Who Was the Worst President Ever?

Summary

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American History Hit

Episode: "Who Was the Worst President Ever?"

Host: Don Wildman
Guest: Jeremy Suri (Professor & Author of The Impossible Presidency)
Date: October 2, 2025

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Overview

This lively and insightful episode sees Don Wildman and presidential historian Jeremy Suri tackle one of American history’s most provocative questions: Who was the worst U.S. president ever?
Avoiding recent presidents (as their legacies are still in flux and out of respect for the show's historical focus), the discussion is rooted in deeply contextual, non-partisan history, exploring what constitutes a “bad” presidency and surveying some of America’s most infamous commanders in chief.

Through historical anecdotes, policy analysis, and critical reflection, they try to understand how changing times, societal challenges, and the ever-evolving presidency have shaped both the best and worst officeholders. The episode builds toward each guest personally selecting their pick for the worst president, reflecting on lessons for leadership and American identity.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Evolution of the Presidency (04:00–08:41)

• Early Intentions vs. Modern Reality:

  • The presidency was designed by the founders as a small, largely ceremonial office with the president envisioned as a unifying figure above party politics.
    • “George Washington wanted the president to be above party. He believed presidents should not belong to a party.” — Jeremy Suri [03:57]
  • Early presidents did not campaign as we recognize it today; this changed with Theodore Roosevelt’s active public persona.
  • The office and federal government grew with time:
    • Jackson (1830s): staff of 2
    • Herbert Hoover: staff of 5
    • Now: thousands under the executive

• Changing Scope of Authority:

  • As the country grew and the federal government expanded, so did expectations of what a president should manage (e.g., health insurance, policing).
  • Early presidents were accessible—Lincoln even held office hours.
  • Memorable story: Truman and his wife drove cross-country and stayed in a Howard Johnson’s motel after his presidency [06:48].

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What Makes a 'Bad' President? (09:08–12:24)

• Two Core Failures:

  1. Inflexibility/Disconnection:
     • Failing to adapt policies to changing times or remain in step with the public.
     • “You get elected for one thing, but that doesn't mean that's how people want you to govern.” — Jeremy Suri [09:08]
  2. Inept Management and Corruption:
     • Struggling to control their staff or allowing self-interested advisers to drive decisions.

• Other Common Flaws:

  • Lack of political skill
  • Hubris (ex. Hoover)
  • Corruption (ex. Warren Harding, Richard Nixon)
  • Low morality or personal self-interest
  • Lack of vision relevant to the era’s needs

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Deep Dive: Presidents Who 'Hit Rock Bottom' (15:11–29:13)

The Antebellum Blunders

• Zachary Taylor [15:55]

  • Military hero, not a politician. Short presidency, lacked political skills, inflamed North–South divisions.

• Millard Fillmore [16:46]

  • Approved the Compromise of 1850 (really five acts), ultimately reinforced slave state power and avoided decisive leadership.
  • Oversaw strengthening of the Fugitive Slave Act, igniting Northern outrage and helping precipitate Bleeding Kansas.
  • “The Fugitive Slave act…gave southerners the right to use federal militia forces...to go into northern areas and recapture escaped slaves.” — Jeremy Suri [18:45]

• Franklin Pierce [20:22]

  • New Hampshire native, tried appeasing the South; personally tragic circumstances (lost his son prior to office) but seen as a “northern turncoat” for discounting the abolitionist movement.

The True Lows: Buchanan and Johnson

• James Buchanan [22:02–23:50]

  • “He believed that you could kick the can down the road...That’s why he’s often referred to as a spineless jellyfish.” — Jeremy Suri [22:19]
  • Lacked both vision and boldness; sided with pro-slavery interests, failed to act decisively when Southern states seceded; blamed Northern “radicals” for the split.

• Andrew Johnson [24:07–28:10]

  • Tennessee tailor; only Southern senator not to secede; became Lincoln’s accidental successor after assassination.
  • Mismanaged Reconstruction, allowed former Confederates to regain power, did little to protect freed slaves, enabled Black Codes, and was impeached for undermining Congress:
    • “He tried to reverse what the duly elected Congress and others were doing...He was not doing his job. Not only that, he was passive. He was actively undermining the law of the land and a president's duty under their oath.” — Jeremy Suri [27:29]

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The Worst, Chosen (27:22–29:13)

• Jeremy Suri’s Pick:

  • Andrew Johnson
    • “He was so inadequate for the office at a moment of such importance...He was actively undermining the law of the land.” [27:29]

• Don Wildman’s Pick:

  • James Buchanan
    • “Here we have James Buchanan, who lands in this moment, and my goodness, a lot is obvious: screaming states ready to secede. Instead of having any kind of pivot...he decides to stay in the room with his friends and try to make it work just as it was.” [28:10]

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Modern Comparisons & Leadership Lessons (29:58–32:24)

• Both agree that history sometimes repeats:

  • Era of rapid change (then: slavery, now: technology/AI and economic uncertainty) challenges older, inflexible leaders.
  • “We're asking grandpas to make sense of artificial intelligence…In a certain way, it's absurd, isn't it?” — Jeremy Suri [29:58]
  • There’s often a failure among leaders to communicate and act on looming threats (then: slavery, now: economic unsustainability).

