Andrew Jackson

[FreedomAngel82]

I need information on Andrew Jackson and his political party. Thanks in advanced.

[Dissent Is Patriotic]

1. He sold out the Cherokees...

he said that they had to move west b/c they were not white. He took their land. Nice Guy.

[rawtribe]

2. The story is here

http://www.iwchildren.org/genocide/shame9.htm

[DaCheat]

3. He also

threatened to hang John C. Calhoun for writing the "South Carolina Exposition of Protest" over nullification. Calhoun later resigned as Vice President.

[CalebHayes]

4. For what reason do we have him on the 20?

[FreedomAngel82]

5. In Mr. Dean's speech last Saturday

he mentioned how Jackson and Clinton were the only people who were financially responsible and over the top and everything and they were democrats. Someone on another board I'm on said the party Jackson was is now the republican party. I'm just wondering about that.

[DjTj]

11. He is considered by some to be a founder of the Democratic Party

That's why the Democratic Party dinners in each state our Jefferson-Jackson Dinners. He is in no way a Republican.

He was the first President to grow up poor and probably the first real populist - espousing democratization of federal offices and abolishing the electoral college.

[SharonAnn]

13. He was the first president to balance the budget.

And he was from Tennessee.

[SoCalifer]

6. Andrew Jackson

The Hero of the War of 1812. He is pretty much credited for saving us in the War of 1812 from his amazing action against the British forces in New Orleans.

But in my opinion and also happens to be his own opinion as well, is: That he destroyed the "central bank" of that time. And that's what appears on his tombstone. On his tombstone it reads: "I Killed The Bank"

He took on the international bankers and all their tricks, and beat them.. Unfortunately that monster is back with us today, and is our Federal Reserve Bank. Although nothing federal about it, and no reserves in it; not even a fraction to cover all the federal reserve notes circulating around.

[TR Fan]

9. The Battle of New Orleans

occurred after the cease fire between the Americans and the British.

[soleft]

7. Was a genocidal bigot

[B0S0X87]

8. Some people consider him the first democrat

I'm not entirely sure why he is, but there's a famous cartoon of him that also makes references to the "democrat donkey."

His presidential record was mixed.

Good
-believed in federal unity: "Our federal union, it must be preserved" was often quoted by Lincoln in his quest to reunite the states.
-he established the power of the executive branch with his fight against nullification laws

Bad
-He sent the Cherokees on the Trail of Tears
-His decision to destroy the National Bank was good in principle, but helped cause the Panic of 1837

[JHBowden]

10. His opponents called him a jackass

for his populist views. So he adopted it as his symbol, and Democrats use it to this day. We could use an Andrew Jackson these days; whenever the Democrats today are called something mean, they wimper and say, "oh no, we are exactly like the other party."

[FreedomAngel82]

12. We should invoke Mr. Jackson more

And funny on the democratic symbol. Nice. If someone called me a jackass I'd proudly stand up and say "yes sir/ma'am I am a democrat." ;)

[Hippo_Tron]

14. Andrew Jackson in a few paragraphs

After the War of 1812 the country was united under the Jeffersonian Republican party (no relation to the modern Republican part) because the Federalist party was destroyed after the Harftford Convention.

James Monroe was re-elected President in 1820 and the vote was unanimous with the exception of one vote (the elector wanted George Washington to be the only unanimously elected President). Monroe was loved by all. His cabinet included many former Federalists that included John Quincy Adams (son or nephew, can't remember which, of John Adams).

In 1824 with the absence of two political parties, there were four candidates for President. John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, Andrew Jackson, and some other guy that isn't important. Adams and Clay supported many principals of the old federalist party. Clay had earlier called these principals "The American System" which included the national bank and protective tariffs, old federalist ideals. Andrew Jackson was a general during the War of 1812 and best known for his victory in the Battle of New Orleans. Jackson ran on a populist platform that rejected the federalist ideas. He wanted rural farmers to use the political system to empower themselves. Jackson recieved a plurality of the electoral and popular votes but not a majority.
In what is commonly known as the "corrupt bargain" Adams was elected President because Henry Clay, Speaker of the House, convinced the House members to vote for Adams. Coincidentally Clay was appointed as Adams' Secretary of State.

