Favorite US President, 1837-1861

[UrbScotty]

Poll question: Favorite US President, 1837-1861

[Champ]

1. I don't know

I wasn't alive during that time period.

[stellanoir]

2. William Henry Harrison. . .

'cause. . .you've got to love a guy who catches pneumonia at his inaguration and crokes a month later. He did nothing wrong. In fact he did scarcely little at all.

[Bertha Venation]

3. of those whose tenures I know about, Polk is my LEAST favorite because

To get the country to go to war against Mexico, he told lies. Sound familiar?

[rpannier]

4. They were all fairly lame as Presidents

[UrbScotty]

9. That's why I made this poll! (nt)

[Gildor Inglorion]

5. I voted for Tyler...

I've always had a strange affection for him. Apparently, he didn't get much respect, being referred to as "His Accidency." An interesting note: Van Buren, Tyler, Fillmore, Pierce, and Buchanan were all still alive when Lincoln was inaugurated. There were not five living former presidents again until President Clinton's first inauguration in 1993: Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush-the-Father.

[mobuto]

12. I'd like to like him,

because he was treated like shit as President, even though he was actually pretty good. When he returned to Virginia, his neighbors, who hated him, decided that a good way to insult him would be to elect him Commissioner of Roads - immediatly after being President. To their astonishment, Tyler accepted. What happened was, he had been reading the local laws, and he found a provision that allowed the Commissioner of Roads to impress local residents into service. So he forced all of the slave-holding Virginia aristocrats in his county into involuntary servitude - they spent weeks filling potholes on all the local roads, thanks to John Tyler. I think that's awesome.

Actually, my problem with Tyler is that he was 1) wrong on slavery, and 2) wrong on the Civil War. So I'd have to go with either Van Buren or Polk.

[kodi]

16. Tyler's the only US president to serve in the Confederate Congress

but polk obtained his campaign objectives, which is rarely accomplished by a president.

[TN al]

6. And what a stellar list iit is...

...(did my sarcasm come through?) I voted for Van Buren so I could vote for a dem but he is probably second to Taylor. Polk was pretty darn good but that war was just too reminiscent of today's war for my tastes.

[DODI]

7. This song comes to mind

We are the mediocre presidents.
You won't find our faces on dollars or on cents!
There's Taylor, there's Tyler,
There's Fillmore and there's Hayes.
There's William Henry Harrison;
Harrison:
I died in thirty days!
All:
We...are...the...
Adequate, forgettable,
Occasionally regrettable
Caretaker presidents of the U-S-A

-The Simpsons

[UrbScotty]

8. LOL!

That is so funny!

:D

[Ishoutandscream]

10. Polk has been rated fairly highly by some historians

To paraphrase Harry Truman - "Polk said what he was going to do, and he did it."

[Bertha Venation]

11. Then * will be, too.

[mobuto]

13. Polk's policies resulted in the greatest economic boom

at that point in US history.

George W. Bush's, um, did not.

[Bertha Venation]

15. Polk lied to start a war.

This was my point.

[Ishoutandscream]

14. Didn't say I was a fan of Polk's

But yes, Georgie is doing everything in his power to achieve whatever the hell his goals are (world domination, perhaps).