• Leadership requires both vision and ability to translate that vision for the moment.

  • “It’s not are you a visionary, but does your vision suit the times you're in?” — Jeremy Suri [11:46]

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Most Overrated President (32:24–33:20)

• John F. Kennedy

  • Frequently ranked top 10 due to charisma and youthful death, but actually had a short, troubled term (Bay of Pigs, Vietnam escalation), may have been more “middling.”
    • “He wasn't president very long and he didn't actually do very much. And, in fact, some of the things he did were really bad, such as the Bay of Pigs invasion…” — Jeremy Suri [32:28]

• James K. Polk (Producer Freddie's Pick)

  • Expansionist, engineered the Mexican–American War; controversial as a "warmonger" but limited himself to a single term and avoided further expansion.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “What goes up always comes down. There’s always so much to be learned from the top of the order—but what about the bottom? How about rock bottom?” — Don Wildman [01:23]

• “I think for [Buchanan and Johnson] the equivalent of struggling to understand AI for them was slavery was so embedded in the world they knew…even though the world was going in that direction, they couldn't adjust to that. Just as…our grandpas who are presidents today can't adjust to a world of artificial intelligence.” — Jeremy Suri [30:42]

• “He was passive. He was actively undermining the law of the land and a president’s duty under their oath…He was doing the opposite.” — Jeremy Suri on Andrew Johnson [27:29]

• “Instead of having any kind of pivot, which is so important for a great leader…He decides to stay in the room with his friends and try to make it work just as it was, claiming it's not my role to play.” — Don Wildman on James Buchanan [28:10]

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Important Timestamps

• Presidency’s Changing Purpose: 04:00–08:41
• Defining a Bad President: 09:08–12:24
• Antebellum Presidents (Taylor–Fillmore–Pierce): 15:11–20:22
• Buchanan and Johnson Analysis: 22:02–28:10
• Host/Guest Choices for Worst President: 27:22–29:13
• Modern Parallels & the Burden of Leadership: 29:58–32:24
• Most Overrated Presidents: 32:24–34:34

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Conclusion

The hosts agree that while the presidency has always required adaptable vision and courage, the all-time low points have come when the office’s occupant was unable — or unwilling — to rise to the largest challenges of their time. For Suri, Andrew Johnson’s failures during Reconstruction and his undermining of federal law are unmatched in their damage. For Wildman, Buchanan’s paralysis in the face of secession is unforgivable. Both faults, they stress, offer enduring lessons for Americans and their leaders today.

The next episode promises to choose America’s best president — so the saga continues.

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Transcript

[Mario Lopez]

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[Don Wildman]

Well, how exciting is this? It's an American award show. Fancy gowns, tuxedos, trophies. But hold on. There's something strange, even dreary, about this one. No one seems happy at all. Faces are drawn, eyes darting about. People are avoiding the cameras and microphones and rushing down the red carpet. And frankly, those gowns and tuxedos, they look bad. This is weird, but let's go inside. The show's about to begin.

[Jeremy Suri]

Hello, folks.

[Don Wildman]

Welcome. Take your seats. It's time to get the show started. Hey, congratulations. Give yourselves a hand. You're all winners here tonight. Or rather, you're all losers. It's time to bestow that most ignominious of honor. It's time for the worst president ever in the history of the United States. Good day and hello, I'm Don Wildman, and this is American history. Hit way back when, August 2023, to be exact. We embarked on a journey, releasing a biographical episode on our first president, George Washington, and then on every other president in turn. You can find them all in chronological order, interspersed within the archive, landing with our 41st commander in chief, George H.W. bush. George to George. We've done them all. We figured it was time to look back at this grand sweep of American leaders, so we decided to do an episode on history's best president, or rather, who we concluded was our best, and look for that episode next week. Then we realized what goes up always comes down. There's always so much to be learned from the top of the order. What about the bottom? How about rock bottom? So today we're asking, who was the worst US President? What goes into making a bad president? And who are some of the most often worst evers that we will now discuss. Only one thing we one ground rule for our presidential list. This being a series strictly focused on history and not opinion and current events, we are examining only those US Presidents no longer walking among us, only those dead and buried. So here to discuss this executive gathering is author and professor Jeremy Suri. Returning to the pod again. Listeners may have heard his episode on Reagan and George H.W. bush. He has written many critically acclaimed books. Most pertinently today, the Impossible Presidency, the Rise and Fall of America's Highest Office, published in 2017. Welcome back. Jeremy Sewer. Nice to see you.

