The American president has been called the most powerful man on earth. In the past, not all presidents made good use of that privilege. A number of presidents can even be called incompetent or indifferent. An incompetent president can wreak havoc. For example, the bloody civil war from 1861 to 1865 could have been prevented if the then president had been up to his task. Below is a list of the worst presidents according to historians.
1841 – 1845 President John Tyler
In 1841, President William H. Harrison died after one month in office. The law required elections, but Vice President John Tyler ignored this law and swore himself in as president. The law was going to be changed, but he caused a lot of bad blood with this step. Due to the large number of enemies, he was not able to accomplish much during his presidency. His re-election in 1845 would, of course, fail. Critics called him His Accidency.
1850 -1853 President Millard Fillmore
This vice president also came to power after his president died in office. It was a time when the slave trade was increasingly under fire and there were calls everywhere to abolish it. However, President Fillmore gave in to the Southern slave traders who threatened war. This was seen as a cowardly attitude by his many critics. Fillmore took the slave trade lightly. That did not apply to the construction of a brand new library in the White House. The bookworm would spend much of his time on this project during his presidency. Meanwhile, problems were piling up elsewhere.
1857 – 1861 President James Buchanan
This president is generally held partly responsible for the start of the Civil War from 1861 to 1865. In 1857 he received the incorrect message that Mormons wanted to revolt in the state of Utah. Without checking the message, he immediately sent the army. As the troops stalled and negotiations succeeded, the incident was resolved. However, politicians in Washington had become so divided by Buchanan’s actions that the country was heading for civil war.
1865 – 1869 President Andrew Johnson
After the civil war, the country was in ruins. Moreover, the US population was deeply divided. Instead of uniting Americans, the president turned out to be a fierce opponent of equal civil rights for all. He banned a law that would give citizenship to free slaves. He wrote: This is a country for white men and as long as I am president, I will rule for the white man.
1869 – 1877 President Ulysses S. Grant
After Andrew Johnson, the great Civil War general Ulysses S. Grant came to the White House. He showed promise but was a complete disaster as president. He took good care of his old army buddies and gave them nice posts. These sometimes completely incompetent friends also often turned out to be very corrupt. Grant’s presidency was overshadowed by cronyism and large-scale corruption. Grantism has since become an American word for the combination of corruption and incompetence.
1921 – 1923 President Warren G. Harding
This president couldn’t say no. Before entering politics, he had run a modest newspaper company where he had never fired anyone. Harding found nothing more annoying than antagonizing people. He avoided conflicts, and therefore came to nothing. His presidency was full of corruption and scandals because he never confronted anyone but preferred to play golf or sit in the casino. He let greedy ministers have their way. He died during his presidency at the age of 57. After his death, it emerged that the married and officially childless president had also fathered a daughter with a mistress during his term in office. Many experts call Harding the worst president ever.
1929 – 1933 President Herbert Hoover
His appointment coincided with the beginning of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Hoover did not want to accommodate the growing group of unemployed in any way. He renounced any form of help. He did lower taxes. Due to his poor social skills and his blunt manner of acting, he became very unpopular. The slums in American cities were named after him: Hoovervilles. Finally, he made his biggest blunder by launching a trade war against Europe, further exacerbating the crisis in the US.