Download Presidents list by era 2016 with questions

The Magnificent Seven
George Washington (1789-97)
John Adams (1797-1801)
Thomas Jefferson (1801-09)
James Madison (1809-17)
James Monroe (1817-25)
John Quincy Adams (1825-29)
Andrew Jackson (1829-37)
1. Who gets the power – the federal government or the
states?
We will leave that question open in the Constitution, so that
states will ratify it. (See: the 10th Amendment.) The Missouri
Compromise of 1819 allows new states to continue slavery; the
Nullification Crisis of 1832, when South Carolina threatens to
secede from the Union and is brought back in line, shows the
limits of state power.
2. What should we do about slavery?
We’re not touching this one: the nation is too new and fragile.
When we do touch it, it’s to kick the can down the road. (See:
Missouri Compromise.)
3. How should we act towards other nations?
Mostly Britain and France. Washington sets the tone: we’re
going to stay neutral and free of “foreign entanglements. The
Monroe Doctrine expands on this: foreign governments need to
stay out of the Americas, or face the consequences.
4. How should we expand?
The Northwest Territories, and then a little later, the Louisiana
Purchase, make this a big question. Washington says in his
Farewell Address that our destiny lies westward.
The Epic Fail Eight
Martin Van Buren (1837-41)
**William Henry Harrison (1841)
John Tyler (1841-45)
James K. Polk (1845-49)
**Zachary Taylor (1849-50)
Millard Fillmore (1850-53)
Franklin Pierce (1853-57)
James Buchanan (1857-61)
1. Who gets the power – the federal government or the
states?
The uneasy Missouri compromise holds until the KansasNebraska Act of 1854, which gives states the power to choose
whether they’ll have slavery or not. Things are getting tense.
The payoff for all that can-kicking is right around the corner.
2. What should we do about slavery and civil rights?
The Kansas-Nebraska Act adds steam to the abolition
movement: it’s seen as a sellout to slave owners, and leads to
the creation of the Republican Party, which opposes slavery.
Again, you can’t kick the same can forever. Don’t forget Native
Americans, though: way back when he was president, George
Washington proposed a plan to integrate them into American
society. They would have to become farmers instead of hunters,
though, and accept the loss of their lands. (See: “The Farewell,”
pp. 158-9.) Obviously, that idea didn’t go anywhere, and forced
relocation (the Trail of Tears) is the result.
3. How should we act towards other nations?
The Mexican-American War, which occurred after the U.S.
annexed the newly-independent Texas, is the big foreign policy
issue in this era.
4. How should we expand?
After we win the Mexican-American War, we end up buying a
big chunk of Western land (parts of Texas, plus California and
several other current states) from Mexico for $15 million. And
we keep adding states – slave and free – to the union. The belief
in “Manifest Destiny” – that we are destined to expand from
“sea to shining sea” – continues to grow, and Gold Rush of 1848
hastens that westward growth.
Lincoln and Only Lincoln
*Abraham Lincoln (1861-65)
1. Who gets the power – the federal government or the
states?
This is what the Civil War is all about.
2. What should we do about slavery?
This is the issue that drives the debate over Question #1.
3. How should we act towards other nations?
We have our own problems at home. (Although the Union
hopes Britain or France don’t enter the war on behalf of the
Confederacy.)
4. How should we expand?
Again, we’re a little too busy to worry about this right now.
The Reconstructors
***Andrew Johnson (1865-69)
Ulysses S. Grant (1869-77)
Rutherford B. Hayes (1877-1881)
*James Garfield (1881)
Chester Arthur (1881-85)
Grover Cleveland (1885-89)
Benjamin Harrison (1889-93)
Grover Cleveland (1893-97)
*William McKinley (1897-1901)
Theodore Roosevelt (1901-09)
William Howard Taft (1909-13)
1. Who gets the power – the federal government or the
states?
The federal government has the power in the early going – and
it uses it to punish the Southern states. In fact, Andrew Johnson
gets impeached (by the House of Representatives) because he’s
not punishing them enough, as radical Reconstructors would
like. But there is Southern backlash – and by the end of this era,
the states have won back a measure of control.
2. What should we do about civil rights?
Slaves are free. And for a while, black Americans in the South
not only enjoy voting rights, but several are elected to Congress.
However, sharecropping eventually takes the place of slavery,
and many former slaves end up no better off than they were
before the Civil War. And the KKK rises up to protest
Reconstruction, terrorizing black citizens. The landmark
Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson upholds states’ rights to
have “separate but equal” facilities for whites and blacks.
Meanwhile, conflicts with Native Americans end in some
famous victories for the latter (Custer’s defeat at Little Big
Horn), but by the end of this era, Native Americans are largely
living on reservations.
3. How should we act towards other nations?
Post-Civil War, the U.S. largely stays quiet in the field of foreign
relations. We mostly try to get our own house back in order and
grow into the global superpower Washington predicted we
could be. We prove it in the Spanish-American War, which lasts
just two months in 1898, but gives us more territories (Puerto
Rico, the Philippines) and a reputation as a country to be
reckoned with.
