I don't really have any answers to this wicki. Their system is their system.

How women are treated obviously is questionable. But an amputated armed robber would be physically unable to menace again. Unlike in the US you can go back to it when you get out of jail.

But countries have progressed over time in their punishment of crime. Cufing and whipping have become innapropriate.

Islamic Law and Legal System/Vogel 2000


The hudūd are usually enumerated as the following crimes: adultery (sexual intercourse between a couple not married to each other), theft, wine-drinking, slander involving imputation of adultery, brigandage, and apostasy. All of these crimes are recognized in Saudi Arabia, and Saudi Arabia has prosecuted cases for all of them.

Qu'oran

Now as for the man who steals and the woman who steals, cut off the hand of either of them in requital for what they have wrought, as a deterrent ordained by God: for God is almighty, wise. But as for him who repents after having thus done wrong, and makes amends, behold, God will accept his repentance: verily, God is much-forgiving, a dispenser of grace. [5:38?39]

As for the adulteress and the adulterer?flog each of them with a hundred stripes, and let not compassion with them keep you from this law of God, if you believe in God and the Last Day; and let a group of the believers witness their chastisement. [24:2]



On the authority of the sunna, the penalty of flogging set in the second verse applies only to the offender who has never married; for adulterers who are or have been married the punishment is stoning to death.

Qu'ran

As for those who accuse chaste women [of adultery], and then are unable to produce four witnesses, flog them with eighty stripes. [24:4]

This verse defines the hadd of slander involving a false accusation of adultery. This hadd was interpreted to mean that if an accuser of adultery cannot produce four witnesses?who, the law further provides, must each be male, of good character, and eyewitness to the very act of penetration?then he is guilty of slander. One can imagine the diffculty of obtaining this proof: scholars even claim that the offense of adultery has never been proved by means of witnesses. The offense of slander itself supports a pervasive Islamic norm against speaking ill of others, or attributing to them evil deeds without proof.


Over the eleven years between May 1981 and April 1992, a total of four executions by stoning and forty-five amputations for theft were carried out in Saudi Arabia, an average of one stoning every three years and four hand-amputations each year. Although offcial statistics of hadd crimes are not available, it is almost certain that current levels exceed historical averages; Saudis think that this is because their country is having a crime wave, and that in the past hudūd punishments were extremely rare.

(October 18, 1982 to October 6, 1983), for example, while there were 4,925 convictions for theft (the most common crime, at 31 percent of all crimes committed), only two hands were cut off, the rest being punished by ta'zīr punishments of lashes and imprisonment. In that same year, out of 659 convictions for adultery, sodomy, and sexual assault, no stoning at all was inflicted.

The second category of crime we consider, ta'zīr, ?moral correction? or ?chastisement, ? is the least developed type of crime in law but by far the most extensive in application. Ta'zīr covers all crimes for which no specific penalty is fixed by sharī'a.

For example, in Saudi Arabia a man was accused of sodomy, which, according to the Hanbalī view applied in Saudi Arabia, is the hadd of adultery, punishable by stoning. He made a complete, detailed confession in his own handwriting, but under trial for the hadd he retracted the confession and thus avoided the penalty of stoning. The case was referred to another court for trial as a ta'zīr crime. In that court, on the basis of the same confession, the man was sentenced to one year's imprisonment, with 65 lashes to be inflicted after six months and again at the end of his term.

The standard ta'zīr penalty is lashing, but scolding, public humiliation, cuffng, imprisonment, and, according to some scholars, fines are also possible punishments. All of these are accepted as valid in Saudi Arabia. Lashing in ta'zīr is not meant to be severe: although it causes bruises, it must not break the skin; the lasher's arm should not be extended, only cocked; the lash must be of moderate size. Lashing is excluded if it entails any risk of permanent injury or death.

There are certain specified ta'zīrcrimes that are, on special textual grounds, subject to the death penalty. Examples are sorcery, propagandizing for heresy, or spying by a Muslim for infidels

Executions siyāsatan have been a long-time practice of Saudi Arabian kings. They decree sentences without any formal trial, although usually after obtaining the approval of key 'ulamā'.

Examples from Saudi Arabia are the execution by firing squad, within days of complaint, of three members of a Saudi security force who exploited their authority to abduct and rape a Filipino man, and the execution of a man who killed his wife and children. In the first case, convicting the offenders of adultery (to which sodomy is assimilated) was regarded as too slow and uncertain a remedy given the offense to public peace and security they committed. In the second case there was no applicable severe fiqh penalty at all, since fiqh denies a right of retaliation against parents.

Through April 18, 1992 of this entire group, convictions for the hadd of hirāba, the hadd of ghīla (surreptitious killing), ta'zīr execution, and execution siyāsatan totalled 177. Nearly all of these culminated in beheading, two with crucifixions after beheading; the only other punishments were one death by shooting and four cases of amputation of an arm and the opposite leg. These 177 cases cover all capital punishments other than for adultery, apostasy, and ordinary murder, and therefore include all those implemented under Fatwā No. 85, whether in its abduction or its drug offenses arm.

On hearing evidence the judges were struck by the debauched, unrepentant, and recidivist attitude of the accused, though a young man. Only twenty-five years of age, he had nine previous convictions for drinking, sodomy, theft, and forgery. His mother testified against him, accusing him of adultery and irreligion. His incest victim gave birth. Very likely the judges took the case out of the adultery category because the penalty of stoning was unavailable, either because the offender had never been married and would thus be subject at most to only one hundred lashes, or because the offender's confession was inadequate to support the hadd. Instead the judges prescribed the ta'zīr death penalty ?to cut off his evil from society, to secure the general welfare, and to be an admonition to others.? The use of this penalty outside drug smuggling represents an extension of the fatwā, and a notable advance in 'ulamā' jurisdiction compared to traditional patterns. Death was by shooting, for an unexplained reason.

The king decides? that the punishment for the smuggler of drugs is death. This is because of the great corruption caused by smuggling of drugs

One year after Fatwā No. 138 announced death penalties for drugsmuggling, Saudi offcials claimed drug smuggling had decreased 40 percent and that ?the crime rate decreased 12%? in the Hijrī year 1407, ending August 1987. 171 Since then, reported rates of execution (including for murder) have been very high by international standards, certainly on a per capita basis: 111 executed in 1989, 17 in 1990, 26 in 1991, 66 in 1992, 88 in 1993, 53 in 1994, 192 in 1995, 69 in 1996, 122 in 1997, 29 in 1998, and 85 up to September 17, 1999. Amnesty International, opposed to all capital punishment, has repeatedly raised the issue with Saudi offcials.



In Saudi Arabia today, the hudūd penalties are inflicted before huge crowds in a public square immediately following the Friday noon prayers. No prior announcement is made and punishment may not be televised or photographed, but they are solemnly announced in the news afterwards, with details of the crimes and the court judgments.

While the punishments for theft and adultery are terrible, the others are also severe. The punishment for apostasy is death by beheading; for brigandage (roughly, highway robbery), either death (sometimes followed by crucifixion), cutting off one hand and the opposite foot, or exile (life imprisonment); for slander, eighty lashes; for wine-drinking, either forty or eighty lashes.

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Edited by ChiefKahuna at 09/22/2008 4:33 PM PDT

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Edited by ChiefKahuna at 09/22/2008 4:51 PM PDT

Tyler usurped the presidency unconstitutionally




and such Officer shall act accord-
ingly, until such disability be re-
moved, or a President shall be
elected.

and such officer shall act accord-
ingly, until the disability be re-
moved, or a president shall be
elected.

Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy has analyzed the changes as follows:

When we refer to the provisions before and after the Committee on Style had combined them, it appears that the Committee did several things: consolidated two provisions into one and introduced the words "the same shall devolve on the Vice President"; omitted reference to "absence" as an occasion for operation of the succession rule; used the adverbial clause "until the disability be removed," only once instead of using it to modify each of the preceding clauses separately; substituted "inability" for "disability" in the clause referring to succession beyond the Vice President, possibly as being more comprehensive and covering both absence and temporary disability; and changed the semicolon after "Vice President" to a comma so that the limited beginning, "and such Officer" clause would refer to both the Vice President and officer designated by Congress. Thus the evolution of this clause makes clear that merely the powers and duties devolve on the Vice President, not the office itself. 27



Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy has presented an irrefutable argument in support of this general thesis by looking at the Constitution in its entirety. If the Tyler interpretation is applied to both temporary and permanent inability, certain other sections become inconsistent. For example: 1. Article I, Section 3, Clause 5 says the Senate shall choose a President pro tempore in the absence of the Vice President or "when he shall exercise the Office of President of the United States."
2. The twelfth amendment provides that if, in case of a contested presidential election, the House of Representatives shall not choose a President before Inauguration Day, "then the Vice President shall act as President in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President." 31 This wording assumes even greater importance when it is recalled that the twelfth amendment was adopted on September 25, 1804.
3. Section 3 of the twentieth amendment recognizes the distinction between permanent and temporary inability by providing that if, at the time fixed for beginning the term of the President, the President-elect has died, then the Vice President "shall become President." But the amendment further provides that if a President has not been chosen by the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President-elect fails to qualify, then the Vice President-elect shall "act as President until the President qualifies. . . ." 32

The records and history of the Constitutional Convention and consideration of other provisions in the Constitution establish indisputably that it was the intention of the framers for the Vice President to be Acting President in the event of presidential inability. He was not to succeed to the Presidency on the death of the President; he could become President only by being elected to the office.


