# First President to leave nation worse off? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 6, 2003, 9:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357 "2003-12-06T09:28:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357/41 "2003-12-07T00:26:14Z")
Did I say it was an endorsement? I’m simply saying that it’s not unprecedented. It’s slightly different in this case, but I’m not gonna quibble over the details. It’s close enough. ---
**Author:** ![myles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/779978/32.png) [@myles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/myles)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357/42 "2003-12-07T00:29:05Z")
It’s important to remember that the question poses a morality question phrased in utilitarian terms, that is, an action is right if it results in net happiness for a great number of people, therefore, any questions as to whether a president violated any laws or principles or codes is completely irrelevant, so long as most people, his or her constituency, do not suffer. Also, remember that questions of causation are not part of the original question. Leaving a nation worse off does not mean that a president is directly the cause of the massive problems, it only means that he is unfortunate not guilty. ---
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357/43 "2003-12-07T00:52:09Z")
**Airman** , I knew about Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus when I agreed about the enemy combatant thing. What makes it insidious is precisely that it goes mostly unremarked, meaning that, unlike Lincoln, this one could easily continue and fester basically forever, especially since it won’t affect most people. God help the ones who get caught in its net, though. Their situation will basically be hopeless. ---
**Author:** ![\_possum\_stalker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/_/b77776/32.png) [@\_possum\_stalker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/_possum_stalker)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357/44 "2003-12-07T01:01:52Z")
I am well aware that Lincoln suspended Habeus Corpus. He was acting entirely within his powers under the Constitution, to wit: > [@](#): > > "The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it. " Lincoln suspended Habeus Corpus temporarily because the nation was convulsed by rebellion and pro-Southern “copperhead” riots; almost half the counrty’s territory was in the hands of a hostile power. Is the “War on Terror” really an “invasion” or “rebellion”? Do you really believe this is a good justification for apparently endless martial law? Bush has permenently reclassified Americans as “enemy combatants,” thus revoking all of their rights as citizens. Jose Padilla is _not_ scheduled to get due process when the war ends, as were those imprisoned during the Civil War. Also, Lincoln imprisoned mostly rioters, bounty jumpers, and pro-Southern agitators. In other words, people actually had to _do something_ in order to get locked up. Now look at the Padilla case: > [@](#): > > The only public evidence offered against Padilla is an unclassified, six-page declaration by Pentagon official Michael Mobbs, who stated that multiple intelligence sources confirmed Padilla’s involvement in planning “future terrorist attacks,” such as exploding a radioactive “dirty bomb” or bombing U.S. hotels, gas stations or train stations. From [CNN](http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/10/30/padilla.detention/) A man has been permenently stripped of his rights on secret evidence that suggests he _planned to commit a crime_. And the Bush admin says all it needs to remove his rights is a short note from Defence Undersecretary Mobbs. No hearing, no judge. Not even a secret hearing, or a secret judge. Just a note from some Pentagon hack. So the executive branch can now condemn people using secret evidence. No appeal. No lawyer. Much different from Licoln’s temporary suspesion of habeus corpus. I don’t see how this is different from an executive version of the unconstitutional “writ of attainder.” For God’s sake, even [Viet Dinh](http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/printer_120103E.shtml), the law prof. who wrote the Patriot Act, says the admin’s interpretation of the law is “unsustainable.” Or as another lawyer put it: > [@](#): > > “There has to be some form of judicial review and access to a lawyer,” said Heymann, a deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration. “That is what habeas corpus was all about. That is what the Magna Carta was all about. You are talking about overthrowing 800 years of democratic tradition.” ---
**Author:** ![\_possum\_stalker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/_/b77776/32.png) [@\_possum\_stalker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/_possum_stalker)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357/45 "2003-12-07T01:11:58Z")
And any president who overthrows 800 years of democratic tradition is leaving the nation worse off. 🙂 I missed the Taney decision you mention, **Elvis**. Maybe the preview function would be a good use of Hamster Juice every once in a while. ---
**Author:** ![inkysplotchy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/2bfe46/32.png) [@inkysplotchy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/inkysplotchy)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357/46 "2003-12-07T07:11:42Z")
Why is Woodrow Wilson let off the hook for his police state actions during the first Red Scare? ---
**Author:** ![\_possum\_stalker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/_/b77776/32.png) [@\_possum\_stalker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/_possum_stalker)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357/47 "2003-12-07T16:03:59Z")
Wilson was a piker. The Red Scare was mostly a round-up and mass deportation of that decade’s Suspect Race of Foreigners, spiced up with some violent attacks on labor. Bush has deported more people, and had idiotic mass registrations of Middle Eastern men to boot. All in addition to his other hijinx I mentioned above. > [@](#): > > Strikes by the Boston police, steel workers, and miners were categorized as part of the “Red Menace” and led to Attorney General Palmer using the Labor Department’s right to deport dangerous foreigners, sending Russians on the “Soviet Ark” back to the Soviet Union, after he had executed his famous Palmer Raids. (He rounded up over 4,000 foreigners.) -[from here](http://www.chatham.edu/PTI/Twenties/Frank_01.htm). Another possibility: maybe Hillary meant the [record 2003 deficit](http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/000776.html): $374 billion, or 3.5% of the GDP. Reagan had a higher deficit GDP percentage (6%!), but this is not a good area in which to emulate the Gipper. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357/48 "2003-12-07T16:24:09Z")
