CULTURE & SOCIETY

The Best and Worst Presidents of the United States

Workers prepare a carpet with the presidential seal for the Commander in Chief Inaugural Ball at the Washington Convention Center in January 2025 in Washington, DC.

Andrew Harnik/Getty Images/AFP

For Presidents Day 2025, here is our website’s subjective ranking of the top 10 best and bottom 10 worst Presidents to serve as Commander-in-Chief of the United States.

Márton Losonczi

Today is Presidents’ Day in the United States. Americans are staying home from school and work across the nation to celebrate the 45 men who got to hold the highest office in the land throughout their history. On this day, the question is often asked: who was the greatest and the worst among them?

To throw our two cents in, here is our subjective ranking of the best and worst Presidents of the United States. For the sake of brevity, we are only ranking the top 10 best and the bottom 10 worst. In this ranking, we also take into account what the person went through (their career before the presidency and their first campaigns) to get to the office, not just their deeds and decisions while serving in office.

1. George Washington

Portrait of President George Washington by Gilbert Stuart (1803) PHOTO: Wikimedia Commons

There is no question that George Washington is the nation’s most influential president. The entire presidency was ‘moulded around’ him: the framers of the Constitution had him in mind when they prescribed the powers of the presidency, and once he was sworn into office in 1789, he had to ‘fill in the gaps’, exercise his vaguely defined powers in practice, as he went along. All that at a time when the survival of the Republic was not evident.

In fact, he had to make tough decisions to make sure the United States would live past his time, such as staying neutral in the war between Great Britain and France despite the French aid during the American Revolution, or putting down the Whiskey Rebellion in response to the whiskey tax despite he himself leading a rebellion sparked by overtaxation in the past. Washington was very restrained in his execution of the presidential powers. The two-term limit originally was not a constitutional rule, it was a tradition set by him. In his farewell address, he advised against forming political parties, and he feared party interest may subvert national interest.

2. Abraham Lincoln

There has only been one other President who had to face the real possibility of the end of the Union as we know it: Abraham Lincoln.

The Election That Led to the American Civil War: The Election of 1860

He got into office from a party that took a firm anti-slavery stance from its foundation, the Republican Party. This, however, prompted 11 Southern slave states to secede from the Union. Lincoln had to mobilize millions in the North to put down the rebellion and to preserve the Union. While he had to engage in anti-democratic practices to do so, he eventually succeeded in April 1865, just a few weeks after being sworn in to his second term. As the Civil War was winding down, he worked tirelessly to get the 13th Amendment passed by Congress. While he did not live to see it, having been shot by an assassin on 15 April 1865, the amendment was passed and ratified by December 1865, officially outlawing slavery in every state in the nation.

3. Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt ascended to the presidency after the death of William McKinley, having served as the Vice President in his second term. He was just 42 at the time, which is still the youngest anyone has served in the office. He had to follow a highly influential president, who turned the United States into a player on the global stage for the first time—yet he still managed to upstage him.

When Theodore Roosevelt Met Count Albert Apponyi

President Roosevelt continued President McKinley’s imperialistic foreign policy, fighting to keep the Philippines, a territory gained by the US with the victory in the Spanish–American War. Roosevelt personally led troops in that war, serving as the field commander for the 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, colloquially known as ‘the Rough Riders’, in the Cuban campaign of the war.

However, he is even better remembered for his domestic policy. His ‘square deal’ platform is often described as ‘the three Cs’: conservation of natural resources, corporate law, and consumer protection. Out of the three, the latter two stand out. ‘Corporate law’ refers to his anti-trust executive action and new legislation, taking on such giants as John D Rockefeller’s Standard Oil; while ‘consumer protection’ mainly refers to the establishment of the Food and Drug Administration.

4. Ronald Reagan

US President Ronald Reagan PHOTO: Flickr.com/Creative Commons Licence

President Reagan oversaw the revival of the American economy: the decade-long struggle with inflation ended under his leadership. All this took place while he signed historic tax cuts into law. By the end of his second term, the Cold War foe Soviet Union was brought to its knees and was on the brink of collapse. What’s more, the American hostages at the American Embassy in Tehran, Iran, taken by young revolutionaries, were freed on the very day he was sworn in in 1981. The American people rewarded his great efforts with a historic, 49-state landslide in 1984.

5. Thomas Jefferson

Prior to the presidency, Jefferson was an instrumental figure in the American Revolution. He was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence.

As President, he oversaw the Louisiana Purchase from Napoleon’s France in 1803, nearly doubling the size of the country for just $15 million. In 1808 he banned the import of new slaves through the Transatlantic slave trade. While in office, he at times abandoned his anti-federalist values for the good of the country. For example, in 1802 he founded the elite military academy in West Point, despite having been against a standing federal army in the past. The 12th amendment, which modernized the presidential election process to its current form, was passed and ratified by Congress under his presidency as well.

6. Franklin D Roosevelt

The second President Roosevelt (the fifth cousin of Theodore Roosevelt) took office in the midst of the Great Depression. While economists like to debate whether his New Deal policies helped or hurt the economy, it is undeniable that he took a lot of action to help the American people with their plight; and some of them, such as the FDIC insurance on bank deposits up to $250,000, are in place and crucial to this day.

President Roosevelt also led the United States in World War II. His financial, then military support of the Allied Forces ultimately led to the defeat of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. However, he is also routinely criticized for the internment of Japanese Americans. The increased industrial production during World War II also brought an end to the Great Depression. There was another major historical event that ended under President Roosevelt, and for the better of the American people: prohibition. The prohibition on the sale of alcoholic products, which only prompted an increase in the power and wealth of organized crime groups, was ended by Congress in 1933, after 13 years.