Tag Archives: Andrew Jackson

Is Donald Trump a Jacksonian? by Thomas DiLorenzo

Posted on March 17, 2017 | Leave a comment

Like Trump, Andrew Jackson was a hand grenade (if they had had hand grenades back then) thrown at the Washington establishment of his day. Thomas  DiLorenzo explains why Trump likes to compare himself Andrew Jackson, at lewrockwell.com:

Is President Trump a “Jacksonian”? He apparently believes so: On his fifth day in office he installed a portrait of President Andrew Jackson in the Oval Office, and he recently visited the last resting place of his presidential predecessor in Nashville. His top political strategist, Steve Bannon, has said that the president likes to compare the populist movement behind him to a similar movement that supported Andrew Jackson and which infuriated the entrenched elites of his day.

And infuriate he did. Court historians and other propagandists for the state and state power have long portrayed Andrew Jackson as a country bumpkin, an ignoramus, a tool of corrupt bankers, and worse. The ultimate Ivy League snob, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., was especially disdainful of Jackson in his writings. Based on this fact alone, you know the man must have been one of the better presidents.

Murray Rothbard thought so. In his book, A Monetary History of the United States (page 91), Rothbard wrote that “[N]o movement in American politics has been as flagrantly misunderstood by historians as the Jacksonians,” thanks to all the misinformation about Jackson produced by the leftist, state-worshipping history profession. The Jacksonians were not “ignorant, anti-capitalist agrarians,” or “tools of the inflationary state banks,” as some historians have incorrectly portrayed him as being. “They were libertarians, plain and simple,” wrote Rothbard. (Note to libertarian purists: Murray Rothbard did not say that Jackson and his followers were as pure as the driven snow, like yourselves. They were imperfect human beings, as most of us are, but in the grand scheme of things, their main inspiration was really Jefferson, and they arguably comprised the most libertarian political movement in American history).

To continue reading: Is Donald Trump a Jacksonian?

 

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A New Jacksonian Era (Part Two), by Jim Quinn

Posted on February 13, 2017 | Leave a comment

The second part of Jim Quinn’s comparison between Donald Trump and Andrew Jackson (Part One here).  From Quinn at theburningplatform.com:

“But you must remember, my fellow-citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing. It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their own selfish purposes.” – Andrew Jackson

“For too long, a small group in our nation’s capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished, but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered, but the jobs left and the factories closed. The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country. Their victories have not been your victories. Their triumphs have not been your triumphs. And while they celebrated in our nation’s capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land. What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people. January 20th, 2017 will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again. The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.” – Donald J. Trump – Inaugural Speech

It is not a coincidence the painting in the oval office behind President Trump’s desk is of Andrew Jackson. He has promoted his presidency as a Jacksonian quest to return government to the people. His chief strategist Steve Bannon, a student of history, helped mold Trump’s speech with echoes of Jacksonian populism:

“It was an unvarnished declaration of the basic principles of his populist and kind of nationalist movement. It was given, I think, in a very powerful way. I don’t think we’ve had a speech like that since Andrew Jackson came to the White House. But you could see it was very Jacksonian. It’s got a deep, deep root of patriotism there.”

To continue reading: A New Jacksonian Era (Part Two)

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He Said That? 2/12/17

Posted on February 12, 2017 | 2 comments

From Andrew Jackson (1767-1845), seventh President (1829-1837), Veto Message Regarding the Bank of the United States (1832):

It is maintained by some that the bank is a means of executing the constitutional power “to coin money and regulate the value thereof.” Congress have established a mint to coin money and passed laws to regulate the value thereof. The money so coined, with its value so regulated, and such foreign coins as Congress may adopt are the only currency known to the Constitution. But if they have other power to regulate the currency, it was conferred to be exercised by themselves, and not to be transferred to a corporation. If the bank be established for that purpose, with a charter unalterable without its consent, Congress have parted with their power for a term of years, during which the Constitution is a dead letter. It is neither necessary nor proper to transfer its legislative power to such a bank, and therefore unconstitutional.

