Speaker 1: Guess what, mango? What's that? Well? All right, so, I
Speaker 1: know there's a lot of debate over whether to keep
Speaker 1: Andrew Jackson on the twenty dollar bill, But one thing
Speaker 1: there isn't much debate about is what kind of person
Speaker 1: Jackson was. Yeah, I think you can sum it up
Speaker 1: with one word terrible. I think you're probably accurate on that.
Speaker 1: And he was obviously popular, but he was also terrible,
Speaker 1: and especially in his younger day. So let me just
Speaker 1: read you this little passage from Cormac McCarthy's Wonderful Secret
Speaker 1: Lives of Presidents. I know it's always been one of
Speaker 1: our favorites to turn to when reading about the presidents,
Speaker 1: But here's how he puts it. Stories of Jackson's hooliganism abound.
Speaker 1: When asked to organize the local dancing school's Christmas ball,
Speaker 1: he secretly invited two of the town's most experienced prostitutes,
Speaker 1: causing a scandal. On another occasion, he and his fellow
Speaker 1: miscreants demolished a local tavern, beginning with the glassware, advancing
Speaker 1: to the furniture, and concluding their sware by setting the
Speaker 1: buildings ablaze. Bloys will be boys, as Cormack so he
Speaker 1: then continues jack and was also known to complete many
Speaker 1: of his wild nights with a practical joke or two.
Speaker 1: His favorite moving out houses, the places they couldn't be found.
Speaker 1: I mean those are a mix of really awful things
Speaker 1: and like kind of funny thing. They are kind of funny, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean burning and building down isn't that funny? Right?
Speaker 1: It is kind of weird that that's who ended up
Speaker 1: on our twenty dollar bill, right it is. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, we tend to respect and revere our American presidents,
Speaker 1: and when people talk about Andrew Jackson, we talked about
Speaker 1: how he was a man of the people, or I
Speaker 1: don't know how devoted he was to his wife, or
Speaker 1: you know, maybe counter the trail of tears stuff with
Speaker 1: how he adopted a Native American son. But it did
Speaker 1: make us wonder in some of these conversations, like who
Speaker 1: are some of America's worst presidents? Who are the politicians
Speaker 1: who really squandered their opportunities in the Oval office? And
Speaker 1: why aren't they getting any elementary schools named after them?
Speaker 1: I think that's the goal, after all. So that's what
Speaker 1: today's episode is all about. Let's dive in, y Hey,
Speaker 1: their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will
Speaker 1: Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend
Speaker 1: man Guesshot Ticketer and sitting on the other side of
Speaker 1: the soundproof glass pasting tiny portraits, these tiny little portraits.
Speaker 1: I had to go over and look to see who
Speaker 1: it was. It's President Taft Mango and he's putting them
Speaker 1: onto all of these pennies. That's our friend and producer
Speaker 1: Tristan McNeil. Now, of course, this is all part of
Speaker 1: Tristan's bigger effort, this ongoing effort to win a little
Speaker 1: bit more praise for Taft. I don't know exactly why
Speaker 1: he wants to do this or why he's using pennies
Speaker 1: as kind of a mystery at this point. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: mean he explained, if anything, to me earlier, and apparently
Speaker 1: he just always thought it was unfair that Lincoln gets
Speaker 1: the penny and the five dollar bill and while you know,
Speaker 1: Taft seems sort of mediocre to me, and he just
Speaker 1: has that story about the bathtub. Tristan is really in
Speaker 1: awe of him. It is the best presidential bathtub story.
Speaker 1: All right. Well, so today's show is all about trying
Speaker 1: to figure out who was America's worst president. And even
Speaker 1: though the presidency requires all kinds of different skills and
Speaker 1: abilities that are difficult to rank across the board, it's
Speaker 1: easy to spot the ones who led us into like
Speaker 1: economic disaster or maybe fan the flames of civil war. So,
Speaker 1: in honor of President taffs aggressively mediocre legacy, what do
Speaker 1: you say we sling some mud on his behalf and
Speaker 1: and then let's actually talk about some of the real
Speaker 1: worst presidents in American history. Well, I do think we
Speaker 1: should mention at the outset that we're sticking to the
Speaker 1: past year for today's show and focusing only on historical presidents.
Speaker 1: So this is more of a ridiculous armchair exercise rather
Speaker 1: than anything super political. Nobody recently, nobody. We didn't want
Speaker 1: to get any who has been president in the past
Speaker 1: thirty years. We have no idea, so we're only talking
Speaker 1: about the past. Of course, we will be using some
Speaker 1: surveys conducted by his story ends and other presidential authorities
Speaker 1: to guide this, and one we did look at was
Speaker 1: the two thousand eighteen Presidents and Executive Politics Presidential Greatness Survey.
Speaker 1: It was conducted by the American Political Science Association and
Speaker 1: It compiles the rankings of a hundred seventy different social
Speaker 1: science experts and presidential politics. You know, the thing I
Speaker 1: like about these surveys is just how consistent the results
Speaker 1: tend to be, you know, over over previous years when
Speaker 1: you look at them, like if you look at the
Speaker 1: one from I guess it was four years ago. Those
Speaker 1: bottom ten presidents, I mean, they're pretty much the same names.
