Do Generals make good Presidents?

[SerriaFox]

I was working on a paper, when this question came to mind.

A corollary is: Do American Generals make good Presidents?

And sort of the reverse do politicians make good generals?

Please use examples, which is why I put it in the history thread

 

[sydhe]

Depends on the type of general. Generals whose jobs have a strong political element--Washington, Eisenhower and, as much as I detest him, Jackson, often make good presidents. Those whose jobs are more strictly military, don't seem to. Taylor seems to have spent his entire abbreviated term , and Grant was generally a poor president who tolerated corruption. Grant was Secretary of War for a while during Andrew Johnson's administration, but Taylor was the only president who was strictly military. Eisenhower spent some time as president of Columbia University, but his political skills were tested as the leader of a coalition army. Nobody knows what kind of W. H. president Harrison would have been but he (and Jackson) were territorial governors. Jackson was also a Senator. I don't consider him a great President, but he was certainly a strong and influential one.

Hayes was a congressman and governor before he became president and seems to have been pretty capable. Benjamin Harrison was a Senator and a terrible president.(Among other things, his government caused a major financial crisis.) Garfield was a congressman as well as a Major general, and is another one who died before we could really find out how good he was. These all served during a time when the Presidency was particularly weak.

I think we have to consider Theodore Roosevelt among these although he was actually a colonel. Although his service in the Spanish-American war made him very famous, he was really a politician who spent some time as a military officer, and was skilled at both, and turned out to be a really good President, more because of his political talents than his military talents.

 

[bombshoo]

Maybe it's simply the way our media portrays military dictatorships, but the United States seems to have had a lot more luck with military generals as Presidents than most of the world.

 

[LightSpectra]

George Washington is generally considered to have been an excellent president, best or second best to Lincoln. Andrew Jackson was our worst president. William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor did so little before their deaths in office that most historians don't even rank their presidencies (though what little they did do is generally favorable). Ulysses S. Grant is heavily criticized for the various scandals that happened under his administration, though he also was able to secure legal rights for African-Americans in the American South, so he's a mixed bag. Dwight D. Eisenhower was almost perfect, with the exception of Operation Ajax, which was quite despicable (though most post-FDR presidents did the same type of thing, so take that as you will).

That was off of the top of my head. I think I'm missing somebody.

 

[bombshoo]

George Washington is generally considered to have been an excellent president, best or second best to Lincoln. Andrew Jackson was our worst president. William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor did so little before their deaths in office that most historians don't even rank their presidencies (though what little they did do is generally favorable). Ulysses S. Grant is heavily criticized for the various scandals that happened under his administration, though he also was able to secure legal rights for African-Americans in the American South, so he's a mixed bag. Dwight D. Eisenhower was almost perfect, with the exception of Operation Ajax, which was quite despicable (though most post-FDR presidents did the same type of thing, so take that as you will).

That was off of the top of my head. I think I'm missing somebody.

You forgot Garfield, but he basically falls in the same category as Harrison and Taylor right down to the little he did being fairly positive (Getting the ball rolling on civil service and naval reform and increasing positive relations with Latin America).

 

[Antilogic]

You forgot Garfield, but he basically falls in the same category as Harrison and Taylor right down to the little he did being fairly positive (Getting the ball rolling on civil service and naval reform and increasing positive relations with Latin America).

Garfield and Arthur are often either forgotten or lumped into the corrupt, post-Reconstruction Gilded Age presidents, and given they were both reformers (in the end, Arthur has a mixed record) I think it's a little unfair to them.

But yeah, it's a mixed bag. I'd rate Eisenhower as above-average, and Washington was obviously a solid leader. Opinions are strongly mixed on Andrew Jackson, and I'm in the camp that thinks he's overrated. I don't understand why he was so high in the first place or why his face is on the money printed by the United States, which is just cruelly ironic given how hard he fought against national banking.

The record of politicians as generals, however, is often far worse. Doubly so if we count Old World aristocrats as politicians.

 

[sydhe]

George Washington is generally considered to have been an excellent president, best or second best to Lincoln. Andrew Jackson was our worst president. William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor did so little before their deaths in office that most historians don't even rank their presidencies (though what little they did do is generally favorable). Ulysses S. Grant is heavily criticized for the various scandals that happened under his administration, though he also was able to secure legal rights for African-Americans in the American South, so he's a mixed bag. Dwight D. Eisenhower was almost perfect, with the exception of Operation Ajax, which was quite despicable (though most post-FDR presidents did the same type of thing, so take that as you will).

That was off of the top of my head. I think I'm missing somebody.

The ones I mentioned, Hayes, Garfield and Benjamin Harrison, who were all generals during the Civil War. Although in those cases they also had a lot of political experience. McKinley fought in the Civil War but only made it to major by the time the War ended.

 

[LightSpectra]

Ah yes, Rutherford B. Hayes, the man responsible for the Second Corrupt Bargain. We have dismissed that claim.

 

[Skwink]

George Washington is generally considered to have been an excellent president, best or second best to Lincoln. Andrew Jackson was our worst president. William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor did so little before their deaths in office that most historians don't even rank their presidencies (though what little they did do is generally favorable). Ulysses S. Grant is heavily criticized for the various scandals that happened under his administration, though he also was able to secure legal rights for African-Americans in the American South, so he's a mixed bag. Dwight D. Eisenhower was almost perfect, with the exception of Operation Ajax, which was quite despicable (though most post-FDR presidents did the same type of thing, so take that as you will).

That was off of the top of my head. I think I'm missing somebody.

How so?

 

[LightSpectra]

Native American genocide, burning anti-slavery pamphlets, spoils system, wrecking the economy, appointing Taney.

 

[Louis XXIV]

He paid off the national debt!