What makes people think Bush will be leaving in 2004? He may still have another 4 years in office. Still, since Bush came to office during the greatest economic boom in history, it will be hard for him to leave office with the country “better off” even under the best of circumstances. ---
**Author:** ![\_possum\_stalker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/_/b77776/32.png) [@\_possum\_stalker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/_possum_stalker)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357/49 "2003-12-07T17:07:54Z")
> [@](#): > > What makes people think Bush will be leaving in 2004? The fact that he ran as Reagan Lite, but governs like Franco. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357/50 "2003-12-07T17:19:50Z")
Hillary may have been referring to unemployment. I was watching some news show a couple of days ago that claimed that GWB’s would be the first administration in history would suffer a net loss in jobs. ---
**Author:** ![\_possum\_stalker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/_/b77776/32.png) [@\_possum\_stalker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/_possum_stalker)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357/51 "2003-12-07T17:37:20Z")
What about Hoover? ---
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357/52 "2003-12-07T19:23:25Z")
Yep, that would be since Hoover, a line I’ve used and that **Sam Stone** referenced above. There’s still a chance he could avoid that title, but it dims with every passing month. ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357/53 "2003-12-07T20:34:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by inkysplotchy \* > \*\*Why is Woodrow Wilson let off the hook for his police state actions during the first Red Scare? \*\* Wilson was incapacitated by a stroke in September 1919, and his wife and advisers were too busy hiding his condition from the public to rein in Palmer and his henchman, J. Edgar Hoover from their totalitarian tactics. Harding was an incompetent boob who was oblivious to the avarice of his cronies in the cabinet, but his lack of ability did not harm the country overall. Buchanan was another bad president, but he can’t fairly be blamed for failing to ward off the Civil War; sectionalism and the slavery question made it inevitable. My candidate is Grover Cleveland, whose inept fiscal policy (mainly concerned with keeping the gold standard) helped deepen the effects of the devastating depression of 1893 and and who further established the precedent for suppression of rights by the government by sending federal troops to break the Pullman railroad strike in Illinois in 1894. ---
**Author:** ![Governor\_Quinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d26b3c/32.png) [@Governor\_Quinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Governor_Quinn)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357/54 "2003-12-07T22:29:52Z")
A full answer: Andrew Jackson singlehandedly ruined the economy in the 1830’s through his economic actions (namely, abolishing the National Bank and giving its’ funds to banks run by his supporters). ---
**Author:** ![\_possum\_stalker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/_/b77776/32.png) [@\_possum\_stalker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/_possum_stalker)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357/55 "2003-12-07T23:24:23Z")
Still, neither of Jackson nor Cleveland defecated copiously on the Constitution, as GWB has. Unless the Seminole Indians that Jackson sent down the Trail of Tears had citizenship. If that’s the case, I think Jackson will have officially trumped GWB. “Oll Korrect” my ass. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2003, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357/56 "2003-12-08T02:08:15Z")
It should be noted, for the record, that Cleveland took the extraordinary action of actually opposing the annexation of Hawaii during his term, something that would be simply unimaginable if anything similar happened during Dubya’s term, and he did it in terms that were clear and unmistakeable: > [@](#): > > And so it happened that on the 16th day of January, 1893, between four and five o’clock in the afternoon, a detachment of marines from the United States Steamer Boston, with two pieces of artillery, landed at Honolulu. The men, upwards of 160 in all, were supplied with double cartridge belts filled with ammunition and with haversacks and canteens, and were accompanied by a hospital corps with stretchers and medical supplies. This military demonstration upon the soil of Honolulu was of itself an act of war, unless made either with the consent of the Government of Hawaii or for the bona fide purpose of protecting the imperilled lives and property of citizens of the United States. But there is no pretense of any such consent on the part of the Government of the Queen, which at that time was undisputed and was both the de facto and the de jure government. In point of fact the existing government instead of requesting the presence of an armed force protested against it. There is as little basis for the pretense that such forces were landed for the security of American life and property. If so, they would have been stationed in the vicinity of such property and so as to protect it, instead of at a distance and so as to command the Hawaiian Government building and palace. Admiral Skerrett, the officer in command of our naval force on the Pacific station, has frankly stated that in his opinion the location of the troops was inadvisable if they were landed for the protection of American citizens whose residences and places of business, as well as the legation and consulate, were in a distant part of the city, but the location selected was a wise one if the forces were landed for the purpose of supporting the provisional government… > I believe that a candid and thorough examination of the facts will force the conviction that the provisional government owes its existence to an armed invasion by the United States… > While naturally sympathizing with every effort to establish a republican form of government, it has been the settled policy of the United States to concede to people of foreign countries the same freedom and independence in the management of their domestic affairs that we have always claimed for ourselves… Anyone who can imagine that last line coming out of the present occupant of the White House is smoking some powerful ganja. Dubya, certainly Reagan, possibly Nixon, LBJ or even Ike, on the other hand, could be counted on to wave the flag and yell “Support our troops!” or some other such nonsense. Link: [http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/D/1876-1900/foreignpolicy/hawaii.htm](http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/D/1876-1900/foreignpolicy/hawaii.htm) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357.md?page=2)