--

All the members of the Cabinet had been present when the President passed away; Vice President Tyler, however, was at his home in Williamsburg, Virginia. That same night an official message notifying him of the President's death was composed and signed by the Cabinet members, and entrusted to Fletcher Webster, the son and assistant of Secretary of State Daniel Webster. 7 He was on his way before dawn via stagecoach and chartered boat. The boat took him as far as Yorktown; there he transferred to horseback and galloped hell-for-leather the last ten miles to Williamsburg.

His arrival put an end to a happy, boisterous family scene: the Vice President was hunkered down on a gravel walk, shooting marbles with his two sons. In high good humor, he was heckling the youngsters, who were losing to him. That marble game was probably the last time John Tyler enjoyed himself for four years.

There was a few hours' delay while Tyler, who was short of funds, arranged to borrow several hundred dollars; then the two men started back to Washington on the government-chartered boat. While young Webster slept, the Vice President paced the deck in solitude. He was confronted with one of the most momentous decisions in American history, and he was called upon to make it under circumstances in which neither he nor any other man could be expected to maintain an objective point of view.

The situation was without precedent. Never before had a Chief Executive died in office. The country had, in effect, been without a President for two days. What happened next depended on the construction Tyler put on Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the Constitution--the clause which deals with the succession in the event of presidential inability. * The relevant passage reads as follows:

In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the Same shall devolve on the Vice President. . . .

At first glance this may seem clear enough, but there is an ambiguity in the wording. Does "the Same" refer to the "Powers and Duties" of the presidency, or to "the said Office" itself?

If Tyler interpreted "the Same" as referring to "Powers and Duties," he would remain the Vice President exercising the powers and duties of the dead President. If he decided that "the Same" referred to "the said Office," he would become the tenth President of the United States.

On his arrival in Washington, Tyler was met at the dock by the Cabinet and escorted to Brown's Indian Queen Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue. A note was sent to Judge William Cranch, Chief Justice of the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia, summoning him to the hotel. Cranch was taken to Tyler's rooms, where in the presence of the Cabinet, of Fletcher Webster, the tavernkeeper Jesse Brown, and some hotel guests, he administered the Presidential Oath of Office.

Directly after the ceremony the seventy-two-year-old jurist signed the following affidavit:

I, William Cranch, . . . certify that the above-named John Tyler personally appeared before me this day, and although he deems himself qualified to exercise the powers and office of President on the death of William Henry Harrison, late President of the United States, without any other oath than that which he has taken as Vice President, yet as doubts may arise, and for greater caution, took and subscribed the foregoing [Presidential] oath before me. 8

Who decided that Tyler should become President instead of Acting President? Was it his decision alone or reached in consort with the Cabinet? When was the decision made? These are questions to which we may never have a clear answer. All that can be stated with certainty is that the Cabinet publicly announced the President's death, sent a notification addressed to "John Tyler, Vice President of the United States," 9 and was present when he
was sworn in on April 6, 1841. None of the published papers of Tyler or of the five Cabinet members presentSecretary of StateDaniel Webster, Secretary of the Treasury Thomas Ewing, Secretary of War John Bell, Attorney General John J. Crittenden, Postmaster General Francis Granger-sheds any light on the matter. *

There are three schools of thought: (1) Tyler himself decided he would have presidential status, promptly claimed it, and was unopposed by the Cabinet; (2) Daniel Webster thought that Tyler's action violated the Constitution, but did not make an issue of it because they belonged to the same political party; and (3) Webster, far from opposing Tyler's assumption of office, was the one who decided that he should become President. According to this third version, only Webster among those in official circles thought that President Harrison would die, or at best would be disabled for a long period; he discussed these contingencies with the Cabinet, giving it as his opinion that in either event Tyler would be President, and urged that he be sent for. But no record of such a discussion can be found. After Harrison's death, Webster had the Clerk of the Supreme Court write to Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, who was in Maryland, asking him to come and confer on the question of whether or not Tyler should take the Presidential Oath. Taney refused to do so without a formal invitation from the Cabinet or from the Vice President, and further explained that he didn't want to appear to be intruding in the business of a coordinate branch of the government. 10

Who, then, did decide that Tyler should take the oath of office? On the face of it, the affidavit signed by Judge Cranch would seem to indicate that Tyler thought the oath was unnecessary--that he believed the office of President automatically devolved on him when Harrison died. 11 On the other hand, if he thought that he had become "no more than Acting President, the oath he had previously taken to discharge the duties of the Vice President would cover the whole ground, as one of the prescribed duties of that office
. . . is that of acting as President in the event of the President's death." 12 There is still a third possibility: if Tyler was uncertain of his status--if he was not sure that he automatically succeeded to the Presidency--but wished to lay claim to the office

it would appear from a plain reading of the Constitution that he was legally enjoined to subscribe to the oath provided especially for the President. For Article Two, Section One, provides that: "Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation. . . ." The act of taking the oath marks the President's first official act in office. The doubts that might arise, then, would have been well founded, as Cranch said, if Tyler laid claim to the presidential office without ever taking the presidential oath. The "greater caution" appears to have been the mark both of prudence and of necessity. 13

In short, all that can be said without fear of successful contradiction is that Tyler or somebody decided he should be President; Tyler or somebody decided he should take the oath of office; Tyler or somebody decided he should put it on the record that he did not believe the oath was necessary. However, since the Cabinet was present when he took the oath and since no evidence to the contrary exists, it can be asserted with some confidence that Webster and the other Cabinet members did not regard Tyler as a usurper.

Newspaper opinion was divided. Those holding that Tyler's decision (as it will be referred to for convenience) was right included the Boston Courier ( Whig), the Washington Globe and the Pennsylvanian (both Democratic), the Raleigh Register ( Whig), and the principal Whig paper, the National Intelligencer ( Philadelphia and Washington). Among those holding that Tyler should remain Vice President or Acting President were two other Boston papers (one Whig, one Democratic), the New York Post ( Democratic), a Harrisburg paper ( Whig), and the Richmond Enquirer ( Democratic). None of the major newspapers suggested that a special election be called. 14

Other dissident parties included an elder statesman. former President John Quincy Adams, and not unexpectedly, Henry Clay. On April 9, 1841, Tyler made an Inaugural Address, and on April 14 he moved into the White House. Two days later Adams wrote in his diary:

I paid a visit this morning to Mr. Tyler, who styles himself President . . . and not Vice-President acting as President. . . . But it is a construction in direct violation of both the grammar and context of the Constitution . . . a strict constructionist would warrant more than a doubt whether the Vice-President has the right to occupy the President's house, or to claim his salary, without an Act of Congress. 15

Clay picked up Adams' argument that. Tyler was Acting President only and carried it a step farther, declaring that he did not have all the powers of a regularly chosen Chief Executive, 16 but by the time the matter came up in the Senate (June), 1841), he either had changed his mind or had decided it was no use to fight a fait accompli: at any rate, he voted to give Tyler the presidential title. A somewhat longer debate in the House the day before had ended with the defeat of a resolution that Tyler be styled "Acting President." This congressional action appeared to close the succession issue, and by the end of June "even John Quincy Adams referred to Tyler as 'the President.'" 17

And yet Adams had been right. Tyler's accession to the office of President was contrary to the Constitution.

Adams' opinion of him is summed up in diary entry made on the day of Harrison's death:

Tyler is a political sectarian of the slave-driving, Virginian, Jeffersonian school, principled against all improvement, with all the interests and passions and vices of slavery rooted in his moral and political constitution--with talents not above mediocrity, and a spirit incapable of expansion to the dimensions of the station upon which he has been cast by the hand of Providence. . . . This day was in every sense gloomy. 24

Close Electoral College Elections

1828. Andrew Jackson received 647,292 popular and 178 electoral votes, while John Quincy Adams received 507,730 popular and 83 electoral votes. A shift from Jackson to Adams of 11,517 votes in five states ( Ohio, Kentucky, New York, Louisiana and Indiana) would have elected Adams. The required shift was 0.997 percent of the national vote cast. But a shift of 2.189 percent in the five crucial states would have been needed to change the indicated number of electoral votes.

1836. Martin Van Buren received 764,198 popular and 170 electoral votes, while William Henry Harrison received 549,508 popular and 73 electoral votes. A shift from Van Buren to Harrison of 14,061 votes in one state? New York?would have deprived Van Buren of an electoral college majority and probably would have encouraged the Whigs to unify their electoral votes behind Harrison and thus make him President. As it was, two other Whig candidates received a total of 40 electoral votes. The required shift was 0.937 percent of the national vote cast. But a shift of 4.600 percent in New York would have been needed to change the indicated number of electoral votes.

1840. Harrison received 1,275,612 popular and 234 electoral votes and Van Buren 1,130,033 popular and 60 electoral votes. A shift from Harrison to Van Buren of 8,386 votes in four states ( New York, Pennsylvania, Maine and New Jersey) would have elected Van Buren. The required shift was 0.349 percent of the national vote cast; a shift of 0.949 percent in the four crucial states would have been needed to change the indicated number of electoral votes.

