Great US Presidents: Compare and Contrast

The Great Presidents of the United States and their Achievements

The Great Presidents of the United States and their Achievements

The president of the United States is by far the best known politician both within the United States and around the world . Presidents enjoy one important advantage because of a constitutional practice rather than the Constitution as such . The president is uniquely positioned to claim to be the person who can speak for the United States and the national interest , particularly during HYPERLINK "http /www .answers .com /crisis " \t "_top " crises and

emergencies . This reflects the fact that , contrary to the plan for electing the president set out in the Constitution , the president is in practice elected directly by the people voting state by state . Thus the president can claim with some plausibility to be the only politician to have been elected by all the people , in contrast to legislators elected by a single state or district . Yet all these Constitutional advantages must be set against the constraints the Constitution provides and that we have discussed above (USPRE 2008

The most obvious are worth reiterating . Presidents cannot legislate without Congress . Presidents cannot even implement established policies unless Congress , which has the power of the HYPERLINK "http /www .answers .com /purse " \t "_top " purse , provides the funding . A success varies over the course of a presidency . Even those presidents regarded as the most successful in gaining support from Congress have found that toward the end of their presidencies their success has faltered . Both Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson experienced dramatic success in obtaining legislation from Congress only to experience subsequent periods of frustration and failure . a president 's success may be influenced by reactions to events that occurred under his predecessors . Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter both suffered from the belief that under their predecessors an HYPERLINK "http /www .answers .com /overly " \t "_top " overly powerful "imperial presidency " had developed . Ronald Reagan benefited from a fear that under Carter and Ford the presidency had become "imperiled , not imperial (USPRE 2008

Great presidents were not only stubborn and disagreeable , but were also more extraverted , open to experience , assertive , achievement striving excitement seeking and more open to fantasy according to Steven Rubenzer , Ph .D (Holmes 2008

George Washington was the first President of the United States took his oath at his office on April 30 , 1789 (McDougall 2008 . The first President of the United States of America from 1789-1797 refused to be affiliated with any party . He is among the most loved American presidents as he set America on-course to become a great democratic republic through such acts as Judiciary Act of 1789 , Residence Act of 1790 , Bank Act of 1791 , Coinage Act of 1792 , and Naval Act of 1794 . His most notable contribution has been voluntarily relinquishing power after two terms , in spite of being the only President to be unanimously elected twice (Schultz 2008 . He defined the office of the Presidency in terms of its limits as well...