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.
I think Jackson was a great man but like most he had flaws. He may have been the bravest man ever to be President. He also may have been the toughest. His men did not call him “Old Hickory” because he was a wimp.
I agree that he never let the Constitution get in his way. Now that I think about it, he probably never let anything get in his way.
Although he forced the Indians into Oklahoma, (btw, Eastern Oklahoma is a beautiful land), he adopted an Indian baby and raised him as his own.
A really forceful personality who was basically good but also started the slide which ended in an all powerful Federal Government. Even so if it had not been for Lincoln, it probably would never have gotten to the current state.
>My problem with Jackson is what he did to the Cherokee Indians. They owned farm land and he simply took it away from them and forced marched them Oklahoma, many died along the way.
I’m not too great with history: but wasn’t that known as the Trail of Tears?
While I'd give Jackson mixed reviews, There's no comparison. Jackson was the last POTUS to have served in the Revolutionary War and came back to fight again in 1812. He never dodged a draft or sold weapons secrets to the nation's enemies.
Jackson was certainly a good ole boy, but tough as nails, surviving a british sword blow and small pox and when an assassination attempt was made he had to be restrained from beating his assailant senseless. Bubba was a wimp that talked tough but always had others do his bidding.
When he was but a lad, he was a brave runner bringing messages across enemy lines during the Revolution; he also did good during the War of 1812. After that, it was downhill.
Back in the 1940s there was a movie about Andrew Johnson's impeachment which had him as the good guy and the Radical Republicans as the bad guys. The racial issues were pretty much ignored, I think. One of the channels that runs a lot of old movies ran it during the Clinton impeachment.
Yes it was.
Even taking him as a product of his own time, he had an excessive hatred of Indians. The falling out between him and Crockett was apparently more about his mistreatment of Indians (now Native Americans) than anything else. The exact truth of that is obscured by time, but Crockett gives a clear enough picture to know that Jackson was at best an extremely flawed human being.
Not as bad as the racist DemocRat, Woodrow Wilson. Few are. But bad nonetheless.
I suggest you read Robert W. Merry’s book, A Country Of Vast Designs.
It is ostensibly about James K. Polk (President, 1485), but he was a ‘political creature’, a protege, of President Jackson. Merry does a good job of describing the men and how politics worked before the Civil War.
Andrew Jackson wasn’t liked by the surviving founders of the U.S.A. The book is an excellent read and describes the Mexican War, I believe, accurately.
Back then the electorate could handle tough guys, tough issues, and tough decisions. Jackson was a very mixed bag, you don’t have to be defensive about coming down for him, or agin him.
Even taking him as a product of his own time, he had an excessive hatred of Indians. The falling out between him and Crockett was apparently more about his mistreatment of Indians (now Native Americans) than anything else. The exact truth of that is obscured by time, but Crockett gives a clear enough picture to know that Jackson was at best an extremely flawed human being.
Not as bad as the racist DemocRat, Woodrow Wilson. Few are. But bad nonetheless.
Thank you for the confirmation.
Yeah, what he said. Plus this quote from the man himself:
Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves.
Absolutely, my wife is Cherokee and this caucasian gets the message about Jackson on a regular basis! Go see “Unto These Hills” at Cherokee, NC sometime. Makes it pretty clear how Jackson repaid the Cherokees for their earlier help.
Her ancestors were able to avoid the hideous march by hiding in the mountains of eastern Kentucky.
As far as I am concerned it is perhaps the first, but certainly not the last, taking of private property by the
Rats.
James K Polk was one of the top 5 Presidents of all time. Did everything he said he would do and left office after 4 years.
Jackson had some good points. He clearly loved America; he was decisive; and he didn't take crap.
But he was the first president to preside over a truly "big government." He wielded executive power far more ruthlessly than all previous presidents combined; he vetoed more bills than all previous presidents combined---a sharp departure from the English "whig" notion that the legislature was the house of the people, which ALL of the Founders accepted; and I think the myth that he opposed the BUS because it was a "government" bank is just that---hogwash.
I found a document in AJ's papers in Nashville that showed he had instructed Levi Woodbury, his TreasSec to develop his own "national bank," and it was not, as some apologists say, a "subtreasury," but a regular old national bank . . . except one run by his guys. He tried to ban all small notes (paper money under a certain denomination), which is anti-free market. He screwed the Cherokee, even after the USSC ruled in their favor. He implied he would hang John C. Calhoun for opposing the Tariff of Abominations (Calhoun was wrong, but hanging was a bit severe).
He's one of those guys who should have stayed a general.
Whose tombstone is that?
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