Speaker 1: They tend to move around a little bit, you know,
Speaker 1: So we can't claim to know the definitive ranking of
Speaker 1: all US presidents. We we can say with at least
Speaker 1: some level of certainty that none of these guys are
Speaker 1: going to be appearing on new currency anytime soon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and like you said earlier, they're not gonna get elementary
Speaker 1: schools or airports. Are probably not too many bubbleheads, uh,
Speaker 1: you know in honor of the mind that you could
Speaker 1: find a tap bobble out there. I mean I did
Speaker 1: find William Henry Harrison trucker hat that everyone I know
Speaker 1: now is actually gonna get for Christmas. Pretty awesome. It's
Speaker 1: weird that you don't see William Henry Harrison's face on
Speaker 1: more like dorm room posters. That seems like something like
Speaker 1: we we might try to change that. We'll see, But
Speaker 1: I guess he does belong on this list since he
Speaker 1: died a pneumonia like thirty days after his inauguration. So
Speaker 1: of course he wasn't a great president at the very last. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he didn't get a chance. But I do want to
Speaker 1: disagree with you on not one, but two of the
Speaker 1: points you just say. So for starters, we are sure
Speaker 1: it was pneumonia that did in the ninth president. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, the story does kind of fit. As we've
Speaker 1: talked before. You know, Harrison insisted on giving this ninety
Speaker 1: minute undred word inauguration speech on what was this very cold,
Speaker 1: very wet winter day. He didn't wear a hat, so
Speaker 1: I mean it tracts that he caught a cold and
Speaker 1: and it eventually worsened into pneumonia. But you know, actually
Speaker 1: this is the side. But the doctor treated him for pneumonia,
Speaker 1: and the treatment at the time was around the clock
Speaker 1: enemas and doses of opium. Oh good god, so awful.
Speaker 1: Sounds horrible. But so if it wasn't pneumonia, what what
Speaker 1: what killed? Yeah? So some modern scholars actually think that
Speaker 1: the real culprit was this deadly bacteria strain, which, uh,
Speaker 1: which probably came from all the night soil that had
Speaker 1: been dumped just a few blocks away from the White House.
Speaker 1: Did you say night soil? Yeah? So, remember we were
Speaker 1: talking about the eighteen forties here, so Washington d C.
Speaker 1: Didn't have a sewer system yet, and instead the city's
Speaker 1: daily dose of experment was hauled the way to this
Speaker 1: nearby marsh every single evening, hence the term night soil. Ah,
Speaker 1: so you're saying this marsh was just down the street
Speaker 1: from the White House. So so maybe it was this
Speaker 1: bacteria from what like all the fecal matter that was
Speaker 1: in the water supply exactly, And the kind of gastro
Speaker 1: intestinal sickness that Harrison went through is commonly linked at
Speaker 1: least two different bacteria that would have been found there,
Speaker 1: And the theory really starts to look convincing once you
Speaker 1: consider that both James Polke and Zachary Taylor also dealt
Speaker 1: with gastro and tritus while living in the White House,
Speaker 1: with Taylor even dying in off as just like Harrison did.
Speaker 1: All right, so I'll stand corrected on that, or at
Speaker 1: least potentially corrected, But I'm curious that what didn't you
Speaker 1: say there was one more thing you to correct me on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean the other thing is that Harrison didn't influence
Speaker 1: politics because he died so soon after taking office. Because
Speaker 1: when you think about it, he actually did some lasting
Speaker 1: damage to American politics. And what makes you say that? So,
Speaker 1: William Henry Harrison's campaign was really the first to use
Speaker 1: food as a way to appeal to social and class
Speaker 1: differences in America. So for background, Harrison tried to portray
Speaker 1: himself as this like frontiersman who was tough as nails.
Speaker 1: And this was despite the fact that he was well educated,
Speaker 1: came from this wealthy, distinguished Virginia family. But you know,
Speaker 1: his campaign took out ads smartly that showed him in
Speaker 1: front of a log cabin. I mean it was supposedly
Speaker 1: his log cabin, and uh he also had this big
Speaker 1: barrel of hard cider right out front. And the plan
Speaker 1: was to convince voters that Harrison was this man of
Speaker 1: the people. You know, he was trying to separate himself
Speaker 1: from the fat catalytist that Martin Van Buren could be
Speaker 1: seen as or Vanny Bee is. So his campaign took
Speaker 1: to calling him the log cabin and hard cider candidate,
Speaker 1: and he was this man who lived and drank just
Speaker 1: like I guess the real Pete. Well, the plan worked,
Speaker 1: I guess right, I mean he got elected. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: wasn't much of a contest. Presidential candidates didn't even campaign
Speaker 1: for themselves prior to Harrison, and Van Buren was no exception,
Speaker 1: so you couldn't really push back on these elitist rumors.
Speaker 1: But Harrison did an incredible job. Like he held these
Speaker 1: massive rallies town after town. Sometimes they had sixty people
Speaker 1: out on them, and he was just like a ridiculous party.
