Herbert Hoover - 1929-1933, Republican
One of the worst Presidents in history, Hoover started out in 1929 inheriting a booming economy from fellow Republican Calvin Coolidge. However, that fall, the stock market crashed and the Great Depression began; by the time Hoover left office, one out of four Americans was unemployed. Though Hoover was a self made multi millionaire (he actually refused any salary when he was first Coolidge's Secretary of Commerce and later as President) and had become famous as a humanitarian leader in the 1910's, Hoover did NOTHING to deal with the Great Depression. Hoover believed that government must stay out of economics no matter how bad the situation was - Hoover and most of Wall Street believed that as long as the market was left alone, it would correct itself and the problems would go away. He actually kept saying "Prosperity is right around the corner" Well as more workers lost jobs, and more investors got screwed, most people (even Republicans) realized that doing nothing was probably not the right thing to do. But Hoover stuck to his principles and when Republicans in Congress forced Hoover's hand, he would only support relief for businesses, and not for the investors and workers. AND he drastically reduced the amount of money given out (most of which ended up in the pockets of corrupt bureaucrats).Hoover's lowest moment came in June 1932 when over 20,000 World War I Veterans marched on Washington with their families. Back in 1924, Congress passed a law outlining the benefits package for those who fought in WWI. In short, it promised them a good size payout that would be available in 1945 so that the Vets would have a comfortable retirement. Well by 1932, a large number of WWI Vets were unemployed and homeless and many wanted their promised bonus paid out early. When the Bonus Marchers (as the Media back then called them) arrived in Washington, they took over the parks and announced they would not leave until they got their bonus. Though the House of Reps passed a bill giving the Bonus Marchers what they wanted, but the Senate refused to do so also. Finally at the end of July, Hoover (who was against the Bonus) ordered the Army to evict the Bonus Marchers, the army complied and moved in, burnt down the Bonus Army's huts and then sent in tanks to crush the remains of them. This was done in full view of the public and newsreel companies even filmed it, and the footage they shot was shown in movie houses around the nation. Hoover, already wildly unpopular, never recovered politically and was destroyed by Franklin Roosevelt in the elections that Fall.
In retirement, Hoover kept private, though he would try to get the Republican nomination in both 1936 and 1940 - both times the Republican Party refused to even consider Hoover, knowing how toxic he was to voters. At the end of WWII, he did get some respect back as he ran food relief efforts in Europe. Other than that, he drifted to the background, making the token appearance at Republican conventions until his death in 1964.
Warren G Harding - 1921-1923, Republican
One of the most dumbest Presidents (he probably ties with George W Bush in all out stupidity), Harding oversaw one of the most conservative and corrupt administrations in US history. Harding, who started out as a small town journalist, was really a puppet of his wife Florance Kling, a member of a wealthy family from rural Ohio. Florence had huge ambitions, and began to associate with a group of politicians later known nationally as the "Ohio Gang". Their leader, Harry Daugherty, was a leader in the Ohio Republican Party, and he and Florence both realized they could make a great political team by being the brains behind Harding. After turning his mediocre newspaper into a success, Florence and Daugherty pushed Harding into politics, first getting him elected into the Ohio State Legislature, later Lieutenant Governor of Ohio, and finally they made him a US Senator. While in the Senate, Daugherty and Florence ran Harding's life. They told him what do to, what to say, how to say it and where to go to be seen. The only thing Florence and Daugherty didn't control was Harding's sex life. Harding (who rarely showed up to the Senate) was a sex addict, and fathered at least one illegitimate child while serving in the Senate.In 1920, with the Republican Party deadlocked over who to nominate as President, it was Daugherty who got the Party leaders to back Harding in a late night/early morning meeting at the convention. Harding really didn't want to be President, since being Senator was more fun, but Florence told him he had to be President, so he accepted. During the campaign, Florence made herself the face of the campaign, and it seemed at times she was running for President, not Harding. Florence made major use of the media, having Harding filmed all the time. These films of Harding were shown on movie screens across the country (this was still the era of silent films). The Republicans ran on a conservative platform of Prohibition, social morals, and corporate friendly tax laws and won by a landslide (interesting side note, this was the first election women could vote nationwide).
