Introduction
            
             Every President handles issues in his own way. It is interesting to
             compare and contrast
            
             the presidential leadership of Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson in the
             field of civil rights.
            
             An Issue of Civil Rights
            
             When President Eisenhower and President Johnson were in office,
             "their divergent
            
             leadership styles enabled them to gather Congressional support to pass the
             Civil Rights Act of
            
             1957 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, respectively. Their success in
             generating support from
            
             opposition legislators while keeping their own party's support base implies
             that president-
            
             sponsored legislation results from a proper combination of leadership style
             and political
            
             environment (Riddlesperger)." President Eisenhower was reluctant to
             "engage in personalized
            
             leadership, while Johnson defined leadership in a personal way
             (Riddlesperger)."
            
             President Kennedy and President Eisenhower each had to deal with
             civil unrest at
            
             colleges during their terms which involved sending in federal troops.
             Eisenhower dealt with a
            
             desegregation issue in 1957 at Little Rock Central High School, and his
             approach "mirrored his
            
             beliefs about race relations, the nature of law and people, and the federal
             government's role
            
             under the Constitution. Eisenhower believed in the equality of the races,
             but he also believed
            
             that equal treatment for racial minorities was a matter that would be
             achieved among individuals
            
             and not by legal mandate (Stern)." In 1962, Kennedy had to deal a similar
             problem at the
            
             University of Mississippi. His "approach to the desegregation crisis
             reflected his beliefs about
            
             race relations, the nature of law and people, and the federal government's
             role under the
            
             Constitution, as well as the lessons of the Little Rock crisis as he
             understood them. He believed
            
             that differences over issues could be solved rationally, with individuals
             coming to agr...