Call me a communist (because my husband loves to), but I don't really know crap about any of the Presidents. I don't really care to read their histories, because, they're all pretty much dead. But I THINK Lincoln was the most influential. I mean, he's got his own statue...he must've inspired a ton of people to score that thing. Also, probably Jefferson (as he's one of the few I do know some things about).

well, most influential would be who had the most influence.

So it would probably be George Washington. He did set the standard for the presidency.

What counts as influential? Is power influence? Or is it the stamp of moral authority? American Presidents between Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt were the unimportant leaders of an agrarian backwater by world standards. The US was not even considered a Great Power until 1896. POLITICAL Influence within America is one thing, but look to a wider stage and there are not too many influential Presidents.

Washington naturally made an international impact, but the fact that the identical Toby Jug was sold throughout Europe variously labelled Geo. Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Gen. Cornwallis suggests that he wasn't as well known as Americans would like to believe. Jefferson was widely read in ruling circles around the world---and there it just about ends.

American history books make a fuss about Monroe, but he was trying to punch well above his weight. Imprinted by a century and a half of propaganda, most Americans would probably plump for Lincoln: he may have been in charge during momentous events, but what INFLUENCE did he have? Probably any of his contemporaries would have presided over the same actions that he did apart from ruining the performance of a perfectly good play. He was after all, a hick. Teddy Roosevelt with an early grasp of mass-media manipulation gripped the World's attention and even after leaving office ran a great PR campaign projecting American vigour and modernity.

Wilson was probably the first really influential US President, from sitting back and allowing the US to make a fortune from WW1 and only getting America involved in the closing months, he was able to stamp his self-righteous authority on the peace and sit as the first amongst equals with Lloyd George and Clemenceau. He was a true intellectual, a PhD no less. His administration marks the point where America moved from Wild West to mature world power.

FDR probably had the most INFLUENCE for he, more than any of his predecessors, saw the opportunity to eliminate and supplant the British Empire as the dominant force in the World. His expansion of the Federal Government has never been reversed, his relationship with Anglophone leaders like Churchill was unique and he juggled momentous International events with equally important domestic ones.

The USA in 1945 was five times richer than it was in 1939 (six times more than in 1932), had achieved world military and economic hegemony (although that wasn't obvious until 1950), acquired all of Western Europe's technology and a great proportion of its talent and remaining assets. That it was achieved by war is only half the story. Without FDRs social and fiscal experiments of the 1930s, the US would have been unable to subsidise Britain and the USSR and then fight two full-on intensive wars simultaneously. FDRs successors have all had their moments, but they have only been able to exercise influence by nature of inheriting the trappings of Superpower. Compare their positions for example with a Thatcher who as only the head of a collective leadership of a declining and impoverished country was not only able to turn around her own country, but was able to bully antagonistic European leaders, have two US Presidents and an entire congress eating out of her hand and bring the USSR in from the cold.

So its FDR for me.

I would say FDR since his New Deal rescued the country from the Great Depression.

FDR is probably the most influential one. He served as president longer than any other one.