Posted on 08/24/2020 6:44:58 AM PDT by SJackson
And just as is the case today, that President had to kill it, or it would kill him.
The far-Left rioters who attempted to topple the statue of Andrew Jackson in Washington, DC’s Lafayette Square several weeks almost certainly know nothing whatsoever about him. What they were told in the Antifa indoctrination camps that are called higher education these days is that he was largely responsible for the forcible exile of Native Americans from the Eastern United States, the Trail of Tears, and is thus to be reviled and hated forever. What they were not told is something that may have made them hate him even more: Andrew Jackson was responsible for destroying the first deep state cabal of shadowy, unelected powerbrokers in American history.
As Rating America’s Presidents: An America-First Look at Who Is Best, Who Is Overrated, and Who Was An Absolute Disaster explains, President Jackson took on that cabal, which centered around the Bank of the United States, because of its unaccountability and influence over the electoral process. The Bank was a private corporation that kept the public treasury; its advocates contended that it was necessary to put the nation’s finances in order; its foes, the foremost of whom was Jackson, argued that it was an unconstitutional power grab by the federal government. It was dangerous, then as now, to turn power over the public funds to an oligarchy of private financiers; the possibility for corruption, and for a de facto second government developed by buying favors until large enough to challenge the government of the United States, was immense.
Jackson called the Bank of the United States a “monster,” and denounced its “power and corruption.” He charged it with interfering in the political process and bribing elected officials and journalists with “loans” so that they would do its bidding. There was ample evidence for this. The New York Courier and Enquirer, which up until the 1832 election had opposed the Bank, received a substantial loan from it and suddenly became a vocal supporter of rechartering the Bank. The pro-Jackson Washington Globe accused pro-Bank senators George Poindexter of Mississippi and Josiah Johnston of Louisiana of accepting enormous bribes in return for their support of the Bank, and indeed, Poindexter had received from the Bank a $10,000 loan ($300,000 today) and Johnston one of $36,000 (over $1 million today). These were by no means the only loans the Bank gave to politicians.
Jackson warned that if the Bank, a “mere monied corporation,” could use its money to buy politicians, “then nothing remains of our boasted freedom except the skin of the immolated victim.” He told his close friend and advisor Martin Van Buren: “The Bank, Mr. Van Buren, is trying to kill me, but I will kill it!”
He did. The Bank’s charter, the document that gave it the United States government’s permission to exist, didn’t expire until 1836, but in early 1832, the president of the Bank, Nicholas Biddle, applied for a new charter. His sole reason for doing this was to force Jackson to refuse to recharter the Bank; Biddle assumed that Jackson’s opposition to the Bank would be unpopular and lead to his defeat in the upcoming election, and so he wanted to make sure the president committed publicly to this opposition during the campaign season.
Jackson duly vetoed a bill for rechartering the Bank in July 1832, whereupon Biddle poured massive amounts of money into the campaign of Jackson’s opponent, Henry Clay. Clay campaigned on the issue of the Bank, but this issue did not prove as popular as he and Biddle had hoped. The American people saw Jackson as their champion against moneyed interests that were corrupting the body politic. Clay was resoundingly defeated, with 49 electoral votes against Jackson’s 219.
Rating America’s Presidents shows history in the process of repeating itself. Today, President Trump is, like Jackson, facing a coterie of secretive and unaccountable forces that hold undue sway over the course of American domestic and foreign policy. As in Jackson’s war against the Bank of the United States, Trump must destroy these forces, or they will destroy him – and in this case, likely take the nation down as well. Just as in 1832, these powerful forces are hoping by means of a presidential election to restore and cement their hegemony. The future of America as a free society, in which officials are accountable to the people, hangs in the balance.
Correct.
There was JFK, and Nixon. Both lost.
I have never been a fan of Jackson. But, several years ago it became clear to me that the Eastern Elites hated and feared him because he “was not one of them.” First President to be raised outside of the cabal.
Agree.
Ugh. Andrew Jackson, first Democrat president, started the “spoils system.”
Yep he got rid of the bank (same as the Federal Reserve today) and was the only president to get rid of the US debt completely. Amazing what can be done when you do not have the Federal Reserve, which by the way is private not federal.
At no point in history has any government ever wanted its people to be defenseless for any good reason ~ nully's son
Nut-job Conspiracy Theory Ping!
To get onto The Nut-job Conspiracy Theory Ping List you must threaten to report me to the Mods if I don't add you to the list...
Make no mistake, Trump is also resented from deep within the GOP because he’s an outsider. The party elites are every bit as much a part of the Deep State cabal as the Dems are.
Jackson probably had fewer enemies than Trump does.
Starboard,
Exactly!
Add Lincoln to the list
bkmk
“Ugh. Andrew Jackson, first Democrat president, started the “spoils system.”
______________________________________________
Jackson was obvious about it and received loud newspaper and Congressional criticism for it. However, make no mistake, the spoils system existed and thrived before him. It was just not so obvious that the elites were appointing their own, because the appointees WERE their own.
Great column. Spot on.
Ditto, here.
And one actually lost much more than the other.
The so called spoils system was a President appointing people who would execute his policy. Instead we have a Prussian style bureaucracy that naturally corrupts and decides IT sets national policy.
A president must follow their talking points or get impeached. Vindman said this on every without a hint of being aware of how horrifying this is.
Spoils system was better
Don’t forget McKinley.
Maybe.
We have prospered tremendously under the bureaucracy. But it is hard to know if they helped or hindered.
What they have done, is take enormous amounts of power, given to them by the Congress and Courts, and they are pretty much unaccountable.
And the rest, they say, is Lorenzo's Pizza history.
“There was JFK, and Nixon. Both lost.”
Oh boy! I remember both like they were yesterday. I can’t say that I remember Jackson, though :-).
I have long thought of Nixon in comparison to Trump. There are many parallels with their journey — especially the media (and good ole WAPO). This time it is different, though. Trump is a fighter and we have Rush, Fox (or at least we did have them) and we do have sites like this and others!
A lot of folks I know picked up on that about Vindman - who is this Trump idiot who thinks he can just go talking to the President of the Ukraine without consulting ME! ME! What about ME!
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