Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
America’s Best President
Americans reflect on the office of the presidency and its finest occupants this time of year with the Presidents Day holiday nestled between Lincoln’s birthday on February 12th and Washington’s birthday on February 22nd. Certainly those two contend for the top positions – both men of good character and essential to the nation in their own ways. Feel free to explain your choice for “Best President” in the comments.
Although others will disagree, I’d like to put in a good word for James K. Polk, both for the westward expansion of the United States he achieved (but I would say that, being the “Western Chauvinist”) and having the decency to serve one term and work himself to death so that America didn’t have to suffer his post-presidency. Think how much better things might have gone if others had done the same. Ahem.
But, I’m here to offer a contemporary “Best.” I say President Larry Arnn of Hillsdale College is America’s Best President today, and I’m here to offer evidence.
First, he has led one of America’s finest institutions of learning for nearly a quarter century and has only enhanced its reputation by his clear vision of what a university is for, in harmony with one John Henry Newman. As President Arnn states in a recent volume of Imprimis, Hilldale’s Mission and the Politics of Freedom:
All the while Hillsdale’s core activity remains unchanged. The job before us is to make ourselves and our students into excellent human beings. This is an activity of joy, and it will make us stronger against any storm.
Ask anyone who’s hired a Hillsdale graduate as a teacher at your local classical charter high school, or an assistant at a conservative think tank, or a clerk at the Supreme Court whether he thinks Hillsdale is helping to produce “excellent human beings.” I suspect you’d get a unanimous, “yes!”
Second, his administration of Hillsdale has solicitous effects on the national stage all the way down to the individual student. At our recent visit to the College, President Arnn spoke briefly to us supporters about an encounter with a student wanting to demonstrate (one presumes) on behalf of the Palestinians (a la Harvard’s anti-Semites?) after the October 7th Hamas massacre. I’m retelling the story in my own words, but it went something like this:
Student [knowing he’s talking to a friend of the Constitution and the 1st Amendment]: “Don’t I have the right to demonstrate?”
President Arnn: “You absolutely have the right to demonstrate. What you don’t have a right to do is attend Hillsdale College.”
For the “tolerance” just give them whatever they desire crowd, this is what authentic love looks like. Correction with a healthy dose of truth for the good of the other. I bet that kid is still attending Hillsdale and is getting formed in ways Harvard students can’t even imagine. President Arnn’s response was precisely what the Ivies should have been when their students exhibited such ignorant maliciousness (one hopes they didn’t know “from the river to sea” is a call for the genocide of Jews).
And last, President Arnn makes all the right enemies. I’m not going to subscribe to find it, but someone at the New York Times called Larry Arnn “the most dangerous man in America” a few years back. If you’re in the business of bulldozing the American Founding and its underlying Judeo-Christian and small-r republican principles – as the NYTs and the rest of progressives are – he is one of the most dangerous figures at this American moment – to your nihilistic cause. That’s true.
He gets my vote for America’s Best President today. Think what a benefit to its students and the country if Harvard had such a leader. . .
Published in General
Hear! Hear! He is also one of the most virtuous men in education, and has a wicked sense of humor. It’s a great combination!
To be technically correct (which is the best kind of correct), the Federal holiday is still “Washington’s Birthday.” He is the best President of the U.S. under the Constitution.
Love that reply by Dr. Arnn to the student!
It really was perfect, wasn’t it?
Best President of each century:
18th: Washington
19th Lincoln
20th: Reagan
21st (so far): Trump
For those that disagree with Trump, he did better in four years than Bush did in eight. And Obama and Biden are worse – by a long chalk – than Bush.
I’m in general agreement with you, however I’m curious how you’d explain Reagan over Coolidge in the 20th century.
Reagan tamed runaway inflation while winning a world war (the Cold War). Coolidge started from a better position than Reagan, too. Inflation was under control when Coolidge took office and there was no existential threat to the United States when Coolidge became President. By contrast were were almost ready to enter a Weimar-style hyperinflation when Reagan took office and we were losing the Cold War. Many US leaders were arguing how best to surrender to the USSR. Not explicitly in those words, but that was the gist of it. How to accept coming in second to the USSR.
Hillsdale is teaching there are consequences for your actions — like potentially losing your place at the school. How refreshing.
(An awesome clip from “Gigantic”, a documentary film about They Might Be Giants.)
