Who is your Favorite President(s)?

William Henry Harrison.

Surely he made fewer mistakes than any other President.

I'll go out on a limb and say "Nixon."

The more I learn about Nixon (and granted some of you were more cognizant of his actions that I am (I was born in 71)) the more I learn that this is a man who served as best he could, though, personality wise, he was probably the most ill suited person for the job.

And that kind of describes me.

Nixon did a lot to open doors into China, he stood up to the Soviets, he got us out of an ill advised war in Vietnam. Yet he was personally very paranoid, probably bordered on depression, and was kind of anti-social -- a combination that would get you mega doses of prescription meds nowadays. But he fought through most of it, to do a pretty decent job at administering the country's affairs.

Unfortunately he will always be relegated to a footnote as the only president to resign while in office, and the "gate" in Watergate now graces every scandal no matter how insipid.

better "bedtime for bonzo", then "bedtime with monica".

take a trip to little rock to the Clinton library, there's no line to get in.

I can't bring myself to argue this point overmuch, but by your lights, we could all form our own little nations and go from there.....

I dont think so. England was across the ocean and doing bad, bad things to the colonies. Even then, the founders were torn about what they had to do. All the north wanted was to keep slavery from new states and federal lands.

They were wrong, they were crushed, and nothing will ever change that. Your mind needs to be reblown into the year 2005 my friend....

Have a read of this little passage on the topic:

But enough! Let all who believe that "our fathers, who framed the Government under which we live, understood this question just as well, and even better, than we do now," speak as they spoke, and act as they acted upon it. This is all Republicans ask - all Republicans desire - in relation to slavery. As those fathers marked it, so let it be again marked, as an evil not to be extended, but to be tolerated and protected only because of and so far as its actual presence among us makes that toleration and protection a necessity. Let all the guarantees those fathers gave it, be, not grudgingly, but fully and fairly, maintained. For this Republicans contend, and with this, so far as I know or believe, they will be content.

And now, if they would listen - as I suppose they will not - I would address a few words to the Southern people.

I would say to them: - You consider yourselves a reasonable and a just people; and I consider that in the general qualities of reason and justice you are not inferior to any other people. Still, when you speak of us Republicans, you do so only to denounce us a reptiles, or, at the best, as no better than outlaws. You will grant a hearing to pirates or murderers, but nothing like it to "Black Republicans." In all your contentions with one another, each of you deems an unconditional condemnation of "Black Republicanism" as the first thing to be attended to. Indeed, such condemnation of us seems to be an indispensable prerequisite - license, so to speak - among you to be admitted or permitted to speak at all. Now, can you, or not, be prevailed upon to pause and to consider whether this is quite just to us, or even to yourselves? Bring forward your charges and specifications, and then be patient long enough to hear us deny or justify.

You say we are sectional. We deny it. That makes an issue; and the burden of proof is upon you. You produce your proof; and what is it? Why, that our party has no existence in your section - gets no votes in your section. The fact is substantially true; but does it prove the issue? If it does, then in case we should, without change of principle, begin to get votes in your section, we should thereby cease to be sectional. You cannot escape this conclusion; and yet, are you willing to abide by it? If you are, you will probably soon find that we have ceased to be sectional, for we shall get votes in your section this very year. You will then begin to discover, as the truth plainly is, that your proof does not touch the issue. The fact that we get no votes in your section, is a fact of your making, and not of ours. And if there be fault in that fact, that fault is primarily yours, and remains until you show that we repel you by some wrong principle or practice. If we do repel you by any wrong principle or practice, the fault is ours; but this brings you to where you ought to have started - to a discussion of the right or wrong of our principle. If our principle, put in practice, would wrong your section for the benefit of ours, or for any other object, then our principle, and we with it, are sectional, and are justly opposed and denounced as such. Meet us, then, on the question of whether our principle, put in practice, would wrong your section; and so meet it as if it were possible that something may be said on our side. Do you accept the challenge? No! Then you really believe that the principle which "our fathers who framed the Government under which we live" thought so clearly right as to adopt it, and indorse it again and again, upon their official oaths, is in fact so clearly wrong as to demand your condemnation without a moment's consideration.