4. How should we expand?
By 1853, we already had just about all the territory of the
current United States. Now we have to travel it and settle it.
Enter the railroads, which become the country’s biggest
employer during this era, and lead to the development of
several major western cities. Also, immigration reaches its peak:
in 1907, almost 1.3 million immigrants come to America.
The World Warriors
Woodrow Wilson (1913-21)
**Warren Harding (1921-23)
Calvin Coolidge (1923-29)
Herbert Hoover (1929-33)
**Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-45)
1. Who gets the power – the federal government or the
states?
The federal government gets steadily more power during this
era. The 17th Amendment takes away the right of state
legislatures to elect U.S. Senators. The federal government
imposes the income tax in 1913. The stock market crash leads to
greater dependence on the federal government, and FDR takes
unprecedented steps to try to alleviate the Great Depression and
win World War II. He is the longest-serving president, and no
president has ever had more federal power.
2. What should we do about civil rights?
This issue continues to simmer, but is largely set aside
nationally because we are involved in two World Wars, in which
black and white soldiers fight (largely) side by side.
3. How should we act towards other nations?
We don’t want to get involved in World War I; it only happens
at the very end of the war. And it takes the Japanese attack on
Pearl Harbor to get us involved in World War II. We mind our
own business until events dictate otherwise. Obviously, Britain
and France have become friends; Germany and Japan have
become enemies.
4. How should we expand?
Little changes regarding our physical borders. But we begin
controlling immigration. And the aftermath of two World Wars
fought mostly in Europe means we are one of two superpowers
left standing when WWII is done.
The Cold Warriors
Harry S Truman (1945-53)
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-61)
*John F. Kennedy (1961-63)
Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-69)
Richard Nixon (1969-74)
Gerald Ford (1974-77)
James Carter (1977-81)
Ronald Reagan (1981-89)
1. Who gets the power – the federal government or the
states?
The federal government has grown, and continues to exercise
considerably more power, but there is backlash in Southern
states over the issue of civil rights. Again, states want to handle
the issue themselves, but the Supreme Court decision is Brown
v. Board of Education ends legal segregation. It takes U.S. Army
troops to ensure that Central High School in Little Rock,
Arkansas, is desegregated. But nothing expands federal
government power more than Lyndon Johnson’s “Great
Society,” which attempts to end poverty through myriad new
government programs like Medicare, Medicaid and welfare.
2. What should we do about civil rights?
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ends discrimination based on race,
color, religion, sex, and national origin by federal and state
governments. However, the civil rights movement – led by Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. – attempts to be sure those promises
are kept. The policy of affirmative action becomes an accepted
part of the landscape during this period. Civil rights for other
minorities become an increasing issue from the 1960s onward.
3. How should we act towards other nations?
The big issue is containment. We are fighting a “cold war” with
the communist U.S.S.R., and want – with our allies -- to stop
the spread of communism. This leads us into conflicts in Korea
and Vietnam, and to an arms race that eventually helps sink the
Soviet Union. We also see our shaky alliances in the Middle
East start to cause problems: the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979
is one example, when the people of Iran depose the unpopular
Shah (a friend of the U.S.) and turn to the Ayatollah Khomeni.
4. How should we expand?
See “containment.” Although we accept Alaska and Hawaii as
the 49th and 50th states in 1959, the big expansion issue here is
no longer physical: it is, instead, American values (freedom,
democracy). How do we expand them throughout the world? Or
should we?
The New World Orderers
George H.W. Bush (1989-93)
***William J. Clinton (1993-2001)
George W. Bush (2001-09)
Barack Obama (2009- 17)
1. Who gets the power – the federal government or the
states?
By this point, the federal government is huge and omnipotent –
especially after 9/11, and the expansion of safety-related
measures like the Patriot Act. Other decisions that gave more
power to the federal government: the landmark Supreme Court
decision in Obergefell v. Hodges made same-sex marriage legal
in all 50 states. And Obamacare required states to set up
insurance exchanges to offer health care to citizens.
2. What should we do about civil rights?
While civil rights for African-Americans remain a big part of the
discussion, especially post-Ferguson and Black Lives Matter,
rights for other minority groups are a major part of the
discussion. America elects its first black president, and
contemplates its first female president.
3. How should we act towards other nations?
Our allies remain our allies, but wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
have complicated the issue, as has the spread of Islamic
terrorism and the rise of Russia. The “New World Order” is one
where America’s proper place in the world is debated more than
ever before.
4. How should we expand?
Not only do we have the question of how, or whether, we should
try to expand American values abroad – immigration has come
under renewed scrutiny, especially as the Mexican border
continues to be a source of illegal immigrants, and as refugees
from Islamic countries seek to enter the U.S.
*Assassinated in office!
** Died in office!
*** Impeached by the House of Representatives; acquitted by the Senate!