Ranking the second ten presidents of the USA.

Last week, I ranked the first ten presidents of the United States from 1 to 10. Today, I will rank the second ten presidents:

1. Abraham Lincoln - After the South left the Union and threw a tizzy fit because they couldn't get their way with regards to slavery (make no mistake, the South left because of slavery--the states's rights idea perpetuated by neo-Confederates is a myth), Lincoln did the right thing going to war to keep the Union together. Yes, he expanded the powers of the federal government but he had no choice. His detractors, many of whom favor small government, need to look at Lincoln in the context of the times. Lincoln did what needed to be done.

2. James Polk - Expanded the boundaries of the United States and settled the border between Canada and the US. The war with Mexico led to the aquisition of California.

3. Rutherford B. Hayes - Though the controversial election of 1876 could have made Hayes's presidency a lameduck presidency, he instead chose men of merit to inhabit his cabinet and refused to appoint men based on political considerations. While Hayes did end Reconstruction, this process was already under way by the start of his administration and there was little he could do to stop it. Hayes also took the first real steps in ending rampant corruption within the civil service.

4. Ulysses S. Grant - Columnist John J. Miller said this of Grant, "Let us not insist that Grant was a great president. But he was a solidly good one, whose hard-money policies fought inflation and who kept the peace with foreign powers." Miller adds, "Some claim he didn't do enough to help blacks in the South secure their rights in the 1870s — but this is grossly unfair, because Grant was hobbled by a Congress and a public that didn't want to go as far as he did. Furthermore, Grant's administration may have been corrupt, but the corruption was not categorically worse than what has been found in several other administrations and it did not reach to the top of the organizational chart." Historians who continue to rank Grant near the bottom of the presidential pile are partisan and unfair. Grant deserves better.

5. James Garfield - As president he extended Federal authority over the corrupt New York Customs House making many enemies in the process. The senate balked at approving Garfield's list of appointments including an unpopular pick to run the Customs House asking Garfield to re-submit a new list. Garfield replied with, "This...will settle the question whether the President is registering clerk of the Senate or the Executive of the United States..." Garfield stood strong against a senate that exceeded its authority. While Garfield's presidency was cut short by an assassin, his accomplishments in his 200 days in office were remarkable.

6. Franklin Pierce - Historians are probably a bit too harsh in their criticism of Pierce. As an example, he had to send troops to Boston to secure the fugitive slave Anthony Burns--2,000 abolitionits had just murdered a U.S. marshal! Pierce felt the cause of abolition was just but that did not make the actions of the mob, in their zeal to free Burns, any less illegal. Still, there weren't many notable accomplishments during his term in office.

7. Andrew Johnson - Though Johnson deserves some credit for following many of Lincoln's Reconstruction policies, he didn't do nearly enough to protect the freedman against Southern aggression.

8. Zachary Taylor - Taylor had little impact on the presidency. And Taylor's months in office did little to delay the Civil War. To his credit, he would have likely used force to preserve the Union even though he was a slaveholder.

9. Millard Fillmore - Fillmore is most remembered as signing the controversial Compromise of 1850. The compromise only deepened divisions between the South and North.

10. James Buchanan - Writer Christopher Buckley said it best, "The Greatness That Was the Buchanan Era included Dred Scott, the economic panic of 1857, secession, and Fort Sumter. You have to look hard to find four more dismal nodes in American history. Open the Buchanan file to any random page and you'll find such accolades as: "never regarded as a brilliant speaker," "neither a brilliant nor visionary thinker," and even "expelled from college." Ouch!