Some of you delight to flaunt in our faces the warning against sectional parties given by Washington in his Farewell Address. Less than eight years before Washington gave that warning, he had, as President of the United States, approved and signed an act of Congress, enforcing the prohibition of slavery in the Northwestern Territory, which act embodied the policy of the Government upon that subject up to and at the very moment he penned that warning; and about one year after he penned it, he wrote LaFayette that he considered that prohibition a wise measure, expressing in the same connection his hope that we should at some time have a confederacy of free States.

Bearing this in mind, and seeing that sectionalism has since arisen upon this same subject, is that warning a weapon in your hands against us, or in our hands against you? Could Washington himself speak, would he cast the blame of that sectionalism upon us, who sustain his policy, or upon you who repudiate it? We respect that warning of Washington, and we commend it to you, together with his example pointing to the right application of it.

But you say you are conservative - eminently conservative - while we are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort. What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy on the point in controversy which was adopted by "our fathers who framed the Government under which we live;" while you with one accord reject, and scout, and spit upon that old policy, and insist upon substituting something new. True, you disagree among yourselves as to what that substitute shall be. You are divided on new propositions and plans, but you are unanimous in rejecting and denouncing the old policy of the fathers. Some of you are for reviving the foreign slave trade; some for a Congressional Slave-Code for the Territories; some for Congress forbidding the Territories to prohibit Slavery within their limits; some for maintaining Slavery in the Territories through the judiciary; some for the "gur-reat pur-rinciple" that "if one man would enslave another, no third man should object," fantastically called "Popular Sovereignty;" but never a man among you is in favor of federal prohibition of slavery in federal territories, according to the practice of "our fathers who framed the Government under which we live." Not one of all your various plans can show a precedent or an advocate in the century within which our Government originated. Consider, then, whether your claim of conservatism for yourselves, and your charge or destructiveness against us, are based on the most clear and stable foundations.

Again, you say we have made the slavery question more prominent than it formerly was. We deny it. We admit that it is more prominent, but we deny that we made it so. It was not we, but you, who discarded the old policy of the fathers. We resisted, and still resist, your innovation; and thence comes the greater prominence of the question. Would you have that question reduced to its former proportions? Go back to that old policy. What has been will be again, under the same conditions. If you would have the peace of the old times, readopt the precepts and policy of the old times.

You charge that we stir up insurrections among your slaves. We deny it; and what is your proof? Harper's Ferry! John Brown!! John Brown was no Republican; and you have failed to implicate a single Republican in his Harper's Ferry enterprise. If any member of our party is guilty in that matter, you know it or you do not know it. If you do know it, you are inexcusable for not designating the man and proving the fact. If you do not know it, you are inexcusable for asserting it, and especially for persisting in the assertion after you have tried and failed to make the proof. You need to be told that persisting in a charge which one does not know to be true, is simply malicious slander.

Some of you admit that no Republican designedly aided or encouraged the Harper's Ferry affair, but still insist that our doctrines and declarations necessarily lead to such results. We do not believe it. We know we hold to no doctrine, and make no declaration, which were not held to and made by "our fathers who framed the Government under which we live." You never dealt fairly by us in relation to this affair. When it occurred, some important State elections were near at hand, and you were in evident glee with the belief that, by charging the blame upon us, you could get an advantage of us in those elections. The elections came, and your expectations were not quite fulfilled. Every Republican man knew that, as to himself at least, your charge was a slander, and he was not much inclined by it to cast his vote in your favor. Republican doctrines and declarations are accompanied with a continual protest against any interference whatever with your slaves, or with you about your slaves. Surely, this does not encourage them to revolt. True, we do, in common with "our fathers, who framed the Government under which we live," declare our belief that slavery is wrong; but the slaves do not hear us declare even this. For anything we say or do, the slaves would scarcely know there is a Republican party. I believe they would not, in fact, generally know it but for your misrepresentations of us, in their hearing. In your political contests among yourselves, each faction charges the other with sympathy with Black Republicanism; and then, to give point to the charge, defines Black Republicanism to simply be insurrection, blood and thunder among the slaves.