In 1844, the Democrats were split
The three nominees for the presidential candidate
Were Martin Van Buren
A former president
And an abolitionist
James Buchanan, a moderate
Lewis Cass, a general and expansionist
From Nashville came a dark horse riding up
He was James K. Polk, Napoleon of the Stump
Austere, severe, he held few people dear
His oratory filled his foes with fear
The factions soon agreed
He’s just the man we need
To bring about victory
Fulfill our manifest destiny
And annex the land the Mexicans command
And when the poll was cast, the winner was
Mister James K. Polk, Napoleon of the Stump
In four short years he met his every goal
He seized the whole southwest from Mexico
Made sure the tariffs fell
And made the English sell
The Oregon territory
He built an independent treasury
Having done all this he sought no second term
But precious few have mourned the passing of
Mister James K. Polk, our 11th president
Young Hickory, Napoleon of the Stump
Copyright 1990, John Flansburgh, John Linnell, Matthew Hill
LOL. Love it.
Ya beat me to it.
I don’t know…. I seem to remember Lee Iacocca did alright as president of Ford and Chrysler.
Let’s assume that Trump gets elected to a second, nonconsecutive term. It’s possible he could end up being both the first and second best president of the 21st century. Let’s hope that his first term is the one in which he is judged 2nd best. ;-)
On Polk’s presidency, it seems that Ulysses S. Grant would disagree. He considered the American Civil War to be divine punishment for the Mexican American War. One of the after effects of the war was to expand slavery in some of the new territories the U.S. gained as a result.
Of course Grant was a 2 term president, and also ran for a non-consecutive third term. So that counters Polk’s one term presidency and dying soon after.
Lincoln was agin the war with Mexico as well, and for the same reasons as Grant.
Which territories gained as a result of the Mexican-American War permitted slavery?
Texas (a slave state) was already in the United States before the war started. The proximate cause of the war was whether the US-Mexican border was at the Rio Grande (the US claim) or the Nueces River (the Mexican claim). Mexico was angry over the annexation of Texas, but not willing to go to war over it.
Of the territories gained, California was immediately admitted as a free state. New Mexico (which I think included Arizona at that time) did not have slavery and attempted to enter as a free state. (The effort fell through.) Did what became Nevada and Utah permit slavery?
Yes, slave interests wanted to expand slavery outside Texas, but as far as I know were unsuccessful through the start of the Civil War. Civil War expeditions into the Southwest (most notably the Sibley Expedition) were repelled at least in part because the inhabitants did not want to become part of a slave nation.
I think the claim that the Mexican-American war had the effect of expanding slavery into the conquered territories is one of those things that are generally accepted but contradicted by the facts. If I am wrong, someone let me know.
Thanks for addressing one of my pet peeves.
George Washington’s Birthday | National Archives
The Free Soil folks feared that it would expand slavery. They attempted to obstruct that outcome.
Seawriter, I think that you’re correct about slavery not being expanded as a result of the Mexican War, with one small and insignificant caveat. Texas expanded a bit as a result, into the Nueces strip that was the supposedly disputed territory that was the justification for the war. But this didn’t change the number of slave states.
From what I’ve read, Grant’s post-war objection was essentially that the war was an unjustified land grab.
I agree with WC that Polk was a very significant President, for securing our Pacific coast. He did so, in large part, by aggressive war, a method that most Americans now condemn, at least when done by some country we don’t like, or at the wrong time.
Israel’s conquests seem acceptable to most Americans now. We supported Iraq’s attack on Iran, but not on Kuwait. The actions of Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s USSR are broadly condemned, though by taking Poland, part of Finland, and the Baltic states, they were reclaiming territory their countries had lost barely 20 years earlier.
Likewise for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It even goes further, as most Americans seem to vigorously oppose the Chinese regaining control of Taiwan, even as we acknowledge that it is part of China today.
It’s interesting. The opinions people reach seem, to me, to have nothing to do with principle, though most people seem to think that they are being principled.
It becomes clearer as one looks at each example and ponders our national interest.
What are you referring with, “Israel’s conquests”?
Re Iran/Iraq. Sunni Shia battles are old news. What energized our concern were ship attacks and Iran’s pushback into Iraqi territory. We wanted no winner and that is what we got in the end….until our disastrous State Department policies after the last gulf war.
Taking sides isn’t difficult.
tough list – because there were lots of greats!
Washington
Jefferson
Madison
Monroe
Lincoln
Grant
Coolidge
Truman
Eisenhower
Reagan
Clinton (hey, I did GREAT during his terms)