Top 5 First Ladies More Qualified to be President than Hillary Clinton

Top 5 First Ladies More Qualified to Be President than Hillary Clinton

by Aya Katz

Hillary Clinton is all set to become the first woman president of the United States. Her list of qualifications is long: attorney, Secretary of State, Senator — but seemingly the biggest reason she is even being considered at all is that she was the First Lady to President Bill Clinton. There are so many other, better qualified women (and men) today who will never have the opportunity to run for president, because they do not have the clout of the Clinton political machine behind them.

But was Hillary even that great of a First Lady? Did she stand up against injustice, or did she help to whitewash the misdeeds of her husband? For someone who wants to be the first woman president, Hillary has a long record of covering up abuses against women in the name of political expediency.

As First Ladies go, Hillary has not set a very good example. Here is a list of five First Ladies who would have made better presidents than Hillary Clinton.

1. Abigail Adams

Abigail Adams was one of our most intelligent, well-educated and knowledgeable First Ladies. She was the first Second Lady and the second First Lady of the United States, as her husband, John Adams was our first vice president and our second president. She is also the mother of John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the United States. She was the first First Lady to occupy the White House.

Intelligent, articulate and a fluent writer, Abigail Adams advised her husband privately on those matters that she felt to be of importance to the nation. She spoke out against slavery and was an advocate of women’s rights. In a letter to her husband in 1776, she wrote:

[R]emember the ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.

Though Abigail Adams may have been a better writer than John Adams, she understood that her role as First Lady was to advise him in private, not to speak for him in public. It would never have occurred to her to take over the presidency, as Edith Wilson did when President Wilson fell ill, because Abigail Adams understood the Constitution and honored its provisions. It is equally certain that had her husband used his high office to abuse or harass women over whom he exercised power, Abigail Adams would not have condoned or excused this behavior. She understood her role as First Lady as being a supportive one, and her husband relied on her in matters of personal conscience.

If it had been possible at that time for Abigail Adams to have run for president, she would have done so on her own power and not because of her connection to John Adams. She understood the difference between the role of a first lady and the duties of a president.