Posted on 06/08/2011 6:26:35 PM PDT by Mozilla
I figured Andrew Jackson is one the bad guys in history. And I believe people like Glenn Beck hate him. For one thing he was a democrat who help his party gain control that they had for a long time afterward. I figured he was instrumental into ruining the nation into what we have today. I maybe wrong, but I wanted to search him on this website and it seemes every article likes him a lot. How come? Do people like Andrew Jackson like they hate Abe Lincoln? Strange stuff.
One of the reviewers said that Robert Merry’s writing did a very creditable job of making Jame K. Polk ‘interesting’.
I would like to see more boring Presidents. No scandals, no self aggrandizement. People who do the job they were elected to do and believe a return to private, civilian life, is a promotion.
(Gosh! That sounds familiar. Some President in the past has probably already said something similar.)
Bumping for later
Like him? Couldn’t say; never met the man.
Some THINGS he said or did, I like; others, not so much.
It's not only grammar, sir, it's spelling, too.
And besides, why not review your stuff before posting? It's only courteous that you do so, for the readers' sake.
>Sure, a CSA win in the Civil War would have been bad, but the endgame that is taking place today will have us all as slaves.
There are ways to avoid the endgame; but they involve reading and some balls.
Here’s one way, enacted by a state (NM in my example) against the federal government’s elite*: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2698298/posts
And here’s one against the state’s elite* using federal law: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2711585/posts
* - By “elite” I mean those who think that the law does not apply to them, or view their own power/authority to be superior of their Constitution(s), thinking that they are above and beyond it... i.e. the entire mentality of the 111th Congress and the bailouts.
Neat theory... how do you explain the westernized Indian farmers whose land he stole?
Bumping for later
________
Ok. You have my permission this one time, but don’t do it again.
>I would like to see more boring Presidents. No scandals, no self aggrandizement. People who do the job they were elected to do and believe a return to private, civilian life, is a promotion.
>(Gosh! That sounds familiar. Some President in the past has probably already said something similar.)
President Calvin Coolidge, nicknamed “Silent Cal”?
That man doesn’t get the good reviews he deserves! He stopped the economic recession Woodrow Wilson created post-WWI.
And yet Woody gets all the glamorous attention, while President Calvin Coolidge is called “Silent Cal”.
It’s not just a neat theory, it’s fact. History isn’t as black and white as people make it out to be.
Another fact that a lot of people don’t know is that not a few of the leaders of the tribes who led attacks against Americans were not even full Indians.
There are a number of instances where half-whites rose to leadership position in the tribal culture and led the tribe in attacks against Americans.
Andrew Jackson?
Is he still dead?
There is so much that is contradictory and just plain wrong in your post, it is difficult to know where to begin.
Andrew Jackson should be on Mt. Rushmore.
That was a small period of time in the 30's and 40's where a bunch of radical leftist historians like Charles Beard (A big FDR fan) used this Presidency to bash the GOP. No one believes that Johnson had any good qualities anymore and his bungling of Reconstruction was a disgrace. It set us up for decades of racial BS in this country. He is at least in the top 10 worst presidents.
His racial attitudes are deplorable but were very widespread at the time--so there was a limit to what could be accomplished. Grant was more in tune with the Radicals--but that didn't mean that everything became fine once Johnson left the White House.
Racism was very prevalent in the North--in 1865 the majority of Northern states restricted voting to white men, and most Northerners seem to have gotten tired of trying to help the freedmen pretty soon. Reconstruction failed (not totally but in many respects) not only because of resistance from Southern whites, but also because of indifference on the part of Northern whites.
One of the problems of the Radical Republicans was their arrogance--they wanted the Southerners not only to submit to federal authority but to admit that they had been wrong to support Southern independence, and Confederate veterans or their surviving kinfolk were not going to give them that satisfaction. The Radical Republicans were the forerunners of modern liberals who know what's best for everyone else.
Allow me to clear some things up about Andrew Jackson. First, many in our society blame Andrew Jackson for the Trail of Tears, otherwise known simply as Cherokee Removal from Georgia. It is innacurate to blame Jackson for this for one major reason; it occured in 1839, Jackson was no longer president. His hand-picked successor, Martin Van Buren, was president at the time. What Jackson was responsible for was the 1830 Indian Removal Act, which did make something like the Trail of Tears a possibility. This act was not something Jackson conjured up just because of a fear of Indians being pawns of European powers, it was the fulfilment of a promise made to the state of Georgia by President Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson could not bring himself to do it, and neither could Madison, Monroe, or Adams. And after 30 years of waiting, people in north Georgia were tired of waiting. People are quick to judge Jackson, but they can’t even state the year Cherokee Removal occurred, and they certainly don’t think that the actual residents of north Georgia might have actually had something to do with it all. Jackson also had the Nullification issue in South Carolina to be concerned with. By not following through on this 30 year promise, that state might have been encourgaed to go along with the nullifiers in SC.
