Numerous American President owned slaves. Some like Washington freed their slaves upon their death. Others like Grant (who received his through marriage), released them after a short period of time. Realizing that slavery was both an ill, and that it was an ages long institution that was foisted upon America (as with many other nations) which caused many discomforts and second thoughts, is certain. Understanding this is crucial to understanding America, and it is in part, crucial to understanding the seventh President Andrew Jackson.
The first man to attain the presidency after being born into poverty, Jackson was a story that only could have happened in the ever changing and ever evolving United States. Growing up on the frontier, he gained in prominence after fighting Indians, and subsequently earned great acclaim leading a multiracial, disparate group of Americans at the Battle of New Orleans, mangling the British troops who had helped bring about the demise Napoleon. He rose through the political ranks, eventually becoming Senator from Tennessee, before finally unseating John Quincy Adams, the son of John Adams, to become President in 1828.
His record was a strong one, buoyed by the fact that he stood against wasteful government projects, paid off the national debt (what a concept) and resoundingly stood against the threat of insurrection during the Nullification Crisis of 1831. However, his owning of slaves and his leadership of the nation during the Trail of Tears blemishes his record, and there is a case to made, but with context and with approbation.
Regarding slavery, he had slaves, as did many rich Southerners during the antebellum period. This is not to excuse the institution, rather it should be noted that this wasn’t unusual, and he didn’t wish to see the Union dissolved (more on that shortly) over the issue. As to the Trail of Tears, yes Jackson was cold and was disrespectful to the Supreme Court’s ruling and to the Indians. Two points though: first, there wasn’t a strong national army to protect the Indians being removed, and second, after long and hard years of Indian fighting, in which at times the Indians spun white babies around and splatted their heads against tree trunks, some forbearance could be bestowed (also, Jackson had an adopted son who was Indian).
When the despicable act of tearing down Jackson’s statue in Lafayette Square occurred this summer, it was disturbing to see relatively little condemnation of the incident. People just didn’t care or weren’t knowledgeable enough to know that Jackson was a great American, and should be revered despite his faults. Cries of him being racist and all the rest drowned out the entirety of the man, his full account. While this is a symptom of the lack of civic and historical education in the overall American school system, this is still a travesty, and must be rectified. How could a man, who despite some major faults, who had risen from poverty to the greatest office in the land, and who had stood up to elements of his own elite Southern class, and stated, “Our Federal Union, it must be preserved,” be the object of such ridicule?
Leaving aside the lack of education and the lack of couth among the leftist rioters and their supporters, Jackson is under further attack, because the current occupant of the White House has embraced him as part of his campaign on behalf of the American people. President Trump has run on a populist and pro-American platform, in certain ways emulating Jackson. Yes, the national debt has exploded, America is a world leader now and government intervention in American life is out of control compared to 200 years ago, but a belief in average people guiding their own futures drove both men. Ergo, it doesn’t take a deep leap of logic to see why the Left is going after Jackson, as it is an indirect but clear attack on President Trump and his supporters.
Men such as Jackson and Trump upset the establishment, they come in and overturn the tables of power, and give some vision that isn’t one of days gone by just for their own sake. Neither man completely eschewed tradition however, particularly of the longer and more venerable kind, reigning in their more harsh populism with a conservative reference for our forefathers. Both of these things offend the Left: reversing the establishment way of conducting politics, and the maintaining the Founding principles which created the United States.
While Trump’s faults are much less than Jackson’s, they are also extremely visible. So what does the elite do? Like with Jackson, they entirely avoid the positive record and press overly hard on the bad elements of each man, using these as the only real proof of their evil, and making up or contorting the rest to meet their own devious ends. Men like Trump and Jackson should not be torn down though, and the heartland of this country, along with a similar ragtag group of patriots across the nation, not entirely unlike those that Jackson at New Orleans, comes into view, scaring those who still cling to power for its own sake.
Let us therefore remember Jackson as a man of great shortcoming, but also as a great man who helped forge this nation in the generations after the Revolution. Yes, some of his views would be contrary to ours now, but he stood for the nation itself, and by so protecting it, he was a shuttle runner, passing off his burden to yet another generation of Americans, tasked to make the Union stronger and do their solemn duty of passing it on themselves in the future when their time comes. Now it is our time to let President Trump be his generation’s Jackson, let him finish the task at hand, of making America better than we first entered office. With him, the Union can be preserved.
Sincerely, your humble servant,
Winston Publius
The Classical (Trumpian) Liberal 