1844. James K. Polk received 1,339,368 popular and 170 electoral votes, while Henry Clay received 1,300,687 popular and 105 electoral votes. A shift of 2,555 votes from Polk to Clay in one state? New Yorkwould have made Clay President. The required shift was 0.097 percent of the national vote cast; a shift of 0.544 percent in New York would have been needed to change the indicated number of electoral votes.

1848. Zachary Taylor received 1,362,101 popular and 163 electoral votes, while Lewis Cass received 1,222,674 popular and 127 electoral votes. A shift from Taylor to Cass of 3,227 votes in three states ( Georgia, Maryland and Delaware) would have given Cass the Presidency. The required shift was 0.125 percent of the national vote cast; a shift of 1.824 percent in the three crucial states would have been needed to change the indicated number of electoral votes.

1856. James Buchanan received 1,839,237 popular and 174 electoral votes, while John C. Frémont received 1,341,028 popular and 114 electoral votes; Millard Fillmore received 849,872 popular and 8 electoral votes. A shift of 17,427 votes from Buchanan to Frémont in two states ( Indiana and Illinois) and from Fillmore to Frémont in one state ( Delaware) would have deprived Buchanan of an electoral majority and thrown the election into the House of Representatives for decision. The required shift was 0.432 percent of the national vote cast; a shift of 3.554 percent in the three crucial states alone would have been needed to change the indicated number of electoral votes.

1860. Abraham Lincoln received 1,867,198 popular and 180 electoral votes, while Stephen A. Douglas received 1,379,434 popular and 12 electoral votes; John C. Breckinridge received 854,248 popular and 72 electoral votes, and John Bell received 591,658 popular and 39 electoral votes. A shift of 18,050 votes from Lincoln to Douglas in four states ( California, Oregon, Illinois and Indiana), or of 25,069 votes from Lincoln to Douglas in New York, would have deprived Lincoln of an electoral college majority and thrown the election into the House, where Lincoln's Republicans controlled only 15 of the 34 state delegations. The required shift of 18,050 votes was 0.772 percent of the national vote cast; a shift of 2.677 percent in the four crucial states alone?or a shift of 3.713 percent in New Yorkwould have been needed to change the indicated number of electoral votes.

1864. Lincoln received 2,219,362 popular and 212 electoral votes, while George B. McClellan received 1,805,063 popular and 21 electoral votes. A shift of 38,111 votes in seven states ( New York, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin, Maryland, Connecticut and Oregon) would have elected McClellan. The required shift was 0.947 percent of the national vote cast; a shift of 1.994 percent in the seven crucial states would have been needed to change the indicated number of electoral votes.

1868. Ulysses S. Grant received 3,013,313 popular and 214 electoral votes, while Horatio Seymour received 2,703,933 popular and 80 electoral votes. A shift of 29,862 votes in seven states ( Pennsylvania, Indiana, North Carolina, Alabama, Connecticut, California and Nevada) would have elected Seymour. The required shift was 0.522 percent of the national vote cast; a shift of 1.923 percent in the seven crucial states would have been needed to change the indicated number of electoral votes.

1876. After the disputed ballot count in several states was settled, Rutherford B. Hayes received 4,035,924 popular and 185 electoral votes, while Samuel J. Tilden received 4,287,670 popular and 184 electoral votes. A shift of 116 votes in South Carolina would have transferred one electoral vote from Hayes to Tilden and made Tilden President. The required shift was 0.0056 percent of the national vote cast; a shift of 0.0635 percent in the South Carolina balloting would have been needed to change the electoral vote.

1880. James A. Garfield received 4,454,433 popular and 214 electoral votes, while Winfield S. Hancock received 4,444,976 popular and 155 electoral votes. A shift of 10,517 votes in New York would have elected Hancock. The required shift was 0.118 percent of the national total; a shift of 0.965 percent in New York would have been needed to change the indicated number of electoral votes.

1884. Grover Cleveland received 4,875,971 popular and 219 electoral votes, while James G. Blaine received 4,852,234 popular and 182 electoral votes. A shift of 575 votes in one state?again New York?would have made Blaine President. The required shift was 0.006 percent of the national vote; a shift of 0.051 percent in New York would have been needed to change the indicated number of electoral votes.

1888. Benjamin Harrison received 5,445,269 popular and 233 electoral votes, while Grover Cleveland received 5,540,365 popular and 168 electoral votes. A switch of New York's electoral votes, in this instance through a shift of 7,189 votes from Harrison to Cleveland, would have elected Cleveland. The required shift was 0,065 percent of the national vote; a shift of 0.589 percent in New York would have been needed to change the indicated number of electoral votes.

1892. Cleveland received 5,556,982 popular and 277 electoral votes, while Harrison received 5,191,466 popular and 145 electoral votes. A shift of 37,364 votes from Cleveland to Harrison in five states ( New York, Indiana, Wisconsin, New Jersey and California) would have reelected Harrison. The required shift was 0.317 percent of the national vote; a shift of 1.349 percent in the five states would have been needed to change the indicated number of electoral votes.

1896. William McKinley received 7,113,734 popular and 271 electoral votes, while William Jennings Bryan received 6,516,722 popular and 176 electoral votes. A shift of 20,296 votes in six states ( Indiana, Kentucky, California, West Virginia, Oregon and Delaware) would have given the election to Bryan. The required shift was 0.150 percent of the national vote; a shift of 1.207 percent in the six states would have been needed to change the indicated number of electoral votes.

1900. McKinley received 7,219,828 popular and 292 electoral votes, while Bryan received 6,358,160 popular and 155 electoral votes. A shift of 74,755 votes in seven states ( Ohio, Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska, Maryland, Utah and Wyoming) would have elected Bryan. The required shift was 0.551 percent of the national vote cast; a shift of 2.848 percent in the seven crucial states would have been needed to change the indicated number of electoral votes.

1908. William Howard Taft received 7,679,114 popular and 321 electoral votes, while Bryan received 6,410,665 popular and 162 electoral votes. A shift of 75,041 votes in eight states ( Ohio, Missouri, Indiana, Kansas, West Virginia, Delaware, Montana and Maryland) would have given Bryan a majority in the electoral college. The required shift was 0.533 percent of the national vote; a shift of 2.204 percent in the eight states would have been needed to change the indicated number of electoral votes.

1916. Woodrow Wilson received 9,131,511 popular and 277 electoral votes, while Charles Evans Hughes received 8,548,935 popular and 254 electoral votes. A shift of 1,983 votes from Wilson to Hughes in California would have cost Wilson the election. The required shift was 0.0112 percent of the national vote cast; a shift of 0.0214 percent in California would have been needed to change the indicated number of electoral votes.

1948. Harry S Truman received 24,179,345 popular and 303 electoral votes, while Thomas E. Dewey received 21,991,291 popular and 189 electoral votes. A shift of 29,294 votes in three states ( Illinois, California and Ohio) would have made Dewey President. A switch of 12,487 votes in California and Ohio would have denied both candidates an electoral college majority and would have thrown the election into the House, where neither candidate was favored by a clear majority of states. The shift required to elect Dewey was 0.063 percent of the national vote cast; a shift of 0.275 percent in the three states would have elected Dewey, and an 0.186 percent shift in the two states would have sent the election to the House for decision.

1960. John F. Kennedy received 34,220,984 popular and 303 electoral votes, while Richard M. Nixon received 34,108,157 popular and 219 electoral votes. A shift of 11,424 votes in five states ( Illinois, Missouri, New Mexico, Hawaii and Nevada) would have elected Nixon. A shift of only 8,971 popular votes from Kennedy to Nixon in Illinois and Missouri would have prevented either man from receiving an electoral college majority and given the balance of power to the unpledged electors who eventually voted for Harry F. Byrd of Virginia. If the election had gone to the House for decision, neither Kennedy nor Nixon would have been assured of a clear majority of the states. The shift required to elect Nixon was 0.0167 percent of the national vote cast; a shift of 0.157 percent in the five crucial states would have been needed to change the indicated number of votes, and a shift of 0.134 percent in the two states would have been enough to prevent either candidate from gaining an electoral college majority.

Source: Peoples President, Neil Peirce, 2002

Rating the presidents of the United States, 1789-2000: a survey of scholars in political science, history, and law.




The reputations of presidents rise and fall. As experts on the presidency gain more perspective, their rankings of some presidents, such as John Kennedy, have fallen, while their impressions of others, such as Harry Truman, have risen. Even some presidents long dead have taken reputational stumbles. For example, the presidencies of James Madison, John Adams, and John Quincy Adams are no longer as highly regarded as they used to be.

This study reports results from the latest survey of seventy-eight scholars on the presidency. Unlike most prior studies, this study surveyed experts on presidential history and politics from the fields of political science and law, as well as from history. Moreover, we explicitly balanced the group to be surveyed with approximately equal numbers of experts on the left and the right. Because political leanings can influence professional judgments, we think that these are the most politically unbiased estimates of reputation yet obtained for U.S. presidents.

To choose the scholars to be surveyed, we had three expert panels of two scholars in each field come up with a list of experts in their fields. The six scholars who consulted on the makeup of the sample were Akhil Reed Amar (Yale University), Alan Brinkley (Columbia University), Steven G. Calabresi (Northwestern University), James W. Ceaser (University of Virginia), Forrest McDonald (University of Alabama), and Stephen Skrowronek (Yale University).