Slave insurrections are no more common now than they were before the Republican party was organized. What induced the Southampton insurrection, twenty-eight years ago, in which, at least three times as many lives were lost as at Harper's Ferry? You can scarcely stretch your very elastic fancy to the conclusion that Southampton was "got up by Black Republicanism." In the present state of things in the United States, I do not think a general, or even a very extensive slave insurrection is possible. The indispensable concert of action cannot be attained. The slaves have no means of rapid communication; nor can incendiary freemen, black or white, supply it. The explosive materials are everywhere in parcels; but there neither are, nor can be supplied, the indispensable connecting trains.

Much is said by Southern people about the affection of slaves for their masters and mistresses; and a part of it, at least, is true. A plot for an uprising could scarcely be devised and communicated to twenty individuals before some one of them, to save the life of a favorite master or mistress, would divulge it. This is the rule; and the slave revolution in Hayti was not an exception to it, but a case occurring under peculiar circumstances. The gunpowder plot of British history, though not connected with slaves, was more in point. In that case, only about twenty were admitted to the secret; and yet one of them, in his anxiety to save a friend, betrayed the plot to that friend, and, by consequence, averted the calamity. Occasional poisonings from the kitchen, and open or stealthy assassinations in the field, and local revolts extending to a score or so, will continue to occur as the natural results of slavery; but no general insurrection of slaves, as I think, can happen in this country for a long time. Whoever much fears, or much hopes for such an event, will be alike disappointed.

In the language of Mr. Jefferson, uttered many years ago, "It is still in our power to direct the process of emancipation, and deportation, peaceably, and in such slow degrees, as that the evil will wear off insensibly; and their places be, pari passu, filled up by free white laborers. If, on the contrary, it is left to force itself on, human nature must shudder at the prospect held up."

Mr. Jefferson did not mean to say, nor do I, that the power of emancipation is in the Federal Government. He spoke of Virginia; and, as to the power of emancipation, I speak of the slaveholding States only. The Federal Government, however, as we insist, has the power of restraining the extension of the institution - the power to insure that a slave insurrection shall never occur on any American soil which is now free from slavery.

But you will break up the Union rather than submit to a denial of your Constitutional rights.

That has a somewhat reckless sound; but it would be palliated, if not fully justified, were we proposing, by the mere force of numbers, to deprive you of some right, plainly written down in the Constitution. But we are proposing no such thing.

When you make these declarations, you have a specific and well-understood allusion to an assumed Constitutional right of yours, to take slaves into the federal territories, and to hold them there as property. But no such right is specifically written in the Constitution. That instrument is literally silent about any such right. We, on the contrary, deny that such a right has any existence in the Constitution, even by implication.

Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events.

This, plainly stated, is your language. Perhaps you will say the Supreme Court has decided the disputed Constitutional question in your favor. Not quite so. But waiving the lawyer's distinction between dictum and decision, the Court have decided the question for you in a sort of way. The Court have substantially said, it is your Constitutional right to take slaves into the federal territories, and to hold them there as property. When I say the decision was made in a sort of way, I mean it was made in a divided Court, by a bare majority of the Judges, and they not quite agreeing with one another in the reasons for making it; that it is so made as that its avowed supporters disagree with one another about its meaning, and that it was mainly based upon a mistaken statement of fact - the statement in the opinion that "the right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution."

An inspection of the Constitution will show that the right of property in a slave is not "distinctly and expressly affirmed" in it. Bear in mind, the Judges do not pledge their judicial opinion that such right is impliedly affirmed in the Constitution; but they pledge their veracity that it is "distinctly and expressly" affirmed there - "distinctly," that is, not mingled with anything else - "expressly," that is, in words meaning just that, without the aid of any inference, and susceptible of no other meaning.

