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On President’s Day George Will published a wonderful article in Newsweek on libertarian Congressman and GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul (R-TX):

Most congressional offices are decorated with photos of representatives gripping and grinning with presidents and other eminences. Paul, who thinks the presidency has swollen to anticonstitutional proportions, has photos of two Austrian School economists, Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises, who warned against what Hayek called “the fatal conceit” of governments thinking they can allocate wealth and opportunity more reasonably than can markets. Paul’s office has a picture of one president—Grover Cleveland, the conservative Democrat who asked, “What is the use of being elected or re-elected unless you stand for something?”

I knew that Paul had strong Austrian influences (economic and political) and I knew he would agree that presidential powers have grown to dangerously authoritarian levels (which are two prime reasons why I am supporting his run for the presidency), what I was pleasantly surprised to find was that his favorite president, like mine, was Grover Cleveland. It lead me to consider the best “libertarian” presidents.

(I put “libertarian” in quotations because being a good Objectivist I am of course supposed to despise the label as it lacks definition and philosophical substance and such. Let me then define best “libertarian” presidents as the presidents who best embodied the principles of individual liberty and limited government in their time.)

I think that Grover Cleveland has to be at the top of the list. The empirical evidence shows this, but I postulate that many, if not most, “libertarians” would put the former sheriff from Buffalo at the top of their list. A senior faculty member of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, Thomas J. Dilorenzo, wrote back in 2004 that Cleveland was the best president in line with a limited government tradition (“The Last Good Democrat”). Its a very interesting article, and his stance reaffirms my claim that Grover is the libertarian’s favorite president.

So here are my rankings.

Best “Libertarian” Presidents: 1) Grover Cleveland. 2) George Washington. 3) Calvin Coolidge. 4) Ronald Reagan. Honorable Mention) Thomas Jefferson. Andrew Jackson.

Defeated Presidential Candidates: Samuel Tilden. Barry Goldwater.

1) Grover Cleveland- All that he stood against in his time wreaked of big government. And no man in his time crusaded harder and with more integrity against it than Cleveland. Imperialism, taxes, protectionism, inflation, subsidies, patronage, corruption; you name it, he fought it. And not only did he fight big government in the presidency, but he did so throughout his political career (as Buffalo sheriff he even executed prisoners himelf at times). Cleveland represented limited government consistently, across the board. He vetoed wasteful spending (whether for farmers or vets, any sort of entitlement or pork), he lobbied hard for a reduced tariff, and most importantly fought for a free gold standard (I know of no other president who spoke and acted against fiat money as he did). No other president crusaded for limited government with the honesty and integrity of President Cleveland, and considering the political onslaught he consistantly had to face for his principles only adds icing to the cake (which the nearly 300 lb. president would in all likelihood eat himself).

2) George Washington- Perhaps the greatest American of all, especially for his showing in the War for Independence. But his greatest legacy as a politician, like Cleveland, may rather be what he didn’t do. After his triumph in war, a vacuum was left where King George once reigned and with his popularity, and control over the military, Washington could virtually have taken autocratic control of America. The first test as to whether America would blossom into a free country or sink into the toxic waters of dictatorship rested on the shoulders of Washington, and his shoulders alone. He was very skeptical of arbitrary power; he was reluctant to accept the position of executive, he was weary that it would have to much power, and he did not desire to stay in power long. All of the precedents he set were vital and went into shaping America into the bastion of freedom that it became. And while he was certainly not an ideologue (as evidenced by his embracing of certain mercantilist Hamiltonian programs, i.e. a central bank, exactly what Cleveland opposed), his Cincinatus-esque legacy warms the hearts of all freedom loving men.