[Jeremy Suri]

Nice to see you, Don. Always good to talk presidents.

[Don Wildman]

We have an ignominious task before us. Let's choose America's worst president. Now, there's a lot to learn in this effort, but let's first admit it's difficult to do this, comparing presidents over dramatically different times and circumstances. Right?

[Jeremy Suri]

That's correct. And the context matters. That's what we study is history, the environment, the moment, the challenges of the time make the president as much as anything else.

[Don Wildman]

We still call it the presidency, though that much is constant. But the office itself has changed so much. Very general question here. Where did it start and where is it today?

[Jeremy Suri]

So this is one of the reasons I wrote the Impossible Presidency. The office, when it was created by our founders in the late 18th century, looked very different from today. It was a small office with very few powers. The presumption was the president would have two jobs above all. First, he would be commander in chief in times of war, which for the founders meant times when the United States was attacked, not when the United States was attacking someone else. And second, the president would be a unifying figure. George Washington wanted the president to be above party. He believed presidents should not belong to a party. They should be people who transcend our partisan, regional, ethnic and religious differences. I don't have to tell your listeners that George Washington is the only president you can say that about, right?

[Don Wildman]

Yes, exactly. The idea was to be a unifying figure at the top of this whole mess of congressional politics. Really, the idea was that he would not sort of mess in that stuff, which is why you never saw him campaigning. They never even knew about a president until he was in office, kind of. Right.

[Jeremy Suri]

Well, Don, it's a really interesting point. Presidents really didn't campaign until the 20th century. Now they had surrogates and they were running operations. Most famously, Andrew Jackson had Martin Van Buren, who was known as the little genius, running his political campaign in the 1820s. But the reality is that it was unseemly for a president to be out in the hustings, pressing flesh, making promises, calling out his enemies. Theodore Roosevelt is really the first president to actually campaign in a way we would think of campaigning today.

[Don Wildman]

There's also an enormous growth, of course, not only in the presidency, but in the government in general. But the size of the President's staff. I mean, enter Jackson, 1830s, has a staff of two people. Herbert Hoover, a staff of five. Now we're talking thousands.

[Jeremy Suri]

It's absolutely right. As late as Herbert Hoover's presidency, you could first of all walk up to the White House as a citizen or non citizen, knock on the door and Herbie Hoover might actually open the door for you. A birdie, as he was called, might say, hello, who are you? Presidents had office hours even during the Civil War. Lincoln famously had office hours like a professor. And people would line up to meet with the President. The founders presumed that the President would be a small person, a small office with limited power. And that's why they didn't give the President a permanent staff or a permanent budget.

[Don Wildman]

We're gonna talk about fdr, of course, changing everything and resizing the government. But even after him, Harry Truman, famous for taking walks around Washington until somebody took a shot at him.

[Jeremy Suri]

That's true, there was a little more protection for Truman, but yes, it's still a little bit of the old world. My favorite Truman story is when he left the presidency in January of 53. He and Bess, his wife, got into their old vehicle and just started driving west. They spent their first night after the presidency staying in a Howard Johnson's motel.

[Don Wildman]

That's right. Times have changed. Not even Howard's around anymore.

[Jeremy Suri]

That's right.

[Don Wildman]

In general, what we're really commenting on is the office was not built for the kind of complexity that we see and assume today. It was a much more specific job, I would say.

[Jeremy Suri]

Right, that's right. It had limited responsibilities. No one expected the President would be responsible for their health insurance, their pension, policing on their streets, things of that sort.

[Don Wildman]

The thing is that presidents, because they didn't mix up with congressmen, they didn't have the kind of personal relationships that they have today within their own party. And that triggers my next question, which is, were the Presidents always considered the head of their party?

[Jeremy Suri]

Yes, they were. And they did have personal relationships with members of their party, but it was a different kind of relationship from the relationship today in many ways. Presidents communicated with members of their party, they tried to coordinate, but they didn't have day to day interactions. Congress was not in session for six months of the year for the most part. And so that meant that Presidents were not having the daily interactions they're having with members of Congress today through their staffs, by phone, by text. It was a much more distant relationship and it was much more focused on big issues rather than Day to day affairs.

[Don Wildman]

Exactly. And then there's the nation itself, which is in population gigantically different than of course, the beginning. There's, you know, a handful of people. George Washington was the president of a country the size and population of Pittsburgh today. I mean, it's just amazing to consider, you know, versus 300 plus billion today.