As President, Harding made Daugherty Attorney General, and gave very important government jobs to the other members of the Ohio Gang (included in this giveaway were the Treasury Department, the Interior Department, the Navy, and the Veterans' Affairs Department). Harding actually liked being President, he spent much of his time on the golf course or in the private quarters of the White House playing poker with his friends from Ohio (and the best part was he always won). When it came to running the country, Harding was relieved to have Florence and Daugherty do most of the boring stuff (which for Harding was basically anything that kept him away from the golf course or the poker table). By 1923 however, large sums of money had gone missing and natural resources owned by the government were being sold off at cheap rates. As the corruption became more known, Florence decided it was time for her and Warren to get out of Washington and tour the nation. Harding traveled all the way to Alaska (the first President to do so) but while touring California died suddenly of a heart attack. To this day, many writers and historians have speculated that Florence poisoned Harding.
After Harding's death, his intelligent (and clean) Vice President, Calvin Coolidge became President and during the Fall and Winter, he cleaned house and exposed the corruption of the Ohio Gang, Daugherty and the rest of the gang went to jail and after release faded into obscurity. Florence died only a year later and was buried next to Harding
Ulysses S Grant - 1869-1877, Republican
Though he may have won the Civil War for the Union, Grant was disaster as President. When the War ended, Grant wanted to return to civilian life in rural Illinois, but conflict with President Andrew Johnson over how to deal with the South kept him in the military and because of this dispute with Johnson Grant became a hero to most Republicans. Though Grant had no political experience, the Republican Party talked him into running in 1868, knowing he would win (which he did). As President, Grant, who knew his political shortcomings, wanted the best political minds working for him, but it seemed everyone he hired turned out to corrupt. Among the more famous corrupt members of the Grant Administration were both of his Vice Presidents (Grant had to dump one when it was clear he was too corrupt), 3 members of his Cabinet, his personal secretary, and his own brother in law.It was during the Grant Administration that corruption reached its peak at all levels of government. This was the period of the Whisky Ring, a vast tax evasion scheme, and the Credit Mobilor scandal, in which the Union Pacific RR defrauded the government of millions with Congressional support as the Union Pacific gave away company stock to key members of Congress. In the West, Native Americans (recently settled on Reservations) revolted because of major mistreatment by bureaucrats and countless broken treaties. In the East, Wall Street went unchecked, and the economy became very unstable as fortunes were made and lost. In the Midwest, farmers were subject to fluctuating prices and to railroads that charged them outrageously high prices to move their produce. And in both the East and the Midwest, workers were at the mercy of the employers and could lose their jobs at a moments notice. Grant, in keeping with Republican philosophy stayed out of economics and did very little in actual running the country. One area Grant did succeed in was crushing the Ku Klux Klan, which at this time was terrorizing free Slaves and pro-Unionist Whites all throughout the South. Grant did such a good job in the crackdown that the Klan would remain dormant until the 1910's.
In 1876, Grant was open to running for a third term, but the Republican Party wanted someone new, so Grant went into retirement in New York where he made a fortune selling his memoirs (which were edited by his friend Mark Twain).
Andrew Johnson - 1865-1869, Union Democrat
Andrew Johnson became President after Lincoln's assassination. Before that he was a Senator representing Tennessee, where he had become a hero to Northerners for his refusal to go along with his home state's succession (he would be the only Southern Senator to stay in Washington). Before that he was Governor of Tennessee. Johnson was from East Tennessee, a region where slaves were few and hatred of the elites was very strong (during the Civil War, men from East Tennessee signed up by the thousands to support the Union). Lincoln picked him to be his VP as a show of unity, though they were of different political parties. When Johnson was sworn in as VP, he was clearly wasted drunk and he went on to shock everyone in attendance by giving a long rambling speech where he said some very nasty stuff about many of those in attendance. (Johnson defended his heavy drinking by stating it helped the pain go away from his numerous illnesses).As President, Johnson, though an opponent of slavery, wasn't exactly a fan of giving any rights to the free slaves, and felt the US government should be nice to the now united Southern States. Congress was under control of the Radical Republicans, a faction of the Republican Party that called for the free slaves to be educated and to be given the same rights as the rest of the population, including full voting rights (I know this sounds hard to believe, but at one time the Republican Party actually cared about people who weren't rich or White). Johnson repeatedly vetoed bills that gave citizenship rights to the free slaves and bills that called for harsh punishments for ex Confederate leaders. Republican leaders, having enough of Johnson's shenanigans, impeached him, though the charges they impeached him on were flimsy and weak, so the Senate acquitted him (by just one vote). Eventually, the Republican Party won enough seats in Congress to overturn almost all of Johnson's vetoes.