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A New Jacksonian Era? by Jim Quinn

Posted on February 12, 2017 | 1 comment

There are some similarities between Andrew Jackson and Donald Trump; time will tell how many. From Jim Quinn at theburningplatform.com:

“Gentlemen! I too have been a close observer of the doings of the Bank of the United States. I have had men watching you for a long time, and 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. I have determined to rout you out, and by the Eternal, (bringing his fist down on the table) I will rout you out!” – Andrew Jackson

“There is nothing the political establishment will not do, and no lie they will not tell, to hold on to their prestige and power at your expense. The Washington establishment, and the financial and media corporations that fund it, exists for only one reason: to protect and enrich itself. This is a crossroads in the history of our civilization that will determine whether or not We The People reclaim control over our government. The political establishment that is trying everything to stop us, is the same group responsible for our disastrous trade deals, massive illegal immigration, and economic and foreign policies that have bled this country dry.

The political establishment has brought about the destruction of our factories and our jobs, as they flee to Mexico, China and other countries throughout the world. It’s a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth, and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities.” – Donald Trump

Andrew Jackson was a bigger than life figure who lived from the early stages of the American Revolution until the country was on the verge of splitting apart over slavery and states’ rights issues. Born in the Carolinas shortly after his father died in an accident, he acted as a courier during the Revolutionary War. Andrew and his brother Robert were captured by the British and held as prisoners and nearly starved to death in captivity.

To continue reading: A New Jacksonian Era?

 

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Dishonoring General Jackson, by Patrick J. Buchanan

Posted on April 22, 2016 | 1 comment

Symbolic gestures such as replacing Andrew Jackson on the $20 dollar bill with Harriet Tubman don’t change the past, present, or future one iota; they make some people feel good and some people feel bad. It doesn’t change the relative important of either figure in US history. The small-minded preoccupation with feelings and gestures will continue among a vocal and vociferous segment of the US populace; the rest of us will focus on more important matters in our own lives. From Patrick Buchanan at buchanan.org:

In Samuel Eliot Morison’s “The Oxford History of the American People,” there is a single sentence about Harriet Tubman.

“An illiterate field hand, (Tubman) not only escaped herself but returned repeatedly and guided more than 300 slaves to freedom.”

Morison, however, devotes most of five chapters to the greatest soldier-statesman in American history, save Washington, that pivotal figure between the Founding Fathers and the Civil War — Andrew Jackson.

Slashed by a British officer in the Revolution, and a POW at 14, the orphaned Jackson went west, rose to head up the Tennessee militia, crushed an Indian uprising at Horseshoe Bend, Alabama, in the War of 1812, then was ordered to New Orleans to defend the threatened city.

In one of the greatest victories in American history, memorialized in song, Jackson routed a British army and aborted a British scheme to seize New Orleans, close the Mississippi, and split the Union.

In 1818, ordered to clean out renegade Indians rampaging in Georgia, Jackson stormed into Florida, seized and hanged two British agitators, put the Spanish governor on a boat to Cuba, and claimed Florida for the USA.

Secretary of State John Quincy Adams closed the deal. Florida was ours, and Jacksonville is among its great cities.

Though he ran first in popular and electoral votes in 1824, Jackson was denied the presidency by the “corrupt bargain” of Adams and Henry Clay, who got secretary of state.

Jackson came back to win the presidency in 1828, recognized the Texas republic of his old subaltern Sam Houston, who had torn it from Mexico, and saw his vice president elected after his two terms.

He ended his life at his beloved Hermitage, pushing for the annexation of Texas and nomination of “dark horse” James K. Polk, who would seize the Southwest and California from Mexico and almost double the size of the Union.

Was Jackson responsible for the Cherokees’ “Trail of Tears”?

Yes. And Harry Truman did Hiroshima, and Winston Churchill did Dresden.

Great men are rarely good men, and Jackson was a Scots-Irish duelist, Indian fighter and slave owner. But then, Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe were slave owners before him.

To remove his portrait from the front of the $20 bill, and replace it with Tubman’s, is affirmative action that approaches the absurd.

Whatever one’s admiration for Tubman and her cause, she is not the figure in history Jackson was.

To continue reading: Dishonoring General Jackson

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