re: American History question/ranking.

Someone left out Ben Franklin. If the British hadn't been preoccupied with France we would all still be part of the Empire.

1. Lincoln
2. Hamilton
3. Washington
4. Jefferson
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5. Adams
6. Jackson

Lincoln is at the top because he had the resolve to keep the nation in tact, and he finally dealt with the slavery issue which had been festering since the nation's birth.

Hamilton laid the foundation that would turn the United States into the biggest economic power the world had (and still has) ever seen. He gets far too little credit for what he accomplished despite never serving as President.

Washington often gets too much credit simply because he was the nation's first president. However, he set the standard on how other presidents should serve. The fact that he set the precedent to only serve two terms allowed the nation to avoid a dictator in its early days.... something that was honored by every president until FDR decided he should be king for 3+ terms.

Jefferson turned our focus westward and oversaw our great leap forward from a bunch of colonial outposts to a great continental power. Though the phrase, "Manifest Destiny" was coined a few years after his presidency, he is really the one that initiated the concept with the Louisiana purchase the the Lewis & Clark expedition.

Adams was quite a statesman and he founded our nation's Navy. But otherwise, he was a terrible president. He never possessed the leadership qualities to be president. On a list of our greatest presidents, he'd likely fall in the bottom half.

Jackson was a racist. Founded the Democrat party. His populist tone was popular in his day, but history will always remember him as a severely flawed individual. His rhetoric reminds me a lot of Donald Trump actually.

Ranking presidents... or great Americans... is not an easy task. Almost everyone has positives and negatives that must be weighed. FDR was a masterful war president. He inspired the American people more so than most any other president. For that, he was one of our nation's best presidents. But he also greatly prolonged the Great Depression. He defied the precedent set by Washington and was elected president 4 times... showing he had some narcissistic qualities. And worst of all he stacked the Supreme Court... increasing the number of justices from 7 to 9 in order ensure his giant expansion of government would not be shot down by the courts. That was a dangerous move. His government programs were not built to stand the test of time, and our debt and fiscal issues of today (and tomorrow) have its roots in his presidency. For that, he was one of our absolute worst presidents.

It's honestly impossible to correctly rank every president. There are only a handful that are easily more good than bad (Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Reagan, IMO). And there are numerous presidents that produced far more bad than good (Jackson, Buchanan, Johnson, Grant, Nixon, Carter, etc.). And then of course there are those that quite frankly never had much of a legacy at all. William Henry Harrison died just a few days into his presidency. Millard Fillmore simply did nothing at all.

Importance or greatness? These are two very very very different things.
1. George Washington - won the war, declined when offered a kingship, declined when offered a military dictatorship, set the precedent for a peaceful transition of power
2. Thomas Jefferson - wrote the declaration of Independence, basically started the French Revolution, doubled the size of the nation for pennies, oversaw the first peaceful transition of power between rival political parties in history
3. Abraham Lincoln - won the Civil War, created the Imperial Presidency, ended slavery, destroyed the power of the states forever, went from United States are to United States is.
4. Andrew Jackson - paid off the national debt, trail of tears, won the Battle of New Orleans, delayed the Civil War for over 30 years, conquered Florida without firing a shot, destroyed the Bank of the United States, waged a war against paper money (and won). Most of his important contributions were either harmful or undone by future generations.
5. Alexander Hamilton - basically created the American banking and manufacturing economy out of nothing.
6. John Adams - instrumental in Boston pre-revolution. Presidency was a shitshow with unconstitutional spying and midnight court-packing schemes.

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Washington's military role is a bit overstated I think.

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I disagree. He wasn't a Lee or Sherman or Patton. He didn't have the ability to see and seize a victory with an audacious move. He was an Eisenhower, who built and army from scratch and protected it from defeat by picking his battles and that's greatness in its own right.

1. Jefferson - Was one of the brains and souls of the Revolution, also the single best presidents we've had.

2. Washington- the Revolution personified but loses first place because his actual skill as a general was woefully lacking.

3. Polk- because I said so I'm adding Polk. Top 5 president. Added Mexican Cession, Texas, negotiated a good border with Canada, as well as solving the tariff issue. He literally worked himself to death and died only months after leaving his first and only term (he did not run for reelection.

4. Hamilton- the counterpoint to Jefferson's philosophy. Giant of political thought.

5. Lincoln- felt like it was partially his fault the split happened. Good leader and finally started fighting the war for the right reasons.

6.John Adams- screw the Alien and Sedition acts.

7. Jackson- badass, but ultimately wound up on the wrong side of history. Will always be remembered as borderline genocidal even if that is just a tiny bit unfair.