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Everything you didn't know about the so-called leaders of the free world, from their favorite foods to their pets' names.

America

Warren G. Harding

The worst U.S. presidents of all time, measured by their negative impact on the nation, its citizens health and happiness, and its future prosperity. (In some cases -&nbsp;such as the popular selections of Warren G. Harding and Richard Nixon -&nbsp;the negative view of the president and his administration is due to various scandals and perceived corruption within its ranks. Nixon remains the only president to step down from the office amid&nbsp;threats of impeachment.)

Much of a president&#39;s job -&nbsp;including serving as the figurative head of the American state and setting the nation&#39;s general legislative and diplomatic agenda -&nbsp;is sort of intangible and hard to evaluate in strict &quot;good vs. bad&quot; terms. This makes any list of the &quot;best&quot; or &quot;worst&quot; US presidents essentially subjective, and though there were administrations with a significant series of positive or negative outcomes, it&#39;s rarely clear just how much these had to do with the person in office and how many were simply due to accidents of fate or circumstance. Nonetheless, in particularly extraordinary cases -&nbsp;such as the administration of Abraham Lincoln, which kept the nation intact during the Civil War crisis, or the administration of Andrew Johnson immediately after that threatened the entire success of the Reconstruction project -&nbsp;it is clear which presidents did an overall good or bad job.

So who were the worst presidents of all time? We&#39;re ranking them here, based on your votes! When you&#39;ve had enough political negativity, be sure to check out Ranker&#39;s ultimate uplifting presidential list: <a href="http://www.ranker.com/crowdranked-list/the-u-s-presidents-from-best-to-worst" target="_blank">The Best US Presidents</a>.

Politics

Franklin Pierce

Ladies and gentlemen: It&#39;s time to rank the hottest <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/what-us-presidents-would-look-like-today/garri-chaverst" target="_blank">US Presidents</a> of all time. The leader of the free world is a powerful man, and sure, power is attractive. But which of these guys would be sexy without the the ability to veto laws? This gallery will show you pictures of all of the POTUSes of the past, with photos when available and oil paintings when not. It also features each President in his prime, before the tolls of the job claimed his metabolism, youthful glow, and lustrous hair (unless he was one of the guys who always wore a powdered wig, in which case he looks old in all of his portraits). Who was the hottest American President? Vote up the ones who get your red white and blue blood flowing and your pantaloons in a twist.

While it may be difficult to separate personal politics from lusts of the flesh, try to be objective here. This list is only about raw physical appearance, not anyone&#39;s stance on abortion or the Tea Act of 1773. Consider that many of these brilliant and charming men were also athletes and military veterans. Actor-turned-politician Ronald Reagan was even nicknamed &quot;The Gipper&quot; after playing a strapping young football star in a 1940 film. At 42, JFK was famously the youngest man ever elected to the White House, but did you know that Theodore Roosevelt was 86 days younger when he assumed office following the assassination of William McKinley? Did you?? Also, 47-year-old Grover Cleveland - who was both the 22nd and 24th President - married a 21-year-old while in office, so make of that what you will.

Rutherford B. Hayes looked like he could break your heart. A colored photograph of Ulysses S. Grant shows him looking a little like Michael Fassbender. College-age Richard Nixon is a dead ringer for Harvey Keitel. On the other end of the spectrum are some pretty doughy old dudes who may not have ever made it if their faces had been plastered all over magazines and TV (cough Martin Van Buren). Vote and rerank to make a definitive list of all the US Presidents, ranked most handsome to fugliest.

An intelligence quotient test (IQ test)&nbsp;is a series of standardized tests used to gauge and assess a person&#39;s intelligence. While most people will never take a formal IQ test,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/crazy-things-people-do-to-boost-iqs/cynthia-griffith" target="_blank">high IQs</a> have nevertheless always been a topic of public interest.

In recent history, US president IQs have been the&nbsp;subject of debate and discussion. This is in part due to&nbsp;Donald Trump&#39;s perpetual tweeting about his high IQ during the <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/controversial-american-elections/kellen-perry" target="_blank">controversial election cycle</a> of 2016. This led people to wonder who the smartest and dumbest presidents were throughout history.&nbsp;

A president&#39;s IQ is rarely made public, and many United States presidents were born before the modern IQ test was invented. Nevertheless, many psychological studies have provided educated guesses of presidential IQ based on a variety of factors. When it comes to IQ scores, a score <a href="http://www.wilderdom.com/intelligence/IQWhatScoresMean.html" target="_blank">over 140 </a>is considered genius level.

Research indicates most presidents fall somewhere around 130, but&nbsp;that doesn&#39;t mean America has never had a genius in the Oval Office. There are outliers on either side, with many presidents&#39;&nbsp;IQs being higher or lower than average. If you&#39;re curious to learn where our presidents rank in terms of intellectual prowess, browse the list below.

It goes without saying that the President of the United States of America looms large in this nation's&nbsp;day-to-day life. In some cases, that was very much the case physically. Abraham Lincoln, <a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/world-leaders-ranked-by-height/katia-kleyman?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">the tallest president</a>, towered over his contemporaries at 6’3&quot;. William Howard Taft, the heaviest president, was a physical force at 340 pounds. Beyond those standouts, though, how much do you really know about the physical lives of the presidents?These men have run the gamut in size and stature from Lincoln to little James Madison, who was just a pint-sized 5’4&quot;. How tall were the presidents? What were the presidential shoe sizes? How much did they weigh? The POTUS&nbsp;owes&nbsp;part of their character to their physical size, just like they owe&nbsp;a bit of themselves to the <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/all-the-ailments-of-every-us-president/melissa-sartore" target="_blank">diseases they battled</a> or their <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/us-president-first-100-days/stephanroget" target="_blank">accomplishments in office in the first 100 days</a>. If you have ever wanted to know how big or small each of the Presidents were, your wait is over. Here’s a list with just those facts.&nbsp;

Lyndon Johnson

The Greatest United States Presidents in history, ranked from best to worst. Who&#39;s the greatest U.S. president? Anyone can vote on or make their own version of this collaborative list of the men who shaped American policy - a fascinating insight into all the US Presidents and how their presidencies were perceived. Who were the best presidents? We expect this list of the Chief Executives to change over time as history&#39;s perceptions also change.

