Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 06:56 pm
Republicans love Andy Jackson because, as Samantha Bee so eloquently pointed out Monday night on Full Frontal, he was a “genocidal pr*ck.” In other words, his memory plays right into the current Republican Party’s wheelhouse.
Republicans are, of course, incensed at abolitionist Harriet Tubman’s takeover of the front face of the $20 bill – a reminder that their particular brand of exclusiveness doesn’t sell anymore. That African-Americans can also be important players on America’s historical stage.
And they are not alone: former Democratic presidential candidate Jim Webb showed an equal propensity to delusion when in a Washington Post op-ed Sunday he denounced attacks on Jackson as evidence of a “myth of universal white privilege” that is, in fact, quite real.
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Only a fool could not see it, which tells us all we need to know about Jim Webb.
The victory of Tubman over Jackson brought Brian Kilmeade, always to be counted on to say stupid things when they need saying, who complained that, “ousting a past president who has done so much in the founding of our country” an “unbelievable sign of disrespect.”
As Bee pointed out to the fact-challenged Kilmeade,
“Hate to break it to you, Sparky, Jackson wasn’t involved in the founding of our country, because the Revolutionary War happened before Old Hickory’s pubes came in. He was not a Founding Father, he was a genocidal pr*ck who forced the relocation of nonwhites and fomented populist rebellion — kind of like a Trump with better hair.”
Watch courtesy of Full Frontal:
In fact, as historian Gordon S. Wood notes (The Idea of America, 2011), the election of Andrew Jackson in 1828 as a “common man” in contrast to our earlier, aristocratic presidents, marked “the completion of the unfinished business of the Revolution.”
The problem is that though not a Southern aristocrat like Washington or Jefferson, Jackson was not – unlike those two earlier presidents – a man modern Americans can look up to. His is a note entirely distasteful legacy. For example, in 1832 his message when he vetoed the Second Bank of the United States is one that resonates today:
It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes. Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government. Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth can not be produced by human institutions. In the full enjoyment of the gifts of Heaven and the fruits of superior industry, economy, and virtue, every man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society — the farmers, mechanics, and laborers — who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their government. There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing.
But he is also the man who betrayed the Cherokee, who had made every attempt to live like white men, and drove them from their lands in an act that can only be described as genocidal. In fact, Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act into law just two years before the above denunciation of necessary evils in government. The actual removal of the Cherokee (the Trail of Tears) was enforced by Jackson’s successor, Martin Van Buren, but Jackson was its author.
And one thing Republicans refuse to acknowledge is any of the darker moments of American history, like slavery, genocide, and the theft of Native American lands.
Irony abounds in Republican defense of Jackson, not only a Democrat but the first president who was a Democrat, and nothing shows the evolution of American political parties like Republicans today defending the worst impulses of the Democrats of yesteryear.
As Wood explains,
Democrats felt they could reassert some of the older aspects of monarchism inherent in the presidency without fear of political retribution…The Jacksonians developed the use of patronage – the “spoils system” – to a fine art; they build up the federal bureaucracy and under Jackson’s leadership they turned the presidency into the most popular and powerful office in the nation.
There are numerous problems with President Andrew Jackson, who did in fact win a significant but historically meaningless victory at New Orleans against British invaders – you know, because the war was already over when the battle was fought.
This was not Jackson’s fault, because communications in that era were what they were over such vast distances, but the fact remains the battle not only did not help found our country but did nothing to preserve it.
Jackson is a historically problematic president, and any time you judge the past by present mores you are going to run into these problems. But if somebody has to go, certainly better Jackson than Washington, Lincoln, or Jefferson. If Jackson did not help found America, certainly Harriet Tubman helped re-found it, as a country that is indeed open and welcoming to all.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
