# Who is the most important person to live in US history?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-important-person-to-live-in-us-history/640947
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [November 14, 2012, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-important-person-to-live-in-us-history/640947 "2012-11-14T03:14:20Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Oedipus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oedipus)
#### Post date: [November 14, 2012, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-important-person-to-live-in-us-history/640947/1 "2012-11-14T03:14:20Z")
To avoid “Hitler” answers, I’ll clarify:
“Please describe the person who you feel has contributed the most to our country, and why you chose that person.”
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### Author:  [@Fatalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fatalis)
#### Post date: [November 14, 2012, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-important-person-to-live-in-us-history/640947/2 "2012-11-14T03:24:46Z")
George Washington Carver; the peanut was a disgracefully overlooked legume prior to his ingenuity.
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### Author:  [@Scholar\_Beardpig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scholar_Beardpig)
#### Post date: [November 14, 2012, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-important-person-to-live-in-us-history/640947/3 "2012-11-14T03:30:43Z")
George Washington, obviously. How many other Americans have done [\*\*\*this?](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/Apotheosis_of_George_Washington.jpg)\*\*\* No, but in all seriousness - George Washington is awesome. Not only did he do the lion’s share of winning the war, but he laid down the principles of presidential government instead of making himself a king, as he could have done. His farewell address alone - to say nothing of getting in position to say it - should mark him for this decision.
Close runner-ups include Lincoln, FDR, and MLK. I put Washington as the best president, though, since while the other two handled their presidencies well in interesting times, I think that Lincoln and FDR primarily did the right thing at the right time - neither of them did anything with real virtuosity. (Though I personally would put FDR above Lincoln, but still not about Washington.) To express myself more clearly, I don’t think that FDR did drastically better in his tenure as president than some of his competitors would have done, and same with Lincoln - both of them had other qualified men to take their places should something have happened to them. What Washington did, only Washington could have done.
As for MLK, I think that he receives too much hagiography. The Civil Rights movement was the product of long labors by lots and lots of people, and to just chalk it up as ‘MLK’s thing’ I think does both the man and the movement a disservice.
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### Author:  [@Oedipus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oedipus)
#### Post date: [November 14, 2012, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-important-person-to-live-in-us-history/640947/4 "2012-11-14T03:34:52Z")
I also wanna throw in my man Thomas Jefferson. While he did bang a slave, he was probably the most brilliant President we had. He was a leading Enlightenment thinker, a main person behind the Constitution, Governor, Secretary of State, President, a man who spoke five languages…
And for christssake, he wrote the Declaration of Independence.
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### Author:  [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)
#### Post date: [November 14, 2012, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-important-person-to-live-in-us-history/640947/5 "2012-11-14T03:35:50Z")
I think the name people might still remember a thousand years from now (even if an entity known as the United States no longer exists) is Neil Armstrong.
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### Author:  [@Swords\_to\_Plowshares](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swords_to_Plowshares)
#### Post date: [November 14, 2012, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-important-person-to-live-in-us-history/640947/6 "2012-11-14T04:36:20Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#):
>
> I think the name people might still remember a thousand years from now (even if an entity known as the United States no longer exists) is Neil Armstrong.
Just to make Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins feel worse?
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### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [November 14, 2012, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-important-person-to-live-in-us-history/640947/7 "2012-11-14T04:37:14Z")
> [@Oedipus](#):
>
> I also wanna throw in my man Thomas Jefferson. While he did bang a slave, he was probably the most brilliant President we had. He was a leading Enlightenment thinker, a main person behind the Constitution, Governor, Secretary of State, President, a man who spoke five languages…
>
> And for christssake, he wrote the Declaration of Independence.
This. He’d get my vote even if he’d done nothing but write the Declaration of Independence.
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### Author:  [@CutterJohn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CutterJohn)
#### Post date: [November 14, 2012, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-important-person-to-live-in-us-history/640947/8 "2012-11-14T04:43:22Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#):
>
> I think the name people might still remember a thousand years from now (even if an entity known as the United States no longer exists) is Neil Armstrong.
With a slightly different roll of fates dice, you might be saying Eugene Cernan, or Tom Stafford, or Pete Conrad, or David Scott, or John Young, or Jim Lovell, etc, etc, and Neil would just be one of the 20 or 30 forgotten Apollo astronauts who weren’t the first to do something.
Neil is a cool guy, don’t get me wrong, but he was really just in the right place at the right time. There were 12 other people who walked on the moon, who were all as competent and driven as Neil.
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### Author:  [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)
#### Post date: [November 14, 2012, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-important-person-to-live-in-us-history/640947/9 "2012-11-14T05:00:39Z")
> [@Oedipus](#):
>
> I also wanna throw in my man Thomas Jefferson. . . .
Theodore Roosevelt wrote quite harshly of him, for refusing to enlarge the very small U.S. Navy during his (Jefferson’s) administration. The U.S. won the Naval phase of the War of 1812, but it was a close-won thing, and could easily have gone wrong.
That said, Jefferson put down the Tripolitan pirates and bought about 1/3 of the country from Napoleon, two of the best things in our country’s foreign policy…ever.
Still, his vision of the future was grievously flawed, and, like Andrew Jackson, he did a lot of harm trying to steer the country into the past.
