5 Greatest Presidents

br FIVE GREAT PRESIDENTS

I regard as our five greatest Presidents , Abraham Lincoln , Franklin D . Roosevelt , George Washington , Harry Truman , and Theodore Roosevelt

Few men in history have faced a crisis to equal that which Abraham Lincoln faced as he came into office . He had risen from being virtually unknown outside Illinois to being a figure of national renown between the Lincoln /Douglas debates and his Cooperstown address (Fehrenbacher 1962 ) Nominated by the Republican Party , he stood as the anti-slavery candidate , and his election had prompted the secession of the southern

br states frm the Union (Fehrenbacher , 1962 Potter 1976 ) In contrast to the '93do nothing '94 administration of his predecessor James Buchanan , Lincoln had stood firm that secession could be resisted by the national power . Soon confronted with a war between the North and the South , he mobilized the nation (MacPherson , 1988 Potter 1976 ) To do this , Lincoln assumed essentially dictatorial powers , repressing dissent where that was necessary , and continually refining the power of the nation to address its greatest crisis (Rossiter , 1948 ) Disappointed in his generals , he replaced those who would not lead , eventually turning to the rough and ready scrappers , Grant and Sherman , who would lead the country to victory over the South (McPherson 1988 Williams 1952

Throughout the war , Lincoln not only directed the government , he spoke to the nation . In documents ranging from the Emancipation Proclamation to his Letter to Mrs . Bixby , to his most famous piece , the Gettysburg Address , Lincoln projected a straightforward , moving idiom that moved the nation , calling it to rededicate itself to be its best (Wills 1992

Through it all , Lincoln maintained a humanity that remains his hallmark . By the time he was reelected , he had seen horrors that would have driven a weaker man to base emotion . Instead , Lincoln acknowledge that neither he nor his nation were flawless , and in his Second Five Great Presidents Page Inaugural Address , he called on the nation to set aside hatred for their opponents , to be ready to bind up the wounds that had wracked the nation , '93with malice toward '94 An assassin '92s bullet prevented him from implementing a reconstruction effort that might have saved the nation much of its post-war trauma , and also might have hastened the nation in turning against the racism that remained the nation '92s great shame (Woodward , 1966

Consider the time when Franklin D . Roosevelt came into office : The nation was in the midst of the Great Depression . Industrial capacity lay unused . Millions wanted work . The nation '92s grain belt was threatened with the worst dust storms ever known (Leuchtenberg , 1963 Consider the time when Roosevelt died : The United States had endured the attack on Pearl Harbor and had become the great storehouse of democracy He had heard the wings of victory (Leuchtenberg , 1963 James , 1980

Roosevelt led the country through two of its greatest crisis . The first was the Depression , an economic catastrophe so grave that it seemed the nation would be broken . The first thing that Roosevelt did was to assert himself as a leader who would direct the nation through the crisis . He may well have been entirely wrong is his inaugural address when he announced that , '93The only thing we have to fear is fear itself '94 But he had promised the nation a '93new deal '94 in his unprecedented appearance at the Democratic National Convention , and he was determined to give the nation a New Deal (Burns 1956 Leuchtenberg , 1963

To do so , he brought about an almost complete reworking of the United States government , taking the President '92s personal staff from six to hundreds , creating an alphabet soup of new agencies to deal with matters which the government had never dealt with . His '93Hundred Days '94 was the most sweeping and innovative legislative initiative ever undertaken (Leuchtenberg , 1963 Burns , 1956 Schlesinger , 1958 Within four years , he had transformed the nation , going from a government which saw itself as basically a caretaker which had no right to intervene in economic matters , to being the great engine driving much of the nation '92s economy . The result was seen vividly when Roosevelt addressed a rally of supporters in Philadelphia , where over and over grown men screamed accolades to him , the climax being '93God bless you , Mr . Roosevelt '94 (Schlesinger , 1958 Luechtenberg , 1963

Then as the threat of fascism loomed , Roosevelt confronted two opponents : oppression overseas and isolationism at home . Recognizing the critical importance of having Britain remain free of Nazi control Roosevelt took calculated steps to bring the United States closer to war . He risked the wrath of those who did not want the United States to go to war , while making increasing critical resources available to England . He was prepared to commit the United States to war when Japan obviated that struggle by attacking Pearl Harbor (Feis 1950 ) Once in the war , he cemented a working alliance with Britain '92s Winston Churchill had helped turn the tide of the war in Africa and Western Europe provided the Soviet Union with the critical material aid that it needed to keep the largest army in the world supplied and bound the nation to a role in the post-war world (Divine , 1965 Feis , 1950 At his death , Churchill addressed a muted Parliament and in a rare tribute , spoke movingly of this giant for freedom (James , 1980

