Who was it?
William Henry Harrison. In office 32 days–not long enough to do any damage.
Thomas Jefferson[8o|]
Being the best piece of crap is still crap. So they all sucked.
Jefferson
Andrew Jackson?
There was a big list of “Top 5 Presidents” a while ago, you might want to search it
Van Buren, Jackson, Jefferson did best
Ron Paul.
(wishful thinking in full effect)
Al Gore..hehe
Ever hear of the trail of tears? Jackson might have helped to fight off a central bank but he was responsible for genocide and threatening the U.s’s entire system of checks and balances.
What about Grover Cleveland or Calvin Coolidge?
Grover Cleveland for most libertarian president IMO. Watch out with Jefferson and Jackson. Make sure to separate what they said from what they did.
But they’re all pretty bad.
WARREN G. HARDING
This has always been my answer as well.
Which is actually less than most presidents did, sadly.
A story in American history…
There was once a newly elected president who, despite never traveling east of France, considered himself well-qualified to deal with conflicts in the middle east. Historically, the US government had traded weapons and money with Middle Eastern countries to alleviate attacks on Americans, weapons which were then, ironically, used for more effective attacks on Americans. This president, on entering office, secretly planned to declare war on a certain Middle Eastern country, but he had a significant legal obstacle. By the Constitution, only Congress had the legal right to declare war, thus he managed to sidestep their authority and proceed with a “police operation,” which involved everything short of completely declaring war.
This president was…
Thomas Jefferson
The issue Jefferson faced was violence against American trade ships from what was then the Barbary states in the Middle East. 20% of American trade traveled through a path vulnerable to these state-funded pirates. Every major country in the world, Britain, Spain, France, Portugal, paid off these pirates for a free pass, or forged documents, as did the Americans, until this point. By the time Jefferson was in office, 20% of US trade revenue was being used to pay off the Barbary states in the form of gold, cannons, and gunboats. It was the first of many, many times American weapons would be used against American military by Middle Eastern enemies.
While it was still possible to achieve fantastic profit with trade in the middle east even after paying off the pirates, American traders were all too eager to shift that expense to the taxpayers. These traders became some of America’s first “special interest groups,” in that they funded campaigns of politicians who promised a war against the Barbary states. Additional propaganda excited and terrified the public, who before long were convinced that without government action against these pirates, an invasion on American shores would take place! This fear served the commercial interests of the special interests and the expansion of state power, which is always the interest of the political class.
…So… one of the great Libertarians of history… the writer of the Declaration of Independence and one of the founders of the Constitution, and an extremely vocal proponant of small government, sought out flaws in the government he helped to design to advance his own power and please his financers. Jefferson, more than hardly anyone else, insisted upon the separation of powers between Congress, President, and Judges, specifically to prevent the president from doing EXACTLY what Jefferson did. Jefferson was an intelligent man… if he actually believed everything he said, he should have spent the remaining years of his presidency fixing the flaws that he exploited… but he did not. What conclusion can be found then… except that his morals matched his actions and not his words… and he said those things just to gain power?
If we look at George Washington… well… we see the same thing 
George Washington was a military leader who led a revolution against a tyrannical government, in part due to the imposition of some minor taxes on stamps, tea, etc. After the Articles of Confederation were replaced by the US Constitution it took only two years for Alexander Hamilton to convince congress to impose a tax on spirits and carriages. In order to control the rising rebellion that took place in response to this tax, Washington created a militia of 13,000 troops, about the size of the entire Continental Army, and imposed martial law on all those attempting to resist the implimentation of this tax. The subsequent violence that took place was the very first time the US government attacked its own people to enforce a tax. This then set the precedent that protest against taxation could only be done through peaceful means.
sigh Hypocrisy much? And there is no evidence in diaries or any other source that Washington or Hamilton felt any sort of remorse or recognized the irony of their actions.
So yeah, the people I believed were my heroes turn out to be full of crap in light of historical fact. Does power corrupt? Or do only corrupt people enter into government? Either way… I’m losing faith in it more every day.
… Well yea but none of them got their faces on the twenty
Andrew Jackson, eh? He impacted the presidency the most negatively way back then.
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Harsh treatment of Southerners and Indians.
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Expanded Executive branch powers
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Responded biligerently to the nullification crisis.
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Asserted military power.
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He was all about “democracy for the people”. We all see how that turned out.
Abraham Lincoln? He provoked a catastrophic civil war that achieved far less than believed. He was father of big government in the united states, and he rampantly violated civil liberties. Back then 600,000 + deaths was a big deal… GJ war!
First of all, even the “best” President was far from ideal. Given the individuals who have held the office.
I would say Grover Cleveland was the closest to the ideal, though not perfect, of course.
Followed by Martin van Buren, Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge.
Obviously, all the above had their flaws, but overall they were the best of what has been mostly a very bad bunch.
The question should probably be rephrased to who was the least worst president.
Calvin Coolidge was not all that bad. His first official act as President was to go back to bed. During an era where Government interventionism was on the rise, Coolidge exercised enough self-control to actually be attacked by critiques of lassez-faire government.