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### Author:  [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)
#### Post date: [November 14, 2012, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-important-person-to-live-in-us-history/640947/10 "2012-11-14T05:25:35Z")
Almost three years ago, **Elendil’s Heir** led a [Greatest American elimination game](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=551562) thread in the Game Room. Although I’m sure there will be cause for much quibbling, the final top 20 selections were:
1. Benjamin Franklin: Scientist, statesman, inventor
2. Abraham Lincoln: President, emancipator, writer
3. Theodore Roosevelt: President, conservationist, statesman
4. Martin Luther King Jr.: Preacher, orator, humanitarian
5. Susan B. Anthony: Suffrage activist
6. George Washington: President, general, statesman
7. Franklin D. Roosevelt: President, reformer, statesman
8. Frederick Douglass: Abolitionist, orator
9. Thomas Edison: Inventor, workaholic
10. Orville and Wilbur Wright: Aviation pioneers, inventors
11. James Madison: President, Framer, statesman
12. John Marshall: Fourth Chief Justice
13. Earl Warren: Chief Justice, governor
14. Roger Williams: Statesman, religious leader
15. Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens): Humorist, “Huckleberry Finn”
16. George Marshall: General, diplomat, statesman
17. Thomas Paine: Political theorist, pamphleteer
18. Harriet Tubman: Civil rights advocate
19. Dwight D. Eisenhower: President, war hero
20. Jackie Robinson: Athlete, activist, inspiration
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [November 14, 2012, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-important-person-to-live-in-us-history/640947/11 "2012-11-14T08:00:59Z")
I just want to point out that while Jefferson did a lot for America, he was hardly a major figure in creating the Constitution. He wasn’t even living in the United States when it was written (he was serving as Ambassador to France). Some of Jefferson’s ideas were used in the Constitution but Jefferson would have been the first to admit he didn’t invent those ideas.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [November 14, 2012, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-important-person-to-live-in-us-history/640947/12 "2012-11-14T08:03:55Z")
If I had to pick one individual, I’d go with Washington. It’s a cliche that he was the “Father of Our Country” but things usually become cliches by being true.
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### Author:  [@Oedipus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oedipus)
#### Post date: [November 14, 2012, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-important-person-to-live-in-us-history/640947/13 "2012-11-14T14:25:40Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> I just want to point out that while Jefferson did a lot for America, he was hardly a major figure in creating the Constitution. He wasn’t even living in the United States when it was written (he was serving as Ambassador to France). Some of Jefferson’s ideas were used in the Constitution but Jefferson would have been the first to admit he didn’t invent those ideas.
As I understand it though, he was a huge part in the Federlist/Anti-Federalist debate. These arguments were over what the Constitution would contain and what type of nation we would have.
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### Author:  [@solosam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solosam)
#### Post date: [November 14, 2012, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-important-person-to-live-in-us-history/640947/14 "2012-11-14T14:52:50Z")
I’m gonna go with Lincoln. Not only freed the slaves, but saved America from a schism that had been boiling for decades. He had many political opponents who were not as devoted to preserving the Union as he was, and had Lincoln not been elected or re-elected the history of the secession could have gone differently.
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### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [November 14, 2012, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-important-person-to-live-in-us-history/640947/15 "2012-11-14T14:59:24Z")
Me. If not for my existence, as far as I can tell none of this would have happened.
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### Author:  [@Dr.Colossus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Colossus)
#### Post date: [November 14, 2012, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-important-person-to-live-in-us-history/640947/16 "2012-11-14T15:02:44Z")
what about JFK, by virtue of not avoiding nuclear Holocaust? i agree about the others who DID things, and why, but if we were nuked out of existence America and its history would cease to matter.
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### Author:  [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)
#### Post date: [November 14, 2012, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-important-person-to-live-in-us-history/640947/17 "2012-11-14T15:03:19Z")
Another vote for Washington.
I wonder what he would think if we could bring him back to life today.
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### Author:  [@Oedipus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oedipus)
#### Post date: [November 14, 2012, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-important-person-to-live-in-us-history/640947/18 "2012-11-14T15:28:04Z")
The crappy thing is that the more you study history, the more dirt you hear about these amazing people.
While I’ve heard about JFK banging everyone, Jefferson banging Sally Hemmings, Franklin being a huge playboy, and Lincoln not really caring a TON about slaves, I haven’t heard nearly as much dirt on Teddy Roosevelt.
Anyone got something good on Teddy?
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### Author:  [@al27052](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/al27052)
#### Post date: [November 14, 2012, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-important-person-to-live-in-us-history/640947/19 "2012-11-14T15:35:32Z")
How do Steve Jobs and Bill Gates not fit in this equation? They are the most responsible for America’s tech dominance over the last 30 years. Without that dominance, we’d be in much worse shape, economically. To put it bluntly, we’d be fucked.
If you don’t want to laud them, then how about some of the pioneers at Bell Labs, whose genius made so much of that possible?
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [November 14, 2012, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-important-person-to-live-in-us-history/640947/20 "2012-11-14T15:46:27Z")
I would pick Washington because he was a doer not just a talker. I don’t think any one person was as critical to the success of the American Revolution as Washington was. However, any of the noted persons that could be chosen differ in their degree of importance several places to the right of the decimal point.
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