[Jeremy Suri]

That's exactly right. And that's one of the reasons we've seen the growth of executive agencies. Because there are administrative tasks that exist in the US Government now that a legislature cannot handle that an executive needs to handle. For example, overseeing the Federal Trade Commission, which keeps our food safe and manages interstate commerce. Those are important things. Vaccine mandates, all the debates about that. Someone has to oversee that. And that's become an executive set of agencies in the US There are equivalents in parliamentary systems as well.

[Don Wildman]

Well, so tellingly, so far we've only talked about really good presidents. But let's talk about what we're here today for, the bad presidents. It's right in your title of the book, the Impossible Presidency. The job has grown in dimension and expectation progressively over two and a half centuries. And some of those folks have not been up to the task, even at whatever scale you can locate them at. Let's discuss what makes a president bad as opposed to all those lists of the goodnesses.

[Jeremy Suri]

Well, I think there are two common faults that presidents have. One is that they become committed to a set of policies and perspectives that are out of touch with the American public. Successful presidents, Don, like successful leaders of any kind, have to adjust in office. You get elected for one thing, but that doesn't mean that's how people want you to govern. And that adjustment, some presidents are able to undertake it, others are not. And then second, there's the more prosaic problem of as government grows bigger, you're surrounded by yes men and you're surrounded by more and more people who are trying to do things to benefit themselves and not the country. Managing that, managing that really difficult bureaucracy which begins in the 19th century, right. That's a real task. It's a difficult task for many presidents.

[Don Wildman]

Yeah, I'd say it begins with kings. I mean, any leader suffers from that problem above all else if they're not getting good construction feedback. But presidents have to be good at politics. Some of them just weren't. They didn't know the machinery very well. Jimmy Carter, good example of that, right?

[Jeremy Suri]

Absolutely. I mean, you can be a good person, you can be a very smart person, but if you cannot get people from different points of view to work Together you cannot succeed as a president.

[Don Wildman]

Then there's plain old hubris. Hoover, ironically, as a Quaker, was guilty of hubris.

[Jeremy Suri]

He was. And that's in part because Hoover's hubris about some things in politics was also matched with an incredible ego about what he knew. He was the most successful business person of his time. He was smarter than most other people in the room. That meant he often didn't listen to others in the room. And this became a real liability during the Great Depression.

[Don Wildman]

Then there's plain old corruption. Let's talk about Warren Harding, Richard Nixon. I mean, these guys get painted with a brush, or this is the fact of their presidency.

[Jeremy Suri]

Yes, and corruption has been a problem around the presidency since at least the mid 19th century, because even when the office was smaller, there are powerful people who want privileges of one kind or another. They want government contracts. That's the story of railroad moguls, and it's the story of Elon Musk.

[Don Wildman]

Musk.

[Jeremy Suri]

They want the government to buy their stuff because the government pays a lot of money for things. And presidents have to balance the need to stay on the favorable side of these powerful rich people. But they also have to make sure they're not giving them so many favors that they're distorting government policy and undermining the United States.

[Don Wildman]

And I suppose the next one on the list is really related to that. It's to morality. I mean, it's plain old, is this guy a good guy or an immoral guy? Is he in it for his own good or is he in it for the nation? I mean, that goes without saying, I suppose, but. And it's also related to the last, which is lacking vision. The vision question is really central, isn't it?

[Jeremy Suri]

Well, the vision question is. But different kinds of vision are required for different moments. And one of the challenges is that you can have a visionary president. You mentioned Jimmy Carter. I mean, this was a man who thought deeply about human rights and had a vision for human rights. But they didn't match the moment the United States was in in the late 1970s with a revolution in Iran, with an economic downturn. And so the real question is not are you a visionary? But does your vision suit the times you're in? And one of the tragedies, Don. Of many presidencies, is someone like a Herbert Hoover has a phenomenal, powerful vision for the 1920s, but he turns out to be president in the 1930s, which is a very different context.

[Don Wildman]

Okay, Jeremy, so we've set the table now for the meal after the break. We'll come back and get down and dirty all the way to rock bottom. This episode of American History Hit is brought to you by Opera Air, the first browser with mindfulness at its core. When we dive into history, it's easy to lose track of time. One story leads to another and suddenly you've been scrolling for hours. That's where Opera Air comes in. It's lightweight, fast and secure with built in privacy tools like ad blocking and tracker prevention so you can browse without distraction. But what really makes Opera Air different is its focus on, well, being. With Opera Air, you get free built in mindfulness tools such as breathing exercises, guided meditations, soundscapes with binaural beats, and more. You can even set gentle reminders to stretch, pause and reset, helping you stay refreshed, focused and balanced as you move through the day. Opera Air isn't just another browser. It's a healthier way to be online. Experience a more focused, balanced and stress. Free web Download [e-mail] air.

