Rutherford B. Hayes will forever be remembered as the president who ended Reconstruction. In the process he abandoned the Civil War Republican Party’s commitment to equal rights for the former slaves and doomed them to a century of discrimination and segregation.

Richard Nixon was one of the most problematic and controversial leaders in U.S. history.

Ulysses S. Grant rode his popularity to political power.

Madison gave no sign in his pre‐​presidential career that he would flourish in the chief magistracy, and he lived up to expectations.

Lincoln’s navigation of the secession crisis and ensuing Civil War can legitimately be described as unprepared at best, and at moments susceptible to severe strategic missteps.

In foreign affairs, the Arthur administration was as devoid of accomplishment as almost any in American history.

Johnson’s actions in Southeast Asia are undoubtedly the most notorious aspect of his presidency, both in popular memory and mainstream histories.

Monroe was not a deep thinker, as were Jefferson and Madison, nor was he the charismatic leader that Washington was.

Grover Cleveland was undoubtedly the most classical liberal President the United States has ever had, but even he still committed many blunders.

Hailed at his passing as “the most successful one‐​term president in the nation’s history,” George H.W. Bush has a far better claim to being the most destructive.

Although Van Buren himself was an effective politician, his years as president prompted scholars to rank Van Buren’s presidency as average, grouped among some of the least‐​effective and forgettable presidents in U.S. history

Clinton was an internationalist and believed in an activist American presence abroad, but he was unable to create a comprehensive doctrine to guide the United States into the 21^st century.

For Filmore, slavery was a moral wrong, and imposing on states’ rights was a legal wrong, but for U.S. history, the chimera of legislation that became the Compromise of 1850 was a catastrophic mistake.

President Buchanan amassed the largest fiscal imbalance of a pre‐​Civil War administration not engaging in a foreign war and that fact only scratches the surface of his shortcomings.

Adams’ mistake was not, as some would have it, in angrily prosecuting his political enemies; it was, rather, in allowing others within his administration to pursue acts which went against his avowed political principles and instincts.