On a more serious note, he's influential for a lot of reasons, some are more perceived than real. For example, he's credited with creating the spoils system, but he actually maintained decent continuity as had his predecessors (perhaps not to the same degree, but still significantly). He's also famous for using the veto for policy reasons, but that had been done before as well (and he claimed his veto of the bank was for Constitutional grounds, it's just that the Court disagreed that there was a constitutional issue).

More importantly was his ability to lead by forceful personality and his influence on political parties. He was also polarizing and his treatment of the Indians was deplorable. He's one of those good President in the broad picture bad if you dissect the actual accomplishments.

 

[Cutlass]

Influential does not equal good. Many Southerners opposed the Bank, and claimed it was for Constitutional reasons. A few may even have believed that. But most people did not think that. And the planters had more personal reasons to oppose the Bank.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Well, you're combining a few points there. Just like Adams (well, Hamilton really) and Jefferson helped shape the idea of party organizations, Jackson solidified the party system. It is a fundamental part of our nation's governing system and Congress would probably be even more useless without it. His use of the veto was an important part in having Presidents shape policy rather than carry out policy.

Does that make him a good President? I have no idea what good actually means in this situation. I would hope the question isn't asking whether generals make nice Presidents (what he did to the Cherokee Nation was reprehensible, but I don't think factors much into the equation). Effective Presidents is how I was thinking of it. Although smart ideas might be the other option. He was an effective President, but he also had some dumb ideas (such as vetoing the aforementioned bank). So take that how you will.

 

[Antilogic]

Influential does not equal good. Many Southerners opposed the Bank, and claimed it was for Constitutional reasons. A few may even have believed that. But most people did not think that. And the planters had more personal reasons to oppose the Bank.

Not to mention that his campaign of destruction against the national bank only exacerbated the problems he saw with banking. It was more difficult to counterfeit national bank notes, and the multitude of branches in all the states could verify that certificates or notes were valuable. It was much more difficult to verify if a Bank of Pennsylvania note was real or counterfeit if you were living in South Carolina. It's not like there was an internet or any sort of local branch for a state-level bank in every state. Hell, there's no reason to assume that you would know what the bank notes from every state and local bank would look like.

Well, you're combining a few points there. Just like Adams (well, Hamilton really) and Jefferson helped shape the idea of party organizations, Jackson solidified the party system. It is a fundamental part of our nation's governing system and Congress would probably be even more useless without it. His use of the veto was an important part in having Presidents shape policy rather than carry out policy.

Does that make him a good President? I have no idea what good actually means in this situation. I would hope the question isn't asking whether generals make nice Presidents (what he did to the Cherokee Nation was reprehensible, but I don't think factors much into the equation). Effective Presidents is how I was thinking of it. Although smart ideas might be the other option. He was an effective President, but he also had some dumb ideas (such as vetoing the aforementioned bank). So take that how you will.

I'm pretty sure we are all in agreement if influence is equated to effectiveness, if the details of the language differ.

I took the word 'good' to not mean forceful, influential, long-lasting impact, or effective, although it could combine all of those elements. I take it to mean the same thing as people who interpret the best presidents scale, in terms of beneficial impact or improvement to the nation. And on that measure, it is much easier to be critical of men like Jackson.

 

[Cutlass]

Effective does not mean good either. It just too easy to turn "effective" or "influential" to uses that are, objectively, bad. To say a president was a good or a bad president, you should show that his actions while in office had good or bad results. Not that he was good at achieving bad results. So while some people may point out some positive aspects of Jackson's presidency, you cannot ignore the vast weight of the actions that LightSpectra listed. That is, the harm that he did to the country, not to mention the harm he did to individual people, was huge. The expulsion of the Southern Indians from the east not only stole their land and property, but many thousands died as a result. Was there truly no way to learn to live next to these people?

So Jackson handled the Nullification Crisis pretty well, and in accordance with the best interests of the nation. Does that outweigh the fact that he ignored the Constitution and laws in both the Indian expulsions and in blocking the spread of abolitionist literature? You can make an argument for the veto of the Bank. But most people, including most lawmakers and judges, rejected that argument, and most people benefited from the Bank.

So there is a lot of weight behind the argument that Jackson was a bad president. And not much weight that he was a good one. Just influential and effective. You can pick out a number of other leaders that were influential and effective as well. And you'll find any number that people would not call "good".

 

[say1988]

Why should there even be a correlation (positive or negative) between quality as a president and being a general? The fact is very, very, very, few generals get to be presidents. A quick google cam up with 875 generals and admirals active in 2002 while there have been 43 presidents in 55 elections. Even just looking at 4 star rank, there were 34. Generals who become presidents are exceptions and there can be no broad generalizations drawn from that to all flag officers.

A typical politician obviously wouldn't make a good general since becoming one requires years of education and experience, which politicians don't have. However, like senior members of any organization, politics is a major part of a generals job so there is more familitarity.

As for the previous mention of foreign military dictatorships, that is almost certainly more to do with the political system and how they gained power than the previous occupation of the leader (i.e. the US generally had Presidents elected democratically within a stable liberal democratic electoral system, as opposed to siezing power through coups and such). The only place being a general would tie in is that it gives one an edge in controlling the army when he tries to sieze power, which is always helpful.

 

[SerriaFox]

The comment that was made, was American Generals are politically naive. It was about Eisenhower's decision not to go into Berlin in April of 1945.

 

[LightSpectra]

The comment that was made, was American Generals are politically naive. It was about Eisenhower's decision not to go into Berlin in April of 1945.

That wasn't mentioned in this thread, as it well shouldn't have been; it wasn't Eisenhower's decision.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Yes.

 

[Skwink]

Lookin' Boss.