[Mario Lopez]

Hey, what's up? It's Mario Lopez. Back to school is an exciting time, but it can also be overwhelming and kids may feel isolated, a vulnerability that human traffickers can exploit. Human trafficking doesn't always look like what you expect. Everyday moments can become opportunities for someone with bad intentions. Whether you're a parent, teacher, coach or neighbor, check in, ask questions, stay connected. Blue Campaign is a national awareness initiative that provides resources to help recognize suspected instances of human trafficking. Learn the signs and how to [e-mail] blue campaign.

[Jeremy Suri]

Land a Viking longship on island shores, scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt, and avoid the poisoner's cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. There are new episodes every week.

[Don Wildman]

Welcome back to you and to Jeremy Suri, the task before us. Let's choose America's worst president. The antebellum presidents never do well in the polls. Jeremy C. Span, Sienna University all the whole clump of these guys in the run up to the Civil War do badly in these polls. And I'll just list them. Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, William Henry Harrison, Franklin Pierce, and of course, James Buchanan. I mean Talk about extraordinary times requiring extraordinary measures. And to be fair, we've already discussed how the presidency up to Lincoln was this office that was restricted. You know, it didn't, by tradition, have these high expectations on these guys while meanwhile, the nation is ripping itself apart. So take these presidents separately for their worst qualities. Zachary Taylor, poor guy, dies in office, but let's go.

[Jeremy Suri]

Yeah, well, so, I mean, the challenge Zachary Taylor had is that he was a military hero, but he was not a politician. He was not a very good politician. And the task before the country in the 1840s was somehow to stitch together this pulling apart that was happening between slaveholding states and non slave holding states over the question of westward expansion. Zachary Taylor, I mean, he didn't have very much of an opportunity. He was president for such a short time, but also he didn't have the political skills to do this.

[Don Wildman]

But ultimately the big factor was it really angered the Southerners and inflames the division. I think that you can sort of take to the bank on Zachary Taylor.

[Jeremy Suri]

I think that's right. But I think you can also say that it's hard to imagine California not coming in as a state. And so what it required were political skills to provide some basis for Southerners to see a future under his presidency. And of course, that didn't happen.

[Don Wildman]

Followed by Millard Fillmore, a complicated man, as we found out. You got to listen to that episode, folks. It's a really interesting conversation about this guy. He ultimately approves what's called the Compromise of 1850, which is actually five different acts that go into undoing so much that had been done to keep things in balance. Talk to me about Millard Fillmore.

[Jeremy Suri]

So Millard Fillmore is a really interesting individual. He's from New York, so he's sort of in the belly of the beast of American economic growth at this time. But yeah, he's a compromiser. And he's in a sense a classic Whig in that he believes that you can build a compromise where the economic pie will grow for everyone in the country. The challenge is that the compromise that he creates, The Compromise of 1850, as you said, this series of compromises, it really keeps the slave states in control of Congress. And that's a real problem for Northerners, for someone like a young Abraham Lincoln, because it means that there still is the unresolved question of slavery in new Western territories.

[Don Wildman]

We're not talking current events here, but I did read just this week how the Democratic Party, this, at least this writer, thought that they suffered from this problem of trying to please too many people in an age that that can't be accomplished.

[Jeremy Suri]

I think that's an issue. Right? I mean, the Whig party became a large umbrella of many different subgroups. And there is an analog to the Democratic party today.

[Don Wildman]

Other events, Utah and New Mexico territories are organized by popular sovereignty. That's when that comes, which is so much of Stephen Douglas's work. Let's let the settlers vote over whether they want slavery in the state or not. Boy, was that an explosive issue, especially in Kansas.

[Jeremy Suri]

Absolutely. And you get in Kansas two different governments. Right. And so this is the beginning of bleeding Kansas, as it was called. And that is the existence of a free state government, which is a non slave government and a pro slave government. And they literally are fighting each other. You could argue the Civil War begins on the ground in places like Kansas.

[Don Wildman]

Lastly, the Fugitive act is strengthened under his thing, which has so much to do with that.

[Jeremy Suri]

I mean, the Fugitive Slave act is really important and it's, it's forgotten by a lot of people. But this was the legislation that gave southerners the right to use federal militia forces as well as state forces to go into northern areas and recapture escaped slaves. This was seen as an affront to the sovereignty of northern states. And so now you had northerners arguing for states rights as well as Southerners. Right. Massachusetts citizens said, we have the right to police our own state. You have no right federal government and South Carolina to send your forces into our state to arrest former slaves. Whereas the South Carolinians, for example, said no, that's our property that is absconded to your territory. It does echo some of our debates about state sovereignty in the 21st century.

