“Recarving Rushmore” Reranks American Presidents

June 11, 2009steve vaillancourt

If you saw Libertarian/Republican Ron Paul doing the interview with author Ivan Eland on CSpan’s BookNotes, you probably would have guessed that Eland’s new book “Recarving Rushmore” was not about to rank Presidents with the usual suspects (Lincoln, Washington, FDR, JFK, and other purveyors of big government) at the top.

Eland does not disappoint.  The book is subtitled, “Ranking the Presidents on Peace, Prosperity, and Liberty” and that in itself should provide a clue that this is no ordinary tome of sycophantic praise for the big names Prezes.

Lovers of liberty and small government and Libertarians (both small and big L) everywhere should read Eland’s book.   I brought it to the State House yesterday to show the Republican sponors of that Jeffersonian principles resolution we heard earlier this year.  As someone who never lived up to Jeffersonian principles, Jefferson could not possibly rank high in Eland’s study.  He does not.  He’s 26th of 40 presidents, and the chapter number three (Eland takes the President’s in historical order) is titled “a hypocrite on limited government”.

Two other ”Jeffersonian” founders, Madison (28th) and Monroe (25th) are in the poor category.  That’s because Eland is not fond of presidents who who led us into unnecessary wars.  Of all the unnecessary wars (and there have been many), Madison’s War of 1812 ranks right up there, and Monroe gets marked down for the doctrince which bears his name and attempts to foist United States power throughout the hemisphere.

Eland also doesn’t like presidents who tried to expand excecutive power or central government power (FDR is 32nd), and the third grading criteria, usurping individual freedoms, helps relegate John Adams (Alien and Sedition Acts) to 22nd.  Adams would be even lower but he did manage to keep us out of war with France in 1799.

In this 200th anniversay of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, I made a New Years resolution to read a biography of each and every American President.  The Eland book is a pleasant interlude from a very interesting assignment, and once you grasp the thesis of the book, there should be few surprises.  (Jimmy Carter at number eight is surprising but then despite his flaws, Jimmy did fight his own party to keep government smaller and was an advocate of deregulation).

So who tops Eland’s list.  Since this is not a mystery, I’ll reveal the answer.  The virtually unknown John Tyler, who succeeded William Henry Harrison after he died 39 days into his term, is number one.  It’s an interesting choice to be sure.  Tyler fought against the big government tendencies of his own Whig Party to such an extent that Henry Clay and Company virtually threw him out of the party while he was in the White House.

Having just completed a biography of Grover Cleveland, I was not surprised that this “exemplar of honesty and limited government” was ranked number two by Eland.  Cleveland was a Democrat before the party was hijacked by tax and spend big government “progressives”.

It should come as absolutely no surprise that the President ranked last by Eland is the one who is hailed by those very tax and spend “progressives” today, but who deserves a place in ignominy by all lovers of feedom.  Yes that would be the clueless Woodrow Wilson who expanded government, involved us in “the war to end all wars” and then sold out his own principles at the peace conference in Versailles, and did more to destroy individual liberties than anyone including Adams.

I generally agree with Eland.

It’s always great to see do nothing Presidents ranked so high.  Do nothingism is a rare honor indeeed, both in my book and in Eland’s book.  Thus chisel in Dwight Eisenhower at number nine and Silent Cal at number ten.

Agree or not, you should find this book at lot of fun.  The worse the president, the more pages devoted to him since it takes more time to explain the mischief he got us into.  It’s around 450 pages and inclues forumlaic economic rankings from a previous study.

Sorry Reaganites, this conservative writer does not rank Reagan well at all (34th).  Why?  Because, revisionist history notwithstanding, Reagan was not really all that conservative.  Sad by true for may reddites reading this.

Here’s the list.  Only the top four are rated excellent; 5-10 good; 11-14 average; 15-24 poor; and 25 and lower bad.

1  John Tyler

2  Grover Cleveland

3  Martin van Buren

4  Rutherford B. Hayes

5  Chester A Artur

6  Warren G Harding

7  George Washington (expanded central power but did after all refuse a third term thus setting the trend till FDR went for three and four)

8  Jimmy Carter

9  Dwight D Eisenhower

10  Calvin Coolidge

11  Bill Clinton (”more fiscally conservative than Reagan and the Bushes”)

12  John Quincy Adams

13  Zachary Taylor

14  Millard Fillmore

15  Benjamin Harrison

16  Gerald Ford

17  Andrew Johnson (yes, the impeachable one)

18  Herbert Hoover

19 U.S. Grant

20  William Howard Taft

21  Theodore Roosevelt (interventionist and government expansionist to be sure)

22 John Adams

23  James Buchanan (I would have placed him lower)

24  Franklin Pierce (I would have placed him lower)

25 James Monroe

26  Thomas Jefferson

27  Andrew Jackson

28  James Madison

29  Abraham Lincoln (mihandled the civil war, trampled on freedoms, etc, etc, this chaper alone makes the book worthwhile)

30 Richard Nixon

31  FDR

32  LBJ  (Great Big Spending Society)

33  George HW Bush

34 Ronald Reagan

35  JFK

36  George W Bush

37  James K Pok (Mexican War was totally our fault!)

38  William McKinley (ditto Spanish American War!)

39  Harry S. Truman (a real surpise-I would have placed him higher)

40 Woodrow the overt racist Wilson

It should be clear that Eland is not doing the bidding of any particular party.  In fact, since Democrats used to value less government and lower spending, many Democrats rank very well.  This survey is based on the principles of who maintained peace and prosperity and didn’t usurp individual freedom.  Eland lets the chips fall where they may in “Recarving Rushmore”.  Other historians should be so honest.

steve vaillancourt

Find out more about this author and their posts. →
Facebook Delicious Digg Email Bookmark

Like This Post?

Spread the Word!

5 Responses to ““Recarving Rushmore” Reranks American Presidents”

  1. Author

    Woo hoo! Go Rutherford B. Hayes!

  2. Author

    Vis. I deleted the Obama BC thread because you are right about the Conspiracy Theory feel about it. I didn’t realize it until you said something. But yes, you are right, RedNH is no place for contheory.

  3. Author

    Thanks. I do feel that it’s okay to discuss that sort of thing, it’s just that if you do you have to track down and lay out all the facts - that the BC has been presented already and that the theory is that the presented one was faked by Hawaiian authorities. Presidents can certainly lie and I’m sure Obama either has already lied about something or is going to before his term is over but proposing that the President is lying about something this serious - faking the details of his U.S. citizenship with help from others - just would have to be done carefully and in light of all the facts.

  4. Author

    And come to think of it, speaking of laying out all the facts - I had mentioned in that thread voting for Alan Keyes way back in the Nineties before he got so crazy and I’ve voted Republican often but I am definitely an independent, I don’t want to give the impression otherwise. As is visible through my posts on Blue Hampshire I voted for Obama in this last election but I’m entirely willing to vote for Republicans again in the future and I definitely want the Republican Party in NH to be strong and vibrant and to be a major contributor to the political discussion in New Hampshire, which is why I support RedHampshire being successful and a place for serious political discussion.

  5. Author

    Grover Cleveland was the man Steve!! You are right there, the first time I want to the state house when I met you were reading that book about him and that night I did some research. He was also against private banks printing the countrys money.

  6.  

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

  • About

    RedHampshire is a platform for New Hampshire Republicans to talk among themselves about politics and policy. The site believes in the marketplace of Republican ideas: that in conversations with diverse voices, the best ideas bubble to the top. To this… Read More

  • Blogroll

  • Candidates