The 10 Worst Presidents
It's too soon to judge the current one, but for past leaders, the verdict is in
6. John Tyler
At sixth worst, Virginian John Tyler was the first president to rise by succession from the vice presidency-when William Harrison succumbed to pneumonia only 30 days after being sworn into office. Born into the planter aristocracy, Tyler began his political career as a Jefferson Republican, opposing Federalist schemes for high protective tariffs and federally funded "internal improvements." As a U.S. senator, he supported Andrew Jackson's crusade against the national bank but soon fell out with Old Hickory when he quashed South Carolina's attempt to nullify a modest tariff. (Tyler, a steady champion of states' rights and slavery, defended South Carolina's prerogative to secede.) Joining the young Whig Party, he ran with popular war hero Harrison, and the ticket of "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too" trounced the Democratic candidates. But once president, Tyler opposed everything his adopted party stood for, including a national bank. One fellow Whig accused Tyler of reviving "the condemned and repudiated doctrines and practices of the worst days of Jackson's rule." The entire Harrison-appointed cabinet resigned, and Tyler had to fight an attempt to impeach him. His one triumph: establishing the principle that a vice president who succeeds to the top office has no less authority than an elected president. No small accomplishment when most of his own party despised him.
7. Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant has risen from No. 2 on the 1948 Schlesinger list probably because of the same revisionist take on Reconstruction that lowered Johnson. Although there is no way to overlook the widespread graft and corruption that occurred on his presidential watch, he was in no way a beneficiary of it. "My failures have been errors of judgement," the popular former Civil War general admitted, "not of intent." More important, the 18th president now receives plaudits for his aggressive prosecution of the radical reform agenda in the South. His attempts to quash the Ku Klux Klan (suspending habeas corpus in South Carolina and ordering mass arrests) and his support for the Civil Rights Act of 1875 may have produced only short-lived gains for African-Americans, but Grant's intentions were laudable. He also worked for the good of American Indians, instituting the reservation system as an imperfect, last-ditch effort to protect them from extinction. Grant's reputation may continue to rise as a result of sympathetic studies-and because of a renewed appreciation of his own memoir, considered to be the best ever produced by a former president.
8. William Harrison
Alas, poor Harrison. That the ninth president makes any list at all is an act of scholarly injustice. The Virginian's greatest claim to fame was defeating the Shawnees in 1811 at the Battle of Tippecanoe. Delivering the longest inaugural address in U.S. history, he came down with pneumonia that made his 30-day presidency the shortest in U.S. history. Death would seem sufficient punishment for long-windedness; historians are guilty of piling on.
9. (tie) Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover, the 31st president, and Richard Nixon, the 37th, share the ninth spot for entirely different kinds of failings. And both had offsetting qualities and achievements that keep them off the 10-worst list of some major rankings. Hoover, elected on the eve of the Great Depression, came to the office with the skills of a consummate technocrat and manager. The Iowa native and Stanford-educated engineer ran massive relief operations in Europe both during and after World War I. He was commerce secretary under Harding and Calvin Coolidge. Once the Depression set in, he lowered taxes and started public works projects to create jobs, but he steadfastly resisted outright relief. Hoover's adherence to conservative principles may not have been his greatest problem. A poor communicator, he came across as mean-spirited and uncaring. The homeless dubbed their shantytowns Hoovervilles. Perhaps his single greatest policy blunder was supporting a tariff act that fueled international trade wars and made the Depression even worse. But style points alone would have cost him the election against FDR. For all his good qualities, Hoover failed to rise to the greatest challenge of his time.
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