And be sure to check out Ranker&#39;s ultimate list of the <a href="http://www.ranker.com/crowdranked-list/the-10-worst-u-s-presidents">Worst-Ever US Presidents</a> as well, for comparison&#39;s sake.

George W. Bush

It is often said that being a two-term president is the goal of most politicians in America. The politicians on this list of American presidents did just that. They ran successful re-election campaigns and joined this list of the best two term presidents in the history of the United States. So who did the best job? These re-elected presidents, from George Washington to Barack Obama, had two terms to prove themselves and your votes will determine who did the best job.Though some become lame duck presidents during their second terms as Commander in Chief, others began to find their groove and care less about the political ramifications of actually getting things done. Giving the president another shot at running the country is always an interesting move, and this list is here for you to upvote the one(s) you thought nailed it throughout their entire tenure in <a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/pictures-of-the-oval-office-for-each-us-president/kellen-perry?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">the Oval Office</a>.How many two term presidents have served the American people? 13 so far! Be sure to upvote the USA presidents you thought were the best at the job during their two terms and take a look at those who weren't as lucky, joining the ranks of one term president&nbsp;instead.

Few professions in the world are as scrutinized and well-documented as&nbsp;the Presidency of the United States of America, so&nbsp;it might seem like every single aspect of all the former presidents' lives has already been covered. But sometimes there’s just as much interesting material from before they were president as there is&nbsp;from their time in the White House. It takes an extraordinary kind of person to run for the highest station in America, so it makes sense that extraordinary origin stories are the norm for Oval Office occupants.Crazy presidential stories don’t just come from the White House or the campaign trail. They come from these men's childhoods,&nbsp;first jobs, and even&nbsp;romances. From <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/john-f-kennedy-navy-hero-stranded-carved-coconut/rylee_en" target="_blank">wartime adventures</a>&nbsp;to struggles with <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/all-the-ailments-of-every-us-president/melissa-sartore" target="_blank">medical ailments</a>, these future presidents had some unbelievable experiences.&nbsp;With all these examples, one thing is clear:&nbsp;if you haven’t had some wild stuff go down in your lifetime, you probably don’t have what it takes to be president.

poll

Bill Clinton

Who are the best U.S. presidents of the past 50 years? The presidents listed here are among the greatest leaders of the free world in modern history and are some of the best recent presidents. The men listed here are those who served as president since the early 1960s, so while Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower might have been excellent, they don&#39;t count -- at least, as far as this list is concerned. You can always go vote for these presidents (and more) on this list of the overall <a href="http://www.ranker.com/crowdranked-list/the-u-s-presidents-from-best-to-worst">greatest U.S. presidents of all time</a>.

What specific qualities determine whether a POTUS was great or not-so-hot? Factors to consider may vary and will often depend on your particular political affiliation. Certainly, voting on any good or bad list where a president is concerned is subjective.

Commitment to the betterment of the United States, an ability to lead under difficult or trying circumstances, and great character are just a few of the qualities people might consider when deciding on the president they think was the best. Over the past 50 years, ten men have served as president -- some of them served for just one term and others served two full terms in office. Of these, only one can be top. . . so get voting!

If you&#39;re curious, you might want to see if any of the presidents listed here also appear on this list of the <a href="http://www.ranker.com/crowdranked-list/the-10-worst-u-s-presidents">worst U.S. presidents of all time</a>. 
&nbsp;

&nbsp;

John F. Kennedy

You may not realize it, but&nbsp;there are official portraits of <a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/all-the-ailments-of-every-us-president/melissa-sartore?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">every US president</a>. This tradition started with George Washington and has continued into modern times, even with the advent of photography. These official paintings of US presidents have not always been the most attractive or dynamic images you will ever see, but all of the US president portraits were commissioned from the best artists of their day and provide a unique insight into each leader.When you look&nbsp;through this list of portraits of American presidents, some trends become immediately obvious. In the early paintings, with the ironic exception&nbsp;of&nbsp;Washington himself, the presidents are often painted from the bust up in the classic European portrait style. As the years have gone on, however, all the US president portraits have developed and turned more into works of art than straight depictions.The best US presidential portraits capture the president as you remember them. Some are iconic, like John F. Kennedy's portrait, while others are seriously weird (is that really what Andrew Jackson looked like? Yikes.)&nbsp;Take a look through this official US president portraits gallery and vote on your favorites.

First Ladies

Mary Todd Lincoln

The most loved First Ladies in the history of the US are also some of the most respected and <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/most-powerful-women-in-the-world/greg">most powerful women in the world</a>. They may have first become known for being married to the President of the United States, but many of these most respected First Ladies of the US carved out their own place in American society and gained the respect of the American public through their political and charitable efforts to the point where many of them became <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/political-wives-who-overshadow-their-husbands/joanne">First Ladies who overshadowed their husbands</a>.Who was the best First Lady? Some of these famous First Ladies are known for their involvement in their husband's presidency (Hillary Rodham Clinton), others are popular for their humanitarian efforts (Eleanor Roosevelt), and some for their commitment to American citizens (Michelle Obama). Regardless of why, these First Ladies of the US are all near and dear to the hearts of American citizens (sometimes more than their President husbands) and have ranked among some of the most well-known citizens in the US.Who is the most loved First Lady in the US? Who are the top First Ladies in the history of the US? What qualities does the most loved First Lady possess? These are some of the questions this list of the most loved First Ladies hopes to answer. Make sure to vote up the best First Ladies so they can make it to the #1 spot on this list of the most loved first ladies in US history. These women are the most influential First Ladies in American history and deserve your consideration!

Here are all 44&nbsp;US presidents, ordered by their age at start of presidency. While the minimum age requirement for president is 35 years old, the average age of presidents when elected to office&nbsp;is 55 years and 3 months. In 2017, President Donald Trump became the oldest elected president at 70 years old; President Theodore Roosevelt still remains as the youngest elected president at 50 years old.&nbsp;

Check out this list of US president ages - some might surprise you!

Leading the free world comes with a lot of responsibilities, and heavy lies the crown on those that bare them. If you think being commander-in-chief is an easy job,&nbsp;take a peek at photos of <a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/us-presidents-before-and-after-major-events/mel-judson?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">presidents before and after</a> their terms. They tend to experience significant changes in their appearances, mainly because the presidency comes with a ton of stress.

