Historical rankings of presidents of the United States former director of the University of Maryland's African American Leadership Institute, stated that Presidents ranked by how each one balanced the interests of majority interests and the interests of excluded groups was practical in respect to American debate on racial politics. Presidents have traditionally been ranked on personal qualities and their leadership ability to solve problems that move the nation in a positive direction. Walters stated there was a qualitative difference between white and African American intellectuals in evaluating presidents. In the 1996 "New York Times" poll by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., 31 white historians and one black historian ranked
Former Presidents Act Former Presidents Act The Former Presidents Act (known also as FPA; 3 U.S.C. § 102) is a 1958 U.S. federal law that provides several lifetime benefits to former presidents of the United States who have not been . Before 1958, the U.S. federal government provided no pension or other retirement benefits to former United States presidents. Andrew Carnegie offered to endow a US$25,000 annual pension for former Chief Executives in 1912, but congressmen questioned the propriety of such a private pension. That prompted legislation to provide benefits to former presidents. When the Former Presidents Act took effect, there were two