The sins of Andrew Jackson | Opinion

NOLA ^ | January 18, 2018 | Tim Morris

[beaversmom]

Amateur historians like to say that Andrew Jackson is the worst American president to ever get his face engraved on U.S. currency.

The root of the criticism is simple: Jackson was an unrepentant slaveholder and the power behind the legislation that forced five peaceful American Indian tribes from their homelands and triggered the Trail of Tears, a 1,000-mile death march that would leave 4,000 of 16,000 Cherokees dead along the way.

And although he remains in the top 10 of U.S. presidents in most annual rankings by historians and academics, perhaps no other American leader has fallen as far in the public's estimation as Jackson, who was once hailed as "the second Washington" and whose name was attached to cities, towns and counties across the country.

He is now scheduled to be replaced as the image on the $20 bill, the Democratic Party he founded has all but disowned him and there is pressure to remove his statue and presumably erase his name from the French Quarter's Jackson Square where he is honored for defeating the British in the 1815 Battle of New Orleans.

Those who learn in school only about Jackson's slaveholding and "genocidal American Indian policies" must wonder why he has been venerated at all. He has become a caricature of a violent racist.

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., the historian who coined the phrase "Age of Jackson," also warns against judging historic figures by the views of our day.

"Self-righteousness in retrospect is easy -- also cheap," Schlesinger said.

Jackson was born in the 18th century -- March 15, 1767 -- on the border between North and South Carolina as a subject of the British empire. He grew to adulthood in a new republic governed by elites. The six presidents who preceded him were all wealthy and very...

[miss marmelstein]

You have great powers of concentration to read those books off the internet! They drive me crazy and some of them are excellent and historic but impossible to read on screen.

I’m so worried about younger people being taught evil in schools. They are the ones going to grow up and run this country. Can’t they look around and see what a great country this is? I always questioned my teachers because, like Woody Allen, I thought they were all a bunch of morons.

[odawg]

“Can’t they look around and see what a great country this is?”

Has always puzzled me. I once asked a group of teenagers where was the best place in the world to live (all white). Some said Europe, a few said Africa, NONE said the United States.