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Lionizing Old Hickory
Writing in The New York Times, Janet Maslin gives the thumbs up to Jon Meacham's new American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, noting that Meacham "dispenses with the usual view of Jackson as a Tennessee hothead and instead sees a cannily ambitious figure determined to reshape the power of the presidency during his time in office." As Maslin notes:
In its cogent fashion this book illustrates how Jackson’s more polished political rivals, like Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun, were unable to look past Jackson’s confrontational style to see the president’s true agenda. At the time of the Compromise of 1833, when Jackson found ways to satisfy the conflicting interests of both nationalists and states’ rights advocates while asserting the power of the presidency, he displayed the fine political art of projecting while looking for a way out.
John Yoo, the former Justice Department attorney and author of the Bush administration's notorious "torture memo," recently made a similar argument, claiming that Jackson's successes as president all stemmed from his "vigorous exercise of his executive powers." That's true as far as it goes, but as I argued in my article on Yoo's Jacksonian conservatism, Old Hickory offers a truly terrible model of presidential behavior. His bullying politics see-sawed from decentralist to nationalist, held together only by his own considerable sense of self-righteousness and, as Maslin points out, his calculated efforts to expand the powers of the presidency. Meacham, it appears from Maslin's review, is on Yoo's side, arguing that Jackson's aggressive behavior held the country together and "kept the possibility of progress alive." Ah, progress. Tell that to the Cherokee.
Bingo|11.10.08 @ 5:14PM|#
I wonder if the GOP is going to get over its worship of Executive authority now that Obama is in office. I doubt it. If only we had the right people in charge!
Joel|11.10.08 @ 5:17PM|#
John Yoo, the former Justice Department attorney and author
of the Bush administration's notorious "torture
memo,"...
Boy, you write one little memo, and nobody ever lets you
forget.
|11.10.08 @ 5:29PM|#
Andrew Jackson - Trail of Tears.
Fuck him. I don't even like using twenties due that asshole being
pictured on them.
I case anyone is uncertain about my feelings about Jackson,
FUCK HIM!
economist|11.10.08 @ 6:24PM|#
Andrew Jackson,
If there's a hell, I hope it sucks as much as they say it does.
Mad Max|11.10.08 @ 6:28PM|#
"I don't even like using twenties due that asshole being
pictured on them."
You should get a chuckle out of it. Jackson was famous for his
opposition to a national bank - unwise and unconstitutional, he
said. Look who prints the twenties - a national bank! (Federal
Reserve). Basically, by putting Jackson's picture on the 20, the
Fed is acting like those barbarian kings who made drinking cups out
of the skulls of their defeated enemies.
In a lot of ways, Jackson was a bad, bad boy - backing Georgia
during the Trail of Tears, etc. These abuses, and the populist way
he went about them, warrant much of the criticism Jackson gets. I
don't want to deny the Jackson-haters their due. Jackson set the
stage for the modern populist Presidency - close to being a
plebiscitary dictatorship, if the John Yoos of the world have their
way.
But let us also give Jackson credit where it is due. As I said, he
opposed a national bank as unconstitutional and unwise.
In addition, his veto message
on the National Bank bill rebuked the political heresy that the
U.S. Supreme Court is a secular Magisterium which gets to tell us
what the Constitution means or doesn't mean:
"It is maintained by the advocates of the bank that its
constitutionality in all its features ought to be considered as
settled by precedent and by the decision of the Supreme Court. To
this conclusion I can not assent. . . .
"If the opinion of the Supreme Court covered the whole ground of
this act, it ought not to control the coordinate authorities of
this Government. The Congress, the Executive, and the Court must
each for itself be guided by its own opinion of the Constitution.
Each public officer who takes an oath to support the Constitution
swears that he will support it as he understands it, and not as it
is understood by others. It is as much the duty of the House of
Representatives, of the Senate, and of the President to decide upon
the constitutionality of any bill or resolution which may be
presented to them for passage or approval as it is of the supreme
judges when it may be brought before them for judicial decision.
The opinion of the judges has no more authority over Congress than
the opinion of Congress has over the judges, and on that point the
President is independent of both. The authority of the Supreme
Court must not, therefore, be permitted to control the Congress or
the Executive when acting in their legislative capacities, but to
have only such influence as the force of their reasoning may
deserve."