In the same way&nbsp;that the <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/pictures-of-the-oval-office-for-each-us-president/kellen-perry" target="_blank">Oval Office</a> changes during presidencies, presidents&#39; faces transform over the course of their terms. Obviously, they get older, but presidents also&nbsp;get weighed down by the stress of the job. Not to mention, many <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/all-the-ailments-of-every-us-president/melissa-sartore" target="_blank">presidents had medical conditions</a>&nbsp;that likely aged them, as well. All in all, pictures of presidents at the start and end of their terms highlight the monumental stress US presidents face.

There&#39;s a universally grim&nbsp;fascination with seeing an individual&#39;s last image before death. It&#39;s somehow compelling to look&nbsp;at a photo or portrait captured in the weeks, days, or even moments before they took their last breaths. So it&#39;s only natural that the last photos of presidents are also intriguing. Some <a href="/list/rare-photos-of-us-presidents/mallory-weiler" target="_blank">US presidential death photos</a> were taken by professionals, and show the more gentle effects of <a href="/list/all-the-ailments-of-every-us-president/melissa-sartore" target="_blank">medical ailments</a> and time; others depict them mere moments before a violent assassination.

One of John F. Kennedy&#39;s final photos, for instance, shows him in a motorcade with the smiling First Lady. He&#39;s sitting behind the Texas Governor John Connally and his wife, unknowingly driving towards those fatal gunshots in Dallas. Dozens of people are pictured in the background, cheering on the American leader.

The last known image of Franklin D. Roosevelt was snapped just one day before he died of a cerebral hemorrhage. It was taken in Warm Springs, GA, at his retreat called The Little White House. Roosevelt complained of head pain and then passed away shortly afterwards.

Just like <a href="/list/photos-of-presidents-weddings/melissa-sartore" target="_blank">wedding pictures</a>, the last known pictures of US presidents capture a unique &ndash; and uniquely memorable &ndash; part of life. They&#39;re a gripping reminder that these larger-than-life figures were, in fact, men after all.

Here are the greatest United States Vice Presidents, ranked from best to worst. Vote up on the good VPs, and vote down on the bad ones.&nbsp;When America remembers&nbsp;the best&nbsp;vice presidents, names like Lyndon Johnson and Al Gore often come up. Although they had their mistakes, these VPs contributed much to their nation. Of course, there were U.S. Vice Presidents who utterly failed at their jobs. George H.W. Bush's Vice President Dan Quayle often made a fool of himself in the media (the &quot;potatoe&quot; incident).&nbsp;On November 8, 2016, Governor of Indiana Mike Pence was elected as the 48th&nbsp;Vice President. Appointed chairman of President Donald Trump's transition team, Vice President Mike Pence&nbsp;serves an important role as a mediator between the President and congressional Republicans.&nbsp;Don't forget to rerank this list and make your own version of the greatest U.S. Vice Presidents.

This list features the colleges attended by US presidents. Did you know that John F. Kennedy attended both Princeton University and Harvard University? Below you&rsquo;ll find even more about US presidents and their colleges.

If you&rsquo;ve ever wondered, &ldquo;Where did US presidents go to college?&rdquo; then this is the perfect list for you. The list of US presidents colleges features a lot of Ivy League schools, which is likely not surprising. Harvard appears quite a bit on this guide of the colleges of US presidents.

Read below for each US president by college.&nbsp;

The death of a president is always a big deal, whether it is unexpected - such as John F. Kennedy&#39;s assassination - or predictable, like Ronald Reagan&#39;s death after suffering from Alzheimer&#39;s disease for ten years. While former presidents always get the full memorial Monty, the death of a sitting president can cause political upheaval as the successor takes the reigns. But just <a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/two-term-presidents/mel-judson?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">how many US presidents</a> have died? Sure, you probably have a rough idea, but do you know the circumstances of their deaths and the legacy they left behind?&nbsp;

Looking to the past is crucial to understanding the present. And knowing how all the US presidents died - especially the ones that died in office - can shed some light on our current political situation. In total, 39 US presidents have passed on. Keep reading to learn about all the US president deaths that have happened since the inception of our country.

Fifteen vice presidents of the United States eventually became president. Nine ascended to the presidency due to the death of the president, either by assassination or illness. Six others were elected president after finishing their terms. In these 15&nbsp;commanders in chief, you&#39;ll find some of the most heralded names in American history, including several Founding Fathers. You&#39;ll also find several presidents whose terms were distinguished only by how undistinguished they were. Many had replaced presidents who, likewise, accomplished almost nothing in their short terms in office.

One fascinating element of the list of <a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/crowdranked-list/the-greatest-u-s-vice-presidents-of-all-time?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">vice presidents who became president</a> is that most of them, themselves, didn&#39;t have vice presidents. As it was written, the Constitution didn&#39;t allow for vice presidents to be selected during a presidential term. So the eight vice presidents who became president before the passage of the 25th Amendment in 1967 had no vice president. Fortunately, none of these presidents died in office - which would have likely led to an unprecedented constitutional crisis.

Here are the 15 vice presidents who later became president of the United States, with information on how they moved into the POTUS position and other biographical details.

Here are all nine of the US presidents who became president without having been elected president. This list features four vice presidents who were sworn in after their commanders in chief were assassinated, four who were inaugurated after their presidents died of illness, and one who became president because of two resignations. If you ever wanted to know which&nbsp;man&nbsp;was&nbsp;never elected president&nbsp;of the&nbsp;United States, this list is for you. &nbsp;

Can you name all the presidents who weren&#39;t elected? This isn&#39;t to say that these guys were never elected - in fact, several of them followed up their short terms with full second terms. More commonly, however, vice presidents who assumed <a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/pictures-of-the-oval-office-for-each-us-president/kellen-perry?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">the Oval Office</a> (well, the ones after it was built in 1909) were met with contention within their own party, not to mention political opponents. Read these interesting facts&nbsp;and share them with your friends tonight. You will be the life of the party.

Money

If you are one of the millions of Americans currently struggling with the consequences of bad financial decision making, you can take some comfort in the fact that you are not alone. We all make mistakes with money; teachers, plumbers, lawyers, even presidents. You might find this hard to believe, but there are many <a href="http://www.ranker.com/crowdranked-list/the-u-s-presidents-from-best-to-worst">US presidents</a> who went broke.This list is going to cover presidents who lost their money in the most egregious ways. Spoiler alert: it turns out most of the guys who are on money were absolutely terrible with it.