The Adams administration was pretty much a failure on the domestic front because people were displeased with him from the corrupt bargain. In 1828 Jackson challenged Adams to a re-match. His faction was known as the "Democratic Republicans" which later became the Democratic Party and Adams' faction was the "National Republicans" that later became the Whig Party. Interestingly enough, Adams' Vice President, John C Calhoun switched sides and became Jackson's running mate.

Some will attribute Jackson's victory over Adams to his populism and the failures of the Adams administration. In reality, Jackson was elected because of the birth of political machines. Jackson's right hand man, Marin Van Buren (who became his Secretary of State and later his VP) started to form early political machines that were ultimately responsible for Jackson's vicotry in 1828. Political machines were very effective because in this time there was no secret ballot. Immigrants, in particular, were given jobs and housing in exchange for their votes.

As President, Jackson was basically pro small government. Don't confuse this with the stance of the modern GOP because it is completely different. During Jackson's time, there were no big corporations and thus there was no need for big government. He saw big government, in particular the national bank, as a way of benefitting the elite.

During the Jackson administration is really when we begin to see a rise in tensions that ultimately lead up to the civil war. Jackson was pro small government but was also very much for a strong federal union. During his administration he raised the protective tariffs which angered his VP John C. Calhoun. Calhoun felt that the federal government had no right to do this. Calhoun resigned the Vice Presidency and went back to South Carolina to pass the doctrine of nullification, that states could declare federal laws unconstitutional in their state. Jackson responded by having congress pass a law that allowed him to send in the army to enforce federal laws. Ultimately the crisis was settled by Henry Clay (now a US Senator) where Jackson would pull out the troops from SC and the two sides would accept a comrpomrise tariff.

The other big event during the Jackson administration was the bank war. Jackson vetoed the national bank, but the bank's charter did not expire until after the election of 1836. Nicholas Biddle (President of the bank) and Jackson engaged in the bank war, which I don't quite remember how it exactly went, but definately something that you should look up in an encyclopedia.

In the election of 1836, Martin Van Buren (now Jackson's Vice President) ran for President and won. He continued the policies of the Jackson Administration and the Democratic Party but his administration was a failure because of the economic depression, largely caused by Jackson's blunders with the bank and his issuing of Specie Circular (look this up as well). Van Buren was defeated in 1840 by Whig candidate, General William Henry Harrison "Tippacanoe". And that is basically the Jacksonian era in a nutshell.

Oh yea, I didn't include anything about the Trail of Tears and the genocide of the Indians because I don't know much about these parts. Others have probably mentioned these.

[rman]

15. Last president to prevent takeover of control over currency

by the bankers.
Also he was a dissident of sorts who cause a split from which the Dem party was born.

[Blue_Roses]

16. Here's something that explains the Indian

controversy and alittle about Andrew Jackson

http://www.synaptic.bc.ca/ejournal/jackson.htm

[lakemonster11]

17. To the tune of "Oh, Susannah!"

Andy Jackson!
Our seventh president
He was from the west
He was the best
A White House resident

(sorry, I can't think of Andrew Jackson without remembering this little ditty we wrote in junior high)

[NoPasaran]

18. Andrew Jackson did not send the Cherokee on the Trail of Tears

The removal of the Cherokee Nation from Georgia to what is now Oklahoma took place over 1838-39. Martin Van Buren was President.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

21. what???...YES is Jackson responsible 100% for the Trail of Tears!........