We tried to choose approximately equal numbers of scholars who lean to the left and to the right. Our goal was to present the opinions of experts, controlling for political orientation. Another way to express this is that we sought to mirror what scholarly opinion might be on the counterfactual assumption that the academy was politically representative of the society in which we live and work. This study attempts to resolve the conflict between prior rankings of Presidents done mostly by liberal scholars or mostly by conservative scholars, (1) but not by both together.

As in prior studies, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt continue to be the most esteemed presidents. Also like other studies, Democratic presidents tend to be rated higher than Republican presidents (though insignificantly so), both overall and since 1857.

The scholarly experts we surveyed ranged from the merely distinguished to the great (and the near great). Our response rate was 59%--78 of 132 scholars responded after one follow-up. No demographic data were collected on the seventy-eight respondents--thirty historians, twenty-five political scientists, and twenty-three law professors. Where possible, we have quoted from the comments of scholars who responded to the survey.

Each scholar was asked to rate each president (2) on a standard social science five-point scale from well below average to highly superior (3) and to name the most overrated and underrated presidents. (4) Historian Paula Baker was one of many scholars who explained her criteria: "Highly superior and above average presidents made the most of what circumstances provided, and in a few cases, re-oriented their parties and public life."

The scholars we surveyed were supposed to rate them as presidents, but undoubtedly their other accomplishments sometimes affected the ratings. One respondent explicitly rejected this tendency, "Some of the low-ranking presidents [as he ranked them], such as John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, and William Howard Taft, were able men who contributed a great deal to the nation, but not as president."

This strange modern genre of presidential rankings was initiated in 1948 by Arthur Schlesinger, Sr., who repeated his study in 1962. (5) In 1996 his son, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., replicated the study once again. (6) Our study, conducted in October 2000, found remarkably similar results to the last Schlesinger study. The correlation between the ranks in the two studies is a staggeringly high .94. (7) The main difference between the two studies is that Ronald Reagan ranks 8th in our study, while he ranked 25th (out of thirty-nine presidents) in Schlesinger's 1996 study.

Compared to the Schlesinger study, there are some methodological differences. Like Schlesinger, we surveyed thirty historians, but in place of his two politicians (Mario Cuomo and former Senator Paul Simon), we surveyed twenty-five political scientists and twenty-three law professors. While Schlesinger surveyed one woman and no non-white minorities, about 15% of our respondents were women and minorities, a substantial proportion only by comparison. We believe that we also surveyed more young professors than Schlesinger did.

I. RANKING THE PRESIDENTS

Rating presidents is an odd practice. No one can be an expert on all periods. Many presidents (e.g., Ulysses Grant, Calvin Coolidge, and Warren Harding) are probably rated more on received wisdom than on assessments of their records. The historian Robert Ferrell argues that, once one goes beyond one's narrow area of expertise, there is "a rapid diminution of real authoritative judgment." Even someone who has written more than a dozen books on the presidency, Ferrell asserts, would "almost have to guess" for some of the presidents.

Some respondents reflected this cautiousness. Historian Mark Left argues, "Global measures can be an empty exercise." Political scientist Karen Hult notes that rankings of U.S. presidents are problematic: "First, as summaries, they by necessity mask what may be important differences within administrations." Some presidents may be better at some tasks than others or better at different times within their administrations. "Second," she argues, "rankings of presidents appear to me to reinforce the too-frequent tendency in the United States to attribute more power to the individuals who occupy the Oval Office than they typically have (or had)."

Respondents used different criteria in ranking presidents. Many favored their own evaluations of the presidents' goals and accomplishments. Others, such as legal scholar Annette Gordon-Reed, emphasized the presidents' own goals: "I tried to make decisions based upon the extent to which each man was able to accomplish what he set out to do rather than relying only on my opinion of the worth of their efforts."

A. THE BEST PRESIDENTS

"The plain fact is that over half of our presidents have been mediocrities," writes the historian Robert Rutland. Political scientist Thomas Cronin was more sanguine, "[A]t least two dozen individuals have served with distinction; only a few have been grossly inadequate." Some presidents were ranked highly by almost everyone in our study.

The eleven presidents ranked highest in this survey are presented in Chart 1. As in many previous rankings (including Schlesinger's), George Washington (ranked 1st), Abraham Lincoln (2nd), and Franklin Roosevelt (3rd) lead the pack. As historian Steven Gillon remarks simply in his comments on the survey, "Washington, Lincoln, and FDR remain--and should remain--in a class by themselves."

Just a step below are Thomas Jefferson (4th) and Theodore Roosevelt (5th). All five of these presidents averaged well above 4.0 on a five point scale. In the next group are Andrew Jackson (6th) and Harry Truman (7th). Rounding out the top eleven are Ronald Reagan (8th), Dwight Eisenhower (9th), James Polk (10th), and Woodrow Wilson (11th).

Some scholars may have thought that Jefferson's reputation was slipping, partly because of an increase in discussions of his slaveholding in general and his probable fathering of children with Sally Hemings. Political scientist David Mayhew's comment expressed this concern: "Jefferson is getting downgraded these days, but after reading Henry Adams' volumes recently, I see him as first-rate."

All of the presidents in our group of the eleven best were among Schlesinger's top ten, except for Ronald Reagan who moved up from twenty-fifth in the Schlesinger study to eighth in our study.

B. THE WORST PRESIDENTS

According to the seventy-eight experts on our panel, the worst president was James Buchanan (ranked 39th), followed by Warren Harding (tied for 37th) and Franklin Pierce (tied for 37th). Buchanan and Pierce are usually blamed for doing little to head off the impending Civil War.

Of those presidents in the bottom ten, five did not serve even one full term: Harding (37th), Andrew Johnson (36th), Millard Fillmore (35th), John Tyler (34th), and Zachary Taylor (31st). In addition, Richard Nixon (33rd) was forced from office and Andrew Johnson was impeached by the Republicans. The administration of Ulysses Grant (32nd) is remembered today (a bit unfairly) mostly for scandal. Although Jimmy Carter is usually praised for the Middle East Peace Agreement and blamed for his handling of Iran, he gets little credit for his deregulation of the trucking and airlines industries.

C. GROUPING THE PRESIDENTS

It has been traditional to group the presidents as "Great," "Near Great," and so on. While any such classifications are arbitrary, we can group using our scores in something like these traditional categories. Remember, however, that our respondents did not use these particular characterizations; these are applied after the fact to group the results.

There may be some surprises here. As time has passed since the Kennedy administration, the rankings of his presidency have slipped. In this study Kennedy (18th) appeared at the bottom of the "Above Average" group, somewhat below his ranking in the last Schlesinger survey (12th). Kennedy still leads all presidents who served less than one term and all but two presidents who served only one full term (James Polk and John Adams).

Ronald Reagan (8th) and Dwight Eisenhower (9th) moved into the "Near Great" group. Both had, not only high mean scores, but a high median of four. Reagan's ratings were highly variable; Eisenhower's were not. Eisenhower had been at the top of Schlesinger's "High Average" group; by moving up just one place in our study, he moved into the "Near Great" category.

Reagan had been in Schlesinger's "Average" category. In our study, he moves into the group of "Near Great" presidents. Bill Clinton (24th), although below both the mean and the median for all thirty-nine presidents, still inhabits our "Average" category, a few slots below George H.W. Bush (21st). In our study, Clinton slips four places from the 1996 Schlesinger survey. Among presidents serving two full terms, only Grant ranks lower than Clinton.

Carter and Nixon both had low median ratings of 2.0. In Nixon's case, this low rating reflects what many believe to be his mostly disastrous domestic, international, and economic policies, not to mention the corruption of his administration.

D. THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL PRESIDENTS

Several presidents had highly variable ratings. As one historian responding to our survey points out, "It's hard to make judgments about recent presidents.... "Perhaps not surprisingly, Bill Clinton had the highest variation in our ratings--followed by Wilson and Reagan. Not only has there not been time to assess Clinton's presidency with dispassion, but also many of the respondents were among the distinguished academics who signed public letters either opposing or supporting Clinton's impeachment.

Clinton has his strong supporters. One prominent law professor is very positive: "Clinton has been a great President even with the impeachment." "[D]espite the disgrace of impeachment, he helped develop a new modest liberalism that was appropriate for the times," remarked historian Steven Gillon. Political science scholar Bruce Miroff also makes the positive case for Clinton: "Bill Clinton's opportunistic centrism and postmodern style of performance are already having a profound effect on both parties' presidential candidates."

Political scientist Gary Gregg takes the opposite position on Clinton's style: "The symbolic aspects of the presidency are well underrated.... This is one reason Reagan should be ranked higher than he generally is and why Bill Clinton must be seen to be a disaster for the office. From talking about his underwear on t.v., to his `short shorts' he wore jogging around Washington, to the Lewinsky affair, he has done much to damage the symbolic import of the office." (8)

Also making part of the negative case for Clinton, law professor Michael Stokes Paulsen argues, "Presidents who created their own crises, or mismanaged war, or acted weakly, dishonorably, or corruptly (Buchanan, both Johnsons, Nixon, Fillmore, Pierce, and Clinton) must rank low, especially so if they lack notable, permanent accomplishments of a positive nature. We may be too close to events to realize it--and too many have voted for him to be willing to acknowledge it--but Bill Clinton may well be recorded in history as among the very worst of all American presidents."