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln are larger-than-life historical figures, but they, along with&nbsp;more contemporary notables like JFK and Ronald Reagan, were all ordinary human beings before they held the office of the presidency, and that means they all had favorite foods. Even world leaders need to consume calories to survive, but what actually goes in each presidential mouth can vary wildly depending on the administration.

Presidential personalities have ranged greatly over the decade, and their individual palates reflect this, with favorite foodstuffs fluctuating as frequently as foreign policy. Each POTUS has made special requests from the <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/white-house-kitchen-rules-and-regulations/ryan-sargent" target="_blank">White House kitchen</a>&nbsp;or the <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/presidents-first-ladies-best-recipes/setareh-janda" target="_blank">recipe file of the first lady</a>. That&rsquo;s why certain portions of the White House record read&nbsp;more like a recipe book than an <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/weird-but-true-food-history-facts/genevieve-carlton" target="_blank">archive of history</a>.&nbsp;

U.S. Presidents

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It&#39;s time to upvote the US presidents you thought did the most with their one term as leader of the free world. In some ways, four years is a long time to prove yourself as a good Commander in Chief, but on the other hand, it is hard to enact real, visible change throughout the entire country in such a short time. It becomes easy for challengers, like Bill Clinton beating incumbent George H. W. Bush, to ask Americans, &quot;Are you better of now than you were four years ago?&quot; But which on this list of one term presidents made the most of those four years of government leadership at the highest level?

These one-term presidents range from John Adams to Jimmy Carter, the latter of whom lost his second shot at the presidency to Ronald Reagan. These politicians and presidents show that America does not always re-elect the incumbent. For instance, leaders like James K. Polk and Rutherford B. Hayes were limited to a single lonely term as President of the United States of America.

How many one term presidents have served the United States of America? Just 13 so far and they&#39;re all on this list of American presidents who were only in office for one solitary term. Vote up those who served America best over that one term and check out the US presidents who were lucky enough to serve <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/two-term-presidents/mel-judson">two terms</a> as well!

One Term Presidents | US Presidents Who Served 1 Term

The Best One-Term US Presidents

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George H. W. Bush

George Herbert Walker Bush (June 12, 1924 – November 30, 2018) was an American politician and businessman who served as the 41st president of the United States from 1989 to 1993 and the 43rd vice president from 1981 to 1989. A member of the Republican Party, Bush also served in the U.S. House of Representatives, as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, and as Director of Central Intelligence. Until his son George W. Bush became the 43rd president in 2001, he was usually known as George Bush.
Bush postponed his university studies after the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, enlisted in the Navy on his 18th birthday, and became one of its youngest aviators. He served until September 1945, and then attended Yale University, graduating in 1948. He moved his family to West Texas where he entered the oil business and became a millionaire by the age of 40 (in 1964). Bush won election to the House of Representatives from Texas's 7th congressional district in 1966, and was re-elected in 1968. He also ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate twice, in 1964 and again in 1970. In 1971, President Richard Nixon appointed Bush as Ambassador to the United Nations, and he became chairman of the Republican National Committee in 1973. The following year, President Gerald Ford appointed him Chief of the Liaison Office in China and later made him the Director of Central Intelligence. Bush ran for president in 1980, but was defeated in the Republican primary by Ronald Reagan. He was then elected vice president in 1980 and 1984 as Reagan's running mate. During his eight-year tenure as vice president, Bush headed task forces on deregulation and the War on Drugs.
In 1988, Bush defeated Democratic opponent Michael Dukakis, becoming the first incumbent vice president to be elected president in 152 years. Foreign policy drove the Bush presidency; military operations were conducted in Panama and the Persian Gulf, the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, and the Soviet Union dissolved two years later. Bush also signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which created a trade bloc consisting of the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Domestically, Bush reneged on a 1988 campaign promise by signing a bill that increased taxes. He lost the 1992 presidential election to Democrat Bill Clinton following an economic recession and the decreased importance of foreign policy in a post–Cold War political climate.
After leaving office in 1993, Bush was active in humanitarian activities; he often worked alongside Clinton, his former opponent. With George W. Bush's victory in the 2000 presidential election, Bush and his son became the second father–son pair to serve as the nation's president (following John Adams and John Quincy Adams). At the time of his death, he was the longest-lived president in U.S. history, a record surpassed by Jimmy Carter on March 22, 2019.

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John Adams

John Adams Jr. (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Before his presidency, he was a leader of the American Revolution that achieved independence from Great Britain and served as the first vice president of the United States. Adams was a dedicated diarist and regularly corresponded with many important figures in early American history, including his wife and adviser, Abigail. His letters and other papers serve as an important source of historical information about the era.
A lawyer and political activist prior to the revolution, Adams was devoted to the right to counsel and presumption of innocence. He defied anti-British sentiment and successfully defended British soldiers against murder charges arising from the Boston Massacre. Adams was a Massachusetts delegate to the Continental Congress and became a principal leader of the Revolution. He assisted in drafting the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and was its foremost advocate in Congress. As a diplomat in Europe, he helped negotiate the peace treaty with Great Britain and secured vital governmental loans. Adams was the primary author of the Massachusetts Constitution in 1780, which influenced the United States' own constitution, as did his earlier Thoughts on Government.
Adams was elected to two terms as vice president under President George Washington and was elected as the United States' second president in 1796. During his single term, Adams encountered fierce criticism from the Jeffersonian Republicans and from some in his own Federalist Party, led by his rival Alexander Hamilton. Adams signed the controversial Alien and Sedition Acts and built up the Army and Navy in the undeclared "Quasi-War" with France. The main accomplishment of his presidency was a peaceful resolution of this conflict in the face of public anger and Hamilton's opposition. During his term, he became the first president to reside in the executive mansion now known as the White House.
In his bid for reelection, opposition from Federalists and accusations of despotism from Republicans led to Adams's loss to his former friend Thomas Jefferson, and he retired to Massachusetts. He eventually resumed his friendship with Jefferson by initiating a correspondence that lasted fourteen years. He and his wife generated a family of politicians, diplomats, and historians now referred to as the Adams political family, which includes their son John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the United States. John Adams died on July 4, 1826 – the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence – hours after Jefferson's death. Surveys of historians and scholars have favorably ranked his administration.