Indian policy based on Paternalism may have started as simply guardianship of the Cherokee Nation and its lands in an effort to bring them around to a Christian way of life, but in the end Paternalism was the platform that the Jackson administration used to take their land and ignore their rights.

~~~~~~

President Jackson supported the prospect of Indian removal which helped him gain an election victory among the southern states in 1828. The Indians would not, to improve their position, sell their land and move west. The problem was whites wanted land, so Jackson using the cloak of Paternalism to promised, "to rescue his `red children’ from the advancing tide of white settlement in the east, protect them in the west, and help them advance to civilization" (Rogin, 1975, p. 207). One reason Jackson was willing to move the Cherokee and other tribes west of the Mississippi was he thought that land would be useless for agriculture (Olson and Wilson, 1984, p. 208). The point was to give the Cherokee and the other Indians land that whites did not want, thus getting the Indians out of the way. According to instructions from John H. Eaton Secretary of State to Generals William Carroll and John Coffee 30 May 1829:

The President is of the opinion that the only mode left for the Indians to escape the effects of such enactments, and consequences more destructive and which are consequent on their contiguity the whites, is, for them to emigrate (Remini, 1972, p. 63).

In 1828 Georgia extended State law over the Cherokee in its state. Jackson saw this a problem as stated above and saw the only way to solve it was to move the Cherokee.

Again, the dark side of Paternalism was at work. The white need to clear and cultivate land for settlement was all. "The President allowed that this progress destroyed the resources of the savage and doomed him to weakness and decay" (Gates, 1988, p.40). There was no thought of the rights of the Cherokee on the part Jackson. He let settlers move in on lands that were clearly Indian. "Thus, Jackson could voice humanitarian concern as a compelling basis for Indian removal; a concern actuated by feelings of justice and regard for our national honor" (Prucha, 1969, p 534). Jackson saw what best for the Cherokee and the other tribes, and, to him, it was not working with them to see that their rights were protected. While it was true that removal was seen by Jackson and others as a way to protect Indians from white settlers and white settlers from Indians there were other ways to do the same. For example, Congress could have passed a bill that protected the Indian lands within the boundaries of states from being settled by whites. That idea was well within the basis of Paternalism, but never even tried, most likely, because it would have sparked a debate over States rights vs. Federal power.

Indian Removal Bill

Instead, in 1830 Congress began debate on the constitutional and moral implications of Jackson’s recommendations (Satz, 1975, pp. 20—21). The fight in Congress fell along party lines. However, there were some anti-Jackson leaders like Theodore Frelinghuysen who felt the Indians had every right to their lands given to them by treaties, and it was legally wrong for the administration to disregard or modify (Gates, 1988, p 42). The Senator took to task Georgia officials for the extension of state law over the Cherokee Nation which declared their government, their laws, and customs void (Gates, 1988, p 42). It was clear, at least to Frelinghuysen and some others, that the United States Government had a duty to protect the Cherokee and their political and civil rights.

Still other anti-Jackson senators supported Frelinghuysen’s argument and added their own. Many feared that any appropriations attached to the bill might be used to enact forced removal or provide the means to bribe chiefs into making agreements that married their people to the administration’s policy. If the good faith of the Jackson administration was questioned in the area of removal, it was because some congressmen and senators felt that promises of a peaceful home in the West were not followed up by any plains for subsistence or security (Evarts, 1830, p. 96).

Senator Ascher Robbins, according to Gates, questioned the vary constitutionality of the bill:

After all, there had been a long history of treaties negotiated between United States Government and Indians. …Since the Indian nations were held competent to make treaties, the proposed legislation was not only in appropriate, but unconstitutional (1988, p 44).

The reason Senator Robbins thought the bill unconstitutional was it seemed to be a new treaty, and that job was in the area of the executive according to Article II Section two The President, " Shall have the power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties…." Thus, the whole bill should not have come to either house of congress without first having been negotiated with the Indian Nations such as the Cherokee.

