Robespierre

Which President created the most change?

I'm not qualifying the change as negative or positive. Just asking who created the most change.

Lincoln, FDR, and Jackson would have to be top contenders. Who created the most change?

monsieurdl

Theodore Roosevelt, hands down. He modernized the Navy, brokered peace deals, settled strikes, forced change on the labor front, worked with big business without letting them get away with too much, improved our health and welfare a great deal... a truly amazing man who we'll never see again.

Patito de Hule

Washington. Everything he did as president set a precedent.

tjadams

Each president seems to have benefited from the ones before him in piling up
presidential power. This is a building-block question.
Jefferson could be listed as expanding the nation to twice its size without warfare.
Jackson could be listed for his war on banking and his Indian policy.
Polk could be listed for expanding the nation at gunpoint allowing for sectional differences to deepen.
Lincoln could be listed for the gigantic outgrowth of government power after the war.
T.R. could be listed for the things listed by Monsieurdl in posting no. two.

A+B+C+D..etc.

Moishe3rd

It ostensibly has to be Washington or Lincoln.
Washington for the reasons stated above. He literally created the Presidency. And, as some might know from Supreme Court discussions and rulings, precedent is Everything in the Law.
The First President set the First Precedents.

One could argue Lincoln as he also literally recreated the United States.

Rongo

Well, looking at it from the perspective of what the country was like when they came into office versus what it was like when they left (and adding the stipulation that their policies, or lack thereof, had something to do with the change), I'd nominate two:

Lincoln - came into office with the nation being torn apart and with slavery as the ugly, unsolvable problem that was tearing it. Left office with the nation put back together and slavery abolished.

F.D.R. - came into office with a weak, aloof national government and a nation that was a second string player on the world stage. Left office with a powerful national government that was deeply involved in the day-to-day lives of its citizens and a superpower nation that was deeply involved in the affairs of other countries around the world.

monsieurdl

Andrew Jackson? The master obstructionist of the people? I must respectfully disagree with you, sir. He did everything in his power to block progressive Whig plans just to do so and fostered corruption- a very petty politician in my eyes. As far as his Indian policy went, it mirrored several other movements of Indian peoples throughout the 19th century- it was going to happen anyway.

Other than that, I agree.

tjadams

As Robespierre asked: positive or negative. I think Jackson's actions fall
somewhere in the there.

monsieurdl

I knew of that particular part of the post, but Jackson was anti-change was my point. The negative change wouldn't be enough in my view to consider it great change as far as building blocks go- the Indian policy of Jackson was the same policy that had existed through treaties, only accomplished in a shorter period of time. This would have naturally occurred if he had never been President.

tjadams

Jackson is one of those presidents that can always create a waterspout of discussion, pro or con.