Originally posted by Novus
A strong contender to be sure... but Harding didn't lose SEVEN ENTIRE STATES on his watch the way Buchanan did. When South Carolina was the first one to secede after Lincoln won the 1860 election, Buchanan's brilliant response was basically to propose a constitutional amendment to fully enshrine slavery into the Constitution, and to ship additional weapons to military units in the South -- basically helping to arm what would later become the Confederate Army. When more states seceded, Buchanan was basically like, "Welp, I tried. Abe will take over in a couple of months, so if you want a President who will actually do something to fix any of this mess, you'll just have to wait. Peace out!"
Buchanan basically spent 4 years as President fanning the flames of the slavery debate, watched it explode, "tried" to put out the fire by pouring even more gasoline on it, watched the gas can explode in his hands as a result, and then insisted that none of it was his fault because putting out fires was never supposed to be his job in the first place. Fucking asshat.
In comparison, Harding put friends in positions of power and turned a blind eye to their corruption -- certainly not good, but not to the level of Buchanan's nearly-treasonous blundering. And there's evidence that Harding was privately displeased with what was going on and was ready to take action to stop it, but he died of a heart attack in the middle of his term while he was still dithering about what to do.
Johnson was basically a pro-Union southerner who wanted to re-unite the country after the end of the Civil War and the assassination of Lincoln. But he opposed the Confederacy, and he wanted to punish the South for seceding -- he actually took a harder stance on the South than Lincoln did. But the Republicans in Congress wanted to go even further than Johnson did in punishing the South. Things got so stupid and petty between Johnson and the Republicans that he pretty much tried to scuttle the entire Reconstruction plan just to screw over the Republicans. He ended up screwing over all the freed slaves in the process instead, but he didn't seem to care much about that because he was a fucking racist -- just a fucking racist who thought secession was a mistake. It all came to a head when he got impeached and almost convicted, but the law he was charged with violating was unconstitutional on its face and was repealed shortly after the impeachment trial failed. And Johnson bought Alaska, so he has that going for him.
So, yeah, Harding and Johnson both sucked pretty hard... but in my mind, it's hard to top Buchanan. I can find kinda-sorta good things to say about Harding and Johnson. I can't about Buchanan.
Well, Buchanan was the only President who was a lifelong bachelor, so he had that going for him.
Of course, there are some interesting theories as to why...
A strong contender to be sure... but Harding didn't lose SEVEN ENTIRE STATES on his watch the way Buchanan did. When South Carolina was the first one to secede after Lincoln won the 1860 election, Buchanan's brilliant response was basically to propose a constitutional amendment to fully enshrine slavery into the Constitution, and to ship additional weapons to military units in the South -- basically helping to arm what would later become the Confederate Army. When more states seceded, Buchanan was basically like, "Welp, I tried. Abe will take over in a couple of months, so if you want a President who will actually do something to fix any of this mess, you'll just have to wait. Peace out!"
Buchanan basically spent 4 years as President fanning the flames of the slavery debate, watched it explode, "tried" to put out the fire by pouring even more gasoline on it, watched the gas can explode in his hands as a result, and then insisted that none of it was his fault because putting out fires was never supposed to be his job in the first place. Fucking asshat.
In comparison, Harding put friends in positions of power and turned a blind eye to their corruption -- certainly not good, but not to the level of Buchanan's nearly-treasonous blundering. And there's evidence that Harding was privately displeased with what was going on and was ready to take action to stop it, but he died of a heart attack in the middle of his term while he was still dithering about what to do.
Johnson was basically a pro-Union southerner who wanted to re-unite the country after the end of the Civil War and the assassination of Lincoln. But he opposed the Confederacy, and he wanted to punish the South for seceding -- he actually took a harder stance on the South than Lincoln did. But the Republicans in Congress wanted to go even further than Johnson did in punishing the South. Things got so stupid and petty between Johnson and the Republicans that he pretty much tried to scuttle the entire Reconstruction plan just to screw over the Republicans. He ended up screwing over all the freed slaves in the process instead, but he didn't seem to care much about that because he was a fucking racist -- just a fucking racist who thought secession was a mistake. It all came to a head when he got impeached and almost convicted, but the law he was charged with violating was unconstitutional on its face and was repealed shortly after the impeachment trial failed. And Johnson bought Alaska, so he has that going for him.
So, yeah, Harding and Johnson both sucked pretty hard... but in my mind, it's hard to top Buchanan. I can find kinda-sorta good things to say about Harding and Johnson. I can't about Buchanan.
Well, Buchanan was the only President who was a lifelong bachelor, so he had that going for him.
Of course, there are some interesting theories as to why...