Other presidents with high variability in their ratings include Reagan, Wilson, Nixon, and Lyndon Johnson. Wilson (ranked eleventh) has been undergoing a critical reappraisal recently, as his creation of federal agencies is more controversial than it once was, as is his handling of World War I and its aftermath. Reagan has made a quick move to the "Near Great" group, a move fueled in this study in part from surprisingly high ratings from many academics thought to lean to the left.

Lyndon Johnson remains a controversial figure because he passed the most aggressive domestic legislative agenda of the post-World War II era. Some of that legislation (e.g., the 1964 Civil Rights Act) is viewed almost universally as positive; other parts of that agenda generally have widely varying support among academics. As law professor John McGinnis argues about Lyndon Johnson, "Often rated above average, he should be rated well below average. He fought two wars (in Vietnam and against poverty) and lost both of them. The consequences of these policies still harm our polity almost forty years later." (9)

E. THE MOST OVERRATED PRESIDENTS

We asked the scholars surveyed to list the most overrated and underrated presidents. Because this question refers to an unstated baseline reputation, the results are not terribly meaningful. Moreover, one professor listed Richard Nixon as both overrated and underrated and another listed Reagan the same-a result that is not necessarily incoherent because they might well be overrated by one group of scholars and underrated by another (or overrated for some attributes and underrated for others). Enough of our respondents (16) cited Ronald Reagan as underrated that he leads that list, while even more respondents (23) listed him as overrated.

Law professor Joel Goldstein explained why he listed Reagan as overrated, "[D]espite Reagan's successes vis a vis the Soviet Union, other aspects of his foreign policy were disasters (e.g., Iran-Contra, Lebanon) and his economic policies produced recession and huge deficits." One historian argued, "Reagan's champions have been too quick to credit him with ending the Cold War, and have brushed past a range of failures from civil rights to the environment to Iran-Contra."

Nonetheless, there was a shocking consensus on the most over-rated president--John Kennedy. When the opportunity to name the most overrated presidents arose, fully forty-three of the seventy-eight scholars named John Kennedy. That a solid majority would volunteer his name suggests that his reputation is falling. Indeed, sometimes viewed in the category of the "Near Great," Kennedy has now dropped into the bottom of the "Above Average" group. Indeed, he ranks one slot below Lyndon Johnson, (10) who left office in disgrace. Political scientist Bruce Miroff argues, "Kennedy brought the Cold War to dangerous heights."

Nonetheless, Kennedy has his defenders. One law professor argues that Kennedy was underrated, "Kennedy transformed American politics; bringing to it a sense of personal style and the conviction that politics could be both idealistic and pragmatic." Like Ronald Reagan and John Kennedy, Woodrow Wilson also has very substantial numbers of respondents who consider him overrated. (11)

F. THE MOST UNDERRATED PRESIDENTS

The scholars we surveyed list fewer presidents as underrated than overrated. Ronald Reagan is cited by more respondents as underrated than any other president--though ranked eighth in this survey, he cannot be dramatically underrated here. Nor can Eisenhower, ranked ninth overall in our survey. Calvin Coolidge, on the other hand, is cited by fourteen scholars as underrated, yet his overall scores in our survey are below average.

II. PREDICTORS OF HIGH PRESIDENTIAL RATINGS

In this section, we briefly explore differences in ratings within our sample and possible variables that might explain them. First, we examined presidential age at inauguration. Using linear regression with just thirty-nine observations (one for each president), (12) with a constant in the model there is no relationship between the age of a president and his mean rating by scholars. Thus, age at inauguration has no effect on measured presidential success at least in this very small sample.

Models 2-4 examine the comparative ratings of Republicans and Democrats. This is complicated by the classification of Andrew Johnson. Andrew Johnson was a Democrat who had served as the military governor of Tennessee. Lincoln chose him to join the "National Union" ticket. In office, Johnson opposed many Republican Reconstruction measures and was impeached by the Republicans. Treating Johnson as a Republican (Model 2), the mean rating for Democratic presidents since 1857 (the period of Republican-Democratic contests) is .26 points higher (on a 1-5 scale) for Democrats than for Republicans. If Johnson is treated as a Democrat, the ratings are almost identical between parties (+.03 points for Democrats). Neither difference is statistically significant.

Going back to 1797 (and treating Johnson as a Republican), the mean rating for Democratic (and Democratic-Republican) presidents is an insignificant .38 points higher than that of Federalists, Whigs, and Republicans (model 4).

Next we examined whether the presidential ratings were higher before Andrew Jackson opened up the process of nominating presidents. Before Jackson, candidates were usually chosen by slatemaking in the congressional caucus. With Jackson's encouragement, political parties moved to choosing candidates in national party conventions. This corresponded with a Jacksonian revolution in extending the franchise to wider segments of the adult white male population. Counting Jackson as a product of the older era, the presidents picked before the populist era of national party conventions rated a significant .83 points higher than the later presidents (Model 5).

Models 6 and 7 assess the contribution of the length of term in office on presidential ratings. In Model 6 those presidents who served less than one full term rated about a half point lower (-.45) than those who served just one full term. On the other hand, presidents who served parts of two terms (or more) rated nearly a full point higher (.95) than presidents who served just one term.

In Model 7, when the variable time in office is combined with being elected in the period before nominating conventions, the latter variable loses its statistical significance. This suggests that about half of the higher ratings for the presidents from Washington through Jackson is explained by their greater likelihood of having two terms, not from being selected to run without conventions. Perhaps a greater likelihood of being elected for two terms was one of the outgrowths of the nominating process, though the weakness of the two-party system during much of the early 1800s must be an important factor as well.

Two-term presidents are today rated much higher than one-term presidents. Thus, while John Kennedy ranks at the bottom of the "Above Average" group, he is first among presidents serving less than one full term and third among presidents serving in only one term (James Polk and John Adams are the only one-term presidents ahead of Kennedy). By contrast, Bill Clinton, ranked twenty-fourth overall, is rated lower than all presidents serving two full terms except Ulysses Grant. In addition, those presidents with experience as vice presidents received insignificantly worse ratings than those without such experience. They received .21 of a point lower ratings (p. = .67).

III. COMPARING THE RESPONSES OF SCHOLARS IN POLITICAL SCIENCE, HISTORY, AND LAW

Scholars in different fields see the world somewhat differently. Although we observed few large field-specific differences in ranking U.S. Presidents, there are some. The politics scholars are seldom the outliers in opinion. They are outliers on only three presidents--James Madison, Ulysses Grant, and Warren Harding are ranked significantly lower by political science professors than by historians and law professors combined. Madison was extraordinarily unpopular for a two-term president and Grant and Harding were tarred by political scandals, considerations that might be more salient for political scientists.

Historians are substantial outliers on seven presidents: they ranked John Adams, James Madison, and Theodore Roosevelt higher than raters in the other two fields combined. Historians rated four Republican presidents significantly lower than did the other two fields: Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Calvin Coolidge and Gerald Ford.

Law professors are outliers on even more Presidents--ten in all. They ranked several presidents identified with increasing the size of government and the administrative state lower than did the other two fields: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson. They also ranked Republican Rutherford Hayes significantly lower (eleven places lower than historians and eight places lower than politics scholars), perhaps because his administration spelled the end of Reconstruction. The presidents that law professors ranked higher than the other two fields were all Republicans: Calvin Coolidge (ten places higher than historians), Ulysses Grant, William Taft, Gerald Ford, George Bush, and Warren Harding.

To the extent that there were any systematic differences, in our survey historians slightly favored Democrats and law professors slightly favored Republicans. Our panels of historians and political scientists were perhaps less explicitly politically balanced than our law professor panel (which was split twelve/eleven between those believed to lean to the right and to the left). Thus, the panels of historians and politics scholars might have been a bit more liberal than the law professor panel or the general public. Because we did not collect demographic data on our respondents, we do not know.

More interestingly, political scientists tend to rank presidents who had had major scandals lower than historians did: Bill Clinton (an insignificant seven places lower than historians), Ulysses Grant (three places lower than historians and eight places lower than law professors), and Warren Harding (two places lower than historians and four places lower than law professors). (13)

Law professors, on the other hand, tend to favor presidents who have made significant legal contributions. Thus they ranked Washington (who set up the government and helped add the Bill of Rights to the Constitution) slightly higher than Lincoln--pushing Washington into the top spot overall. Further, Taft fares somewhat better with legal scholars than with other groups, perhaps because he was a successful Chief Justice of the Supreme Court after his presidency. The higher legal ratings for Grant certainly reflect his putting Reconstruction back on track and the passage of the 15th Amendment giving African-Americans the right to vote, as well as other important civil rights legislation. For most presidents, the field related differences shown in Table 3 are not large.

IV. CONCLUSION

Ranking U.S. presidents is much more than a parlor game for academics and much less than a full assessment of the myriad successes and failures of the men who have held our highest office. Global measures, such as "Above Average" or "Average" make sense only in comparative terms--and even then they are severely reductionist. Nonetheless, educating the public (as well as other scholars) about current assessments of presidents can contribute to understanding the history of the office, as well as give some perspective for evaluating the recent inhabitants of that office.

