From the WSJ Opinion Archives
PRESIDENTIAL LEADERSHIP

The Rankings

Monday, September 12, 2005 12:01 A.M. EDT

In February and March 2005, the Federalist Society and The Wall Street Journal asked an ideologically balanced group of 130 prominent professors of history, law, political science and economics to rate the presidents on a 5-point scale, with 5 meaning highly superior and 1 meaning well below average. Eighty-five scholars responded, and the presidents are ranked in order of mean score, adjusted to give equal weight to Democratic- and Republican-leaning respondents.

RANK NAME MEAN
GREAT
1 George Washington 4.94
2 Abraham Lincoln 4.67
3 Franklin Roosevelt 4.41
NEAR GREAT
4 Thomas Jefferson 4.23
5 Theodore Roosevelt 4.08
6 Ronald Reagan 4.03
7 Harry Truman 3.95
8 Dwight Eisenhower 3.67
9 James Polk 3.59
10 Andrew Jackson 3.58
ABOVE AVERAGE
11 Woodrow Wilson 3.41
12 Grover Cleveland 3.34
13 John Adams 3.33
14 William McKinley 3.32
15 John Kennedy 3.25
16 James Monroe 3.24
AVERAGE
17 James Madison 3.07
18 Lyndon Johnson 3.05
19 George W. Bush 3.01
20 William Taft 2.97
21 George H.W. Bush 2.95
22 Bill Clinton 2.93
23 Calvin Coolidge 2.77
24 Rutherford Hayes 2.73
BELOW AVERAGE
25 John Quincy Adams 2.66
26 Chester Arthur 2.65
27 Martin Van Buren 2.63
28 Gerald Ford 2.61
29 Ulysses Grant 2.57
30 Benjamin Harrison 2.54
31 Herbert Hoover 2.50
32 Richard Nixon 2.40
33 Zachary Taylor 2.30
34 Jimmy Carter 2.24
35 John Tyler 2.23
FAILURE
36 Millard Fillmore 1.85
37 Andrew Johnson 1.75
38 Franklin Pierce 1.73
39 Warren Harding 1.65
40 James Buchanan 1.31

Note: Because of the short duration of their tenures, William Henry Harrison and James Garfield were excluded from the rankings.

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