James K. Polk

James Knox Polk (November 2, 1795 – June 15, 1849) was the 11th president of the United States, serving from 1845 to 1849. He previously was Speaker of the House of Representatives (1835–1839) and governor of Tennessee (1839–1841). A protégé of Andrew Jackson, he was a member of the Democratic Party and an advocate of Jacksonian democracy. Polk is chiefly known for extending the territory of the United States during the Mexican–American War; during his presidency, the United States expanded significantly with the annexation of the Republic of Texas, the Oregon Territory, and the Mexican Cession following the American victory in the Mexican–American War.
After building a successful law practice in Tennessee, Polk was elected to the state legislature (1823) and then to the United States House of Representatives in 1825, becoming a strong supporter of Andrew Jackson. After serving as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, he became Speaker in 1835, the only president to have been Speaker. Polk left Congress to run for governor; he won in 1839, but lost in 1841 and 1843. He was a dark horse candidate for the Democratic nomination for president in 1844; he entered his party's convention as a potential nominee for vice president, but emerged as a compromise to head the ticket when no presidential candidate could secure the necessary two-thirds majority. In the general election, Polk defeated Henry Clay of the rival Whig Party.
Historians consider Polk the most effective president of the pre–Civil War era, having met during his four-year term every major domestic and foreign policy goal he had set. After a negotiation fraught with risk of war, he reached a settlement with Great Britain over the disputed Oregon Country, the territory for the most part being divided along the 49th parallel. Polk achieved a sweeping victory in the Mexican–American War, which resulted in the cession by Mexico of nearly all the American Southwest. He secured a substantial reduction of tariff rates with the Walker tariff of 1846. The same year, he achieved his other major goal, re-establishment of the Independent Treasury system. Historian Thomas A. Bailey says that during the Mexican war, "Polk was an energetic and indefatigable war leader, and he emerged, partly through rare good luck, with uninterrupted success. He kept the sole direction of the war in his own hands, from grand strategy to the procurement of mules."  True to his campaign pledge to serve only one term, Polk left office in 1849 and returned to Tennessee where he died three months after leaving the White House.
Though he is relatively obscure today, scholars have ranked Polk favorably for his ability to promote and achieve the major items on his presidential agenda. However, he has also been criticized for leading the country into an unnecessary war against Mexico and for exacerbating sectional divides. A slaveholder for most of his adult life, he owned a plantation in Mississippi and bought slaves while president. A major legacy of Polk's presidency is territorial expansion, as the United States reached the Pacific coast and became poised to be a world power.

William Howard Taft

William Howard Taft (September 15, 1857 – March 8, 1930) was the 27th president of the United States (1909–1913) and the tenth chief justice of the United States (1921–1930), the only person to have held both offices. Taft was elected president in 1908, the chosen successor of Theodore Roosevelt, but was defeated for re-election by Woodrow Wilson in 1912 after Roosevelt split the Republican vote by running as a third-party candidate. In 1921, President Warren G. Harding appointed Taft to be chief justice, a position in which he served until a month before his death.
Taft was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1857. His father, Alphonso Taft, was a U.S. Attorney General and Secretary of War. Taft attended Yale and, like his father, was a member of Skull and Bones. After becoming a lawyer, Taft was appointed a judge while still in his twenties. He continued a rapid rise, being named Solicitor General and as a judge of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. In 1901, President William McKinley appointed Taft civilian governor of the Philippines. In 1904, Roosevelt made him Secretary of War, and he became Roosevelt's hand-picked successor. Despite his personal ambition to become chief justice, Taft declined repeated offers of appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States, believing his political work to be more important.
With Roosevelt's help, Taft had little opposition for the Republican nomination for president in 1908 and easily defeated William Jennings Bryan for the presidency that November. In the White House, he focused on East Asia more than European affairs and repeatedly intervened to prop up or remove Latin American governments. Taft sought reductions to trade tariffs, then a major source of governmental income, but the resulting bill was heavily influenced by special interests. His administration was filled with conflict between the conservative wing of the Republican Party, with which Taft often sympathized, and the progressive wing, toward which Roosevelt moved more and more. Controversies over conservation and antitrust cases filed by the Taft administration served to further separate the two men. Roosevelt challenged Taft for renomination in 1912. Taft used his control of the party machinery to gain a bare majority of delegates and Roosevelt bolted the party. The split left Taft with little chance of re-election and he took only Utah and Vermont in Wilson's victory.
After leaving office, Taft returned to Yale as a professor, continuing his political activity and working against war through the League to Enforce Peace. In 1921, President Harding appointed Taft as chief justice, an office he had long sought. Chief Justice Taft was a conservative on business issues and under him there were advances in individual rights. In poor health, he resigned in February 1930, and died the following month. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery, the first president and first Supreme Court justice to be interred there. Taft is generally listed near the middle in historians' rankings of U.S. presidents.