Something else I’ve noticed here I want to address: Jackson would HATE our government today. He would most definatley not like big government, and let me explain why. Big government means big spending. As president Jackson vetoed almost every bill that we would consider today as a works progress act. For example, the same year he signed the Indian Removal Act into law, he vetoed a bill called the Maysville Road bill. It was to be an extension of the national road through Kentucky (which happened to be the home state of one of his greatest poltical rivals, Henry Clay), but only through that state. Jackson vetoed the bill on the basis that federal money should not be spent on something benefitting one state. Other examples that Jackson is not a proponent of big government: He is the only president to pay off the national debt. He destroyed the national bank. In many ways Jackson was a decentralist.
While he would not have been a proponent of big government, he was certainly the first president to expand the power of the executive branch. He vetoed more laws than all presidents before him combined. He was not afraid as president, to express his views on goverment and the constitution. Strong Presidents after Jackson admired him. Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, JFK, all admirers of Jackson’s use of executive office.
I think most people realize the Democratic Party Jackson created was not the same as the one FDR created, or the one in existance today. However, Democrats do still hold an annual Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner. This tradition goes all the way back to Jackson’s time when it was only known as the Jefferson Day Dinner. As a matter of fact, it was at this dinner in 1830, that Jackson and another political opponent of his, John C. Calhoun, had an interesting moment which most historians include when discussing the Nullification Crisis.
Which leads me to my final say on Jackson. It has been stated that Jackson did not care for the constitution. This could not be farther from the truth. As I said, most people know Jackson erronously for the Trail of Tears. Some people might know about the bank, or the Battle of New Orleans. What most people don’t know about, is Jackson’s most important role, and that was President during the Nullification Crisis of 1830-1832. South Carolina in Nov 1832 nullified a federal tariff. A conflict was brewing between the federal government and that state. It very well could have come to civil war 30 years before 1860.
Jackson was masterful in not only avoiding conflict, but winning the philosophical debate against a very smart politician, John C. Calhoun, the author of nullification. Most people would have expected Jackson during this moment to act brash and reactionary. Most people living at the time thought this as well. Few people living today or then, give him credit for the shrewdness he displayed here. Jackson did not strike out; he methodically built up the defenses in the harbor around Charleston (where most thought the issue of not paying the tariff would come to blows), and through Joel R. Poinsett, had militias created in the state. And had he tried tariff reform? Yes, he had, and the Palmetto state would not budge.
Jackson’s answer to the doctrine of Nullification was his Nullification Proclamation of December 10, 1832. In this document, Jackson becomes the first President to publicly state secession and nullification are treason. With that, not only does he win the majority of Americans to his side, he aptly defends the constitution and accomplishes something most don’t give him credit for....and that is he had a better understanding of the constitution than anyone at the time, save Daniel Webster and Joel Poinsett. Moreover, Jackson refused during this crisis to strike the first blow at South Carolina...its all in his papers.
Jackson had personal flaws, and his role in the removal of native americans is a stain on his record. However, he was not the first, or the last President to remove Indians, and thus should be seen that way. He was not a mass murderer; he like many Americans, wanted their land, even if they had become farmers. Being racist or greedy doesn’t make one a murderer. Jackson’s crowning achievement is his belief in an inseperable Union. Lincoln even stated this in his first inagural address.
Lastly, Jackson was the people’s President. He was the first man to be elected from the west. Every other president had been from Virginia or Massachussets. He was not formerly educated, yet he was a shrewd operator with a keen intellect, but a bad speller. People loved him because they could identify with him, and Jackson connected with them. It’s not unlike Reagan’s connection, or FDR’s to folks living in the Depression. Jackson wasn’t someone who seemed untouchable or unnaproachable. People trusted him for this. The love the nation had for him combined with his past is what caused many of his contemporaries to fear him as president. Yet, for all the trust he was given, Jackson never abused his power.
The good news for people such as you who like him is that he can run for president again, because the constitutional qualifications obviously mean nothing any more.
The bad news is that he’s dead. But that won’t stop a lot of dead voters from voting for him.
Sad thread full of weak brainwashed conservatives who see America mostly thru the prism of race
The libs won
I respect Jackson for the same reason I have a grudging respect for Putin. He did not care about "world opinion" or what others thought of his actions.
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