If they had only pledged their judicial opinion that such right is affirmed in the instrument by implication, it would be open to others to show that neither the word "slave" nor "slavery" is to be found in the Constitution, nor the word "property" even, in any connection with language alluding to the things slave, or slavery; and that wherever in that instrument the slave is alluded to, he is called a "person;" - and wherever his master's legal right in relation to him is alluded to, it is spoken of as "service or labor which may be due," - as a debt payable in service or labor. Also, it would be open to show, by contemporaneous history, that this mode of alluding to slaves and slavery, instead of speaking of them, was employed on purpose to exclude from the Constitution the idea that there could be property in man.

To show all this, is easy and certain.

When this obvious mistake of the Judges shall be brought to their notice, is it not reasonable to expect that they will withdraw the mistaken statement, and reconsider the conclusion based upon it?

And then it is to be remembered that "our fathers, who framed the Government under which we live" - the men who made the Constitution - decided this same Constitutional question in our favor, long ago - decided it without division among themselves, when making the decision; without division among themselves about the meaning of it after it was made, and, so far as any evidence is left, without basing it upon any mistaken statement of facts.

Under all these circumstances, do you really feel yourselves justified to break up this Government unless such a court decision as yours is, shall be at once submitted to as a conclusive and final rule of political action? But you will not abide the election of a Republican president! In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, "Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!"

I am also aware they have not, as yet, in terms, demanded the overthrow of our Free-State Constitutions. Yet those Constitutions declare the wrong of slavery, with more solemn emphasis, than do all other sayings against it; and when all these other sayings shall have been silenced, the overthrow of these Constitutions will be demanded, and nothing be left to resist the demand. It is nothing to the contrary, that they do not demand the whole of this just now. Demanding what they do, and for the reason they do, they can voluntarily stop nowhere short of this consummation. Holding, as they do, that slavery is morally right, and socially elevating, they cannot cease to demand a full national recognition of it, as a legal right, and a social blessing.

Nor can we justifiably withhold this, on any ground save our conviction that slavery is wrong. If slavery is right, all words, acts, laws, and constitutions against it, are themselves wrong, and should be silenced, and swept away. If it is right, we cannot justly object to its nationality - its universality; if it is wrong, they cannot justly insist upon its extension - its enlargement. All they ask, we could readily grant, if we thought slavery right; all we ask, they could as readily grant, if they thought it wrong. Their thinking it right, and our thinking it wrong, is the precise fact upon which depends the whole controversy. Thinking it right, as they do, they are not to blame for desiring its full recognition, as being right; but, thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield to them? Can we cast our votes with their view, and against our own? In view of our moral, social, and political responsibilities, can we do this?

Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the National Territories, and to overrun us here in these Free States? If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored - contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man - such as a policy of "don't care" on a question about which all true men do care - such as Union appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the righteous to repentance - such as invocations to Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington said, and undo what Washington did.

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. LET US HAVE FAITH THAT RIGHT MAKES MIGHT, AND IN THAT FAITH, LET US, TO THE END, DARE TO DO OUR DUTY AS WE UNDERSTAND IT.

1.)JOHN ADAMS(what efforts and trials for this new nation,he had to endure!) 2.) ABRAHAM LINCOLN 3.) GEORGE WASHINGTON.

My favorites in the 20th and 21st centuries: 4.)GEORGE W BUSH 5.)HARRY TRUMAN

I should have added: 5th or 6th - RONALD REAGAN!

This should really be split into two categories.

Greatest President

Abraham Lincoln- Saved the Union

George Washington- Set the precedent for all President's to follow and helped to define the very rules and principles that would guild this nation.

IMO, you can make an argument for either to be number one. I'm personally partial to Lincoln, but I place them in their own league.

Favorite President

Abraham Lincoln- Both Despised and admired, "misunderestimated" himself, he had the courage to fight to preserve the Union, ultimately murdered because he had the courage to do what was right.

George W. Bush- I see similarities between the two men. Each faced mockery. Each faced a divided nation. In the face of opposition, doubt and treason the President has stood firm to protect this nation.

Sentimental picks

Andrew Jackson- Always liked his Style. LOL

Truman- Only begun to appreciate this man in the last couple of years. Overshawdowd by FDR, I believe. As time passes I believe his place in history will be felt more.

