American History question/ranking.

7. Donald Trump

Made America Great Again

1. George Washington - first president. duh
2. Thomas Jefferson - incredible thinker
3. John Adams - another intellectual. didn't really GAS till i saw the HBO documentary on him
4. Abraham Lincoln - slavery sucked, but taking states rights sucks too. set a lot of bad precedent on fed vs. state. would be lower but he killed vampires on the side.
5. Andrew Jackson - effed the indians right in the vajooj.
6. Alexander Hamilton - played politics and had a mistress, founded the treasury... shot in a duel. Meh.

1. Lincoln - established the distinction between states rights and civil rights. If we are to be free, the individual must be more important than the majority.

2. Washington - fought the good fight; helped the dentistry profession; role model for kids with axes.

3. Thomas Jefferson - great intellectual; shunned religion; founded UVA; really friendly with his slaves.

4-6. The other three - meh.

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1. George Washington. Led the Continental Army to military victory over the British. First President, helped shape what that office was going to be. Helped push the country in the direction of a strong federal government. Used military force to back up the law, preventing the immediate fracturing of the fledgling country.

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I agree 100% with putting Washington as #1, but IMO as important as the things you wrote were, they weren't the most important thing he did.

The most important thing he did was when he was at the height of power he did something that was, at the time, pretty much unprecedented in the history of the world.

He walked away.

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The most important thing he did was when he was at the height of power he did something that was, at the time, pretty much unprecedented in the history of the world.

He walked away.

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agreed. we don't have many with that attitude today.

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You do realize that Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, right?

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America was at war, with itself. Without Lincoln the nation would have broken up into an unknowable number of smaller states.

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And without him nearly 3/4 of a million lives would have been spared.

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And slavery would have continued.

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& eventually ended without bloodshed

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That's your opinion. Mine is that the South was underpopulated and desperately needed slaves for production. There was no motivation to end slavery any time soon.

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the slaves would have not been Sold South...

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It was the British who established slavery in the U.S., not the Union. It's a shame that slavery didn't die with the American Revolution.

There would not have been a Civil War and we would rightly despise the British as slave holders.

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and as to who passed abolition of slavery, wrong.

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We're not talking about who abolished slavery. Rather, who established it in America. It was the British.

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All 13 States had slavery at the beginning of the War for Independence from King George III.

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Right. Everyone was a British citizen. The colonies were British property.

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By the end of the War, the State of Massachusetts had passed abolition, allowing time between passage to Sell their Slaves.

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Sorry, I just don't see your point. Are you saying the Union was two-faced about their views of slavery?

If so, then I agree. There were a lot of people who went along with the abolition of slavery but who didn't want to lose their investments.

It was scurrilous but then the times were reprehensible. To think that it was acceptable for such a long time that people could own other people horrifies the senses.

How abolition came about is less important than that it actually happened, however.

Yes, I misread established as abolished. Eyes are beginning to fail me.

The British did give the Subjects in Royal Crown Colonies Slavery; Dutch & Muslim slave traders furnished many of the slaves.