[Don Wildman]

And in general, we can be saying even at this point, I'm gonna quickly go down to Franklin Pierce and then Buchanan, of course. But in all of these cases, we're talking with the perspective of history. At the time, people were hearing about this really on the state level, much more from their senators, and it was a lot more populous involved in talking about these issues. The presidents weren't necessarily the ones they were hearing from.

[Jeremy Suri]

And that's why these presidents are generally criticized, because they're criticized for being inactive, they're criticized for not being involved enough in trying to resolve what were these centrifugal forces, I should say, pulling apart different states.

[Don Wildman]

Pierce, I have a hard problem with. You got this northerner from New Hampshire who's all about appeasing the south, but God, the tragedy he comes into office dealing with would hamstring anybody, you know, loses his son in a train crash months before he gets into office. It's just awful. Where does he stand for you, Jeremy?

[Jeremy Suri]

Franklin Pierce is one of our worst presidents because he tried to deny the power of the abolitionist movement. I mean, even though he himself was from a northern state, his sympathy for southern slaveholders and his unwillingness to see that abolitionist politics, whether he agreed with them or not, were coming to dominate, thinking about not just society, but economics in the North. He was, in a sense, a northern turncoat.

[Don Wildman]

Yeah, it's a cynical presidency for sure. We're going to hold off on Buchanan for a moment because we're going to talk in detail about this, but that's the commentary on this antebellum period, which is so often discussed as the worst of our presidents. I think you have to have some understanding or perspective on the fact that they were motivated by keeping everything together for better or worse. That was their engine. Like they could see what was happening or they were being told what was happening. And we got to keep this thing together. That goes right into Lincoln, you know, coming into his candidacy for president. Tree for. But that so much defines that period, am I right?

[Jeremy Suri]

I think that's right. It also was a function of what the two party system looked like at that time. So you had a Democratic Party, which was firmly ensconced in what would become the Confederacy. The Democratic Party was based in the slave states. Of course, there were Northern Democrats too. And then the Whig party, which had been the party of Henry Clay, the party of development, the party of economic growth. That party, as we said earlier, had many different factions in it. It had some abolitionists who later became Republic. It had some anti immigrant groups, no nothings. It had various different groups in it, some who were just business people seeking to build the economy and move west. And balancing all those factions for Whig presidents became very difficult. That's why the party ultimately came apart.

[Don Wildman]

All right. Two presidents always find themselves deep at the bottom of this list. And we've mentioned them already, but let's get into them. James Buchanan of Pennsylvania will be followed by Andrew Johnson of Tennessee. So James Buchanan, Pennsylvania appeaser, completely. Right. That's his deal.

[Jeremy Suri]

Yes, exactly. I mean, he believed that you could kick the can down the road, that this emerging conflict could be avoided by simply preventing one side from fighting the other. And that's why he's often referred to as a spineless jellyfish.

[Don Wildman]

How could he have been different? What tools were in his toolbox that he could have used better?

[Jeremy Suri]

So Lincoln and others believe that what Buchanan should have done is he should have undertaken various measures to try to either buy the slaves from the south or provide Southerners with some other incentive not to demand the expansion of slavery to the West. And they believe that he could have bought them off one way or another.

[Don Wildman]

Instead, in fact, he backs a pro slavery faction in bleeding Kansas, which ends up tearing the Democratic party apart, his party. When those Southern states start to secede, he holds the Northern radicals responsible. He fails to do anything in a moment of crisis, which is one of those big bullet points of presidency.

[Jeremy Suri]

Right. And I think what you can say about Buchanan was that he always hoped for the best, but did very little to make that outcome possible.

[Don Wildman]

Yeah, he just wanted to be liked. I think it's one of those weird psychologies where he just wanted to be in the room and have a nice time. And, you know, I fear that I might be one of those presidencies if.

[Jeremy Suri]

I was, God forbid, to give him credit. Buchanan, I think, believed the President couldn't solve these problems. That wasn't within the power of the presidency. I mean, what distinguished him from Lincoln was Lincoln believed the presidency had to be changed and he would change it to solve this problem.

[Don Wildman]

Yes. I mean, this is the thing about looking back, you realize at the time these guys were dealing with, well, what's my definition of my job? You know, and he's surrounded by people who supporting his view. Andrew Johnson, Senator from Tennessee. You gotta understand, Tennessee in those days is basically divided, you know, east and western Tennessee. And he's an eastern Tennessee guy.

[Jeremy Suri]

He's an eastern Tennessee guy. He's not from Nashville, but he's from the Hill country. And he has a small number of slaves. He's not a large slaveholder. He was a tailor by background.

[Don Wildman]

When he takes the presidency In April of 1865, the Congress is out of session all the way until the winter. And so this weird time he has this chance to do presidential reconstruction. It's a strange way the cards kind of fell. That is all going to have to be undone. It's also impeachment involved. All of this goes into creating this incredibly difficult period that is under President Johnson. How do you look back and see this guy?

