(Reuters) -- The presidents were rated in 10 areas: public persuasion, crisis leadership, economic management, moral authority, international relations, administrative skills, relations with Congress, vision/setting an agenda, pursuit of equal justice for all and performance within context of their times.
1. Abraham Lincoln
2. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
3. George Washington
4. Theodore Roosevelt
5. Harry S. Truman
6. Woodrow Wilson
7. Thomas Jefferson
8. John F. Kennedy
9. Dwight Eisenhower
10. Lyndon Baines Johnson
11. Ronald Reagan
12. James Polk
13. Andrew Jackson
14. James Monroe
15. William McKinley
16. John Adams
17. Grover Cleveland
18. James Madison
19. John Quincy Adams
20. George Bush
21. Bill Clinton
22. Jimmy Carter
23. Gerald Ford
24. William Howard Taft
25. Richard Nixon
26. Rutherford Hayes
27. Calvin Coolidge
28. Zachary Taylor
29. James Garfield
30. Martin Van Buren
31. Benjamin Harrison
32. Chester Arthur
33. Ulysses S. Grant
34. Herbert Hoover
35. Millard Fillmore
36. John Tyler
37. William Henry Harrison
38. Warren Harding
39. Franklin Pierce
40. Andrew Johnson
41. James Buchanan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Historians on Monday dealt a blow to President Clinton's hopes for an illustrious legacy, ranking his presidency average and his moral authority the lowest among U.S presidents, just behind Richard Nixon's. A survey of 58 historians, carried out by public affairs cable channel C-SPAN and timed for release on President's Day, produced few surprises in its ranking of the best and worst of the 41 men who have served as president.
Abraham Lincoln topped the list, followed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, George Washington, Theodore Roosevelt and Harry Truman. At the other end of the scale, William Henry Harrison ranked 37th, followed in descending order by Warren Harding, Franklin Pierce, Andrew Johnson and James Buchanan. Clinton ranked 21st, behind George Bush (20), the one-term Republican he ousted from the White House, and ahead of Jimmy Carter (22), another one-term president who was the last Democrat to hold the office before Clinton won it in 1992.
Scholars rated presidents in 10 areas: public persuasion, crisis leadership, economic management, moral authority, international relations, administrative skills, relations with Congress, vision/setting an agenda, pursuit of equal justice for all and performance within the context of their times. Clinton scored best for his management of the economy and for his pursuit of equal justice for all -- ranking fifth on both issues -- while receiving average marks for most other categories and scoring lowest of all for his moral leadership. "Bill Clinton probably won't appreciate the Jekyll and Hyde verdict on his presidency, fifth in economic management, 41st in moral authority," said Richard Norton Smith of the Gerald R. Ford Library, who took part in the survey. "Apparently, where historians are concerned, it's not the economy, stupid."
Clinton record stained by impeachment
Clinton has presided over the longest U.S. expansion in history but his record has been stained by his December 1998 impeachment by the U.S. House of Representatives on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice stemming from his affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. The Senate acquitted Clinton in February, 1999, allowing him to remain in office. Nixon, who resigned in disgrace in 1974 during his second term rather than face all-but-certain impeachment for his part in the Watergate scandal, ranked 40th in moral authority and 25th overall.
Howard University's Edna Medford, who took part in the survey, said the rankings suggested historians appreciated the "extraordinary significance" of the Civil War, which yielded the best- and worst-rated presidents: Lincoln and Buchanan. "Few should be surprised that the first ranked and the dead last ranked president came out of the same era -- the Civil War," said Medford. "One is credited with preserving the union; the other was less than effective in slowing its movement toward disintegration," Medford said of Lincoln and Buchanan. Andrew Johnson, the only president other than Clinton to have been impeached, scored highest at 35th for his economic management and ranked near the bottom in all other categories, including relations with Congress, where he stood last. Like Clinton, he was acquitted by the Senate -- in his case by a single vote.
The historians surveyed appeared to share a slight bias in favor of 20th century presidents. Of the top 10, seven served during the last hundred years, including both Franklin and Theodore Roosevelt (numbers 2 and 4, respectively), Truman (5), Woodrow Wilson (6), John Kennedy (8), Dwight Eisenhower (9) and Lyndon Johnson (10). "The historians who participated clearly prefer presidents who led the nation in wars," added John Splaine of the University of Maryland. "Even unsuccessful warriors, like James Madison and Lyndon Johnson, ended up in the top 20 overall." The survey -- devised by Medford, Smith, Splaine and Douglas Brinkley of the University of New Orleans -- asked the scholars to rate presidents on a one to 10 scale from "not effective" to "very effective" in each of the 10 categories. C-SPAN sent the survey in December to the 87 historians and other professional observers of the presidency who contributed to its 41-week "American Presidents" biography series. Fifty-eight agreed to take part.