Jimmy Carter

James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician and philanthropist who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as a Georgia State Senator from 1963 to 1967 and as the 76th Governor of Georgia from 1971 to 1975. After his presidency, Carter has remained active in the private sector; in 2002, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in co-founding the Carter Center.
Raised in Plains, Georgia, Carter graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1946 with a Bachelor of Science degree and joined the United States Navy, where he served on submarines. After the death of his father in 1953, Carter left his naval career and returned home to Georgia to take up the reins of his family's peanut-growing business. Carter inherited comparatively little due to his father's forgiveness of debts and the division of the estate among the children. Nevertheless, his ambition to expand and grow the Carters' peanut business was fulfilled. During this period, Carter was motivated to oppose the political climate of racial segregation and support the growing civil rights movement. He became an activist within the Democratic Party. From 1963 to 1967, Carter served in the Georgia State Senate, and in 1970, he was elected as Governor of Georgia, defeating former Governor Carl Sanders in the Democratic primary on an anti-segregation platform advocating affirmative action for ethnic minorities. Carter remained as governor until 1975. Despite being a dark-horse candidate who was little known outside of Georgia at the start of the campaign, Carter won the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination. In the general election, Carter ran as an outsider and narrowly defeated incumbent Republican President Gerald Ford. An evangelical Christian, Carter is credited with significantly moving the faith closer to the American mainstream; him advertising his devout Christian faith as a qualification on the campaign trail was unprecedented at the time and is seen as a significant event in the rise of the Christian right in America, even though they and Carter were political opponents.On his second day in office, Carter pardoned all the Vietnam War draft evaders. During Carter's term as president, two new cabinet-level departments, the Department of Energy and the Department of Education, were established. He established a national energy policy that included conservation, price control, and new technology. In foreign affairs, Carter pursued the Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties, the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II), and the return of the Panama Canal Zone to Panama. On the economic front, he confronted persistent stagflation, a combination of high inflation, high unemployment and slow growth. The end of his presidential tenure was marked by the 1979–1981 Iran hostage crisis, the 1979 energy crisis, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In response to the invasion, Carter escalated the Cold War when he ended détente, imposed a grain embargo against the Soviets, enunciated the Carter Doctrine, and led an 1980 Summer Olympics boycott in Moscow. In 1980, Carter faced a challenge from Senator Ted Kennedy in the primaries, but he won re-nomination at the 1980 Democratic National Convention. Carter lost the general election to Republican nominee Ronald Reagan in an electoral landslide. Polls of historians and political scientists usually rank Carter as an average president; he often receives more positive evaluations for his post-presidential work.
In 2012, Carter surpassed Herbert Hoover as the longest-retired president in U.S. history, in 2017 became the first president to live to the 40th anniversary of his inauguration and in 2019 became the longest-lived president; He is currently the oldest and earliest-serving of all living U.S. presidents. In 1982, he established the Carter Center to promote and expand human rights. He has traveled extensively to conduct peace negotiations, monitor elections, and advance disease prevention and eradication in developing nations. Carter is considered a key figure in the Habitat for Humanity charity. He has written over 30 books ranging from political memoirs to poetry while continuing to actively comment on ongoing American and global affairs, such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams ( (listen); July 11, 1767 – February 23, 1848) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, and diarist who served as the sixth president of the United States from 1825 to 1829. He previously served as the eighth United States Secretary of State from 1817 to 1825. During his long diplomatic and political career, Adams also served as an ambassador, and represented Massachusetts as a United States Senator and as a member of the United States House of Representatives. He was the eldest son of John Adams, who served as the second US president from 1797 to 1801, and First Lady Abigail Adams. Initially a Federalist like his father, he won election to the presidency as a member of the Democratic-Republican Party, and in the mid-1830s became affiliated with the Whig Party.
Born in Braintree, Massachusetts, Adams spent much of his youth in Europe, where his father served as a diplomat. After returning to the United States, Adams established a successful legal practice in Boston. In 1794, President George Washington appointed Adams as the U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands, and Adams would serve in high-ranking diplomatic posts until 1801, when Thomas Jefferson took office as president. Federalist leaders in Massachusetts arranged for Adams's election to the United States Senate in 1802, but Adams broke with the Federalist Party over foreign policy and was denied re-election. In 1809, Adams was appointed as the U.S. ambassador to Russia by President James Madison, a member of the Democratic-Republican Party. Adams held diplomatic posts for the duration of Madison's presidency, and he served as part of the American delegation that negotiated an end to the War of 1812. In 1817, newly-elected President James Monroe selected Adams as his Secretary of State. In that role, Adams negotiated the Adams–Onís Treaty, which provided for the American acquisition of Florida. He also helped formulate the Monroe Doctrine, which became a key tenet of U.S. foreign policy.
The 1824 presidential election was contested by Adams, Andrew Jackson, William H. Crawford, and Henry Clay, all of whom were members of the Democratic-Republican Party. As no candidate won a majority of the electoral vote, the House of Representatives held a contingent election to determine the president, and Adams won that contingent election with the support of Clay. As president, Adams called for an ambitious agenda that included federally-funded infrastructure projects, the establishment of a national university, and engagement with the countries of Latin America, but many of his initiatives were defeated in Congress. During Adams's presidency, the Democratic-Republican Party polarized into two major camps: one group, known as the National Republican Party, supported President Adams, while the other group, known as the Democratic Party, was led by Andrew Jackson. The Democrats proved to be more effective political organizers than Adams and his National Republican supporters, and Jackson decisively defeated Adams in the 1828 presidential election.
Rather than retiring from public service, Adams won election to the House of Representatives, where he would serve from 1831 to his death in 1848. He joined the Anti-Masonic Party in the early 1830s before becoming a member of the Whig Party, which united those opposed to President Jackson. During his time in Congress, Adams became increasingly critical of slavery and of the Southern leaders whom he believed controlled the Democratic Party. He was particularly opposed to the annexation of Texas and the Mexican–American War, which he saw as a war to extend slavery. He also led the repeal of the "gag rule," which had prevented the House of Representatives from debating petitions to abolish slavery. Historians generally concur that Adams was one of the greatest diplomats and secretaries of state in American history, but they tend to rank him as an above-average president.

Rutherford B. Hayes

Rutherford Birchard Hayes (October 4, 1822 – January 17, 1893) was the 19th president of the United States from 1877 to 1881, having served also as an American representative and governor of Ohio. Hayes was a lawyer and staunch abolitionist who defended refugee slaves in court proceedings in the antebellum years. 
He was nominated as the Republican candidate for the presidency in 1876 and elected through the Compromise of 1877 that officially ended the Reconstruction Era by leaving the South to govern itself. In office he withdrew military troops from the South, ending Army support for Republican state governments in the South and the efforts of African-American freedmen to establish their families as free citizens. He promoted civil service reform, and attempted to reconcile the divisions left over from the Civil War and Reconstruction.
Hayes, an attorney in Ohio, served as city solicitor of Cincinnati from 1858 to 1861. When the Civil War began, he left a fledgling political career to join the Union Army as an officer. Hayes was wounded five times, most seriously at the Battle of South Mountain. He earned a reputation for bravery in combat and was promoted to the rank of brevet major general. After the war, he served in the Congress from 1865 to 1867 as a Republican. Hayes left Congress to run for governor of Ohio and was elected to two consecutive terms, from 1868 to 1872. Later he served a third two-year term, from 1876 to 1877.
In 1876, Hayes was elected president in one of the most contentious elections in national history. He lost the popular vote to Democrat Samuel J. Tilden but he won an intensely disputed electoral college vote after a Congressional commission awarded him twenty contested electoral votes. The result was the Compromise of 1877, in which the Democrats acquiesced to Hayes's election on the condition that he withdraw remaining U.S. troops protecting Republican office holders in the South, thus officially ending the Reconstruction era.
Hayes believed in meritocratic government and equal treatment without regard to wealth, social standing or race. He ordered federal troops to guard federal buildings and in doing so restored order during the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. He implemented modest civil service reforms that laid the groundwork for further reform in the 1880s and 1890s. He vetoed the Bland–Allison Act, which would have put silver money into circulation and raised nominal prices, insisting that maintenance of the gold standard was essential to economic recovery.  His policy toward Western Indians anticipated the assimilationist program of the Dawes Act of 1887.
Hayes kept his pledge not to run for re-election, retired to his home in Ohio, and became an advocate of social and educational reform. Biographer Ari Hoogenboom said his greatest achievement was to restore popular faith in the presidency and to reverse the deterioration of executive power that had set in after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Although supporters have praised his commitment to civil service reform and defense of civil rights, Hayes is generally ranked as average or slightly below average by historians and scholars.