Compared to the fervent action of Lincoln and Roosevelt , Washington hardly seems to merit consideration . He did not lead the United States into a war . He ruled during a period of comparative prosperity . And in this lies his greatness (Miller , 1960 ) When the Constitutional Convention was called for Philadelphia . Washington was ready to retire to his Mount Vernon estate . Finding his presence at the meeting indispensable , Washington agreed to serve as the president of the Convention . When the convention turned to the task of proscribing the powers of the President , delegates of every political persuasion agreed that the Constitution would work well , but only if the first President was Washington (Bowen , 1966 ) When he took office , again foregoing retirement , it was with a profound awareness of the fact that one of the greatest fears that the nation had was that the chief executive would overwhelm the other branches of government and make himself king Washington understood this fear as well as anyone , and he responded by deliberately by doing as little as possible , thereby showing the nation that a president did not have to be a tyrant . With the close of his second term , Washington decided that he had done quite enough . He could have won an additional terms easily , but finally left for Mount Vernon Behind he left a nation prepared to continue , with a tradition so firm against royalty that future Presidents would come and go without any of them ever being serious consideration for kingship . In that regard , no President since Washington has escaped his towering influence (Miller 1960

Harry Truman was President accidentally . In 1944 , Roosevelt decided to run for a fourth term . The war was still going on , and Roosevelt would not given up on high office until that was done (McCullough , 1992 Dissatisfied with his current vice president , Roosevelt turned to Truman as a person who wold do his job , and do it well , which in this case meant merely giving the administration proper support . A few months into the new term , Roosevelt died . Truman was suddenly thrust into the presidency (McCullough , 1992

To many its seemed impossible . The man was not even a college graduate . He had once been a tool in the notorious Pendergast political machine . What qualified this man to be President ? Harry Truman qualified him . Truman had spend his entire adult life trying to prepare himself to be something good and solid and admirable . Truman was essentially self-taught . As an adult , he had read a sweeping range of materials , and had a wonderful ability to draw on that background for that rarest of articles , wisdom , sometimes saying that he regarded the ancient biographer Plutarch as a better counsel than his cabinet (Fears , 2001

One of the first decisions that Truman faced was whether to use the atomic bomb . He approved its use , bringing the war to an end much sooner than any conventional assault could have done (McCullough , 1992 ) He welcomed peace . But as the Soviet Union pushed for dominance in Europe , the communists and the world learned that Truman would not be bullied . Truman directed the American effort to salvage western Europe including the restoration of stability in Greece , the Marshall Plan throughout Europe , and the Berlin airlift (McCullough , 1992

At home , Truman decided that it was high time that the nation address one of its greatest wrongs : he ed the desegregation of the United States military . The United States had fought World War Two to check the power of ideologies that were profoundly and fundamentally racist Despite this , racial segregation was a widespread practice throughout much of the nation , including the military . Truman issued an as commander-in-chief that racial barriers were to be abolished in the United States military , and he insisted that his commanders carry out that through all sectors of the military . This action led many in his own party to denounced him , but it steered the way for the righting of the terrible national wrong (McCullough , 1992

When North Korea invaded South Korea , Truman swung the nation into a new war , with the United States as the critical power in the combined United Nations effort . That was brought one of Truman '92s most difficult challenges . When General of the Armies Douglas MacArthur defied presidential authority , Truman dismissed him from his post . The American Caesar met his match in the humble man from Missouri (Manchester , 1978 McCullough , 1992

In 1953 , Harry Truman left the White House and retired to Independence Missouri , largely slipping back into a life he had never really left He said of himself , '93I tried never to forget who I was and where I '92d come from and where I was gong back to '94 (McCullough , 1992 He had stayed true to this vision

Few men liked being President as much as Theodore Roosevelt did Sensing that the nation needed action , he acted , and acted with a fervor the nation had never seen before . In his hands , the Presidency became the bully pulpit . The youngest man ever to become President , he brought a vigor to that office that it had never had before . Faced with great conglomerates , Roosevelt launched the anti-trust campaign . Finding the nation threatened by the strike against the anthracite coal companies Roosevelt mediated the dispute , and when he found that the mine owners initially refused to enter into discussions with the union leaders Roosevelt rankled at their arrogance , threatening to nationalize the mines under the military power if the owners continued to reject anything short of union capitulation . Faced with this irresistible force , the mine owners gave way . Seeing a grave threat to world peace in the Russo-Japanese War , he brought the belligerents to Portsmouth New Hampshire , where he managed to negotiations so skillfully that he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts . He thrust the United States into the role of world power , often over widespread opposition and through a range of tactics that were sometimes questionable . By the tie he left office , the nation had been transformed (Mowry , 1958 Miller 1992 WORKS CITED

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Abrams Mowry , George (1958 . The Era of Theodore Roosevelt . New York , New York : Harper Row Potter , David (1976 . The Impending Crisis . New York , New York Harper Row Rossiter , Clinton (1948 . Constitutional Dictatorship . New York , New York : Harcourt Brace World Schlesinger , Arthur M , Jr (1958 . The Coming of the New Deal Boston , Massachusetts : Houghton Mifflin Co Williams , T . Harry (1952 . Lincoln and His Generals . New York , New York : Alfred A . Knopf Wills , Garry (1992 . Lincoln at Gettysburg . New York , New York Simon Schuster Woodward , C . Vann (1966 . The Strange Career of Jim Crow . New York New York : Oxford University Press

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