[Jeremy Suri]

Andrew Johnson is a terribly tragic figure. He is someone who never should have been president, never expected to be president. He was drunk at Lincoln's second inauguration and no one expected that he would have any role to play. He was a tailor by trade. He was a man who revered Andrew Jackson, who had also come from Tennessee, of course. And so even though he Owned slaves, a small number of slaves, and was pro slavery. He was pro Union. So he was the one Southern senator who did not secede, and therefore he was made vice president by Abraham Lincoln. But this was exactly the problem when the Civil War was over and the Union was restored. Andrew Johnson believed that although slavery by the 13th Amendment was prohibited, that there was no further role for the federal government in dealing with the former slave problem. Andrew Johnson hated the large plantation owners, the white elite in the south, but he also hated and feared African Americans, free African Americans who would compete with Taylors like him. And so he used the presidency and the six to eight months when he was in kind of virtual control. He had all of Lincoln's powers without Congress being in session in the middle of 1865. He used that power really to try to bring back the states, bring back the country together in a way that did nothing to help the former slaves. And that was exactly the opposite of what Congress wanted him to do.

[Don Wildman]

Well, he also ends up allowing the Southern states to establish their black codes, which is really the groundwork for everything that follows from Jim Crow onward.

[Jeremy Suri]

And he pardons Don, eventually all Confederates. And that allows, in a state like Texas, where I live, it allows the former leaders of the Confederacy, who, some of whom actually committed treason twice by joining the Mexican army when they fled, they come back and they become the leaders of the state in the 1870s and 1880s. So that's one of the reasons why we have this terrible period of Jim Crow, post Reconstruction, is because the Confederates are still in power in the states.

[Don Wildman]

I think it's a general note we're making that a number of these guys are on this worst list because they don't confront the moment courageously enough, proactively enough, with any kind of vision that might fall to the voters these days because they didn't see this about this person. But in those days, it was hard for the electorate to understand these guys. It was a weird time that way.

[Jeremy Suri]

I agree. And especially in the partisanship of that moment, people were reading either a pro Confederate or pro Union newspaper, and that's all the news they were getting.

[Don Wildman]

Yeah. And don't forget, Andrew Johnson wasn't elected for this period of time. So he just ends up as the president. You're right.

[Jeremy Suri]

That's right.

[Don Wildman]

Incredible. Well, okay, we're at this point, I want to know, Jeremy, who do you choose as your worst United States President?

[Jeremy Suri]

Andrew Johnson, the man we were just talking about, for two reasons. First of all, he was so inadequate for the office at a moment of such importance at the end of the Civil War. And then second, he tried to reverse what the duly elected Congress and others were doing. And by 1867, 1868, he was not enforcing laws that Congress had passed, which is one of the reasons he was impeached. So he was not doing his job. Not only that, he was passive. He was actively undermining the law of the land and a president's duty under their oath. The only oath written into the Constitution is to the law of the land, to the Constitution. He was doing the opposite.

[Don Wildman]

You know, I certainly agree with you on all counts, but I'm gonna take James Buchanan because I'm from Pennsylvania. He pisses me off, that guy. You know, I just think that it's one thing to criticize Pierce. It's all these guys down the road in the antebellum period. But, you know, the pressures weren't as great on them to make a bold decision. Here we have James Buchanan, who lands in this moment, and my goodness, a lot is obvious screaming states ready to secede. Instead of having any kind of pivot, which is so important for a great leader to have, instead of having any oratory abilities, he decides to stay in the room with his friends and try to make it work just as it was, claiming it's not my role to play. So compare that to a guy who comes just a few years later. So people were thinking this way. There was plenty of political thought on. I can adjust, I can pivot. But he was one of those that wasn't. I find that to be really pathetic. And I'm going to put him as my worst president. Interestingly, we have both our worst presidents on either side of Abraham Lincoln.

[Jeremy Suri]

That's right.

[Don Wildman]

Well, there you have it. Worst so far, at least. When we come back, we're going to talk about a few other categories we've not yet discussed. Most overrated president, perhaps. Okay, we're back celebrating. I guess that's the wrong word. The very worst president in American history. Let's keep going by asking this. Could we be living. I know we talked about. We're not going to go into current events, but could we be living in an age of worst ever presidents and we don't have to get into specifics. I don't want to put you on the spot here, but I do want to talk about this in terms of issues we've already discussed, like the definition of the office.

[Jeremy Suri]

Yes, we might be in a period of some of our worst presidents on both sides of the aisle, and that is because like in the mid 19th century, the world is changing so rapidly and so fundamentally, and it's very difficult for especially older men who we tend to elect now to adjust. I mean, we're asking grandpas to make sense of artificial intelligence. I mean, it's in a certain way. It's absurd, isn't it?