Donald Trump

Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Before entering politics, he was a businessman and television personality.

Benjamin Harrison

Benjamin Harrison (August 20, 1833 – March 13, 1901) was an American politician and lawyer who served as the 23rd president of the United States from 1889 to 1893. He was a grandson of the ninth president, William Henry Harrison, creating the only grandfather–grandson duo to have held the office. He was also a great-grandson of Benjamin Harrison V, a founding father who signed the Declaration of Independence. Before ascending to the presidency, Harrison had established himself as a prominent local attorney, Presbyterian church leader, and politician in Indianapolis, Indiana. During the American Civil War, he served in the Union Army as a colonel, and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as a brevet brigadier general of volunteers in 1865. Harrison unsuccessfully ran for governor of Indiana in 1876. The Indiana General Assembly elected Harrison to a six-year term in the U.S. Senate, where he served from 1881 to 1887.
A Republican, Harrison was elected to the presidency in 1888, defeating the Democratic incumbent, Grover Cleveland. Hallmarks of Harrison's administration included unprecedented economic legislation, including the McKinley Tariff, which imposed historic protective trade rates, and the Sherman Antitrust Act. Harrison also facilitated the creation of the national forest reserves through an amendment to the Land Revision Act of 1891. During his administration six western states were admitted to the Union. In addition, Harrison substantially strengthened and modernized the U.S. Navy and conducted an active foreign policy, but his proposals to secure federal education funding as well as voting rights enforcement for African Americans were unsuccessful.
Due in large part to surplus revenues from the tariffs, federal spending reached one billion dollars for the first time during his term. The spending issue in part led to the defeat of the Republicans in the 1890 mid-term elections. Cleveland defeated Harrison for re-election in 1892, due to the growing unpopularity of the high tariff and high federal spending. Harrison returned to private life and his law practice in Indianapolis. In 1899 Harrison represented the Republic of Venezuela in their British Guiana boundary dispute against the United Kingdom. Harrison traveled to the court of Paris as part of the case and after a brief stay returned to Indianapolis. He died at his home in Indianapolis in 1901 of complications from influenza. Although many have praised Harrison's commitment to African Americans' voting rights, scholars and historians generally regard his administration as below-average, and rank him in the bottom half among U.S. presidents. Historians, however, have not questioned Harrison's commitment to personal and official integrity.

Martin Van Buren

Martin Van Buren ( van BEWR-ən; born Maarten Van Buren, Dutch pronunciation: [ˈmaːrtə(n) vɑn ˈbyːrə(n)]; December 5, 1782 – July 24, 1862) was an American statesman who served as the eighth president of the United States from 1837 to 1841.  He was the first president born after the independence of the United States from the British Empire. A founder of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the ninth governor of New York, the tenth United States secretary of state, and the eighth vice president of the United States. He won the 1836 presidential election with the endorsement of popular outgoing President Andrew Jackson and the organizational strength of the Democratic Party. He lost his 1840 reelection bid to Whig Party nominee William Henry Harrison, due in part to the poor economic conditions of the Panic of 1837. Later in his life, Van Buren emerged as an elder statesman and important anti-slavery leader, who led the Free Soil Party ticket in the 1848 presidential election.
Van Buren was born in Kinderhook, New York to a family of Dutch Americans; his father was a Patriot during the American Revolution. He was raised speaking Dutch and learned English at school, making him the only U.S. president who spoke English as a second language. He trained as a lawyer and quickly became involved in politics as a member of the Democratic-Republican Party. He won election to the New York State Senate and became the leader of the Bucktails, the faction of Democratic-Republicans opposed to Governor DeWitt Clinton. Van Buren established a political machine known as the Albany Regency and in the 1820s emerged as the most influential politician in his home state. He was elected to the United States Senate in 1821 and supported William H. Crawford in the 1824 presidential election. John Quincy Adams won the 1824 election and Van Buren opposed his proposals for federally funded internal improvements and other measures. Van Buren's major political goal was to re-establish a two-party system with partisan differences based on ideology rather than personalities or sectional differences, and he supported Jackson's candidacy against Adams in the 1828 presidential election with this goal in mind. To support Jackson's candidacy, Van Buren ran for Governor of New York; he won, but resigned a few months after assuming the position to accept appointment as U.S. Secretary of State after Jackson took office in March 1829.
Van Buren was a key advisor during Jackson's eight years as President of the United States and he built the organizational structure for the coalescing Democratic Party, particularly in New York. He resigned from his position to help resolve the Petticoat affair, then briefly served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom. At Jackson's behest, the 1832 Democratic National Convention nominated Van Buren for Vice President of the United States, and he took office after the Democratic ticket won the 1832 presidential election. With Jackson's strong support, Van Buren faced little opposition for the presidential nomination at the 1835 Democratic National Convention, and he defeated several Whig opponents in the 1836 presidential election. Van Buren's response to the Panic of 1837 centered on his Independent Treasury system, a plan under which the Federal government of the United States would store its funds in vaults rather than in banks. He also continued Jackson's policy of Indian removal; he maintained peaceful relations with Britain but denied the application to admit Texas to the Union, seeking to avoid heightened sectional tensions. In the 1840 election, the Whigs rallied around Harrison's military record and ridiculed Van Buren as "Martin Van Ruin", and a surge of new voters helped turn him out of office.
At the opening of the Democratic convention in 1844, Van Buren was the leading candidate for the party's nomination for the presidency. Southern Democrats, however, were angered by his continued opposition to the annexation of Texas, and the party nominated James K. Polk. Van Buren grew increasingly opposed to slavery after he left office, and he agreed to lead a third party ticket in the 1848 presidential election, motivated additionally by intra-party differences at the state and national level. He finished in a distant third nationally, but his presence in the race most likely helped Whig nominee Zachary Taylor defeat Democrat Lewis Cass. Van Buren returned to the Democratic fold after the 1848 election, but he supported Abraham Lincoln's policies during the American Civil War. His health began to fail in 1861 and he died in July 1862 at age 79. He has been generally ranked as an average or below-average U.S. president by historians and political scientists.



