Because I have the sort of time required while voluntarily locked down, and being a history geek, I decided to look closely at the ranking of presidents and the relationship of those rankings to military service. I will admit to having more than a smattering of where this was headed, but had never broken it down, statistically.
I used several surveys to compile the data. One was more a popularity poll compiled over the previous several years while all the others broke down responses and ranked presidents by “quartile” with first quartile being the top 25% as compiled from twenty individual polls conducted from 1948 to the present. This is more accurately reflective, I feel, since at looked at a very wide range of criteria and over time for several of the more modern presidents.
That last
offers the perspective of distance and ensuing events to the “popularity”
factor. An example: Eisenhower was ranked 21st of 34 Presidents in a
1962 survey conducted by a Harvard historian. A similar 1982 poll placed
Eisenhower at 11th, and in the 17 remaining polls he was never lower
than that. He was ranked as high as fifth and finished well up in the top
quartile of American Presidents.
A primary reason
for this is the sometimes-heard complaint that goes something along the line of
“How can (insert individual in question here) be Commander in Chief without
military experience.” On the surface it might seem that the question has merit,
but historical analysis seems to indicate otherwise.
George Washington
is almost always ranked as Number 1 in polls of Historians, and while he is
revered as the first, I think there are several reasons that this is an
emotional/sentimental choice. Washington defined the Presidential role and
formality we expect (but have not seen recently) but, in all candor he also had
Alexander Hamilton to do the legwork of creating the financial structure of the
federal government. He also had just four cabinet members, including Jefferson
as Sec. State. Things moved far slower and such media as there was (and there wasn’t
much) remained fairly aloof. Washington as a revered war hero was unanimously
elected, the last time anyone would approach this feat.
There was almost no semblance of opposition,
loyal or otherwise, to Washington, himself. As a Southerner and slave owner, he
was essentially above the other primary domestic issue of the day, that being the Federal
assumption of the states’ war debts and the establishment of a “national debt”
driven by the fact that the Northern (and, mostly, free) states had borne the
bulk of financial cost of the War for Independence. The Southern states had
little war debt and were concerned that a Northern capitol (NYC) was disadvantageous
to their continued status as legal slave owners, since there were already anti-slavery
sentiments expressed by some in the North.
In 1789,
Benjamin Franklin wrote and published several essays supporting the abolition
of slavery and his last public act was to send to Congress a petition asking for the abolition of slavery and an end to the slave
trade. The petition, signed on February 3, 1790, asked the first Congress, then
meeting in New York City, to "devise means for removing the Inconsistency
from the Character of the American People," and to "promote mercy and
justice toward this distressed Race."
Southerners in Congress were, unsurprisingly, alarmed.
Dealing with these
two issues, had he done it himself, would have clearly elevated Washington to “head
and shoulders status among US Presidents, had he done it! Most of
that task, however, fell to Alexander Hamilton. A compromise deal was struck (see “Hamilton”
– the song “The Room Where It Happened” is about that little known event). The
capitol was moved to Philly, pending the construction (and draining) of a new
site which became Washington D.C., farther South and between 2 slave states -
Md. and Va.- and to satiate the Northerners, the states’ war debts were assumed.
Even so Washington did, in essence, define and invent the role of POTUS, so #1 is probably justified.
The next three Presidents, Adams, Jefferson and Madison had no military
experience whatsoever, yet Adams and Madison are high in the second quartile while
Jefferson consistently ranks well up in the first!
However,
examining the rest of those presidents with combat experience, (numbering 20)
twelve, or more than half are rated in the third or fourth quartile. Five are
rated in the bottom quartile, including Ulysses S. Grant, the third senior US
military officer ever to hold the White House after Eisenhower and Washington. In
fact, six of the next seven Presidents after Lincoln were Army generals. Two were
bottom quartile, the other four were third quartile, and the seventh, two-termer
Grover Cleveland, with no military experience, ranks well up in the second quartile,
above all of them!
Twelve US
Presidents have been in the military but never in any combat theater of war. Of
these, there is little correlation between combat experience and non-combat as
far as ratings, in fact, Reagan who for reasons unfathomable to me, is rated in
the top quartile, had vision so bad he was assigned only to narrating wartime
instructional videos. Lincoln, who was technically in a militia regiment during
the Black Hawk war, but never fought, is consistently rated in the top 5 Presidents,
usually number two or three.
On the other
hand, the man almost universally rated as second-best US President (and then
only after Washington) ran that office from a wheelchair.
Franklin D.
Roosevelt had, arguably, the toughest term(s) of any POTUS. Depression segued
into WW II and, despite being physically limited, FDR led and, even more significantly,
listened to good advice. Unlike Washington, FDR also faced merciless criticism
from a relatively small but very vocal domestic mix of fascists and anti- war
agitators. FDR also was faced with assuring domestic harmony and unity while US
troops were fighting a two-ocean war.
Of recent Presidents,
from JFK to Trump, they are ranked by historians thusly. I will
list them by name, military service (yes/no) combat theater experience (yes/no),
and finally, quartile rating, (in quartiles, with 1 being the top 25%).
JFK – yes, yes, 2
LBJ – yes, no
(controversial claims), 2 (would probably have been better if not for escalating
Vietnam War)
Nixon -yes, yes, 3
Ford – yes, yes (10 battle stars!), 3
Carter – yes, no, 3
Reagan, yes, no, 1
Bush 41, yes, yes, 2
Clinton, no, no, 2
Bush 43, yes, no, 3
Obama, no, no, 2
Trump, no, no, 4 (Note: this is a 2018 pre COVID survey
taken from approximately the same percentage of respondents who self-identified
as Republicans as Democrats). Even so Trump was ranked lower than all others
with the exception of Warren Harding! (44th
of 45)
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