Lincoln and his generals employed tactics that would have gotten them executed as war criminals if they had lost. Sherman's March to the Sea was a cowardly attack on civilians, featuring rape, murder, arson and looting, all with Lincoln's approval. I want to vomit every time I drive by his memorial.
Look up the history of the POW camp in Chicago. After the war the federals executed Major Henry Wirz, the commandant of Andersonville, for doing exactly what the federals did in Chicago. At least in the south Wirz had some excuse. The Confederacy couldn't feed it's own soldiers and populace let alone POW's. The north could and chose to starve confederate POW's anyway. Maybe just pull over and piss on it, real quick like.
I have to go with FDR. legal protection for unions, wealth tax, SS, anti - free market regulation.. all started by FDR. A socialist who paved the way for unchecked federal authority. without him, we may have never heard of barry.
Lincoln did create a new country. A new country not much better and in many ways a lot worse than the previous entity, except for the one thing, slavery. I put Buchanan as one of the worst presidents, others say Lincoln. But neither of these men would have been in the position to create the damage had not the founding fathers actually implemented the noble idea of the Declaration of Independence; that all men are created equal. A society cannot have equal men born as slaves. Slavery may have ended eventually based on it's inherant inefficiency, but when? In 1870. 1890, 1950? The Civil War was a bloody catastrophe and probably inevitable. If Washington and Jefferson could not or would not abate the problem, and they were truly great, wise men, who could? As for Sherman, my grandmother was born close enough to the Civil War to have actual hatred towad Sherman. The effects of his actions were felt for a century. He also ended the war. Many lives were saved because of that. War is not beanbag. If people are to engage in war, and sometimes war is ievitable, the kindest act is to end it quickly and decisively.
1. In his first term as President, Wilson persuaded a Democratic Congress to pass a legislative agenda that few presidents have equaled, remaining unmatched up until the New Deal in 1933.[2] This agenda included the Federal Reserve Act, Federal Trade Commission Act, the Clayton Antitrust Act, the Federal Farm Loan Act and an income tax. Child labor was curtailed by the KeatingâOwen Act of 1916, but the U.S. Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in 1918. Wilson also had Congress pass the Adamson Act, which imposed an 8-hour workday for railroads.[3] Although considered a modern liberal visionary giant as President, Wilson was "deeply racist in his thoughts and politics" and his administration racially segregated federal employees and the Navy.[4][5] 2. Obama is still a work in progress. (which is the scary part)
yeah, a crash after the economy just went through the "roaring 20's" couldn't have recovered without FDR, ok. like a good <s>liberal</s> socialist, he didn't let the 'crisis' go to waste.