This week, we’re making the final edits on our Visual History of the U.S. Senate print before sending it out to be proofed. Based on feedback we’ve already received, some of the edits we are making now to the posted version include:

• Further labeling each state’s senate seats with the state’s abbreviations at the start of each horizontal bar in the body graphic
• Making relatively minor changes to the color hues associated with each political party, as well as the color hues in the ideology row (below the body graphic)
• Editing the white-on-yellow text over the yellow-hued parties in the body graphic
• Adding short descriptions of each category of major legislation
• Further editing the legend
• Fixing overlaps in text and graphics

Take a look at the Zoomify (click here) and let us know what else is unclear or could be improved. Use the contact form on our website, or make a comment below. Thanks!

Considered a “doughface,” or a Northerner with Southern sympathies, James Buchanan is widely considered the worst U.S. president. The Dred Scott Supreme Court decision was delivered by the Court in the first days of Buchanan’s presidency, and Buchanan was widely believed to have influenced the decision.

Buchanan’s administration spiraled downhill from his first day in office. Capitalizing on Buchanan’s lack of leadership on slavery and expansion, an energized Republican party seized control of Congress in the mid-term elections and blocked much of Buchanan’s weak proposals. During the Panic of 1857, he initiated the sale of Treasury revenue bonds and managed to enrage both Democrats and Republicans.

Most significantly, President Buchanan ignored the growing secessionist movement. Even after Abraham Lincoln’s controversial election, as Southern states announced their intention to secede from the Union, Buchanan nervously demurred taking action in the hopes that the crisis would resolve itself.

In its profile of James Buchanan, U.S. News & World Reports writes,

“To his dying day, he felt that history would treat him favorably for having performed his constitutional duty. He was wrong.”

Buchanan’s presidency serves as an example of the dangers of ignoring growing public discontent and frustration with the federal government. The Civil War, which broke out just a few months after Buchanan left office, would end up destroying a generation of young American men (and women), and dividing the nation for decades — if not centuries — to come.

William Henry Harrison, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, and Warren Harding each received one-star ratings on A Visual History of the American Presidency. Harrison, really, deserves an incomplete — he only served thirty-two days in office.

The other three men who fall into our one-star category are slightly more interesting. President Franklin Pierce, for example, filled his cabinet with political rivals,  and to this day remains the only administration not to see any change in the cabinet during his tenure. He suffered from a seeming lack of willpower, however, when it came to the expansion of slavery.

Pierce stated in his inauguration that his administration “will not be deterred by any timid forebodings of evil from expansion.” Pierce continually temporized, refusing to cool the passions aroused by the Compromise of 1850 or the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

Posts on Buchanan — the president everyone loves to hate — and Harding will follow shortly.

What do William Henry Harrison, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, and Warren Harding have in common? They each earned a one-star rating on our Visual History of the American Presidency. It’s not just us — a number of scholars consistently rank these men in the bottom tier of the nation’s presidents.

Judging poor presidents is difficult. Arguably, no president has acted with purpose and malice to weaken the nation. If — as my last post discusses — a good president is known for rising above his era and leading with optimism and confidence, then a bad president is one who shrinks from the responsibility of leadership. Overarching issues of the time are ignored in deference to political expediency; important decisions are bungled. We also considered those whose tenures were cut short by death, like William Henry Harrison, to have been similarly inconsequential.

What most often separates the one-star from the two-star presidents is context. We viewed progress as a net positive, and inertia (or regression) as a net negative: those who favored continuation of the status quo find themselves at the bottom of our rankings. The presidents in this lowest tier ignored or mishandled an overwhelming issue at the point in time during which it needed the most action and resolution.

As for the rest of the presidents – those who find themselves in the middle tier, with either three or four stars – they are the presidents who were somewhat perfect for their era. They did not necessarily stand out; did not necessarily bring transformational change, but also did not ignore or avoid pressing matters.  In some cases, they simply continued policies of their predecessors, and in others were not faced with era-defining issues. They may not have provided outstanding leadership, but they led the nation on a steady course.

Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be posting the presidents by ranking, along with short explanations as to why they find themselves there.  None of our determinations will likely be earth-shattering, but there are some who may be controversial. I invite comments & questions as the blogging continues!

Click to view full size.

This c1860 political cartoon depicts James Buchanan as “Dismal Jemmy,” unsuccessfully navigating the tightrope between pro- and anti-slavery factions.

For early reviewers, one of the most controversial sections of A Visual History of the American Presidency was its ranking section. We were often asked: What makes a good president, and how does a good president differ from a great president?

A presidency is impossible to separate from its context. Good people were elected into poor situations, and sometimes failed in their capacity as leaders of the nation. Other presidents rose above the office, changing the political landscape and dominating their era. Hoover was over-matched by the Great Depression, while Theodore Roosevelt changed the way the presidency was viewed and the way America interacted with the world.

We referred often to the considered judgments of others; in our final assessment, we judged good and great presidents on the following criteria.

Good presidents successfully navigated political tensions and stayed true to the principles, morals, and ambitions of the executive office. They provided leadership through periods of intense change in America, due to internal tension, such as westward expansion; or external necessity, like war.

The presidents in the highest tier — the great presidents — surpassed the criteria of successful leadership. These few individuals changed the presidency through both action and philosophy. They brought strong and active leadership and a new vision to the office, and they irrevocably changed the foundations of the presidential office. The presidents here were not visionaries as much as they were transformers, shepherding the United States into new eras of governance with a sure hand and steadfast faith in the nation’s ability to progress.

Describing a good president is relatively easy, though, when faced with the cruel determination of naming the nation’s worst presidents. What makes a bad president? We’ll post our thoughts on that next.

About twenty years ago, I had an idea to make a poster with a history of every senator who’s ever served in the U.S. Congress. I thought it would be neat to be able to trace the occupants of each seat in each state over time. I worked for a political redistricting firm at the time, and began to research the project, but I got busy and set it aside.

I picked up the idea again this past year for Timeplots, and now we are almost done with an expanded and more ambitious version of that original vision. And we had twenty more years of U.S. history to trace!

Check it out at http://timeplots.com/senate, and leave your comments below– we’re always interested in feedback. Thanks!

The Pew Research Center recently conducted a survey on public opinion of the BP oil spill; their findings are recorded and explained here. I’ve visualized some of those findings below. (NB: In each instance where I used a pie chart, the responses totaled 100 percent.)

They asked respondents, “Do you think the leak in the Gulf of Mexico is a major disaster, a serious problem, not too serious, or you don’t know?” Perhaps unsurprisingly, Republicans were split in their responses between deeming the leak “a major disaster” and “a serious problem.” Democrats, on the other hand, were more likely to state the leak was “a major disaster.”

Click for full view.

“Has the response of the federal government/BP been excellent, good, only fair, or poor?” Again unsurprisingly, the administration fares better than BP.

Click for full view.

The poll also asked respondents to compare President Bush’s handling of Katrina to President Obama’s handling of the oil spill. Because the oil spill is still a relatively new story, many respondents were less familiar with the spill than they were with Hurricane Katrina. Results:

Click for full view.

Finally, the poll measured support for oil drilling and alternative energy options, comparing poll results from April 2009, February 2010 (before the spill), and May 2010 (after the spill).

Click to view full size.

Click here to read the full report from Pew Research.

From Chris Blattman’s blog today: “If you thought regular grade inflation was bad…”

Loyola students are having difficulty getting jobs. In response, did the administration consider dropping tuition? Nope. Instead, they just gave everybody an extra third of a grade — retroactively, no less. That’s not just inflation; that’s a rewriting of history.

Click here for the full story.

Chris also links to Jun Ishii, who works on analyzing how SAT prep courses affect college admissions.

[On a sidenote, we're registering with Technorati today- claim code 2PYF283NH9G8.]