The Presidents: #38a, b, and c

#38a: Millard Fillmore
Term: July 9, 1850 - March 4, 1853
Grade: F


#38b: Franklin Pierce
Term: March 4, 1853 - March 4, 1857
Grade: F


#38c: James Buchanan
Term: March 4, 1857 - March 4, 1861
Grade: F

These Presidents deserve are all so very equally bad, they deserve to be recorded as a trio. They presided over one of our nations worst decades, a decade in which the unanswered question of slavery festered and grew until it split the country and plunged us into war. None of them seemed able to comprehend the major changes which were taking place as the country moved forward in its move westward and its industrialization. Although it is unlikely that anything could have been done to avoid the horrible war of the next decade, their actions certainly made it more inevitable. Whether openly antagonizing the north, such as Pierce, or trying to come to a compromise every party hated, such as Buchanan, these Presidents just did not succeed.

Fillmore helped divide the Whig party and divide the Wilmot Proviso, while doing nothing to answer the tough questions put forth on the issue of slavery. After the defeat of Winfield Scott by Pierce in 1852, the Whig party ceased to be an effective political party, paving the way for the rise of the Republican Party.

Pierce's term wasn't any better, as Bleeding Kansas erupted during this time. A southern sympathizer, he didn't do anything to stop the spread of slavery, favoring the repeal of the Missouri Compromise for the idea of "popular soveriegnity", which further angered northern citizens without pacifying the southerners. Like Fillmore, he was so unpopular the Democrats didn't bother nominating him for 1856, instead choosing James Buchanan.

During Buchanan's administration the bottom fell out. The Dred Scott decision and John Brown's raid further divided the country, while Buchanan did nothing to solve the issue. His bungling almost started a small war against the Utah mormons, although he didn't make the situation of the Pig War any worse. Like his two predecessors he was not chosen to run in 1860, as the Democratic party split in two between northern candidate Stephen A. Douglas and southern candidate John C. Breckenridge. His biggest failure was to do nothing as South Carolina and six other southern states left during the lame duck period before Abraham Lincoln took office. Believing secession illegal, but doing anything about it to also be illegal, he acheived the goal of pleasing nobody while trying to please everybody.

While not rising to the levels of absolute sinister incompetence of George W. Bush, or the disgusting malfeasance of Richard Nixon, these Presidents deserve a grade as bad as our bottom dwellers. They did nothing to slow down, and in many cases acclerated our nations greatest crisis. For this they deserve to be in the "F" club.