By 1868, both the Republicans and the Democrats had enough of Johnson, and neither party wanted anything to do with him. Johnson went home to East Tennessee where he tried to get back into politics. In 1874, he was elected to serve in the Senate (one of 2 US Presidents to serve in Congress after the Presidency), where he served until his death a year later.
James Buchanan - 1857-1861, Democrat
Buchanan is considered by almost every historian and political scholar as the worst President ever. In 1856, the Democratic Party was evenly divided between pro Slavery Southerners and pro immigrant Northerners. Buchanan (who was our only unmarried President) had spent most of the 1850's in Europe where he worked as Ambassador to Britain, became the compromise candidate as he had no real opinions of the major domestic issues of the time as well as a serious lack of enemies. Buchanan had a long resume, before serving in Britain he was Ambassador to Russia and before that he had spent almost 19 years in both Houses of Congress representing his native Pennsylvania (where he got his start serving the state legislature in the 1810's).As President, Buchanan did absolutely NOTHING to prevent the Civil War. The pro Slave forces in the South were becoming more militant as the abolition movement was gaining popularity in the North, and the North was, in population and economic terms, growing by a huge rate in comparison to the South. Many Southern politicians (including Buchanan's own VP, John Breckenridge) stated if any attempt was made to limit slavery or even regulate it, they would take the South out of the Union. Meanwhile, in Kansas, the territory (it wouldn't become a state until 1861) was already in a state of civil war as pro and anti slavery factions committed terrorist acts on each other. Buchanan responded by following a pro Southern policy, but this only caused Northern politicians to get angry. An economic depression only made things worst, and Buchanan (setting a dangerous precedent) decided it was best not to do anything about the Depression.
In 1860, the Democrats refused to renominate Buchanan and the Party then split as it could not decide who to nominate next. When the Southern states started to succeed that winter, Buchanan did nothing to stop them and did not even try to build up the army. In the Spring of 1861, as Lincoln took over, Buchanan retired to PA and spent the rest of his life in quiet seclusion declaring that History will vindicate him.
Franklin Pierce - 1853-1857, Democrat
Pierce, the only President to come from New Hampshire, got the nomination of the Democratic Party in 1852 because a four way split at the convention. When the unknown Pierce, (who had been nominated only as a token gesture by the members of the NH delegation), was seriously considered as a possible compromise candidate, Pierce used all of his political skill to get the nomination. At the time of his nomination, Pierce was a leader of the NH Democratic Party and before that served in the US Senate for a term. Pierce's wife, Jane, hated politics and threw a major fit when she found out Pierce maneuvered his way to the nomination without telling her. Unfortunately for her (and the nation), the opposing Whig Party nominated Winfield Scott, the hero of the Mexican War but a terrible politician. Scott should had won with his name recognition but he was such a bad campaigner that the public went into the Democratic Camp.
As President Pierce proved to be awful at best. The Kansas situation began under Pierce, and he did nothing to stop it. Also, Pierce felt that as a Northerner, he had appease the South and as such, refused to even bring up the Slave Issue. Pierce's promotion of a pro Southern policy caused many Northern politicians to lose faith in Pierce and many soon stop supporting him. Pierce had hoped to defuse the Slave issue by buying Cuba from Spain, but Northern Congressmen blocked it, which in turn angered Southern Congressmen. As Pierce's term continued, tensions between Northern and Southern members of Congress over the Slave issue only got worst and worst. The low point in Congress over the Slave issue came in May of 1856 when Congressman Preston Brooks of SC beat Senator Charles Sumner of MA unconscious on the Senate floor.
Meanwhile, shortly after Pierce took office, it became clear to everyone in Washington that Pierce was a raging alcoholic and Jane Pierce was completely crazy. The only thing Pierce seemed interested in doing was getting drunk while Jane would lock herself in her room and write letters to her dead children (tragically, the Pierces only child to survive infancy was killed in a freak railroad accident just weeks before the inauguration). Fortunately, Pierce had filled the Cabinet with intelligent people who were able to run the day to day affairs of the country.
