No matter what party partisans say, no American president is perfect -- to say the least. But when historians get around to ranking our greatest presidents, the top spots invariably go to the usual titans -- Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and the Roosevelts, Teddy and Franklin. Ivan Eland, a senior fellow at The Independent Institute (independent.org) and an expert on defense issues, begs to differ with the standard consensus -- by about 180 degrees.
In his book "Recarving Rushmore: Ranking the Presidents on Peace, Prosperity, and Liberty," Eland doesn't rank our commanders in chief according to how many wars they won or how many new federal government social or regulatory agencies they fathered. He ranks them on how well they adhered to the principles of limited government as put down in the Constitution by our Founding Framers -- which is why obscure John Tyler is Eland's No. 1, under-appreciated Grover Cleveland is second, derided Warren Harding is sixth, ridiculed Jimmy Carter is eighth, revered Abe Lincoln is 29th, hallowed FDR is 31st, beloved Ronald Reagan is 34th and progressive icon Woodrow Wilson is dead last. I recently talked to Eland by phone from his home in Washington, D.C.
Q: Can you give us a quick, "elevator-ride" description of your book?
A: The reason it's called "Recarving Rushmore" is because I believe historians, political scientists and journalists evaluate presidential success based on the wrong factors. They often use charisma, whether the president was a bold activist, or whether he served in wartime or crisis, even if he had contributed to the crisis or didn't prevent it or made it worse. I try to evaluate presidents only on their policies. I try to block out all extraneous factors, whether you liked them or not or whatever, and just go on whether their policies promoted peace, prosperity and liberty and whether they stuck with the original intent of the Framers of the Constitution to limit executive power.
Q: Why did you feel you needed to write it?
A: I just thought the presidential rankings were askew. We just had Presidents Day and a slew of presidential rankings came out and they were pretty much the same as they always are, with FDR, Lincoln, Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson up at the top. Most of the people on Mt. Rushmore. I believe they are wrong in how they evaluate them.
Q: Who would be the four presidents that you'd put on Mt. Rushmore?
A: They are very obscure presidents, and they're kind of boring, actually. But I go on the premise that the American people -- with their hard work, values, etc. -- are the people who really make the country and the government should stay out of their way. I picked presidents who were for limited government, a limited executive role and a restrained foreign policy as the Founders wanted -- and those would be John Tyler (1), Grover Cleveland (2), Martin Van Buren (3) and Rutherford B. Hayes (4). The general public probably hasn't heard of any of them.
Q: Why not George Washington?
A: George Washington I rated seventh. But even Washington expanded the presidency beyond what the people at the Constitutional Convention wanted during his eight years. He set some good precedents and some bad precedents. One of the things he did was use military forces to put down the Whiskey Rebellion. He never shot anybody or hanged anybody for the rebellion. He kind of let it go. But that set a really bad precedent. There were some other things he did as well. He made the presidency slightly more powerful than the Founders had wanted. The reason I rank him so high is that I think he got the whole shebang kicked off at the start of our constitutional system. . This seems ridiculous but it's very important in a republic to have rotation of leadership. He was a true republican and he believed that. He left office voluntarily after two terms. We take that for granted now but that informal precedent lasted clear up until the mid-20th century until FDR broke it. It was so enshrined by Washington that when FDR broke it they made it a constitutional amendment so that presidents can only serve eight years. Washington could have been king or at least the leader for life, but he didn't do that.Q: John Tyler -- a Whig -- was president from 1841 to 1845. What makes him No. 1?
A: He took over from William Henry Harrison, who only served a month. So he served almost four years. He was almost impeached by his own party because he stuck up for a limited government, a restrained foreign policy and a limited chief executive. As an example, in foreign policy he settled America's longest and most bloody Indian war, the Second Seminole War, and he did something that is unique in American history; he actually settled it to the Indians' advantage. He let some of them remain on the reservation, which is all they wanted to do because this reservation had been promised to them and they were being run off it. He also prevented a few other wars. Presidents rarely get credit for staying out of wars. They usually get credit for starting them, even if they are blatant aggression like the Mexican War to grab territory. So Tyler deserves a lot of credit.Q: Was anyone else close?
A: Grover Cleveland (1884-1888 and 1894-1898) was certainly a very good president. He made a couple of errors. He had the Venezuelan incident, where he was a little too enthusiastic about enforcing the Monroe Doctrine. He also busted the Pullman strike, using force, which Rutherford B. Hayes, by the way, didn't do. The other thing Cleveland did that was bad is that he created the Interstate Commerce Commission, which was of course the prototype of regulatory agencies. These are transgressions that Grover Cleveland did, but I don't want to minimize his presidency because he was for limited government. He's the last limited-government president we ever had. When William McKinley came in, he created the modern presidency, which is a euphemism for a larger role for the president than the Founders had intended. I think Cleveland was a very good president; he's No. 2 because he was for limited government, a limited president and for the most part a restrained foreign policy. Cleveland was very competent and people perceived him as being very honest. He was probably our most honest president.
Q: What was the methodology you used when you did your rankings -- for Ronald Reagan, for example?
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