Who was the best president ever?

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Lincoln, to me, is the greatest statesman in world history. The only alternatives I know of are Pericles, when after his death Athens lost the war and is difficult to judge anyway because of the nature of premodern sources, and Gandhi, who was not an administrator and had some rather repellent religious hangups. But if the requirement for excellence in statecraft is the leadership of a great democratic people, with the purpose being for the preservation of a nation and the liberty of thousands or millions, and getting in the trenches of the dirty compromising business of politics and governing, in the most trying and difficult of circumstances, and achieving one's great aim, and still with moral power of character and rhetoric to boot, then Lincoln I think stands head and shoulders above every statesman in world history, let alone other US Presidents. But that's just my opinion.

Washington was admirable in many ways, but is tainted by slavery. FDR a great politician but rather prosaic (and despite all of his advantages, far more than Lincoln had, was the author of a couple of relatively minor but rather embarrassing blunders).

The miraculous thing about Lincoln IMO is that his political sense was so good as to always be one step ahead of moderate white Northern opinion on the rights of black Americans, but never too many steps ahead so as to endanger the realisation of those rights. To be that politic, and to be that successful, in such a moral cause, is unmatched I think.