New rankings done by a "balanced" (i.e., not stacked liberal) panel:
November 16, 2000
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ranking the Presidents
By James Lindgren and Steven G. Calabresi, professors of law at Northwestern. Mr. Calabresi is the national co-chairman of the Federalist Society. For more information on this survey, go to OpinionJournal.com.
Every age has its own heroes and villains, and so it is no surprise that the reputations of American presidents rise and fall over time. With a new president taking office in January, the Federalist Society and The Wall Street Journal decided the time was ripe to do a new survey of presidential scholars to rank the 39 presidents who have served more than a few months in office. In October we mailed out ballots to 132 prominent professors of history, law and political science, 78 of whom responded by rating the presidents from George Washington through Bill Clinton. The end result, in our opinion, is the most politically balanced ranking of the presidents to date.
Unlike most prior studies, which had surveyed primarily either liberals or conservatives but not both, our new study surveyed a balanced panel of experts. Toward that end, we asked a panel of two historians, two law professors and two political scientists to select a group of prominent scholars to be surveyed in an effort to reflect the range of scholarly opinion. The six scholars who consulted on the makeup of the sample were Akhil Reed Amar (Yale), Alan Brinkley (Columbia), Steven G. Calabresi (Northwestern), James W. Ceaser (University of Virginia), Forrest McDonald (University of Alabama), and Stephen Skrowronek (Yale).
Hail to the Chiefs
How the presidents rank, from a survey of 78 scholars by the Federalist Society and The Wall Street Journal.
Great
1. George Washington
2. Abraham Lincoln
3. Franklin Roosevelt
Near Great
4. Thomas Jefferson
5. Theodore Roosevelt
6. Andrew Jackson
7. Harry Truman
8. Ronald Reagan
9. Dwight Eisenhower
10. James Polk
11. Woodrow Wilson
Above Average
12. Grover Cleveland
13. John Adams
14. William McKinley
15. James Madison
16. James Monroe
17. Lyndon Johnson
18. John Kennedy
Average
19. William Taft
20. John Quincy Adams
21. George Bush
22. Rutherford Hayes
23. Martin Van Buren
24. William Clinton
25. Calvin Coolidge
26. Chester Arthur
Below Average
27. Benjamin Harrison
28. Gerald Ford
29. Herbert Hoover
30. Jimmy Carter
31. Zachary Taylor
32. Ulysses Grant
33. Richard Nixon
34. John Tyler
35. Millard Fillmore
Failure
36. Andrew Johnson
37. Franklin Pierce
38. Warren Harding
39. James Buchanan
NOTE: William Harrison and James Garfield, whose terms were very brief, are not ranked.
The modern genre of presidential rankings was initiated in 1948 by Arthur Schlesinger Sr. In 1996 his son Arthur Schlesinger Jr. replicated the study for the New York Times Magazine. Our study found remarkably similar results to the latter Schlesinger study. The correlation between ranks in the two studies is a staggeringly high .94. The main difference between the two studies is that Ronald Reagan ranks eighth in our study, while he ranked 25th (out of 39 presidents) in Prof. Schlesinger's 1996 study.
Besides political balance, our study has some possible advantages over Prof. Schlesinger's. Like him, we surveyed 30 historians, but in place of his two politicians (former Gov. Mario Cuomo and former Sen. Paul Simon), we also surveyed 25 political scientists and 23 law professors with expertise in constitutional law or on the presidency.
Each professor surveyed was asked to rank the presidents on a standard five-point social science scale: Highly Superior, Above Average, Average, Below Average, or Well-Below Average. We then assigned one to five points for each rank. To produce the accompanying table, we used a version of Prof. Schlesinger's six-category scale: Great, Near Great, Above Average, Average, Below Average, and Failure.
Overall, Democratic presidents are ranked slightly, but insignificantly, higher than Republican presidents. As in most prior studies, the three presidents ranked as Great are George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. Ronald Reagan joins the group of eight Near Great presidents, which also includes Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, Andrew Jackson, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, James Polk and Woodrow Wilson.
Bill Clinton and George Bush both fall into the Average category, while John Kennedy's reputation has fallen to the bottom of the Above Average category. Richard Nixon and Herbert Hoover rank Below Average, and we characterized Andrew Johnson, Franklin Pierce, Warren Harding, and James Buchanan as Failures.
Ronald Reagan was named as the most Underrated president, as well as the second most Overrated president, suggesting the lack of academic consensus about his legacy. Kennedy is the most Overrated president by a very large margin.
Our study found that length of term in office is an important determinant of reputation. Two-term presidents are today ranked much higher than one-term presidents. This is somewhat in conflict with the conventional wisdom that second terms are always a failure, as well as with the idea that there is little correlation between electoral success and success in office. According to the study, age at inauguration has no effect on measured success in office.
This study of presidential rankings is important because it suggests that Mr. Reagan has been seriously underrated in past studies, while for presidents like Kennedy, ours is only the most recent study to have somewhat downgraded his reputation. It is also striking that in the wake of his impeachment trial, Mr. Clinton is the lowest ranked two-term president other than Ulysses S. Grant. Who a society's heroes are tells us a great deal about that society. For that reason, if for no other, it is important that we give Mr. Reagan his due. As for Mr. Clinton, our exit polling suggests that it is still too early to call the race.
interactive.wsj.com |