This study further adds to our knowledge of the presidency by showing that length of term in office is an important determinant of reputation. Two-term presidents are today rated much higher than one-term presidents. This is somewhat in conflict with the common wisdom that second terms are always a failure, as well as with the idea that there is little correlation between electoral success and success in office. Democrats rank higher than Republicans in our study, but these differences are not statistically significant. Age at inauguration has no effect on measured success in office.

We hope that scholars ranking presidents in the future will either balance their samples politically (as we did) or collect demographic data so that they can report their results weighted by political orientation--as well as unweighted. Politics is a significant unmeasured variable; without measuring it, scholars confuse professional judgment with politics. This is particularly true for ratings of Bill Clinton, who ranked very high among left-leaning law professors and very low among right-leaning law professors. When one rates a president such as Bill Clinton, one is just measuring how liberal or conservative the respondents to your survey are. This concern is a major limitation on future presidential ratings--at least those that do not either balance their survey pool or measure and control for politics.

Nonetheless, most of the rankings in our study are similar to those in the last Schlesinger study of historians. The correlation between the ranks in the two studies is a stunningly high .94. (14) Although there are many moderate and small differences between our ranks and Schlesinger's, the only large difference between our study and Schlesinger's was in the ranking of Ronald Reagan. Reagan ranks 8th in our study of presidential scholars, though he ranked 25th in Schlesinger's last study. Reagan would have ranked 20th in Schlesinger's study had Schlesinger used a conventional zero to four (or one to five) scale. Instead Schlesinger coded the zero category ("Failure") as negative two, three points below the second-lowest category ("Below Average"). Also, we correct some small arithmetical errors in ratings in the 1996 Schlesinger survey.

By a wide margin, the most overrated president in our study is John Kennedy, followed by Ronald Reagan. The most underrated president is also Reagan. The president with highest variability in rankings is Bill Clinton, followed by Wilson and Reagan. Kennedy ranks at the bottom of the "Above Average" grouping, the highest ranking for any president who served less than one term. Reagan joins Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, Jackson, Truman, Eisenhower, Polk, and Wilson in the group of "Near Great" presidents. Clinton ranks in the "Average" grouping, the second lowest ranking for any president who served two full terms.

Of one thing we can be certain: Presidential reputations will change. The reputations of controversial recent presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan are particularly likely to either grow or lessen as we get more perspective on their accomplishments and failures. Being president is a tough job. Only one president in each century is rated high enough for us to call them "Great": George Washington in the eighteenth century, Abraham Lincoln in the nineteenth century, and Franklin Roosevelt in the twentieth century. Perhaps sometime in this new century, we will have another.

APPENDIX

RATING THE PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES SCHOLARS SURVEYED


