Why were there so many mediocre or shit tier presidents between Jackson and Cleveland, excluding Lincoln?

Really all the presidents are extraordinary people.

>be Franklin Pierce
>be a war hero
>first 2 children die at a young age
>third and final child is decapitated by a train accident just months after your election
>this accident sends your wife into a deep depression she never recovers from

Nation's most tragic president

Harrison was one our greatest presidents.

Polk is seriously underated

Polk is a meme adored by those who think territorial expansion is the greatest measure of a president's capabilities (it isn't).

Polk was a good president. Tyler, Taylor, and Pierce were decent. Buchanan was no where near as bad as most people think. Grant was good if you were black, Johnson was good if you cared about the constitution.

>making the US a Atlantic and Pacific nation isn't that great

Whig autist detected. Go jerk of to some JQA fan fic.

>Exacerbating sectarian tensions between North & South, Slave & Free by launching the US into a totally unnecessary war on false pretenses waged entirely for territorial aggrandizement

Americans died because Polk had a peculiar hardon for California which probably would have ended up in American hands anyway even without a war and he lied to the American people just to have it (mexicans shed blood on American soil!)

>blaming Polk for the civil war

Lol. I'm pretty sure Lincoln and the republicans had a bigger role in exacerbating sectarian tensions if you want to go down that route.

>California which probably would have ended up in American hands anyway even without a war

Nice delusional fantasy. They turned down any attempt to buy land.

>he lied to the American people just to have it (mexicans shed blood on American soil!)

And it wasn't American soil because Mexico claimed it? Mexicans still claimed the entirety of Texas as theirs for fucks sake.

>Spanish-American War, though that began American imperialism
>conquest is now imperalism

user please.

> Imperialism is "a policy of extending a country's power and influence through colonization, use of military force, or other means"

Ok, so I guess technically the US was imperialistic even before the War, I should have used the word colonialism. Even so, there is a distinct change in the nature of US expansion after 1898, and not for the better.

>I'm pretty sure Lincoln and the republicans had a bigger role in exacerbating sectarian tensions if you want to go down that route.

This is a 'whataboutism'. The addition of the land from the Mexican-American war directly reignited the simmering tensions between the political balance of Slave & Free in the Union. It's why Henry Clay a whig and Calhoun a democrat were both against the war in the first place.

>They turned down any attempt to buy land.
Texas wasn't bought either yet it found its way into the union. The forces drawing California into America were stronger than its ties to Mexico.

>And it wasn't American soil because Mexico claimed it?
It wasn't American soil because no Americans lived there.

>This is a 'whataboutism'

Yeah because your argument is weak, the idea that the expansion west caused the civil war seems to discount every other reason it happened. Might as well blame abolitionists like JQA who spent every day on the Congress floor antagonizing slave owners. It's a silly to lay the blame at Polk's feet.

>Texas wasn't bought either yet it found its way into the union. The forces drawing California into America were stronger than its ties to Mexico.

Yeah, via a war remember? Regardless, it makes no sense that you blame expansion and Polk for the civil war and then turn around and say "ah but expansion was going to happen anyways".

>It wasn't American soil because no Americans lived there.

Neither were Mexicans. The whole area was barely controlled by Mexico in general, and they got their assess kicked by the Comanche anytime they tried to exert their control over it.

Reread my post. I said:
>Exacerbating sectarian tensions between North & South

Which factually happened. You see this in the Wilmot Proviso. Nobody other than Polk can be held responsible for the dilemma of how to incorporate the new land into the Union without upsetting the precarious political balance between Slave & Free. I didn't say he 'caused the civil war'.

>Yeah, via a war remember
Not with America.

>Neither were Mexicans
Mexicans actually lived in the disputed territory.

Grant was pretty good, he held the country together while enforcing the result of the Civil War and BTFOing the KKK. He may have been responsible for a recession, but that's not an awful run for a drunk who couldn't hold down a job before the war.

>Polk
>mediocre
>Lincoln
>not a horrible president who killed 1/5 American male citizens cause muh centralization of power and muh compulsory union membership.

gtfo

Hm. Choice between
>strong, unified nation that cooperates between all states
>smaller, agriculturally crippled nation with an equivalent and hostile nation sharing a border that will either centralize hypocritically and likely go to war with you over mutual western expansion or balkanize into squabbling states that will likely fail in turn or at least create a diplomatic nightmare
>note that said hostile nation has a good chance of getting British backing, creating an encirclement of your nation by the empire that's still a bit buttmad over your rebellion a couple generations back

Rutherford B Hayes is serverly underrated desu.

Bimetallism would have probably crippled economic growth in the late 19th and early 20th.

>Not with America.
But with many americans, are you proposing we wait around and hope that Fremont and co win California's independence? That probably would be a disaster.

>Mexicans actually lived in the disputed territory.

Source? Texas had claimed that strip of land since independence.

Give it up, you're just being a contrarian trying to shit on Polk

>are you proposing we wait around and hope that Fremont and co win California's independence?

I'm saying the Mexican American War was totally unnecessary and was a cynical ploy to wrest land from a weaker nation. It's also evident that Mexico's control of California was terribly weak and Americans would be streaming in by the thousands after Gold was found regardless of what country technically claimed it, this massive influx of Americans would almost assuredly buck Mexican rule and end up in American hands even without the Mexican-American War. California was already caught in American gravity.

>Texas had claimed that strip of land since independence.
Their claim rested on the validity of the treaty they made Santa Anna sign (essentially at gunpoint) while he was a prisoner and was never ratified by the Mexican government. No Americans (or Texans if you prefer) had settled south of the Neuces River , but there were a number of Rancheros who were Mexican citizens that lived in that strip of land between the Neuces & the Rio Grande.