[Don Wildman]

It is really absurd and takes us back to that moment in the mid-1800s when, you know, issues were this fraud as well, and how people dealt with them was either sweeping them under the rug or avoiding them or actually taking them on. But it only happens in moment of greatest crisis, it seems, which is so unfortunate.

[Jeremy Suri]

I agree, Don. And I was just thinking about your comments about James Buchanan, your fellow Pennsylvanian. You know, I think, I think for him and for Andrew Johnson, the equivalent to, you know, struggling to understand AI for them was slavery was so embedded in the world, they knew, even though Buchanan wasn't a slaveholder, that it was hard for them to imagine a world without slavery, even though the world was going in that direction. The United States, Brazil, Cuba were the only countries really that still had slaves. And the world was moving and changing, but they couldn't adjust to that. Just as I think our grandpas who are presidents today can't adjust to a world of artificial intelligence.

[Don Wildman]

And let's be honest, it took Abraham Lincoln a continuum to get there too. I think the problems that presidents these days face, just as slavery and states rights or whatever you want to call it back then, was a problem for those guys today, wealth disparity and the debt, the economic wonky subjects, are so dangerous and they really aren't bravely taking them on in a way that the public understands this isn't being translated by the president very well.

[Jeremy Suri]

I think that's right. I think this is a long standing problem. And I think one of the issues we confront today, and maybe this is the equivalent of having lived with slavery so long. We live with the United States being the wealthiest country with the default currency for the world, able to spend money anytime we want to spend money. We've lived with that so long, we can't imagine a situation where that's not the case. But we all know those who study economics and history, that this is a unique thing and it won't last forever. And that's hard for presidents to articulate to Americans. We take for granted our position in the world, and that often leads us to do things that undermines our position in the world without recognizing we're doing that.

[Don Wildman]

Exactly. Most overrated president who jumps to mind.

[Jeremy Suri]

Well, I think the obvious answer is John F. Kennedy. Kennedy.

[Don Wildman]

Oh, okay.

[Jeremy Suri]

And I think the reason. It's not that John F. Kennedy didn't do some important things, and not that he might not have done even more important things, but he's always rated in the top 10 in these polls that I'm a part of, and some of that you cited. But actually he wasn't president very long and he didn't actually do very much. And in fact, some of the things he did were really bad, such as the Bay of Pigs invasion, for example. Right. And the beginnings of the Vietnam War. Really in terms of early combat or at least covert activities and things of that sort. You could argue that our real combat operations go back to John F. Kennedy in some ways. So, you know, he gets put in the top 10. And I'm not saying he was a horrible president. He was certainly better than some of the worst, but he was probably middling. But yet because of the oratory, because of the image, and because he died young and we always remember him young, he gets overrated.

[Don Wildman]

Our producer Freddie's pick for worst ever, James K. Polk. But then he's an Englishman.

[Jeremy Suri]

He would say that some people rate Polk pretty highly, as, you know, in a lot of these, in a lot of these surveys. And that's because they say he acquired these not insignificant territories.

[Don Wildman]

That's right.

[Jeremy Suri]

Mexico, Arizona, parts of California. Right. I mean, so, yeah, he points out.

[Don Wildman]

I think admirably that he was a warmonger. He created a war that didn't exist. This is a false flag operation to create the, the whole thing, the whole basis of the Mexican American war. He embraces and creates the whole manifest destiny for real. I mean, he realizes it pretty much. You know, that's a. There's a lot of reasons to question his presidency. But you, in the end, you're remembered as the victor that he certainly was.

[Jeremy Suri]

Not to push back on Freddie too much, because I don't think Polk was a great president, but some of the things that were admirable about him, even though he was horrible in the ways that we just discussed, he served only one term, which was his promise to only serve one term. And when pressured by the most belligerent groups to take all of Mexico, he refused. Right. He actually had limited war aims. He was not a conqueror. He was someone who wanted particular lands that didn't belong to the United States. And so he should be criticized for that. But nonetheless, he saw certain limitations in power.

[Don Wildman]

Well, it can be done, folks. We have chosen the worst U.S. president ever. Jeremy for Andrew Johnson, me for James Buchanan. It's all subjective, but it's easy to be subjective when you can defer to objective authority. Like our guest today, Jeremy Suri is a historian, author, and professor of public affairs and history at University of Texas at Austin with a long list of books to his credit. In addition to the Impossible Presidency, he's written and edited works like Henry Kissinger and the American Century. I'd love to read that. I haven't done so yet. Liberty's Surest Guardian and Power and Protest, which is on the 1960s and all that Happened Then. Thank you, Jeremy. We'll make history again next week when we choose the best U.S. president. See you then.

[Jeremy Suri]

Thank you.

[Don Wildman]

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