Knightley12 said:
hey mcrocket...if you dont know anything about presidents then dont put what you think. cause you say you wouldnt put any president before lincoln. well lincoln wasnt exactly the most influencial person the abolitionist movement. he and his family had owned slaves and he is quoted as saying that his main intention was not to free the slaves, but to keep the union today. he said that if he could have kept the union together and kept slaves....he would have. so there....you have to take into factor the time period. yes washington and jefferson did owns slaves, but they treated them very kindly and after jeffersons presidency he told his slaves that they were free at anytime...but none of them ever left (granted there were only 5 or 6)
One - I did not say I know nothing about the President's.
Two - I never said Lincoln was a nice guy. That was not the question. The question was who were the 'Top 5 greatest President's'. And under his administration, he abolished slavery. My understanding was that he actually wrote most if not all of the Emancipation Proclamation. He could have had sex with goats in his spare time, for all I care. That has nothing to do with the business of the nation.
All the President's before him chose not to abolish slavery. And I do not recall any of them ever seriously trying to. So maybe he owned slaves. And maybe he liked slavery. Whatever. The point is he was the one whose administration abolished it. And that is good enough for me.
It was a shrewd military move. But whatever. The slaves were free. And as far as I am concerned. Any nation that legalizes slavery does not deserve to be called a nation. And anyone that heads a 'country' that allows slavery and doesn't do their utmost to end it - is little better then the slave owners.
And that includes ALL the President's before Lincoln. No matter how 'nice' they were to their slaves.
What I am trying to say that The United States of America did not exist as a respected nation before the passing of the Emancipation Proclamation. So whomever led it is irrelavent to me.
And like I said. I am not black. I can only imagine what blacks think/thought of all this.
And BTW - I heard from many sources that Nixon was anti-semetic. But yet it was under his presidency that the massive American military airlift possibly saved Israel in 1973 during the Yom Kippur War. It does not matter what the President likes or dislikes. It is what actions he/she takes regardless of personal opinion. That is what makes a good President to me.
)
