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The Votes are in…Where Does Lincoln Rank?
By Samuel P. Wheeler | February 18, 2009
We do strange things to the past. Consider what happens to our former presidents. We carved four of their portraits onto the side of a mountain in 1927. Though we seem to have given up such gigantic tributes, today we reduce many of them to mere caricatures of their former selves. Take, for example, this strange collection of presidential bobbleheads (pictured above–left to right: Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and George Washington).
Historians have a penchant for arranging and rearranging, interpreting and revising the past. Beginning in 1948, historian Arthur Schlesinger, Sr. asked his colleagues to rate past presidents. The process repeated itself in 1962, when seventy-five historians rated past presidents. Indeed, similar polls were conducted in 1982, 1990, 1994, 1996, 1999, 2000, 2002, and 2005.
So how does Lincoln do in these presidential polls?
He has done quite well; in fact, he has never finished lower than third. The top three usually goes something like this: Lincoln, George Washington, and Franklin Roosevelt.
If you haven’t heard yet, C-SPAN has conducted a new presidential poll. They asked sixty-five American historians to rate America’s past presidents. And the survey says…
For the first time since 1999, Lincoln has recaptured the top spot!
According to the Associated Press, several presidents shifted positions in this most recent poll:
If you want to learn more about the survey, C-SPAN offers a number of resources:
Of course, I might add, I have already heard from the anti-Lincoln crowd and they are outraged! Never mind that Jefferson Davis’ name is nowhere to be found on that list, these folks want to know more about the historians who participated in the poll. Do any of them come from universities in the American South?
The list of historians is not hard to find; I encourage them to peruse this list at their leisure.
Topics: Current Politics, Jefferson Davis, Legacy, Pop Culture | No Comments »