In 1856, Pierce tried to get a 2nd term in office, but the Democrats didn't want to do anything with him, dumping him for the unknown James Buchanan. After stepping down in 1857, Pierce retired to NH where he drank himself away. In 1861, Pierce caused an uproar when he came out in favor of Southern Succession. He even wrote supporting letters to his friend, Confederate President Jefferson Davis, and in these letters he said some very nasty things about Lincoln and the Union war effort as a whole. When the Northern Press got hold of these letters, they were printed for all to read. His reputation in ruins, Pierce drifted away into a drunken oblivion until his death in 1869.
Millard Fillmore - 1850-1853, Whig
The last of our gallery of Disaster Presidents is Millard Fillmore, who was also the last President from the Whig Party. Fillmore started out in the New York State Legislature, and later spent ten years serving in the House of Representatives. Later in the 1840's he became a Party leader in NY. When the Whig Party nominated the Southern Slave owner Zachary Taylor in 1848, Fillmore was put on the ticket as a way to bring in Northern members of the Party, who were becoming more supportive of abolition. As President, Taylor (the last US President to own slaves) took a middle road, and was able to keep the nation (and the Whig Party) together. When Taylor died suddenly in the Summer of 1850, Fillmore found himself the head of a nation and a Party that was about to fall apart. Fillmore decided that Party unity was more important and he would spend most of his Presidency trying to save the Whig Party from collapse. Unfortunately, Fillmore's support of the Compromise of 1850 angered both sides of the Whig Party. While Southeners were angered at California getting statehood as a Free State, Northeners were angered at the super controversial Fugitve Slave Act, which forced all Federal, State, and local officers of the law to help track down escaped slaves - it even paid judges double for finding in favor of the slaveowner when an accused fugitve appeared in court. The law was wildly unpopular in the North, where even people who weren't in favor of abolition denouced it as being morally wrong.
In 1852, the Whig Party (more divided than ever) refused to give Fillmore a second term, dumping him in favor of War hero Winfield Scott. Fillmore wanted to go back to the White House but by 1856 the Whig Party had collapsed over the Slave issue, so Fillmore joined and was nominated by the Know Nothing Party, the most successful racist party in US History. The Know Nothing Party wanted to restrict citizenship to native born White Protestants and forbid immigration of Catholics into the US. Many members of the Know Nothing Party had no problem comitting acts on Catholic immigrants that would be conisdered terrorist actions by today's standards. In the Presidential race that year, Fillmore came in third and even won the majority of the votes in Maryland.
After 1856, Fillmore left politics for good, settling in Buffalo NY, where he spent most of the rest of his life running the Buffalo Historical Society. During the Civil War he did criticise Lincoln, but always made sure to denounce succession and called for the restoration of the Union. Afterwards, Fillmore drifted into obsucity dying in Buffalo in 1874
Speical dishonoriable meantions: Lyndon Johnson (1963-1969), Democrat and Richard Nixon (1969-1974), Republican
Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon are both remembered mostly for the bad things they did (and rightfully so), that does not mean they were not necessarly disaster Presdients. Lyndon Johnson started off well, supporting and signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Later he declared a "War on Poverty" and brought Medicare and Medicade in 1965. Unfortunately though, at this point he became obsessed by Vietnam and he esculated the War only to make himself wildly unpopular with the voters because of it. When Johnson left office, the nation dispised him as major riots occured in decaying cities, an unpopular war was being fought to a standstill and social strife and upheaval was the rule of the day. Richard Nixon is more complex. Though he also escaluated Vietnam (after he promised in 1968 to end it quickly), he finally (after secrely bombing Loas and Cambodia) withdraw most troops from Vietnam by 1973. Nixon also achieved detante with the Soviet Union and went to China and had talks with Chairman Mao. Unfortunately, Nixon also brought us division politics (the "Southern Stragedy"), and Nixon had such a parinoria that even if he did not arthorized the break in at Watergate, he did support what happened if it helped him politically. (And we all know about his role in the coverup of Watergate)
So there are the men that George W Bush will soon be joining. Where will he be on the scale? I'll place him between Harding and Hoover.
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