Presidential Report Card James Davis Block C January 27, 2014

Report Card Grades Grade What it means A The President was perfect. He met all of the goals laid out in the Constitution to the highest degree possible. B The President did a good job. He met most of the goals laid out in the Constitution, but may not have met all of those goals to the highest degree. C The President did an adequate job. He met some of the goals of the Constitution to some degree. He also may have done a poor job in terms of some of the goals of the Constitution. D The President did a poor job. He did not meet many of the goals of the Constitution and the majority of what he did hurt the country and did not help it. F The President failed in meeting all of the goals of the Constitution. Not only did he fail to meet the goals, everything he did hurt the country.

George Washington was a good president George Washington was a good president. I would give him a B+ as a grade. George Washington was a leader. He constantly kept the peace in the young country and made us rich. However he did keep this peace with violence, which was shown when he sent the Army to make sure citizens would pay taxes. He also went back on his word with France giving us a new enemy.

John Adams was a decent president. I would give him a C as a grade. While he was hated by the people and he could not positively accept it, he did a great job giving us economic and peaceful stability. A mistake he made while he was in office was the Alien and Sedition acts. Adams claimed these acts were for protecting the country from anti-government groups, however it showed that he couldn’t handle criticism. He did show that he had the best interest for the country when he didn’t declare war with France despite the XYZ affair.

Thomas Jefferson was an ok president. I would give him a C as a grade. Jefferson did an a great job with the Louisiana purchase but he failed at dealing with the war with Britain and France, and he also failed at stopping the pirates that constantly stole our ships. To try and stop the ships being taken by France and Britain he passed an embargo act. This stopped all trade with any other country. This hurt America more than anyone else so this act was eventually vetoed. After the ships were back on the water they were also attacked by pirates. Despite not paying tribute to France during the XYZ affair America quietly paid tribute to the pirates. Eventually Jefferson attacked when Tripoli declared war on America. This did nothing however and other pirate nations continued to attack ships until they were all wiped out.

James Monroe was a decent president. I give him a B- as a grade. James Monroe was a good president when it came to protecting rights and getting land, however dealing with the economic crisis he did a poor job. He protected the rights of the Latin American countries after they rebelled against Spain. Monroe stood his ground and told Europe that all of North and South America was not going to be colonies of Europe. However after Britain and France stopped fighting their factories were selling goods cheaper than American goods. This led to a panic in the U.S. He did eventually help stop the panic but it was the end of an era. Monroe also made us rich when he took Spanish Florida and the land west of the Rockie Mountains.

Andrew Jackson was an interesting president Andrew Jackson was an interesting president. I would give him a D- as a grade Andrew Jackson made many mistakes with good intentions. For example when Jackson passed the Indian removal act he thought that it would be good for both the white settlers and the Indians, however man Indians died and were sent to land that was no good for them. When South Carolina threatened to secede he brought warships to stop them. He also destroyed the US bank and put that money in state banks which confused a lot of people and made that money worthless.