Who's the Worst Democratic President?

A few weeks ago, a few of my friends and I were discussing the rankings of various Democratic presidents. A point of contention arose regarding whether Andrew Jackson could be considered a great president. Jackson, familiar to many Americans as the face of the $20 bill, is widely viewed, by an array of presidential historians, as belonging to the exclusive pantheon of great presidents. Jackson facilitated a strengthening of executive power, firmly defended the Union against efforts at nullification, and portrayed himself as a populist. These elements of his legacy largely influence his high rankings in the lists of great presidents. However, Jackson's legacy is marred by the Indian Removal Act and the Trail of Tears, his politically motivated push to destroy the National Bank, and truly bizarre episodes like the Peggy Eaton affair. Let's not mince words: some of the most consequential Jackson decision were enormously destructive for many, many people. His treatment of Natives tops the list. How would any of that make him a "great" president? Some of my progressive friends and I firmly believe that when a president's policies indisputably lead to real, large-scale destruction of many real people's lives - with no discernible positive effect for society - those factors ought to lower the respective president's ranking. Nevertheless, with respect to President Jackson, presidential historians, by and large, seem to disagree and instead value other factors more strongly in their rankings.

This conversation does make way for an interesting political discussion though: who is actually the worst Democratic president? I'm (obviously) a proud Democrat but, certainly before the 20th century, we had some pretty awful Democratic -- and Republican -- presidents. The aforementioned historians have settled on one particular candidate for that unfortunate distinction: James Buchanan. There is no doubt that Buchanan belongs at or near the bottom of the list. The failure to tackle the slavery issue as the Civil War loomed was inexcusable. Buchanan is arguably faulted more so for what he did not do then what he did do (which is not much); being the immediate predecessor to Abraham Lincoln does not help him either. In my humble opinion, there are two Democratic presidents who deserve to rank even lower than Buchanan though historians do not usually see it this way. Those two are Grover Cleveland and Andrew Johnson. Cleveland, despite ranking relatively around the middle in most lists, deserves to have an even lower ranking than he does in most surveys. He stubbornly stuck by the horrid idea of retaining the gold standard, normalized an anti-labor strain in federal policy for the next several decades through his militaristic response to the Pullman Strike, and divided the Democratic Party in such a way that his presidency culminated in the 1896 realigning election that catapulted the Republicans to dominant status in national politics. For these reasons, Cleveland was a consequentially bad president, in my view. With regards to Andrew Johnson, he was also both significant in his impact and unfortunately, his influence was not for good. The consequence of Lincoln's assassination meant that Lincoln's plan for Reconstruction and his strong leadership style would not come to fruition in the aftermath of the Civil War. Therefore, the task of uniting the country would be left to Johnson and his handling of it was disastrous. His overt racism, active opposition to the constitutional amendments that banned slavery and ensured equal protection, and his facilitation of the very first post-Civil War Southern efforts to discriminate against blacks set the tone for a string of subpar presidencies and, ultimately, for a century of unfulfilled promises for the disenfranchised. Andrew Jackson may belong lower than he does and James Buchanan certainly belongs near the bottom but Cleveland and Johnson, in my humble opinion, probably belong even nearer to the bottom than they do now for being so consequentially horrible.