Herbert Hoover

Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was an American engineer, businessman, and politician who served as the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933. A member of the Republican Party, he held office during the onset of the Great Depression. Prior to serving as president, Hoover led the Commission for Relief in Belgium, served as the director of the U.S. Food Administration, and served as the 3rd U.S. Secretary of Commerce.
Born to a Quaker family in West Branch, Iowa, Hoover took a position with a London-based mining company after graduating from Stanford University in 1895. After the outbreak of World War I, he became the head of the Commission for Relief in Belgium, an international relief organization that provided food to occupied Belgium. When the U.S. entered the war, President Woodrow Wilson appointed Hoover to lead the Food Administration, and Hoover became known as the country's "food czar". After the war, Hoover led the American Relief Administration, which provided food to the inhabitants of Central Europe and Eastern Europe. Hoover's war-time service made him a favorite of many progressives, and he unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination in the 1920 presidential election.
After the 1920 election, newly-elected Republican President Warren G. Harding appointed Hoover as Secretary of Commerce; Hoover continued to serve under President Calvin Coolidge after Harding died in 1923. Hoover was an unusually active and visible cabinet member, becoming known as "Secretary of Commerce and Under-Secretary of all other departments". He was influential in the development of radio and air travel and led the federal response to the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. Hoover won the Republican nomination in the 1928 presidential election, and decisively defeated the Democratic candidate, Al Smith. The stock market crashed shortly after Hoover took office, and the Great Depression became the central issue of his presidency. Hoover pursued a variety of policies in an attempt to lift the economy, but opposed directly involving the federal government in relief efforts.
In the midst of an ongoing economic crisis, Hoover was decisively defeated by Democratic nominee Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1932 presidential election. Hoover enjoyed one of the longest retirements of any former president, and he authored numerous works. After leaving office, Hoover became increasingly conservative, and he strongly criticized Roosevelt's foreign policy and New Deal domestic agenda. In the 1940s and 1950s, Hoover's public reputation was rehabilitated as he served for Presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower in various assignments, including as chairman of the Hoover Commission. Nevertheless, Hoover is generally not ranked highly in historical rankings of presidents of the United States.

Franklin Pierce (November 23, 1804 – October 8, 1869) was the 14th president of the United States (1853–1857), a northern Democrat who saw the abolitionist movement as a fundamental threat to the unity of the nation. He alienated anti-slavery groups by championing and signing the Kansas–Nebraska Act and enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act, yet he failed to stem conflict between North and South, setting the stage for Southern secession and the American Civil War.
Pierce was born in New Hampshire, and served in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate until he resigned from the Senate in 1842. His private law practice in New Hampshire was a success, and he was appointed U.S. Attorney for his state in 1845. He took part in the Mexican–American War as a brigadier general in the Army. He was seen by Democrats as a compromise candidate uniting northern and southern interests and was nominated as the party's candidate for president on the 49th ballot at the 1852 Democratic National Convention. He and running mate William R. King easily defeated the Whig Party ticket of Winfield Scott and William A. Graham in the 1852 presidential election.
As president, Pierce simultaneously attempted to enforce neutral standards for civil service while also satisfying the diverse elements of the Democratic Party with patronage, an effort which largely failed and turned many in his party against him. He was a Young America expansionist who signed the Gadsden Purchase of land from Mexico and led a failed attempt to acquire Cuba from Spain. He signed trade treaties with Britain and Japan, while his Cabinet reformed their departments and improved accountability, but these successes were overshadowed by political strife during his presidency. His popularity declined sharply in the Northern states after he supported the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which nullified the Missouri Compromise, while many whites in the South continued to support him. Passage of the act led to violent conflict over the expansion of slavery in the American West. Pierce's administration was further damaged when several of his diplomats issued the Ostend Manifesto calling for the annexation of Cuba, a document which was roundly criticized. He fully expected to be renominated by the Democrats in the 1856 presidential election, but was abandoned by his party and his bid failed. His reputation in the North suffered further during the American Civil War as he became a vocal critic of President Abraham Lincoln.
Pierce was popular and outgoing, but his family life was a grim affair, with his wife Jane suffering from illness and depression for much of her life. All of their children died young, their last son being gruesomely killed in a train accident while the family was traveling shortly before Pierce's inauguration. He was a heavy drinker for much of his life, and he died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1869. Historians and scholars generally rank Pierce as one of the worst and least memorable U.S. Presidents.

James Buchanan

James Buchanan Jr. (; April 23, 1791 – June 1, 1868) was the 15th president of the United States (1857–1861), serving prior to the American Civil War. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the United States Secretary of State and in both houses of Congress before becoming president.
Born in Cove Gap, Pennsylvania, Buchanan became a prominent lawyer and won election to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives as a Federalist. In 1820, he won election to the United States House of Representatives, aligning with Andrew Jackson's Democratic Party. He served as Jackson's Minister to Russia, then won election as a senator from Pennsylvania. In 1845, he accepted appointment as President James K. Polk's Secretary of State. He was a major contender for his party's presidential nomination throughout the 1840s and 1850s and was finally nominated in 1856, defeating incumbent President Franklin Pierce and Senator Stephen A. Douglas at the 1856 Democratic National Convention. Buchanan and running mate John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky defeated Republican John C. Frémont and Know-Nothing Millard Fillmore to win the 1856 election.
President Buchanan supported the Dred Scott decision and joined with Southern leaders in attempting to admit Kansas to the Union as a slave state under the Lecompton Constitution. In the process, he angered Republicans and alienated many Northern Democrats. Buchanan held to his pledge to serve only one term and supported Breckinridge's unsuccessful candidacy in the 1860 presidential election. Several Southern states seceded after Republican Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 election, and the American Civil War began just weeks after Buchanan left office. He died in 1868 at age 77, and is the only president to remain a lifelong bachelor. Historians fault him for his failure to address the issue of slavery and the secession of the Southern states and generally consider him to be one of the worst presidents in U.S. history.

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