Ended external slave trade on time. Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Pains me to rank him this highly. The bad: Created modern regulatory state. Court packing scheme. Keynesian economics. Allowed Japanese internment. Corporatism in the early New deal (esp. NIRA). But there is also so much good: Lend-lease kept UK in war. Managed coalition warfare among the Allies. Won the war. Set stage for post-war American dominance. Ended racial discrimination in federal government hiring and thus helped set the stage for successful civil rights movement. John Adams: At this point, you start getting into the territory where candidates have some serious warts. E.g., the Alien & Sedition Act. On the plus side, he managed the crisis with France despite a telling lack of support from either major party or his own cabinet. And he helped set the precedent for peaceful transition of power between Presidents of opposing parties. James Polk: Reduced tariffs. Managed the Fifty-four forty or fight crisis to a peaceful resolution. Won the Mexican war, annexing Nevada and California. Second only to Jefferson in the amount of territory he added to USA. Andrew Jackson: Speaking of warts, the Indian Removal Act remains a blot on the national escutcheon. On the plus side, there was the veto of the rechartering of the Bank of the United States. Squashed South Carolina's secessionist tendencies for a couple of decades. Managed the Nullification crisis and the Texas revolution. Expanded the voting public. Comparing my list to the Gallup poll, Clinton comes in way too