By the Maui Curmudgeon (3rd in a 43-part series)

How do the U.S. Presidents stack up? I thought I’d find ou by reading biographies of all 43 presidents, in the order of their administrations. Here are briefly the pros and cons of my discoveries, the interesting bits, and how I’d rank him. For comparison, I give you the 1982 Murrary-Blessing ranking, a survey of hundreds of leading historians who ranked each president by number. This survey is the gold standard of presidential rankings and is most cited when this kind of thing needs bringing up in media.

THOMAS JEFFERSON: 1801-1809
~ 3rd U.S. President

Perhaps the most well-known (at least among school children) of our “founding fathers,” Thomas Jefferson stood over six feet tall, and like Washington cut an imposing figure in his times. He is lauded as the writer of our Declaration of Independence, the founder of the Republican Party, the Library of Congress; the man who gave the U.S. a geographic jewel - the Louisiana Terrirory - and the former president who died on the same day as his sometime enemy, former president John Adams. That day was July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
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