Bruce Ackerman, Yale Univ. William Allen, Michigan State Univ. Akhil Reed Amar, Yale Univ. Joyce Appleby, UCLA Peri E. Arnold, Notre Dame Univ. Jean Harvey Baker, Goucher College Paula M. Baker, Univ. of Pittsburgh Brian H. Balogh, Univ. of Virginia Herman J. Belz, Univ. of Maryland Micael Les Benedict, Ohio State Univ. Joseph Bessette, Claremont McKenna College Douglas G. Brinkley, Univ. of New Orleans Alan Brinkley, Columbia Univ. Bruce Buchanan, Univ. of Texas David Burner, SUNY-Stony Brook Andrew Busch, Univ. of Denver Steven G. Calabresi, Northwestern Univ. James W. Ceaser, Univ. of Virginia Thomas Cronin, Whitman College Robert Dallek, Boston Univ. Robert A. Divine, Univ. of Texas George Edwards, Texas A&M Univ. Joseph J. Ellis, Mount Holyoke College Richard Ellis, Willamette Univ. Robert H. Ferrell, Indiana Univ. Michael Fitts, Univ. of Pennsylvania Ronald P. Formisano, Univ. of Florida Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Emory Univ. Michael Genovese, Loyola Marymount Univ. Steven M. Gillon, U. of Oklahoma Joel Goldstein, Saint Louis Univ. Annette Gordon-Reed, New York Law School Jack Greene, Johns Hopkins Univ. Fred Greenstein, Princeton Univ. Gary Gregg, Mcconnell Ctr Polit. Leadership Alonzo Hamby, Ohio Univ. Erwin Hargrove, Vanderbilt Univ. Karen Hult, Virginia Tech Univ. Charles Jones, Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison Michael Kazin, Georgetown Univ. Douglass Kmiec, Pepperdine Univ. Harold Krent, Illinois Institute of Technology Gary Lawson, Boston Univ. Mark Left, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign William Leuchtenburg, UNC at Chapel Hill Sanford Levinson, Univ. of Texas Pauline Maier, MIT Harvey Mansfield, Harvard Univ. David Mayhew, Yale Univ. Michael McConnell, Univ. of Utah Forrest McDonald, Univ. of Alabama John McGinnis, Cardozo Thomas W. Merrill, Northwestern Univ. Geoffrey Miller, NYU Bruce Miroff, SUNY- Albany Henry Monaghan, Columbia Univ. David Nichols, Montclair State Univ. Michael Stokes Paulsen, Univ. of Minnesota Mark Peterson, UCLA James Pfiffner, George Mason Univ. Saikrishna Prakash, Univ. of San Diego Stephen Presser, Northwestern Univ. Michael Rappaport, Univ. of San Diego Robert V. Remini, Univ. of Illinois Bert Rockman, Univ. of Pittsburgh Robert Rutland, Univ. of Tulsa Arthur Schlesinger, Graduate Center, CUNY Peter Shane, Univ. of Pittsburgh Joel H. Silbey, Cornell Univ. Stephen Skowronek, Yale Univ. Cass R. Sunstein, Univ. of Chicago William Treanor, Fordham Univ. Jeffrey Tulis, Univ. of Texas-Austin Raymond R. Wolters, Univ. of Delaware Gordon S. Wood, Brown Univ. Randall Bennett Woods, Univ. of Arkansas John Choon Yoo, UC-Berkeley Philip D. Zelikow, Univ. of Virginia Table 1 Ranking of Presidents by Mean Score Mean Median Std. Dev. Great 1 George Washington 4.92 5 0.27 2 Abraham Lincoln 4.87 5 0.60 3 Franklin Roosevelt 4.67 5 0.75 Near Great 4 Thomas Jefferson 4.25 4 0.71 5 Theodore Roosevelt 4.22 4 0.71 6 Andrew Jackson 3.99 4 0.79 7 Harry Truman 3.95 4 0.75 8 Ronald Reagan 3.81 4 1.08 9 Dwight Eisenhower 3.71 4 0.60 10 James Polk 3.70 4 0.80 11 Woodrow Wilson 3.68 4 1.09 Above Average 12 Grover Cleveland 3.36 3 0.63 13 John Adams 3.36 3 0.80 14 William McKinley 3.33 3 0.62 15 James Madison 3.29 3 0.71 16 James Monroe 3.27 3 0.60 17 Lyndon Johnson 3.21 3.5 1.04 18 John Kennedy 3.17 3 0.73 Average 19 William Taft 3.00 3 0.66 20 John Quincy Adams 2.93 3 0.76 21 George Bush 2.92 3 0.68 22 Rutherford Hayes 2.79 3 0.55 23 Martin Van Buren 2.77 3 0.61 24 Bill Clinton 2.77 3 1.11 25 Calvin Coolidge 2.71 3 0.97 26 Chester Arthur 2.71 3 0.56 Below Average 27 Benjamin Harrison 2.62 3 0.54 28 Gerald Ford 2.59 3 0.61 29 Herbert Hoover 2.53 3 0.87 30 Jimmy Carter 2.47 2 0.75 31 Zachary Taylor 2.40 2 0.68 32 Ulysses Grant 2.28 2 0.89 33 Richard Nixon 2.22 2 1.07 34 John Tyler 2.03 2 0.72 35 Millard Fillmore 1.91 2 0.74 Failure 36 Andrew Johnson 1.65 1 0.81 37T Franklin Pierce 1.58 1 0.68 37T Warren Harding 1.58 1 0.77 39 James Buchanan 1.33 1 0.62 Data Source: October 2000 Survey of Scholars in History, Politics, and Law (n=73-78) Co-Sponsors: Federalist Society & Wall Street Journal Table 2 Linear Regression Models Rating of Presidents by Length of Term, Age, Party, and Method of Nomination Model Model R Model [R.sup.2] Model F Model Signifi. B for Constant 1 .03 .00 .03 .86 2.81 2 .15 .02 .51 .48 2.65 3 .02 .00 .01 .93 2.96 4 .22 .05 1.86 .18 2.44 5 .36 .13 5.34 0.026 * 2.07 6 .64 .41 12.73 <.0005 * 2.66 7 .68 .46 9.82 <.0005 * 2.09Model Variables B S.E. Signif. R 1 Age .00 .02 .86 .03 2 Dem. Since 1857 with- .26 .37 .48 .15 out Andrew Johnson 3 Dem. Since 1857 with .03 .36 .93 .02 Andrew Johnson 4 Dem. without .38 .28 .18 .22 A. Johnson 5 Before .83 .36 0.126 * .36 Conventions 6 2 Terms .95 .26 0.001 * .53 Less Than 1 Full Term -.45 .33 .18 -.20 7 2 Terms .89 .25 0.001 * .50 Less Than 1 Full Term -.38 .33 .26 -.16 Before Conventions .50 .30 .11 .21 Data Source: October 2000 Survey of 78 Scholars in History, Politics, and Law Co-Sponsors: Federalist Society & Wall Street Journal Table 3 Ranking of Presidents by Scholarly Field by Mean Score History Law Politics President rank mean rank mean rank mean Abraham Lincoln 1 4.93 2 4.70 1 4.96 George Washington 2 4.90 1 4.96 2 4.92 Franklin Roosevelt 3 4.87 4 4.17 * 3 4.88 Theodore Roosevelt 4 4.43 * 6 3.91 * 5 4.24 Thomas Jefferson 5 4.24 3 4.22 4 4.28 Andrew Jackson 6 4.03 7 3.83 6 4.08 Harry Truman 7 4.03 8 3.70 7 4.08 Woodrow Wilson 8 3.83 15 3.26 * 9 3.88 James Polk 9 3.79 10 3.57 11 3.71 Dwight Eisenhower 10 3.69 9 3.65 10 3.80 John Adams 11 3.61 * 18 3.17 15 3.24 James Madison 12 3.52 * 13 3.33 18 3.00 * Ronald Reagan 13 3.47 * 5 4.09 8 3.96 Lyndon Johnson 14 3.40 23 2.83 * 14 3.32 William McKinley 15 3.36 14 3.33 13 3.33 John Kennedy 16 3.27 20 3.04 16 3.16 Grover Cleveland 17 3.25 12 3.35 12 3.50 James Monroe 18 3.24 11 3.45 17 3.13 John Quincy Adams 19 3.07 22 2.90 24 2.79 Bill Clinton 20 3.00 28 2.61 27 2.63 William Taft 21 2.97 16 3.26 * 23 2.80 Rutherford Hayes 22 2.83 30 2.57 * 19 2.96 Martin Van Buren 23 2.76 26 2.67 21 2.88 George Bush 24 2.70 * 17 3.22 * 20 2.92 Benjamin Harrison 25 2.64 25 2.71 29 2.50 Chester Arthur 26 2.57 24 2.74 22 2.83 Jimmy Carter 28 2.52 32 2.35 28 2.52 Herbert Hoover 27 2.52 29 2.61 30 2.46 Calvin Coolidge 29 2.37 * 19 3.17 * 25 2.71 Gerald Ford 30 2.30 * 21 2.91 * 26 2.64 Zachary Taylor 31 2.30 31 2.50 31 2.42 Ulysses Grant 32 2.28 27 2.65 * 35 1.92 * Richard Nixon 33 2.13 33 2.22 32 2.33 John Tyler 34 2.00 34 2.14 34 1.96 Millard Fillmore 35 1.83 37 1.77 33 2.13 Andrew Johnson 36 1.64 36 1.91 37 1.44 Warren Harding 37 1.53 35 2.14 * 39 1.13 * Franklin Pierce 38 1.41 38 1.65 36 1.71 James Buchanan 39 1.30 39 1.52 38 1.17 Data Source: October 2000 Survey of Scholars in History, Politics, and Law (n=73-78) Co-Sponsors: Federalist Society & Wall Street Journal * significantly different rating than the other 2 groups of raters combined Chart 1: The 11 Best U.S. Presidents Ranked by Mean Score Mean Rating 1. George Washington 4.92 2. Abraham Lincoln 4.87 3. Franklin Roosevelt 4.67 4. Thomas Jefferson 4.25 5. Theodore Roosevelt 4.22 6. Andrew Jackson 3.99 7. Harry Truman 3.95 8. Ronald Reagan 3.81 9. Dwight Eisenhower 3.71 10. James Polk 3.70 11. Woodrow Wilson 3.68 Note: Table made from bar graph. Data Source: October 2000 Survey of Scholars in History, Politics, and Law (n=73-78) Co-Sponsors: Federalist Society & Wall Street Journal Chart 2: The 10 Worst U.S. Presidents Ranked by Mean Score Mean Rating 30. Jimmy Carter (10th worst) 2.47 31. Zachary Taylor 2.40 32. Ulysses Grant 2.28 33. Richard Nixon 2.22 34. John Tyler 2.03 35. Millard Fillmore 1.91 36. Andrew Johnson 1.65 37T. Warren Harding 1.58 37T. Franklin Pierce 1.58 39. James Buchanan (worst) 1.33 Note: Table made from bar graph. Data Source: October 2000 Survey of Scholars in History, Politics, and Law (n=73-78) Co-Sponsors: Federalist Society & Wall Street Journal Chart 3: The Most Controversial Presidents (Standard Deviations in the Rankings of Presidents on a 1-5 Scale; Survey of Scholars in History, Law, and Political Science, October 2000, n=73-78) 1. Bill Clinton 1.11 2. Woodrow Wilson 1.09 3. Ronald Reagan 1.08 4. Richard Nixon 1.07 5. Lyndon Johnson 1.03 6. Calvin Coolidge 0.97 7. Ulysses Grant 0.89 8. Herbert Hoover 0.87 9. Andrew Johnson 0.81 10. James Polk 0.80 Note: Table made from bar graph. Chart 4: The Most Controversial Presidents Number of Scholars Ranking a President as Over-Rated 1. John Kennedy 43 2. Ronald Reagan 23 3. Woodrow Wilson 21 4. Andrew Jackson 10 5. Thomas Jefferson 10 6. Bill Clinton 8 6. Lyndon Johnson 8 8. Franklin Roosevelt 7 9. Dwight Eisenhower 6 9. Harry Truman 6 Note: Table made from bar graph. Data Source: October 2000 Survey of Scholars in History, Politics, and Law Co-Sponsors: Federalist Society & Wall Street Journal Chart 5: The Most Under-Rated Presidents Number of Scholars Ranking a President as Under-Rated 1. Ronald Reagan 16 2. Calvin Coolidge 14 3. Dwight Eisenhower 12 4. Herbert Hoover 12 5. Richard Nixon 11 6. James Polk 11 7. Jimmy Carter 10 8. Ulysses Grant 9 9. Lyndon Johnson 8 10. John Adams 6 10. William McKinley 6 Note: Table made from bar graph. Data Source: October 2000 Survey of 78 Scholars in History, Politics, and Law Co-Sponsors: Federalist Society & Wall Street Journal (1.) Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Rating the Presidents: Washington to Clinton, 112 Political Science Quarterly 179 (1997) (mostly liberal scholars); William J. Ridings, Jr. and Stuart B. McIver, Rating the Presidents: From the Great and Honorable to the Dishonest and Incompetent (1997) (presumably mostly liberal scholars); Alvin S. Felzenberg, "There You Go Again": Liberal Historians and the New York Times Deny Ronald Reagan His Due, Policy Review, March-April 1997 (criticized by Schlesinger as "inviting the same suspicion" of political bias as his panel, though from the other side). (2.) We asked them to rank all forty-one presidents but dropped the data on James Garfield and William Harrison because of their very brief terms in office.

(3.) The scholars were asked: "Please rate each president using the table below. In deciding how to rate a president, please take into consideration the value of the accomplishments of his presidency and the leadership he provided the nation, along with any other criteria you deem appropriate."


WELL HIGHLY ABOVE BELOW BELOW PRESIDENT SUPERIOR AVERAGE AVERAGE AVERAGE AVERAGE 4. The scholars were asked: "Please identify the five most overrated or underrated Presidents of the United States, indicating whether they are overrated or underrated." They were given five blank lines and were given the opportunity to circle "UNDERRATED" or "OVERRATED." (5.) See Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., 112 Political Science Quarterly at 179 (cited in note 1) (describing his father's studies for Life Magazine in 1948 and the New York Times Magazine in 1962).

(6.) Id. (1996 study, results published first in the New York Times Magazine in 1996, followed by a scholarly paper published in 1997).

(7.) This result comes after correcting the Schlesinger ranks for several arithmetical errors (he appears not to have used a spreadsheet, since, e.g., the second category was weighted 2 points for some presidents and 1 point for most presidents), but making no changes in coding. Besides arithmetical errors, the Schlesinger study coded the bottom category in their 5 category scale -2, 3 points below the category just above it. With more conventional coding (an even one point spread between categories), the linear correlation is .956 with our ranks and has a stunning [R.sup.2] of .913. If you leave out the one outlier, Ronald Reagan, the correlation between ranks is .970, with an [R.sup.2] of .940.

(8.) In a similar vein, political scientist Andrew Busch asserts, "It is too early to say for sure about Clinton, but his contempt for the law, the way he increased public cynicism, and his failure to achieve most of his highly touted programs--from health reform to campaign finance reform to the tobacco tax to Medicare expansion--combine to leave him toward the bottom. When impeachment is thrown in, along with the devastating effect his presidency had on lower levels of his own party, he sinks even further."

(9.) Law professor Joel Goldstein partly agreed, "Notwithstanding Johnson's success as a legislative leader in 1964 and 1965, I do not see how he can fairly be rated `near great' owing to his mismanagement of the Vietnam War. That effort, which had no clear mission, was a debacle for the country, the Presidency, and the American government."