Polk is a meme president loved mostly by pseuds who haven't even read about him. I can tell you've never read a biography on the man, or probably any history book on that era for that matter.

How exactly was Johnson good for the Constitution?

The British also had an eye on California, you fool. Don't pretend like it was inevitable it ended up in American hands.

Also expansion was what the American people wanted, Polk based his campaign on that and being "young hickory". He literally got elected because he was pro Texas annexation.

You can't pretend he was a warmonger either, the man went through great lengths to compromise with the British is the pacfic north west, and avoided a fight.

He's a shining example of an effective politician, one of the greatest orators of the era, over came insane odds to assume the presidency, promised sweeping action in one term and then delivered in one term.

Then he stepped down. How many politicians have the ability to do that? To step down at the height of their political power, because they've accomplished their goals.

So go ahead and cry about how the Mexican-American War was immoral and unjustified. It was. it was an absolute land grab.

A land grab that cemented the US as a potential world power, and secured the US as the strongest nation in North America.

Polk did what the common man wanted, and he did it a way that bettered the nation. That's almost unheard of. He's the perfect example of how a president of democratic republic should operate.

fucking mexico apologist

>the most corrupt president in history
>underrated

Also, McKinley ended bimetallism, not Hayes.

The geographical proximity of California to America and the massive population growth of Americans who were constantly spreading west almost assured California's annexation to the US.

>Also expansion was what the American people wanted
Less than half based on votes. Not exactly a resounding mandate from the people.

>You can't pretend he was a warmonger either, the man went through great lengths to compromise with the British is the pacfic north west, and avoided a fight.
He capitulated to the British by acceding to a generous division of the Oregon territory (Generous for the Brits) to get them off his back so he could take a harder line against Mexico without worrying about British interference.

>Then he stepped down. How many politicians have the ability to do that? To step down at the height of their political power, because they've accomplished their goals.
He was dying. He was in the dirt less than 3 months after he left office. He also was fairly unpopular (even within his own party because he screwed over Northern democrats on the Oregon deal to grab land for the south). It's worth noting that the Democrats LOST that election anyway

>it was an absolute land grab.
Even his personal biographer (who wrote the most sympathetic account of him) admitted that Polk's insistence of the Rio Grande border for Texas (which became the casus belli of the war) was utterly without legal justification. Polk was fixated on acquiring California to the point that he sent Americans to needlessly die to obtain it

>secured the US as the strongest nation in North America.
This was never in any doubt. Canada was sparsely populated. Mexico was politically & economically unstable. The Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo did not 'secure' American predominance

He did what HE wanted to do. There was no mandate from the people over California. It was his own personal passion project. His diary outright admits as much. This "common-man" justification is total baloney.

>Polk
>mediocre or shit tier
He doesn't have any meme power but he's one of the best presidents we've had.

>The geographical proximity of California to America and the massive population growth of Americans who were constantly spreading west almost assured California's annexation to the US

What about the Empire to the North? The one that wanted to limit American power? No chance of them stepping in?

And that massive influx you're talking about didn't happen till after annexation. Again, but for Polk that influx could have easily been from the U.K.

>He capitulated to the British

He agreed on the 49th parallel, as several before him had suggested. Calling this capitulation is dishonest.

>land grab
We agree here, it was "illegal" for whatever good that is historically. Americans dying needlessly is you adding your own values to the historical record. Plus, increasing the size of your country by a third with pacific ports and abundant resources is far from needless.

Your entire argument hinges on California "naturally" joining the U.S when Mexico was clearly not going to give it up with out a fight, and the British considering setting up a puppet state. California might have gone to the U.S without a fight, perhaps, but you can't possibly prove it was assured.

>Canada was sparsely populated

and attached to the strongest power in the world

> Mexico was politically & economically unstable
Especially after it got the shit kicked out of it and much of it's holdings. You have no idea what Mexico would have looked like without it's war loss.

Also, Polk was always unpopular. Again, the fact that he accomplished all this while being so unpopular is testament to how effective he was.

You seem to think that Polk's accomplishments would have happened on their own, because they happened in our past, which is an awful way to consider History.

Finally, almost every war that the U.S has fought is illegal or immoral in some way. This is not something exclusive to the Mexican-American War.

>What about the Empire to the North? The one that wanted to limit American power? No chance of them stepping in?
Very little. NA was small fries for the UK. It certainly wasn't at the top of priorities for the world's largest empire. Stepping into California would have antagonized the US and brought with it the very real chance for open hostilities which neither side wanted.

>And that massive influx you're talking about didn't happen till after annexation. Again, but for Polk that influx could have easily been from the U.K.
It's disingenuous to compare the situations as if they were the same. America shared a continent with California and its people were constantly spilling over west. Canada didn't have near enough people for a comparable influx of immigrants to California & the UK was half a world away. It's different for frontier folk to make the journey west than it is for a UK citizen to make the travel ALL THE WAY AROUND THE WORLD.

>Calling this capitulation is dishonest.
'54'40' or fight' was a slogan during his campaign run which he at least gave tacit acceptance to. He surrendered the fight for the sake of waging war.

>California might have gone to the U.S without a fight
I think you too quickly dismiss the forces which would bound California to the US. Weak Mexican control and a booming US population that was rushing westward, as well as the presence of Gold in the territory. These factors exist with or without the war. No country was more prepared to exploit that territory than Americans no matter who nominally possessed it.

>the fact that he accomplished all this
It's not very impressive that his primary accomplishment is belligerently picking a fight with a much weaker nation in order to take their land.

Spot the buttblasted dixietard