I don't really know much about any prior to the 20th century, as a Brit, but he has to be one of the worse. If not for policy, then purely for the way he presented himself and his inability to talk - hardly inspired confidence in an era where its pretty important for politicians to be telegenic.
He was pretty funny to laugh at though, I'll give him that.
In the first half of American history. People knew slavery was wrong, they founding fathers wanted to abolish it. But doing so would cause the country to fall apart, and they thought it would be wrong to abolish it too quickly because the slaves would have nothing to do as no one would higher them, and they lacked education.
The country didn't favor slavery, they didn't know what to replace it with. Industrialization was what truly killed slavery as an institution, as it's very inefficient. Lincoln is constantly seen as one of the best because he held the country or tried to during its darkest moments.
Clinton happened to be at the right place at the right time. The surplus happened because of the tech boom. In case you didn't know the periods between 1972-1980s were full of recessions brought on by oil crisis, the growth of foreign markets and so on. Jimmy Carter was considered bad because he couldn't fix the economy. While Reagan was considered good because he supposedly fixed things when in fact he made things worse for the poor and non-whites. Had Clinton came after the dot come bust he would be as hated as Bush.
Also the recession was not because of Bush. But because of the policies of the presidents before him. Such as Reagan and Clinton.
You simply cannot rank JFK. I mean he died after only 2 years.
