On This Presidents’ Day, Let’s Remember Most of Them Were Terrible

T he United States might be “A City upon a Hill,” but, for the most part, the ‘mayors’ of that city have been awful. And now that we’ve settled the constitutional question of post-term impeachments, we might begin contemplating the idea of posthumous ones.

Okay, okay — let’s draw the line at actually impeaching the dead, lest the Left get any ideas. But here are some impeachments that should have happened, as a useful Presidents’ Day reminder that most presidents have actually been terrible.

The United States, after all, has been plagued by chief executives, somewhere around half in my estimation, who were either dangerously incompetent, hopelessly authoritarian, or just plain corrupt — and sometimes all three. Let’s skip the living, including Barack Obama and George Bush — both of whom might be deserving of trials — and the late Richard Nixon, who removed himself before the inevitable. Even the remaining presidents who are consistently given the highest marks by historians in the 20th century have betrayed their oaths of office.

Take these three, and the articles of impeachment that should have been brought against them:

Lyndon Johnson

ARTICLE I:

In his conduct while president of the United States, Lyndon Baines Johnson violated his constitutional oath by willfully corrupting and manipulating the election process and abusing his power for personal gain by colluding with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to conduct illegal surveillance against his opponent in the 1964 presidential election, Senator Barry Goldwater. The CIA provided the president with advance knowledge of Goldwater’s travel schedule and advance copies of Goldwater’s remarks and speeches, which is, pardon the cliché, worse than Watergate.

ARTICLE II:

In his conduct while president of the United States, Lyndon Baines Johnson violated his constitutional oath by lying to the American people and Congress regarding the Gulf of Tonkin incident, then: (1) misleading Congress to use the incident as a pretext to gain full commitment of United States Armed Forces to the conflict in Vietnam, which cost tens of thousands of American lives; and (2) using the incident to gain that full commitment without a formal declaration of war, undermining the checks and balances explicitly laid out in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. He later bragged behind closed doors that the Tonkin Resolution “was like Grandma’s nightshirt. It covers everything.”

Franklin Roosevelt

ARTICLE I:

In his conduct while president of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in violation of his constitutional oath, planned the demolition of the judicial system through a Court-packing scheme that was, as fellow Democrats in Congress deemed it, an “utterly dangerous abandonment of constitutional principles,” a transparent scheme to punish justices whose opinions diverged from those of the executive branch, and “an invasion of judicial power such as has never before been attempted in this country.” Rather than preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, the president planned to destroy one of its branches, warranting his removal from office and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.

ARTICLE II:

In his conduct while president of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt violated his constitutional oath when signing Executive Order 9066, which created domestic military zones in California, Washington, and Oregon, and unilaterally depriving Japanese Americans, on the basis of their race, of due process and individual liberties explicitly guaranteed by the Constitution. The 1980 Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians investigated claims of potential widespread Japanese sedition used to rationalize collective punishment and incarceration and determined they were largely unfounded.

Woodrow Wilson

ARTICLE I:

In his conduct while president of the United States, Woodrow Wilson violated his constitutional oath by rolling back hard-fought gains in equality for black Americans and by re-segregating the entire federal civil service of the United States in 1913. By doing so, Wilson targeted black citizens, resulting in sharp income reductions and, worse, normalized racism within the highest ranks of government. It was a blatant attack on the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection. By doing so, Wilson undermined the integrity of his office, betrayed his trust as president, and subverted the rule of law and justice.

ARTICLE II:

In his conduct while president of the United States, Woodrow Wilson violated his constitutional oath of office by instituting widespread suppression of the free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment of the Constitution: (1) After being reelected on the promise that the nation would avoid the European war, Wilson changed his mind and launched the Committee on Public Information to spread lies and foster fear of German Americans. (2) Wilson argued that those who opposed his effort to enter the war “must be crushed out” and that disloyal individuals had “sacrificed their right to civil liberties.” He pressured Congress to pass the Espionage Act of 1917, then abused the law — ostensibly passed to root out foreign enemies — to engage in unconstitutional domestic suppression of free speech, including empowering the United States Postal Service to monitor the mail and revoke postage for periodicals questioning America’s military involvement in World War I. (3) After signing the Sedition Act of 1918, which criminalized any “disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language” regarding the U.S. government or military, Wilson abused his power to launch thousands of investigations and prosecutions of peaceful law-abiding Americans and political foes, imprisoning many, including socialist Eugene Debs, for speech crimes. (One of our greatest presidents, Warren G. Harding, would release those jailed, including Debs.)

Indeed, let’s remember, on this Presidents’ Day, that presidents who kept their constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office to the best of their ability, and preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, are quite rare.