I beg to differ! I would have voted for Alfred E. Neuman because he thought and acted like Ronnie "Bedtime for Bonzo" Reagan. He created Reaganomics to screw the little guy and take care of big-businessmen like himself and his close ties, just as he screwed the 3 Stooges out of their royalties after taking care of his own movie contracts, when he was President of the Screen Actors Guild!

What???

I know my 401K suffered greatly since he took office.

I'm sorry to hear the President Bush hasn't been doing a very good job of handling your 401K for you. Mine is looking better and better now that President Bush is helping the economy recover from the previous occupant of the white houses's mess.

Welcome YoungBlackRepublican meant to welcome you a couple of days ago. Great at procrastination.

"Happy to welcome you aboard! We have alot of old schoolers here including me... could you correct your tagline please? Thanks! Newbies as we call the newly signed freepers are subjected to criticism when they mis-spell!
best wishes VA freeper!

24 posted on 01/18/2005 6:44:27 PM PST by acapesket (never had a vote count in all my years here)

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'Ain't it the truth. LOL!! From Merriam-Webster. It is OK the older I get the more words misspelled. FYI. ;^pilgrim

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George Washington. I've been reading of his exploits as a young Colonel during the French and Indian War. The Native Americans tried many times to shoot him off his horse as he led troops into battle, but one chief said later that no weapon aimed at George Washington hit its mark.

the stock market and economic gains under clinton were a fantasy, an engineered financial bubble that started collapsing the final year he was in office. check a historical chart of the nasdaq from March 2000 to January 2001, tell me who the market declined more under, Clinton or Bush. the greatest transfer and concentration of wealth happened under clinton, pensioners and 401K investors who rode the market down, sent their money to people like Terry McAuliffe and John Corzine and Marc Rich.

But he was a RAT too and really screwed up in Korea. I still rue the day he got chicken and backed away from the beaten North Koreans and the invading Chicoms because it cost the lives of two friends and the wounding of another.

Without a doubt, old Silent Cal.

L

Wow, I never expected 4u2 write a book...but anyway, no, I DON'T support having America break up into 50 seperate states like you might think I do. All I'm saying is that the southern states had the RIGHT to do so, because Lincoln was doing "bad, bad things" against them that they could not accept.

I remember back in the late 1790's (???) or so that several New England states came close to secession (maybe it was in the very early 1800's, under Jefferson's Precidency; I don't remember exactly). But they, too, had the right to secede. If the loonie lefties of today wish to secede, then I say, let them all move to a blue state & form their own socialist utopia! The rest of the nation would be much better off w/o them.

Please read Thomas Lorenzo's articles....& his book!

I'd have to say James Monroe ... because a distant relative on my mother's side of the family was his vice president (Daniel D. Tompkins).

I'm with you L, Harding and Cal!
I'll take do-nothing presidents any day!

regards,
-Thoreau

I set up a poll so we can keep track of the votes.

Who is your favorite President?

George Washington (0) 0%
Thomas Jefferson (0) 0%
Abraham Lincoln (0) 0%
Theodore Roosevelt (0) 0%
Franklin Roosevelt (0) 0%
Harry S Truman (0) 0%
Dwight Eisenhower (0) 0%
Ronald Reagan (0) 0%
George H. Bush (0) 0%
George W. Bush (0) 0%

Total Votes: 0

Cast Your Vote Here

I went through the thread and tried to pull out the ones I saw listed and added a couple more.

I set up a poll so we can keep track of the votes.

Who is your favorite President?
Cast Your Vote Here
George Washington (0) 0%
Thomas Jefferson (0) 0%
Abraham Lincoln (0) 0%
Theodore Roosevelt (0) 0%
Franklin Roosevelt (0) 0%
Harry S Truman (0) 0%
Dwight Eisenhower (0) 0%
Ronald Reagan (0) 0%
George H. Bush (0) 0%
George W. Bush (0) 0%
Total Votes: 0

I went through the thread and tried to pull out the ones I saw listed and added a couple more.