Which presidents have historians most tied to causing mass human suffering, and how are those assessments made?
Executive summary
Historians most frequently tie rankings-of-us-presidents">mass human suffering to presidents who mismanaged existential crises, upheld or expanded institutions of slavery, or pursued policies that produced large-scale death and disenfranchisement — names most commonly singled out include James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Franklin Pierce, Herbert Hoover and, in some surveys, more recent presidents for contentious modern harms (e.g., wars, deportations) — these judgments come from expert surveys that weight crisis management, moral authority, policy consequences and long-term human costs .
1. Why certain presidents appear culpable: crisis mismanagement and moral failure
Historians cluster the worst presidencies around failures to avert or to wisely manage national catastrophes: James Buchanan, widely rated last in C‑SPAN and averaged polls, is blamed for mishandling the secession crisis that led to the Civil War, a calamity of immense human cost . Andrew Johnson and Franklin Pierce are similarly condemned for policies and inaction that inflamed slavery’s spread and helped produce the Civil War’s devastation, which historians treat as a central metric of presidential harm .
2. Economic policy and mass suffering: Herbert Hoover as a case study
Herbert Hoover is repeatedly invoked by historians and popular rankings as a president whose ideological reluctance to deploy federal relief worsened the human toll of the Great Depression even if he did not cause the stock market crash itself; analysts note that his adherence to “rugged individualism” and limited federal intervention exacerbated widespread suffering . Surveys and retrospective rankings often treat the scale of economic misery and governmental response as a key component when assigning blame .
3. How historians make these assessments: surveys, categories, and contested criteria
Major assessments rest on expert surveys that rate presidents across categories such as crisis management, leadership, moral authority, accomplishments, political skill and character; Siena College, C‑SPAN and other projects aggregate historian responses and average scores to create rankings that inform judgments about human cost [1]. Those surveys do not define categories rigidly, leaving room for interpretation — for example “crisis management” can embrace war decisions, economic policy, and slavery-era governance — which shapes which presidencies are read as producing mass suffering .
4. Beyond rankings: counting deaths, destroyed institutions, and long-term harms
Some commentators and historians measure “damage” more directly by tallying lives lost, rights curtailed, and institutional rupture: the Civil War and its slaughter are central to why mid‑19th century presidents like Buchanan, Pierce, and Johnson are held responsible, while 20th century economic collapse under Hoover is framed as causing mass deprivation rather than battlefield casualties . Alternative approaches expand the definition of suffering to constitutional or civic harms — for instance, debates over Lincoln or FDR note that actions credited with saving the republic also entailed contentious expansions of executive power or wartime costs, a perspective advanced in revisionist pieces that rank presidents by “damage” alone .
5. Disagreements, political frames and methodological limits
Assessments reflect disciplinary choices and political frames: institutional surveys tend to emphasize governance categories and generate relative consensus (Washington, Lincoln, FDR often ranked high), while activist or contrarian pieces re-weight liberties or constitutional costs and produce different “worst” lists [1]. Surveys explicitly average experts’ subjective ratings and sometimes lack standardized definitions for categories, meaning results depend on which harms — deaths, economic misery, loss of rights, or institutional damage — are privileged [1]. Where sources do not address specific contemporary claims (for example, precise casualty tallies tied directly to presidential orders across eras), reporting is limited and historians acknowledge uncertainty in translating policy to direct human counts .
6. Bottom line: consensus and contention
There is substantial historian consensus that presidents whose decisions precipitated or failed to prevent national catastrophes — most clearly the pre‑Civil War presidents (Buchanan, Pierce, Johnson) and Herbert Hoover for the Depression era — are most tied to mass human suffering; nevertheless, how “most tied” is measured varies by whether surveys prioritize crisis management ratings, aggregate expert rankings, or alternative damage‑focused frameworks that re-evaluate even lauded presidents .