3) Coolidge- Like our libertarian model Cleveland, silent Cal was an ideological defender of limited government. He defended laissez faire capitalism, vetoed spending, and lowered taxes. His quite demeanor was indicative of the type of roll the federal government should play in the lives of Americans–they shouldn’t even realize it’s there. He didn’t however think the same logic should necessarily be applied to state government. Biographer Robert Sobel noted, “As Governor of Massachusetts, Coolidge supported wages and hours legislation, opposed child labor, imposed economic controls during World War I, favored safety measures in factories, and even worker representation on corporate boards.” But that is certainly not even a stigma when compared to what really drives me crazy about Cal. He perpetuated the existence of the Federal Reserve, specifically their hyperinflationary policy of the 1920s that directly caused the great depression. Ironic, isn’t it? All the talk we always hear in history class about the free market failure that was the great depression, and it turns out that the supposed ’small government” presidents caused it by big government policies. Big negative points for an otherwise great president.

4) Reagan- Early in my intellectual life (meaning three years ago) I really fell in love with Reagan. How could one not really. No one could speak or communicate ideas like he. He spoke more eloquently for freedom than any American president, and indeed he loosened the grasp that taxation had over the American people (highest income tax rate fell from over 70% to 28% by the end of his administration), and lowered non- defense spending in his early years in office, and appointed a federal reserve chair who severely retarded inflation, and spoke out against the evil empire, calling it communism out for what it was. But he also demonstrated a handful of inconsistencies that suggest he may not have been the intellectual defender of liberty that I previously thought him to be. Spending (the size of government) increased faster than many of his predecessors, the budget deficit hit unprecedented heights, and he perpetuated the political influence of the evangelical right whose eventual rise to power signifies the fall of “fiscal conservatism” from the Republican agenda. In all Reagan’s greatest legacy was his rhetorical push for freedom–which I belittle in no way. The dedication that Reagan lacked was ironically what Barry Goldwater manifested strongest.

Honorable Mention: Jefferson and Jackson- Largely I believe that the perception of libertarian reform these men left outweighed their accomplishment. With Jefferson there is a lot of good especially, as he cut the size of the federal government to very modest proportions. He was himself a brillient thinker and advocate of limited government (the Declaration must come to mind), however both men also in several cases contradicted their sacred philosophies. Jefferson did not seek congressional approval when purchasing Louisiana from the French, Jackson was prepared to use federal force to enforce the “tariff of abominations” against South Carolina and also directly defied the Supreme Court decision on Worcester v. Georgia, openly disobeying the concept of rule of law as well as other principles in just a single case. Additionally why both originally vowed to kill the national banks, they grew to appease and even abet the existence of fiat money in America which has reversed the free market and caused any number of financial crises in US History.

Defeated Candidates for President:

Samuel Tilden- much in the model of a Bourbon Democrat such as Grover Cleveland. Tilden was ironically also a governor of New York who made his name on reforming the state government, specifically in battling–successfully–the notorious Tweed and Canal Rings which represented the peril of government ordained privileges of the time. He was a Democrat but even before the Civil War he was also strongly against the institution of slavery. He aslo had a deep respect for the freedom of industry and the individual’s economic freedom as his shrewd private investments made him rich.

Barry Goldwater- I have long thought that Senator Goldwater was the only man deserving of the presidency to head a major party ticket in the 20th century. Coolidge and Reagan did perhaps, but all else pale in comparison. Of course Goldwater did loose in one of the greatest popular landslides in presidential history, but it was probably more of a testimite to his devotion to freedom than a mark on it. Goldwater was a straight shooter; he had integrity, and he stood up for what he believed. He outlined his principles of limited government in his book Conscience of a Conservative, castigated the New Deal (going as far as to suggesting that Social Security should be voluntary and the TVA should be sold and made private), and in his latter days fought against the “religious right” and the GOP’s departure from limited government. Goldwater was a libertarian in the sense of the word–an advocate of liberty. I wish to hell that he could have been president, but more importantly I hope that we’ll see more like him in the future, maybe this time in the White House…Ron Paul anyone?

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The A Libertarian’s Favorite President by New School Politics, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.