Academy of the Underrated
By 
Ari at The Edge of the American West points us to this Ilya Somin post that makes the best possible — but I think ultimately unpersuasive — case for Warren Harding as the most underrated American president. The argument rests on two points: (a) that Harding was more racially progressive than any of his post-Reconstruction predecessors; and (b) that Harding’s record on civil liberties was better than Wilson’s.
It’s hard to quibble with the first claim, though Harding’s competition in that category can hardly be described as vigorous. It’s true that Harding — who was rumored to have a black ancestor — denounced lynching and supported federal anti-lynching legislation, but it’s equally true that this was an issue with no real political costs to Harding or his party, which could use the issue to depict southern Democrats as violent, premodern yokels. Yet in those areas where his party profited from racism, Harding was less brave.
Most consequentially, he did nothing to stanch the flow post-war nativism. Indeed, shortly after his inauguration in 1921, Harding summoned Congress back to session so that it could pass the restrictive Dillingham Act, which set national origins quotas that would be further enhanced in 1924 after Harding’s death. These quotas would serve as the basis for the country’s racist immigration laws for the next four decades; their anti-Asian components were also part of a process that would eventually result in the Japanese-American internment during WWII.
Moreover, Harding (unlike his successor Calvin Coolidge) never disparaged the Klan’s re-emergence in the 1920s — a reticence that would make sense, given the organization’s broad convergence (at least in the midwest) with the anti-Catholic, temperant Republicanism that spawned Harding’s career in the first place. (And no, I’ve never been persuaded by the idea that Harding was a Klansman. The evidence just isn’t there.)
As for Harding’s record on civil liberties, Somin may have a point there as well, but there are some important qualifications that come to mind. Harding was right to pardon Eugene Debs, and Congress repealed significant parts of the Espionage Act during Harding’s first year in office (including the sedition amendment), but we can only take things so far. Most of all, Harding’s administration could afford to be less demagogic because (a) the Great War was over, and thus the rationale for anti-civil libertarian wartime measures was reduced; and (b) its support for restrictive immigration laws allowed the party in control of the government to claim that it was taking action to prevent “alien radicals” from entering the country in the first place (and thus making emergency deportations unnecessary). I think there’s also a good case to be made that the November 1919 Palmer Raids would not have happened if Wilson — who’d nearly stroked out the previous month — had been at full capacity.
As I said, I think Somin makes the best possible case on Harding’s behalf, but I don’t think he offers much to cut against the essential awfulness of his presidency. He seems to have been a nice guy, but he was rubbish as a president and deserves his bottom-feeder status.
For the sake of sticking my own neck out, I’ll offer up Martin Van Buren as my nomination for most underrated. He got hammered by economic problems that weren’t of his own making; he told Texas to take a hike; and his sideburns rank second only to Chester Arthur’s on the (admittedly small) list of the Coolest Presidential Facial Hair. Also, he used to have a blog.