Speaker 1: His supporters were rolling logs all over the place and
Speaker 1: handing out hard cider, and he even had these custom
Speaker 1: log cabin shaped bottles made for the events. Like it
Speaker 1: really marked the first time that a politician used food
Speaker 1: as a shorthand for social class. Well, it makes me
Speaker 1: think about that phrase that sometimes people use that we
Speaker 1: often shut her at when somebody just talks about how
Speaker 1: they would vote based on who they'd rather have a
Speaker 1: beer with. Ins Yeah, exactly, And I guess you can
Speaker 1: blame William Henry Harrison for that. We think about it,
Speaker 1: so yes, I will give him a mark against them
Speaker 1: for that and all let's stick to the time like
Speaker 1: for a minute and talk about Harrison's success or, who is,
Speaker 1: of course John Tiler and another less than stellar president.
Speaker 1: And Tyler is an interesting case because he was actually
Speaker 1: the first person to ascend to the presidency from the
Speaker 1: vice presidency. Yeah, and there weren't even rules in place
Speaker 1: for that kind of succession, right, Like the whole vice
Speaker 1: president rule wasn't in place until the nineteen sixties when
Speaker 1: we added the twenty fifth Amendment. Yeah, that's right. So
Speaker 1: Tyler was really in unchartered territory. And this is where
Speaker 1: his questionable legacy starts to crop up, because rather than
Speaker 1: continuing to act as vice president until Congress and the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court could figure out a solution, Tyler said went
Speaker 1: out and quickly found a district judge, just some district
Speaker 1: judge to swear him in. So effectively, John Tyler made
Speaker 1: himself president. Though I mean, I guess you could argue
Speaker 1: that the twenty five Amendment would later vindicate his actions,
Speaker 1: even if that was what a hundred and twenty years
Speaker 1: after the but you know, think about this, putting him
Speaker 1: aside for just a second. I try not to speak
Speaker 1: ill of any first lady, just on principle. But I've
Speaker 1: got to say that Julia Tyler really didn't do her
Speaker 1: husband any favors. Apparently she would hold these receptions at
Speaker 1: the White House where she would sit on a dais
Speaker 1: with a wreath of flowers on her head, and she
Speaker 1: would ask everyone in attendance to call her Mrs presidentists.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know anything about being a first lady,
Speaker 1: but if the president's legitimacy is in question, maybe don't
Speaker 1: you that? You know, even Tyler's own party didn't give
Speaker 1: him a pass on all his succession stuff Like I
Speaker 1: remember reading how they started calling Tyler his accidency and
Speaker 1: apparently every member of the Harrison appointed cabinet resigned in protest.
Speaker 1: That's impressive. Well, and Tyler really threw the Whig Party
Speaker 1: under the bus when he became president. In fact, he
Speaker 1: pretty much took the opposing position on every issue the
Speaker 1: party had been backing, including the need for a national
Speaker 1: bank and whether or not state should be allowed to
Speaker 1: seceed on account of slavery. Tyler did manage to fight
Speaker 1: off early attempts to impeach him and made it through
Speaker 1: his single term, but by the time he died less
Speaker 1: than two decades later, he was considered a trader by
Speaker 1: most people in Washington. And you know, at that point
Speaker 1: it wasn't even an exaggeration, Like he had helped advocate
Speaker 1: for Virginia's secession and he was all set to join
Speaker 1: the Confederate House of Representatives before his death kind of
Speaker 1: mixed those plans. I mean, you don't want to heat
Speaker 1: more dirt on this guy's legacy. But I was reading
Speaker 1: about Tyler in the Secret Lives of the U S Presidents,
Speaker 1: which you know, I've got to say, I love Cormack O'Brien.
Speaker 1: He was on the show Nicest Guy, and this book
Speaker 1: is so great, but he makes it sound like Tyler
Speaker 1: was kind of cowardly as well on top of everything else.
Speaker 1: Like just listen to this quote. Tyler's estrangement from the
Speaker 1: Whig Party was no joke. Angry mobs made a habit
Speaker 1: of showing up at the White House. Some even burned
Speaker 1: him in effigy. There were also plenty of bomb threats. Once,
Speaker 1: when an unmarked package arrived at the White House, a
Speaker 1: staff member was called to look at it, but Tyler
Speaker 1: hid behind a marble column. The servant proceeded to hack
Speaker 1: the parcel to pieces with a meat cleaver, only to
Speaker 1: reveal a dilapidated toy. In a unique act of pity,
Speaker 1: Congress past Tyler's bill, which provided the first federally funded
Speaker 1: White House security. All right, well, let's leave Tyler over there,
Speaker 1: just kind of cowering behind his favorite marble column and
Speaker 1: and talk about another pair of bad presidents who also
Speaker 1: followed right on each other's heels, And that's Zachary Taylor
Speaker 1: and Millard Fillmore. Absolutely, But before we dive in, let's
Speaker 1: take a quick break. You're listening to part time genius.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about the most terrible, horrible, no good,
Speaker 1: very bad presidents in US history, or at least the
Speaker 1: ones historians like the least I'm speaking of, which the
Speaker 1: next guy on our list is the country's twelfth president.
Speaker 1: And then that was Zachary Taylor. And he's an interesting
Speaker 1: case because, unlike John Tyler and other presidents who were
Speaker 1: disliked both in their own time and today, Zachary Taylor
Speaker 1: was actually pretty popular in his day. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: it kind of helps that he was only in office
Speaker 1: for what like a year, and people didn't have that
Speaker 1: much to form bad opinions about him. I guess it's
Speaker 1: true he died pretty quickly. But but you know, it
Speaker 1: wasn't just his brief time in office that gave people
Speaker 1: this rosy view of him. I mean, before becoming president
Speaker 1: in eighteen forty nine, Taylor had already spent some forty
Speaker 1: odd years fighting no less than four different wars for
Speaker 1: the U. S. Army. I mean, the guy was a
Speaker 1: war hero, had this career that stretched from the War
Speaker 1: of eighteen twelve to the Mexican War, had that nickname
Speaker 1: all rough and ready tried to get people to call
Speaker 1: me that, but nobody's nobody's sticking to it, and it
Speaker 1: seems to have been one of those nicknames that was
Speaker 1: actually pretty well earned in his case. So I'm guessing, then, like,
Speaker 1: how does he wind up on this worst President's list?
Speaker 1: It's partly because he spent such a brief time in
Speaker 1: office that he just didn't get much done, much like
Speaker 1: William Henry Harrison before him. But it really makes Taylor
Speaker 1: unpopular now. Is actually all the stuff that made him
Speaker 1: popular in his day. For instance, that that long military
Speaker 1: career of his, the one that helped him get elected,
Speaker 1: it actually includes some really brutal campaigns. When you think
Speaker 1: about the seminoles and the Chippewa tribes effectively got were
Speaker 1: driven from their land. And you know, then there's Taylor's
Speaker 1: muddle stance on slavery. You know, on the one hand,
Speaker 1: Taylor opposed the creation of new slave states and fought
Speaker 1: hard for the western territories to only be admitted as
Speaker 1: free states. But on the other hand, he was a
Speaker 1: slaveholder himself, had multiple plantations and over aden slave persons
Speaker 1: to his name, So I'm curious if you're a slave owner, like,
Speaker 1: why would you engage in all this like anti slavery rhetoric. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, it turns out Taylor wasn't morally opposed to slavery,
Speaker 1: and I guess that's pretty obvious given his track record there.
Speaker 1: But he just recognized that there was growing opposition to
Speaker 1: the practice. And you know, they used people needed to
Speaker 1: be catered to in order to avoid civil war, and
Speaker 1: Taylor was determined to preserve the Union and this was
Speaker 1: by force if necessary. Like there was one time in
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty when a few Southern leaders started threatening secession
Speaker 1: and Taylor was so angry about this he swore he
Speaker 1: would personally lead the army against them if they went
Speaker 1: through it. Again, this was probably more out of his,
Speaker 1: you know, four decades of military service and wanting to
Speaker 1: be involved in those sorts of conflicts than it was
Speaker 1: any sort of personal conviction against slavery. So I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess he wound up doing the right thing, but
Speaker 1: maybe for the wrong reasons, or at least not for
Speaker 1: all the right reasons. And it's easy to see how
Speaker 1: that kind of a moral thinking would diminish his standing
Speaker 1: in hindsight. Plus, you know, he didn't have a very
Speaker 1: dignified death. All right, Well, we've kind of beaten around
Speaker 1: the bush on this one, so I feel like you
Speaker 1: should go ahead and tell the story. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: we've probably talked about it a little before, but I
Speaker 1: love the details of this. So it was July four
Speaker 1: and Taylor has been in office for a little over
Speaker 1: a year now, and he's due to appear at this
Speaker 1: big Independence Day party at the side of the future
Speaker 1: Washington Monument. And the problem is DC's in the middle
Speaker 1: of this blistering heat wave. And if that wasn't bad enough,
Speaker 1: there's also a bad outbreak of cholera, and nobody's supposed
Speaker 1: to drink water or eat rough rout without knowing exactly
Speaker 1: where it came from. But you know, this is old
Speaker 1: rough and Ready we're talking about, and he's still going
Speaker 1: to go to the event. So he sits through the speeches,
Speaker 1: he makes one of his own, and meanwhile, the whole time,
Speaker 1: he and everyone else are just getting baked in the sun. Right,
Speaker 1: And so once it's over, he stumbles back to the
Speaker 1: White House, and he is thirsty. He immediately drinks all
Speaker 1: the water in sight. Then he proceeds to drink all
Speaker 1: the iced milk on hand, and then he wolves down
Speaker 1: a whole bowl of cherries that someone left on the kitchen.
Speaker 1: So you know, he is not afraid of anything, and
Speaker 1: this does the trick. He feels satisfied, except that, you know,
Speaker 1: the next day he's doubled over with the stomach cramps
Speaker 1: and then he starts displaying these symptoms of gastro and tritus,
Speaker 1: and four unpleasant days later, Taylor becomes the second president
Speaker 1: to die in office. I mean, it does make you
Speaker 1: feel for the guy a little bit to think about
Speaker 1: the fact that he lived through four separate wars only
Speaker 1: to be taken out by what you said, ice milk
Speaker 1: and a bowl of cherries. Yeah, I mean I honestly
Speaker 1: think about this every summer when I'm looking at like
Speaker 1: a big bowl of cherries in the kitchen, and I'm
Speaker 1: always like, you know, a president died for him drinking
Speaker 1: ice milk and too many cherries. And of course I
Speaker 1: just scarf from down anyway, because Jerry's are so delicious,
Speaker 1: such a risk taker. I mean, it does feel like
Speaker 1: a cruel twist to fight even for this irredeemable racist.
Speaker 1: But because nobody is all bad, I do want to
Speaker 1: mention that President Taylor had a beloved pet. It was
Speaker 1: this old white horse named Old Whitey, creative name, and
Speaker 1: he kept Old Whitey on the White House lawn. And
Speaker 1: when Taylor died, the horse was actually part of the
Speaker 1: funeral procession, marching right there behind his master's coffin. I
Speaker 1: like that. The nicest thing you can say is that
Speaker 1: he had a horse that participated in his future, right
Speaker 1: right willingly. So you know, it's still probably more than
Speaker 1: you could say for his successor, Millard Fillmore, who took
Speaker 1: over after Taylor died, and he became another president who
Speaker 1: no one really wanted. You know, Fillmore did have one
Speaker 1: thing going for him over his predecessor. While Taylor had
Speaker 1: the looks you'd expect from someone who had spent forty
Speaker 1: years in combat. Fillmore was actually the super sharp dressor.
Speaker 1: He was good looking. In fact, Queen Victoria thought so.
Speaker 1: After meeting him at court. She supposedly called him the
Speaker 1: handsomest man she'd ever met. So it sounds like he
Speaker 1: was sort of the opposite of Taylor, at least in
Speaker 1: terms of looks. But but what about his policy where
Speaker 1: the opposites in that regard to Yeah, they kind of were.
Speaker 1: So remember how Taylor had been politically opposed to slavery
Speaker 1: but personally for it. Well, Fillmore was the reverse of that.
Speaker 1: He claimed to be personally against the practice. And this
Speaker 1: actually might have come because his family was so poor
Speaker 1: when he was growing up that he was sold into
Speaker 1: indentured servitude as a kid. I think he learned to
Speaker 1: read by stealing books, and uh, eventually he did buy
Speaker 1: his way out. But it's strange because the main highlight
Speaker 1: of his whole tenure is getting the Compromise of eighteen
Speaker 1: fifty past, and this was something Taylor had opposed because
Speaker 1: he thought it was too big a win for southern
Speaker 1: slavers alright, So so why did fill More than support
Speaker 1: the bills. Well, Taylor had prevented secession during his brief term,
Speaker 1: but the South wasn't happy about his plan to admit
Speaker 1: only free states from then on, and this growing anger
Speaker 1: made feel more nervous that Southerners might move forward with
Speaker 1: secession or even the outright war might break out, so
Speaker 1: filmore back the compromise out fear more than anything else.
Speaker 1: And while the bills did do some good for the nation,
Speaker 1: like adding California to the Union as this free state
Speaker 1: and banged the slave trade in d C, the negative
Speaker 1: outcomes sort of outweighed that. And this was partially through
Speaker 1: the addition of the Fugitive Slave Act, which obligated the
Speaker 1: federal government to return fugitive slaves to their masters. This
Speaker 1: was regardless of whether the states they were found and
Speaker 1: were free or not. And this was a massive, massive
Speaker 1: setback for abolitionists and it actually further the political divide
Speaker 1: that was growing in the country. So it sounds like
Speaker 1: he basically sold out his principles to try and keep
Speaker 1: the peace, which I mean that's a hard line to keep. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's another president whose reputation is only worse than as
Speaker 1: the years go by, and the cost of his decisions,
Speaker 1: you know, they start to look more and more unconscionable
Speaker 1: with time, and that shifting view on Filmore is actually
Speaker 1: something that started as early as two decades after the compromise.
Speaker 1: So in eighteen seventy, in an addition to the New
Speaker 1: York Times, the paper wrote, quote, it was Fillmore's misfortune
Speaker 1: to see in slavery a political and not a moral question. Well,
Speaker 1: there's one part of Filmore's hanted legacy that I do
Speaker 1: find pretty funny with all of the kind of more
Speaker 1: sad stuff that you just mentioned, and that's the tongue
Speaker 1: in cheek club that was set to lampoon his ineffectiveness
Speaker 1: as president. You may have heard of this before, but
Speaker 1: it's called the Millard Fillmore Society, and it actually wasn't
Speaker 1: formed until nineteen eighty. This, of course, is over a
Speaker 1: century after Fillmore died. So I'm curious what kind of
Speaker 1: stuff did the society to do, I mean, really important stuff.
Speaker 1: But probably what they were most known for was the
Speaker 1: annual award they would give out called the Medal of Mediocrity,
Speaker 1: and it was ended out each January around the time
Speaker 1: of Fillmore's birthday, and it was as a way of
Speaker 1: honoring quote mediocrity to combat the rising tide of overachievers.
Speaker 1: I was laughing at the list of of winners here.
Speaker 1: So notable winners include Ed McMahon, Prince Charles, Princess Diana,
Speaker 1: and boy George. For some reason, Uh, boy George is
Speaker 1: a strange choice. It actually does remind me of that
Speaker 1: time one of our friends brought a boy George c
Speaker 1: d into our room in college and just started lasting
Speaker 1: it and I felt like he's sang it, danced through
Speaker 1: like Karma Chamillion, I'll Tumble for You, and then some
Speaker 1: other song, and eventually he had to tap out because
Speaker 1: he had to technology he couldn't keep up the enthusiasm
Speaker 1: for boyd George song. Do I need to acknowledge that
Speaker 1: that friend was me? I wasn't gonna say it, but
Speaker 1: I did have. But you know, in this meirit of
Speaker 1: that club, I want to dominate another president for the
Speaker 1: Medal of Mediocrity, and that's our fifteenth president, Mr James Buchanan.
Speaker 1: And believe me, this one's a long time coming. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that's definitely a good pick. I mean, he was notoriously awful.
Speaker 1: But before we get into the reasons why, let's take
Speaker 1: one more quick break. Okay, mago, So we have two
Speaker 1: bad presidents left to talk about. We've got James Buchanan
Speaker 1: and Andrew Johnson. And oddly enough, these are two that
Speaker 1: came immediately before and after President Lincoln, who, by the way,
Speaker 1: consistently tops the list of presidential rankings, which is no
Speaker 1: surprise there. They essentially have the best president in US
Speaker 1: history book ended by two of the all time worth
Speaker 1: And you know, Buchanan in particular is widely considered the
Speaker 1: worst of the worst. So in fact, according to the
Speaker 1: Constitution Center, Buchanan has been in the bottom three of
Speaker 1: every major poll ranking US presidents since impressive. I mean,
Speaker 1: he seems to be universally load, which is almost an
Speaker 1: achievement in itself, I guess feel like it. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: not a very good one, but yeah, it's an achievement.
Speaker 1: And in some ways that level of hate is kind
Speaker 1: of surprising. I mean, just looking at Buchanan's pre presidents
Speaker 1: he resume he was a successful lawyer, he served in
Speaker 1: both houses of Congress, he even served as Secretary of
Speaker 1: State for a time. And on the one hand, he
Speaker 1: had this reputation for being really exacting and a fuzzy
Speaker 1: kind of guy, and I might explain why he was
Speaker 1: also a lifelong bachelor and then the only one to
Speaker 1: serve as president. President pol once said Buchanan acted like quote,
Speaker 1: an old maid, and even his own campaign manager described
Speaker 1: him as a sort of masculine miss fibble. And I
Speaker 1: don't really know exactly what that means, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: sound good. I don't think I have no idea what
Speaker 1: a missfibble is, but uh, I mean that there were
Speaker 1: rumors that he was gay, and I know he and
Speaker 1: his vice president share of the house, and people called
Speaker 1: them Aunt Nancy and Miss Fancy, so there might have
Speaker 1: been some prejudices there, especially during that time period. But
Speaker 1: it's also pretty clear how much of a pain he
Speaker 1: could be. Like apparently, Buchanan once rejected a payment for
Speaker 1: more than fifteen thousand dollars because it was off by
Speaker 1: ten cents. And you know, if that wasn't annoying enough,
Speaker 1: he was also this giant snoop um. He made his
Speaker 1: niece act as his first lady and lived with him
Speaker 1: in the White House. But then he'd open all her
Speaker 1: mail and send it along to her, written like opened
Speaker 1: by mistake, just scrawled across the envelope, and I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe you buy that once or twice, but every single
Speaker 1: letter is a lot. I'm guessing at some point his
Speaker 1: knees caught onto us. Yeah, she actually started hiding all
Speaker 1: her corresponding and Cindy's empty butter jugs that our friends
Speaker 1: would carry in and out of the White House kitchen,
Speaker 1: which just sounds so obvious, you know, But amazingly, Buchanan
Speaker 1: never caught onto the scheme because, I mean, he was
Speaker 1: too busy pulling off his own schemes. I mean, his
Speaker 1: administration was one of the most corrupt in history. Just
Speaker 1: as an example, Buchanan pushed hard for the adoption of
Speaker 1: Lacompton Constitution, which was a proposed constitution for Kansas that
Speaker 1: would have allowed only male citizens to vote, well at
Speaker 1: the same time forbidding free blacks from living in the
Speaker 1: state at all. And to try to get this pass,
Speaker 1: Buchanan and his supporters offered cash incentives to anyone willing
Speaker 1: to vote their way. All told, the price of these
Speaker 1: payoffs has estimated it more than thirty thousand dollars, which
Speaker 1: is more like a million dollars when you adjust for inflation.
Speaker 1: That's crazy. And meanwhile, the country was falling apart around
Speaker 1: him while he and his buddies were cashing in the
Speaker 1: Southern threat of secession was growing, and rather than do
Speaker 1: anything to counter it, you can't, just stood by and watched.
Speaker 1: And not only was he ineffective, but he was also
Speaker 1: two faced. Like before the election, he'd spoken out against
Speaker 1: slavery as this indefensible evil, but then in his inauguration
Speaker 1: speech he dismissed the practice as quote happily a matter
Speaker 1: of but little practical importance. And you know, once in office,
Speaker 1: he actually further the spread of slavery by allowing it
Speaker 1: in these western territories. He uh, he backed the dread
Speaker 1: Scott decision, that's the one that denied citizenship to black residents,
Speaker 1: and he practically paved the way for the Civil War. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's definitely true. And you know, it seems like most
Speaker 1: of the country recognized the damage that he was doing,
Speaker 1: because you know, you fast forward to the next election
Speaker 1: and it went to a starkly different candidate, and that,
Speaker 1: of course was Lincoln. But that transition wasn't a smooth
Speaker 1: one at all. You know, got Lincoln's victory and November
Speaker 1: of eighteen sixty that prompted seven southern states to secede
Speaker 1: from the Union and formed the Confederacy. And this all
Speaker 1: happened on Buchanan's watch. Now, you can't claim there was
Speaker 1: nothing he could do to stop this. Here's how he
Speaker 1: puts it. He says, is beyond the power of any president,
Speaker 1: no matter what maybe his own political cool proclivities, to
Speaker 1: restore peace and harmony among the states. Wisely limited and restrained,
Speaker 1: as is his power under our constitution and laws, he
Speaker 1: alone can accomplish, but little for good or for evil
Speaker 1: on such a momentous question. I mean, that's really pathetic,
Speaker 1: and it just sounds like such a cop out. I mean,
Speaker 1: if the Union was falling apart, the president should be
Speaker 1: doing something right. And and Zachary Taylor, if he was
Speaker 1: on the case, he would have hopped on his horse
Speaker 1: and fought off the Cecedars himselves, right, I mean, even
Speaker 1: if you did own eighty something splace well. But Buchanan
Speaker 1: just set on his hands until leaving office the next year,
Speaker 1: and that left Lincoln to deal with the fallout of
Speaker 1: Buchan's in action, And of course, less than a month later,
Speaker 1: the Civil War had begun, which is you know clearly
Speaker 1: why historians don't like Buchanan. Well, in the wildest part
Speaker 1: is that Buchanan maintained until his dying day that he
Speaker 1: was only performing his constitutional duty. He believed that history
Speaker 1: would ultimately remember him fondly for what he had done.
Speaker 1: But of course he was pretty wrong about that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll say, and while Lincoln's turn provided this all too
Speaker 1: brief repre from week leadership, his assassination landed the country
Speaker 1: right back in the hands of the morally bankrupt. And
Speaker 1: I mean this is a bummer to say, because on paper,
Speaker 1: Andrew Johnson sounds pretty impressive, Like more than any other president.
Speaker 1: Johnson really came from nothing. His family didn't know named land.
Speaker 1: His father died when he was only three. Most of
Speaker 1: his childhood was spent doing hard labor as a tailor's apprentice.
Speaker 1: In his teens, Johnson moved from North Carolina to Tennessee.
Speaker 1: He opened his own tailor shop. And you know this
Speaker 1: wasn't easy either, Apparently, um Johnson made the trip with
Speaker 1: his family and everything they owned. It was all stuffed
Speaker 1: into a two wheeled cart and was pulled through the
Speaker 1: mountains by a blind pony. I mean, of course the
Speaker 1: pony had to be blind because you've got this impoverished family,
Speaker 1: two whield car like, none of that's enough in a
Speaker 1: blind pop. But I do know what you mean though
Speaker 1: about Johnson being a pretty endearing character at least prior
Speaker 1: to taking office, and he was the only Southern Senator
Speaker 1: to keep his seat in Congress after secession, and that
Speaker 1: loyalty to the Union is ultimately why Lincoln chose him
Speaker 1: as his running mate when he was up for re election. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but sadly all that loyalty disappeared after Lincoln was shot
Speaker 1: and Johnson assumed the presidency. As soon as he took office,
Speaker 1: he gave amnesty to Confederates and allowed them to elect
Speaker 1: new government officials who quickly passed these Black codes. It was,
Speaker 1: you know, aimed at oppressing these newly freed slaves. He
Speaker 1: also vetoed bills that sought to protect black Americans, including
Speaker 1: the Freedman's Bureau Bill. You know, much the nation was
Speaker 1: really shocked to see Johnson undermining and almost straight up
Speaker 1: on doing so much of what Lincoln had fought and
Speaker 1: died for. In fact, Johnson was often heckled at public
Speaker 1: appearances during his presidency. And he's just the type of
Speaker 1: guy who just could not resist. He just joined and
Speaker 1: shouting back and and this one time things got so
Speaker 1: heated that he actually claimed that God struck down Lincoln
Speaker 1: on purpose so he could be president. I mean, that's insane.
Speaker 1: And of course that went over about as well as
Speaker 1: you'd imagine. All right, So let's see, just looking at
Speaker 1: his resume here, Johnson mocked his dead predecessor, rolled back
Speaker 1: racial progress in America, basically paved the way for a
Speaker 1: gem Crow laws. So it's not a surprise really that
Speaker 1: he was the first president to be impeached and nearly
Speaker 1: convicted to In the end, the proceedings failed by just
Speaker 1: one vote and Johnson was able to complete his term.
Speaker 1: But you know, it was crystal clear by then that
Speaker 1: he wouldn't be getting a second term. And of course,
Speaker 1: the thing I always remember about Johnson was that he
Speaker 1: was so ostracized at the end of his term that
Speaker 1: he just sit in his bedroom where he'd befriended the
Speaker 1: mice there, like he'd feed them and watched them like
Speaker 1: they were, you know, his own reality TV program. But
Speaker 1: I do think he was a little lonely. I mean,
Speaker 1: it is nice to see that most of these bad
Speaker 1: presidents we've talked about come from the first half of
Speaker 1: America's history. I mean, there are a few obvious exceptions
Speaker 1: from the last hundred years or so. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: there's bound to be a few hiccups here and there,
Speaker 1: But examining the failings of past leaders should make us
Speaker 1: more adept at choosing new ones, or you know, at
Speaker 1: least that's the hope. Yeah, but I'm not ready to
Speaker 1: let these guys off the hook just yet. So why
Speaker 1: don't we dedicate today's fact off to the blunders of
Speaker 1: a few more presidents from that worst of list? Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: one of the things on William Henry Harrison's platform was
Speaker 1: that if he was elected president, he'd only serve one term.
Speaker 1: And it's the only campaign promise he actually carried out.
Speaker 1: That's pretty bad. One of Andrew Jackson's favorite ways to
Speaker 1: unwine was apparently dueling, which I guess makes sense for
Speaker 1: someone who enjoyed drinking and brawl as much as he did.
Speaker 1: He apparently fought in over one hundred duels in his life.
Speaker 1: I think that's over one more duels than you've competed.
Speaker 1: That's absolutely true. So, you know, Warren Harding loved poker
Speaker 1: so much that he assembled a poker cabinet to drink
Speaker 1: whiskey and play with him, you know, which, of course
Speaker 1: is a little weird since he claimed to be tremendously
Speaker 1: in supportive prohibition on the campaign trail. But you know,
Speaker 1: he did have this cabinet, and and once he actually
Speaker 1: bet this entire box of priceless white House China in
Speaker 1: a poker game and he lost it. That's pretty rough.
Speaker 1: And there are plenty of other reason to dislike Harding too.
Speaker 1: I mean, he was anti immigrant, anti working with other nations.
Speaker 1: And of course the knock on him was that his
Speaker 1: administration was so corrupt that while he was playing poker,
Speaker 1: all his friends were there plundering the U. S. Treasury. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's one of those things where they
Speaker 1: couldn't trace it completely up to him, but they could
Speaker 1: trace it right around him, you know, a teapot dome
Speaker 1: and all that. I mean. He was also a ridiculous
Speaker 1: and in blatant philanderer, So he had plenty of problems
Speaker 1: and and he eventually declared, quote, I'm not fit for
Speaker 1: this office and should never have been here. All right,
Speaker 1: Well here's one that you might like then. So Nixon
Speaker 1: was so enamored with making the White House this more
Speaker 1: grand place, and he actually commissioned these pompous uniforms for
Speaker 1: the White House Police force to wear. It was just
Speaker 1: to make it, I guess a little bit more like
Speaker 1: bucking and Palace. And the uniform included gold embroidery and
Speaker 1: these ridiculously tall military caps. But it was so ridiculous
Speaker 1: that he just got made fun of in the press.
Speaker 1: What's funny about this is that instead of just like
Speaker 1: burning or throwing away the uniforms, he so them. And
Speaker 1: this was to a high school band in Iowa, so
Speaker 1: you know who seemed like terrible people to work for.
Speaker 1: The Hoovers like Herbert and his wife devised the system
Speaker 1: so they never had to see the White House staff
Speaker 1: when they rang a bell three times and met the
Speaker 1: President or his wife were walking down the hall, and
Speaker 1: the staff was just required to jump into the nearest
Speaker 1: closet to be out of sight. And if the staff
Speaker 1: was outside, they were actually supposed to hide behind a shrub,
Speaker 1: like behind the shrub. I like that they were given
Speaker 1: this instruct and I feel like my nix in fact,
Speaker 1: might have been funnier, but having to jump in a
Speaker 1: closet or over a hedge because your boss is coming
Speaker 1: and that sounds pretty terrible, so I feel like maybe
Speaker 1: you should win today's prize. That sounds great. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: this has been a fun one. Now. I'm sure that
Speaker 1: we forgot a lot of great facts and we always
Speaker 1: love hearing facts from you. So if you have some
Speaker 1: fun facts about some of history's worst presidents, or maybe
Speaker 1: you need to even inform us who's been president in
Speaker 1: the past thirty years, because we have no idea so
Speaker 1: we've only been focusing on the past, but we love
Speaker 1: hearing those from you. You can always email as Part
Speaker 1: Time Genius at how stuff Works dot com or hit
Speaker 1: us up on Facebook or Twitter. But thanks so much
Speaker 1: for listening. Thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius is
Speaker 1: a production of How Stuff Works and wouldn't be possible
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Speaker 1: Do we do we forget Jason? Jason who