Supporters of the Removal Bill were not without breath. In the forefront was John Forsyth former governor of Georgia who late 1828 urged the state legislature to pass an act that extended the laws of Georgia over the Cherokee. In sum, the supporters position was the bill did not give the President the right to remove the Cherokee people by force However, those who opposed the bill shot back there was nothing in the bill that spelled out the President could not use force if the Cherokee and the other tribes did not emigrate (Gates, 1988, p 45). Those in opposition to the bill had the good Paternalistic concern that rights of the Cherokee and the other tribes were protected. And if the Jackson administration intended free and voluntary removal there should be no objection to amendments which would support it (Evarts, 1830, pp 91—92).

Jackson and his supporters wanted latitude under the bill which would allow them to use fair and what some would call unfair means, thus they rejected any amendments that limited the actions the United States Government could take to remove the Indians. The Removal Bill Passed the Senate 28—19 (Satz, 1975, p 25). The House passed the bill 94—94 the tie was broken by the Speaker of the House. On 28 May 1830 Jackson signed the Bill into law.

[NoPasaran]

22. Nuh-uh

In 1830 the Congress of the United States passed the "Indian Removal Act." Although many Americans were against the act, most notably Tennessee Congressman Davy Crockett, it passed anyway. President Jackson quickly signed the bill into law. The Cherokees attempted to fight removal legally by challenging the removal laws in the Supreme Court and by establishing an independent Cherokee Nation. At first the court seemed to rule against the Indians. In Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, the Court refused to hear a case extending Georgia's laws on the Cherokee because they did not represent a sovereign nation. In 1832, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Cherokee on the same issue in Worcester v. Georgia. In this case Chief Justice John Marshall ruled that the Cherokee Nation was sovereign, making the removal laws invalid. The Cherokee would have to agree to removal in a treaty. The treaty then would have to be ratified by the Senate.

By 1835 the Cherokee were divided and despondent. Most supported Principal Chief John Ross, who fought the encroachment of whites starting with the 1832 land lottery. However, a minority(less than 500 out of 17,000 Cherokee in North Georgia) followed Major Ridge, his son John, and Elias Boudinot, who advocated removal. The Treaty of New Echota, signed by Ridge and members of the Treaty Party in 1835, gave Jackson the legal document he needed to remove the First Americans. Ratification of the treaty by the United States Senate sealed the fate of the Cherokee. Among the few who spoke out against the ratification were Daniel Webster and Henry Clay, but it passed by a single vote. In 1838 the United States began the removal to Oklahoma, fulfilling a promise the government made to Georgia in 1802. Ordered to move on the Cherokee, General John Wool resigned his command in protest, delaying the action. His replacement, General Winfield Scott, arrived at New Echota on May 17, 1838 with 7000 men. Early that summer General Scott and the United States Army began the invasion of the Cherokee Nation.

In one of the saddest episodes of our brief history, men, women, and children were taken from their land, herded into makeshift forts with minimal facilities and food, then forced to march a thousand miles(Some made part of the trip by boat in equally horrible conditions). Under the generally indifferent army commanders, human losses for the first groups of Cherokee removed were extremely high. John Ross made an urgent appeal to Scott, requesting that the general let his people lead the tribe west. General Scott agreed. Ross organized the Cherokee into smaller groups and let them move separately through the wilderness so they could forage for food. Although the parties under Ross left in early fall and arrived in Oklahoma during the brutal winter of 1838-39, he significantly reduced the loss of life among his people. About 4000 Cherokee died as a result of the removal. The route they traversed and the journey itself became known as "The Trail of Tears" or, as a direct translation from Cherokee, "The Trail Where They Cried" ("Nunna daul Tsuny").
http://ngeorgia.com/history/nghisttt.html
Like it or not, the removal of the Cherokees didn't happen until 1838, and Jackson was no longer President when it came.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

19. JAMA: Jackson was INSANE due to lead and mercury poisoning.....fact.......

he was shot and the lead ball(bullets)remained in his body for decades and mercury poisoning he ingested often as a medical treatment which causes insanity....they were never removed and he carried them around poisoning his brain for 2 decades...fact

JAMA article:
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/282/6/569

Andrew Jackson's Exposure to Mercury and Lead
Poisoned President?

Ludwig M. Deppisch, MD; Jose A. Centeno, PhD; David J. Gemmel, MA; Norca L. Torres, MS


JAMA. 1999;282:569-571.

