. Look no further then his now hailed/vilified (depending on your point of view) veto of a bill to aid the mentally ill based on it being unconstitutional.

[A18]

Miserable failure - America's worst President

Worse than Buchanan?

[Cashcow]

Miserable failure - America's worst President

Worse than Buchanan?

Equally bad Presidents, but Pierce was also a terrible person whereas Buchanan was merely incompetent. That puts him over the line.

[A18]

How was he a bad person, exactly?

[J. J.]

Miserable failure - America's worst President

That is saying a lot.  :-)

[A18]

Poll closes at 7:00 PM.

[PBrunsel]

Above average. He was in over his head, but tried to stand up for state's rights. Also he was handicapped because his wife was insane and his little son was killed before his eyes traveling to the Inauguration.

All things considered Buchanan and he were the last of the "100% state's rights" Presidents.

[Cashcow]

How was he a bad person, exactly?

He had no faith in his family, his Union, or himself. Even Bush possesses those qualities - no one should be President without them. Many Buchanan's political failures can essentially be traced back to Pierce anyway.

[A18]

Franklin Pierce - 1.8=Near Failure/Below Average

[Schmitz in 1972]

How was he a bad person, exactly?

He had no faith in his family,

You'd be paranoid to if you had 3 children who died before age 15.

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Get out of your 21st century perspective. In the 1850s we were years away from being a super-power, and quite frankly at that time anyone who did have faith in the Union might be called naive at best.

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When someone comes into office who is sure of himself we always seem to get terrible things like the Civil War, New Deal, Great Society, and the War on Terror. I'd rather have someone who wasn't sure considering that list!

I'm getting rather sick of all the knee-jerk Pierce haters that seem to plentifully inhabit every ideology there is be it liberal, conservative, or even libertarian.

Here's what can be said about Pierce: He was a man who despite being crippled by unimaginable personal tragedy gave the presidency his all, even if that was less than most of the other presidents, and even so in the end he was still better than almost all of them (well, IMO at least )

[Cashcow]

How was he a bad person, exactly?

He had no faith in his family,

You'd be paranoid to if you had 3 children who died before age 15.

He didn't care about his wife.

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Get out of your 21st century perspective. In the 1850s we were years away from being a super-power, and quite frankly at that time anyone who did have faith in the Union might be called naive at best.[/quote]

Franklin Pierce openly supported secession and is essentially more responsible for the Civil War than any other President of his era. Buchanan probably couldn't have prevented it, but Pierce could have, had he any faith in the state of the nation.

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When someone comes into office who is sure of himself we always seem to get terrible things like the Civil War, New Deal, Great Society, and the War on Terror. I'd rather have someone who wasn't sure considering that list![/quote]

We did get into a Civil War.