I was reading today a prominent, and usually quite sober, commentator, who voiced their opinion on who was the worst US President ever.
I thought to myself, surely the worst US President ever must have been James Buchannan, who walked us into a civil war without applying barely any brakes.
But when I went to read a bit on the matter, I find that Warren Harding is consistently ranked lower by historians than Buchannan.
I read the article - Harding was involved in some scandals, bungled a strike, denied veterans some money, and had an affair. But he launched or caused no major wars, and he presided over the opening years of a famously prosperous decade for the US, the Roaring 20s. Besides, modern presidents have bungled strikes, stiffed soldiers, and had affairs, withiut sinking low in these rankings.
On the other hand, Buchannan bungled a stock panic response and declared a literal war on US citizens in Utah, both of which pale in comparison to fanning, rather than squelching, the discontent that would boil over into the Civil War immediately after he left office.
I don't get it. Why do historians seem to rank Buchannan above Harding?
I’ll start by saying that I, personally, would rank Buchanan at the bottom of the list for U.S. presidents, but Harding isn’t much better.
Warren G. Harding became president in 1921, shortly after the end of World War I. As such, his administration had to decide whether the United States would join the League of Nations. Woodrow Wilson had pushed for joining the League, but had failed to accomplish this before the end of his term. As a U.S. Senator, Harding had spoken against joining the League of Nations [1], though he suggested the Senate could “make this covenant [the Treaty of Versailles] right” with some changes demanded by the United States. As president, Harding opposed the League of Nations (though offered lukewarm support for some sort of “association of nations”) [2], and the U.S. ultimately never ratified the Treaty of Versailles and never joined the League of Nations. The lack of U.S. membership in the League rendered the League largely ineffective, and it is possible to make a case that the United States’ failure to join the League of Nations helped to set the world on the path towards World War II (though, of course, there were many more stops along the way and any number of causes behind that conflict). [3]
I think it's also possible to draw a line from the "laissez faire" market of the Roaring '20s straight into the economic catastrophe of the Great Depression. Certainly, Harding is not solely responsible for this - Coolidge continued this policy approach - but just because the '20s were prosperous, doesn't mean it was the result of sound policy.
Harding’s administration was also one of the most scandal-ridden in U.S. history, though many didn’t know it at the time. Harding died of a heart attack in August 1923, after serving just over two years into his presidency. Following his death, a number of issues became public, including the infamous Teapot Dome Scandal [4][5], reports of extramarital affairs [6], and reports of Harding’s consumption of alcohol in the White House during Prohibition (a policy that Harding had voted in favor of as a U.S. Senator).
BUT, there’s also something interesting happening in the rankings you linked to. If I’m reading it right, Harding is ranked worse than Buchanan in all rankings prior to 2000, but beginning with the C-SPAN ranking in 2000, Buchanan is always ranked worse than Harding. It seems that, today, more historians think Buchanan was a worse president than Harding. I suspect at least some of the historians in the earlier ranking had lived through Harding’s presidency (or at least lived in a world where it wasn’t so distant), and may have judged him differently than we would today. I think many people - historians included - tend to see the events that occur in their own lifetimes as being somewhat more consequential than those that occurred before they arrived.
In any event, both Harding and Buchanan belong near the bottom of any ranking of U.S. presidents.
[1] U.S. Senator Warren G. Harding, Speech on the League of Nations: https://www.loc.gov/item/2004650543/
[2] President Warren G. Harding, Message to Congress, April 12, 1921: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1921v01/messages-of-the-president-1
[3] U.S. State Department, Office of the Historian, “League of Nations”, https://history.state.gov/milestones/1914-1920/league
[4] U.S. Senate, “Senate Investigates the ‘Teapot Dome’ Scandal”, https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Senate_Investigates_the_Teapot_Dome_Scandal.htm
[5] history.com, “Teapot Dome Scandal”, updated June 20, 2019, https://www.history.com/topics/roaring-twenties/teapot-dome-scandal
[6] Nan Britton, “The President’s Daughter”, published 1928, https://books.google.com/books/about/The_President_s_Daughter.html?id=2d5BAAAAIAAJ