Historians have suggested that US president Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) experienced lead and mercury poisoning following his therapeutic use of calomel (mercurous chloride) and sugar of lead (lead acetate). To evaluate these claims, we performed direct physical measurement of 2 samples of Jackson's hair (1 from 1815, 1 from 1839). Following pretreatment and acid digestion, mercury was measured using cold vapor generation techniques, while lead levels were measured by electrothermal atomic absorption spectrophotometry. Mercury levels of 6.0 and 5.6 ppm were obtained from the 1815 and 1839 hair specimens, respectively. Lead levels were significantly elevated in both the 1815 sample (mean lead level, 130.5 ppm) and the 1839 sample (mean lead level, 44 ppm). These results suggest that Jackson had mercury and lead exposure, the latter compatible with symptomatic plumbism in the 1815 sample. However, Jackson's death was probably not due to heavy metal poisoning.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Andrew Jackson's Physicians
http://www.tennesseehistory.org/Publications/Summer-2003/andrew_jackson's_physicians.htm



His biographers have concluded that Andrew Jackson experienced lead and mercury poisoning. Some have even suggested that heavy metal toxicity contributed to this president’s death. His physicians plied him with calomel (mercurous chloride) and sugar of lead (lead acetate), prescriptions from the early nineteenth century pharmacopoeia. A third integral part of his medical regimen was frequent and rigorous bloodletting, whether performed by a physician or servant or self administered. Venesection was the preferred mode to remove blood but the placing of heated glass cups on the skin, a process referred to as “cupping” was also employed. Collectively these violent therapies together with a few others comprised the treatment philosophy known as heroic medicine.2

Andrew Jackson lived for seventy-eight years. His medical history was encyclopedic. He was the target not only of endemic infectious diseases of his era, malaria and smallpox, but also of the therapeutic agents employed by the practitioners of heroic medicine, bleeding, calomel, and sugar of lead. Additionally Jackson assaulted his physical well being by his predilection for physical confrontation.

As a teenage combatant in the Revolutionary War, Jackson’s forehead and wrist were lacerated by the saber of a British officer. Jackson contracted smallpox while imprisoned on a British prison ship in Camden harbor during the war. This disease contemporaneously sickened his brother, Robert, a fellow prisoner of war. Elizabeth Hutchinson Jackson obtained the release of both of her sons, but Robert died from his disease shortly thereafter. Mrs. Jackson nursed Andrew back to health. In 1806, he fought a duel with Charles Dickinson, the consequences of which long troubled Old Hickory. Dickinson shot Jackson in the left chest and the resultant lung infection persisted until Jackson’s death, thirty-nine years later. He suffered periodically from severe left-sided chest pain and episodic coughing of blood that may have produced chronic anemia. The most likely cause for these symptoms was a traumatic bronchopulmonary fistula.3

In 1813, the future president was involved in a a gunfight that resulted in a bullet wound in his left shoulder. Chronic osteomyelitis of the left shoulder ensued and dead bone spontaneously extruded several years later. The retained lead slug produced occasional discomfort until it was surgically excised in 1823.4

Old Hickory developed diarrhea during the War of 1812; this symptom afflicted him until his death. The initial cause of the diarrhea is unknown, but Jackson compounded his digestive difficulties by the excessive use of both mercury and lead therapeutics. Many authors make reference to Jackson’s malaria.5

Finally, Jackson developed swelling of his ankles in 1829, that progressed to generalized edema in 1845, a condition referred to as dropsy. Fluid accumulated in his lungs and within his abdominal cavity. Tapping and drainage of the fluid, a procedure currently identified as paracentesis, relieved the latter. It is unknown whether Jackson’s terminal symptoms were due to either kidney or heart failure, or to a combination of the two.6

Andrew Jackson’s physicians were educated in the therapeutic philosophy of heroic medicine. This academic lineage coursed from the teachings of Dr. William Cullen at the University of Edinburgh, crested with the pronouncements of the leading American physician of the period, Benjamin Rush at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School in Philadelphia, and flooded the American medical scene through Rush’s many students. Thus, by understanding Cullen and Rush, we then may begin to understand how physicians treated, and affected the health of, Old Hickory.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

20. Zinn has plenty to say about Jackson & his evil deeds done to the Cherokee

Andrew Jackson as seen by the Cherokees

[FreedomAngel82]

23. Thank you all about the information

much appreciated. :toast: