Presidential “greatness” is a difficult thing to define, although many people have tried. One prevailing theory is that it requires a president to face great challenges, meet them by changing how the US functions, institutionalise those changes in a way that creates lasting impact, and convince the American people to support these changes by unifying (or at least coalescing) behind the president’s leadership.
Research on the role of US presidents has attempted to define how previous presidents rank compared to their peers. There is general agreement that the United States has had three truly great presidents – George Washington (1789-1797), Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865), and Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933-1945) – and several truly terrible presidents – including Warren G. Harding (1921-1923), James Buchanan (1857-1861) and Franklin Pierce (1853-1857).
But what makes these presidents great or terrible? One common thread that unites these evaluations is the severity of the challenges that these presidents faced during their terms in office and how successfully they solved them.