It is too bad that President Bush did not follow this particular
Jacksonian precedent, instead choosing to defer to the Supreme
Court instead of using his own independent judgment on
constitutional questions, as his oath to preserve, protect and
defend that Constitution required.
Perhaps President Obama will be more "Jacksonian" in this specific
area? One can hope.
Craig|11.10.08 @ 6:38PM|#
Old Hickory offers a truly terrible model of presidential
behavior.
He's not even close to last on the list, though. He was the last
president to pay off the national debt in its entirety, and he also
abolished the Bank of the United States.
If we could a get a modern day president to abolish the Fed and pay
off the national debt, we would consider him a libertarian
hero.
zoltan|11.10.08 @ 7:39PM|#
If we could get a modern day president to abolish the Fed and
pay off the national debt, at what price would we want that if you
get a Jacksonian populist who uses his power in other, less savory
ways?
I'm not sure how I'd answer that, as economic and civil rights are
two sides of the same coin to me.
|11.10.08 @ 8:13PM|#
I'm lucky my ancestors were good insurgents during their
day.
My cherokee ancestors evaded the government agents sent to march
them down the trail of tears...their distrust of government kept
them safe in the foothills of the appalachians for another 50 years
before they came down out of the mountains and started mixing with
city folk in chattanooga TN.
|11.10.08 @ 8:17PM|#
and you think the government wouldn't commit terrorism?
All you folks who claim the government is just a bungling group of
incompetents incapable of purposely hurting anyone should try
thinking of the cherokees they did manage to kill.
|11.10.08 @ 8:25PM|#
and seriously...doesn't this make any of the unquestioning
believers in the government sanctioned terrorist conspiracies the
least bit curious?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIzauRB6DVk
Lester Hunt|11.10.08 @ 8:45PM|#
The real hero here was Davy Crockett, who opposed the Indian policy of Andy Jackson -- his President, his former commanding officer, and the leader of his party. And for that he became a one-term Congressman. God bless him!
JLE|11.11.08 @ 12:18AM|#
Regarding Maslin's point that he could "reshape the power of the
presidency":
I can't even imagine a shape for the president these days.
Umbrella?
|11.11.08 @ 12:19AM|#
the Fed is acting like those barbarian kings who made
drinking cups out of the skulls of their defeated
enemies.
Actually, it's the treasury department, not the Fed, that decides
on the design of the currency.
-jcr
|11.11.08 @ 12:48AM|#
I agree with Mad Max.
Ending the Second Bank of the US was a major libertarian victory.
Without it, we libs wouldn't have much to talk about after
Jefferson.
Sure, Jackson was a mixed bag. But his Treasury Sec William Legget
was a locofoco, the New York Radicals who were thoroughly classical
liberal.
His successor, Martin van Buren, was the American Gladstone. He
continued the work of the ending the central bank, while
establishing the classical liberal policies of peace and prosperity
that lasted until 1862, and later in Grover Cleveland's two
terms.
Libertarians should criticize Jackson where he was wrong, but stand
up and applaud him when he was right.
Let's not play the race card like left liberals, OK?
|11.11.08 @ 8:37AM|#
I didn't mean to give the wrong impression I think Old Hickory
was great for his defense of the country from the bankers.
"You are a nest of vipers and thieves, and by the grace of the
almighty God, I will root you out! "
Said of the Second Bank of the United States;
"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. "
Unfortunately the bankers have finally completely conquered our
country as tehy now openly steal trillions at a time with no
recourse. There control of the education system and media is so
complete that most of the country doesn't even understand they are
being robbed.
|11.11.08 @ 12:58PM|#
The real hero here was Davy Crockett, who opposed the Indian
policy of Andy Jackson -- his President, his former commanding
officer, and the leader of his party. And for that he became a
one-term Congressman. God bless him!
Whereupon he left for Texas, to fight for the Republic of, and died
fighting Santa Ana at the Alamo. They don't make 'em like that any
more.
/Wipes tear./
economist|11.11.08 @ 8:33PM|#
libertree,
Maybe you're right. But I always like to think that someone can be
a libertarian in some areas without being a complete shit in
others.
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