(10.) The difference is not statistically significant.

(11.) Nonetheless, Wilson has his strong defenders. In describing why he considered Wilson, Jefferson, Jackson, and Franklin Roosevelt "Near Great," government professor Harvey Mansfield argues, "The near-great presidents were all great partisans who founded or remade their parties and are still controversial today...."

(12.) Because the observations for each president are not independent, we decided to use the cautious assumption of only thirty-nine cases. For that reason, one should assume that the power of these data are not sufficient to reject reliably the null hypothesis for any effects that seem somewhat large but are not statistically significant. Further, we compute statistics although our database is a population, not a sample.

(13.) Nixon's rank varies from thirty-two to thirty-three for all three groups.

(14.) This result comes after correcting the Schlesinger ranks for several arithmetical errors, but making no changes in coding.

James Lindgren * Steven G. Calabresi **

* Stanford Clinton Sr. Professor of Law; Director, Demography of Diversity Project; Northwestern University; currently Ph.D. Student, Sociology, University of Chicago. We would like to thank Leonard Leo and C. David Smith of the Federalist Society, who co-designed and implemented the survey and data collection. I did not get involved in this project until data collection was complete. We very much appreciate the joint sponsorship of the Wall Street Journal and the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy. Most of the data from this article were published in the Wall Street Journal in several installments starting on November 16, 2000 and posted on their website opinionjournal.com from mid-November, 2000 through mid-April, 2001.

** Professor of Law, Northwestern University.

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Publication Information: Article Title: Rating the Presidents of the United States, 1789-2000: A Survey of Scholars in Political Science, History, and Law. Contributors: James Lindgren - author, Steven G. Calabresi - author. Journal Title: Constitutional Commentary. Volume: 18. Issue: 3. Publication Year: 2001. Page Number: 583+. COPYRIGHT 2001 Constitutional Commentary, Inc.; COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group

SUSPENSION OF THE WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS

(includes opposing statements by the President and the Chief Justice)

Lincoln never enjoyed unanimous support in the North. Democrats, particularly ?Peace Democrats? who opposed the war, constantly held Lincoln under close scrutiny and criticized his decisions. While there was a bipartisan wave of support in the weeks following the fall of Fort Sumter, soon Democrats again began blasting the administration on several fronts.

One area of controversy was Lincoln?s record with respect to civil rights during the war, particularly when it came to the writ of habeas corpus. This doctrine requires that any citizen placed under arrest be given his day in court in a speedy fashion. During debates over the Constitution, delegates recalled a common complaint that the British often arrested colonists for alleged crimes and detained them indefinitely without bringing them before a magistrate, even if they proved to be innocent. The Seventh Amendment to the Constitution, as part of the Bill of Rights, reinforced this concept that also was mentioned in Article I of the Constitution. Few principles of law have been more cherished in the American legal system.

Yet by the spring of 1861, Lincoln was fully prepared to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, a decision that met with strong reaction from opponents. The controversy concerned Maryland. In the weeks after the initial fighting off the coast of South Carolina, Lincoln headed a precarious government in Washington, D.C. Directly to the south was hostile Virginia and the threat of unimpeded rebel troops marching into the capital. Maryland, which surrounded the District of Columbia, remained in the Union, but a large portion of that state sympathized with the Southern cause. This became all too apparent in April, when desperately needed troops from Massachusetts, heading to Washington, were met by violent mobs in Baltimore. Four soldiers were killed before the troops made their way out of the city, and the governor of Maryland informed Lincoln that no more soldiers could be sent through the city. For a time, it seemed as if the national capital had been cut off from the rest of the Union with no reinforcements.

Eventually, troops did begin to make their way into Washington by avoiding Baltimore altogether, but with the state emerging as the primary conduit for Northern troops to enter the capital, attacks on these forces could be crippling. In response to increasing agitation against the government in Maryland, on April 27 Lincoln announced the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus on the main military route through the state. The proclamation gave the military the authority to arrest individuals or groups suspected of aiding in the rebellion, and allowed prisoners to be detained indefinitely. Lincoln?s opponents denounced the measure as a usurpation of power, and a test case quickly emerged. John Merryman, an active secessionist, was arrested by Union soldiers in Maryland and detained at Fort McHenry in Baltimore. Merryman requested and obtained a writ of habeas corpus from Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Roger B. Taney, who also happened to be the district judge presiding over Maryland and no friend of
the president. Lincoln commanded the officers in Baltimore to ignore the writ, which would have required the military to bring Merryman before a tribunal or release him.

Lincoln?s refusal to submit to the writ moved Taney to write a dissent in the case, titled Ex Parte Merryman. In the dissent, the Chief Justice argues that Lincoln clearly overstepped the bounds of his office. The main thrust of Taney?s argument rests on his interpretation of the Constitution. The power to suspend the writ did exist in the case of rebellion or threat to national security, he concedes, but this power was included in Article I, which meant that only Congress could do so. The executive, under any circumstances, did not have the authority to suspend the writ of habeas corpus.

Lincoln initially ignored Taney?s critique, but in time felt moved to confront growing criticism of his wartime policies. In his July 4, 1861, address to Congress, Lincoln took time to address those who accused him of abusing the powers of his office. He maintains that arguments such as those advanced by Taney were guilty of legal hairsplitting and that his opponents were willing to watch the government collapse on the basis of minor legal disputes. Lincoln claims that his primary duty as president is to preserve the Union. ?Even in such a case,? he asks, ?would not the official oath be broken if the Government should be overthrown when it was believed that disregarding the single law would tend to preserve it?? Lincoln further argues limiting the power to suspend the writ to Congress was useless in the present crisis, because Congress could not convene during the early months of the upheaval. In the end, Lincoln might be willing to admit that there were legal questions regarding his actions, but that desperate times called for extreme measures.

Lincoln?s wartime policies did not come without cost, as Democrats were able to use disputes such as these to gain more support. However, Lincoln did survive the political battles with his opponents, gaining re-election in 1864. More importantly, Lincoln?s decisive actions may have prevented the Confederacy from securing very damaging gains in the early and perhaps most crucial months of the conflict.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN, ON SUSPENDING THE WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS (WASHINGTON, DC, JULY 14, 1861)

Having been conveyed on an extraordinary occasion, as authorized by the Constitution, your attention is not called to any ordinary subject of legislation.

At the beginning of the present Presidential term, four months ago, the functions of the Federal Government were found to be generally suspended within the several States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida, excepting only those of the Post-Office Department.

Within these States all the forts, arsenals, dockyards, custom-houses, and the like, including the movable and stationary property in and about them, had been seized and were held in open hostility to this Government, excepting only Fort Pickens, Taylor, and Jefferson, on and near the Florida coast, and Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. The forts thus seized had been put in improved condition, new ones had been built, and armed forces had been organized and were organizing, all avowedly with the same hostile purpose?.

Recurring to the action of the Government, it may be stated that at first a call was made for 75,000 militia, and rapidly following this a proclamation was issued for closing ports of the insurrectionary districts by proceedings in the nature of blockade. So far all was believed to be strictly legal. At this point the insurrectionists announced their purpose to enter upon the practice of privateering.

Other calls were made for volunteers to serve three years unless sooner discharged, and also for large additions to the Regular Army and Navy. These measures, whether strictly legal or not, were ventured upon under what appeared to be a popular demand and a public necessity, trusting then, as now, that Congress would readily ratify them. It is believed that nothing had been done beyond the constitutional competency of Congress.

Soon after the first call for militia it was considered a duty to authorize the Commanding General in proper cases, according to his discretion, to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, or, in other words, arrest and detain without resort to the ordinary processes and forms of law such individuals as he might deem dangerous to the public safety. This authority had purposely been exercised but very sparingly. Nevertheless, the legality and propriety of what had been done under it are questioned, and the attention of the country had been called to the proposition that one who is sworn to ?take care that the laws be faithfully executed? should not himself violate them. Of course some consideration was given to the questions of power and propriety before this matter was acted upon. The whole of the laws which were required to be faithfully executed were being resisted and failing of execution in nearly one-third of the States. To state the question more directly, Are all laws but one to go unexecuted, and the Government itself go to pieces lest that one be violated? Even in such a case, would not the official oath be broken if the Government should be overthrown when it was believed that disregarding the single law would tend to preserve it? But it was not believed that this question was presented. It was not believed that any law was violated. The provision of the Constitution that ?the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it? is equivalent to a provision?is a provision?that such privilege may be suspended when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety does require it. It was decided that we have suspension of the privilege of the writ which was autho- rized to be made. Now it is insisted that Congress, and not the Executive, is vested with this power; and as the provision was plainly made for a dangerous emergency, it can not be believed that the framers of the instrument intended that in every case the danger should run its course until Congress could be called together, the very assembling of which might be prevented, as was intended in this case, by the rebellion.

No more extended argument is now offered, as an opinion at some length will probably be presented by the Attorney-General. Whether there shall be any legislation upon the subject, and, if any, what, is submitted entirely to the better judgement of Congress.
A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, vol. 7, James D. Richardson, ed. (New York: Bureau of National Literature, Inc., 1897), 3221?3