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I am choosing to post about Jackson because the Treasury Department has just announced they will be making a new $20 bill that removes Jackson and replaces him with Harriet Tubman.
My thread is really directed at the Jackson Presidency. Did this man really do anything in office that is worthy of fame or adulation? My recollection is that he gets credit for promoting the "common man" over gentry and aristocrats, but other than that I don't know what he accomplished. Its said that the night of his inauguration there was a huge party at the White House in which everyone off the street was invited. People were supposedly drunk and swinging from the chandeliers.
I think about what was negative that occurred during his presidency and three things come to mind:
1. He ignored the U.S. Supreme Court which legally upheld the right of Cherokee Indians to their lands and used the army to drive them out of Georgia and into Oklahoma after a forced migration during which many Indians died. Seriously, this is an impeachable offense as President. A president is obliged to "faithfully execute the law". This President simply ignored a law, or court ruling, he didn't like.
2. He set out to abolish the Bank of the United States which created insecurity in our monetary policy and probably helped lead to the Panic of 1837 which was a serious recession/depression according to historians.
3. He issued the "Specie Circular" in 1837, just before he left office requiring all persons to pay debts to the government in gold or silver coin. This seriously tightened credit and also helped lead to the Panic of 1837.
All this leaves out being a slave owner, etc. I won't judge that because so many presidents were slave owners before the Civil War.
Jackson may have been a brave commander during the War of 1812 during the Battle of New Orleans, but I fail to find much merit in his presidency.
Why was he famous in the first place and put on the $20 bill?
Maybe the Treasury liked the irony that he would've hated the Federal Reserve.
Was there any mention about how the government paid them 20 Million for their land, and gave them good land in Oklahoma, how that payment worked out to be $1200 for every man, woman and child in the Cherokee nation?.... at a time when a settler or common person might make a dollar a day. Did they tell you how a wise Cherokee leader named Major Ridge helped to secure this astronomical payment from the government for the Cherokee people, how the sore losers then brutally murdered Major Ridge and his followers when they got to Oklahoma?
Let me try a simple analogy with you. I would like to own Canada. Its a big country that is full of natural resources. I could utilize its resources and land much better than Canadians could. So, I will tell the Canadians they will accept $100,000 a piece to relocate to another nation. I will give them three years to do so. If they don't follow my orders, I will send in the army and we'll drag them out of their houses. We'll do it in the dead of winter. We'll make them go on a forced march a thousand miles away to new home that I have picked for them. Now, tell me. Do you think that: 1. I have a right to do that? and 2. The Canadians would happily take me up on my idea?
Was it all Jackson did this and Jackson did that, without any mention of how important this land was for the development of the southeastern US, as Cherokee lands were blocking the route thru the Appalachians for a railroad that spurred economic development? Did they mention about the 3 years notice Jackson gave them to vacate, when they could have taken the money and traveled to OK any way they pleased at leisure? Was there any mention of how the Cherokee were using the land in Georgia, letting much of it go fallow and not being used for anything productive?
Gosh dang those Indians. How dare they live in a place that would impede the U.S. from building a route over the Appalachian Mountains! Hmmm....I wonder why it never occurred to Jackson or anyone else to simply pay the Indians for the rights to build this railroad? (At this point a little light should be going on in your head) I wonder how you would feel if you were forcibly dragged out of your own home and told you had to leave because you had a different race or ethnicity than the majority of people in the USA?
So was it all Jackson Jackson Jackson, or was there any mention of Jefferson, Monroe, or the real cause of much of the suffering on the trail of tears, Winfield Scott? Any mention of how Scott was derelict in his duty, how he knew full well as an expert cavalryman how to move people across long distances, but intentionally put forth the most half assed effort of his career, shirking his duty to move these people safely to their new home. He never protected the Cherokee from opportunists along the way, there was so much more he could have done but did not. None of them should have been walking, especially women and children. There should have been a wagon for every Cherokee family. Winfield Scott and the horrible weather conditions were the most to blame for the Trail of Tears. It did not have to be that way, and Jackson had no way of knowing it would turn out so badly.
Of course other people were part of this fiasco. Jackson figures prominently for two reasons: 1. He was President when it occurred. 2. He ignored a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that held this law to be unconstitutional. I don't just let everyone else off the hook. However, you'd really have to put on blinders not to see that Jackson has the most prominent role in the whole thing.
A bit more about Jackson and the central bank. The central bank was controlled by private individuals and shareholders, it was corrupt and buying off congressmen like Henry Clay. The country did not need a central banking system at that point in history, and the central bank did not have the public interests in mind, only profit for the elite and shareholders. In fact, the bank cut off loans to small business and put the squeeze on the little people, to try and force Jackson to give back it's charter. Jackson did not cave. The panic of 1837 and recession that followed was not caused just by Jackson, the bank of England raised interest rates from 3 to 5 percent, which forced US banks to do the same. There was too much private sector debt at the time, and many states had also taken on debt that made it very tough on them, New Hampshire was one of the few states that did not, and fared well thru the recession that lasted until 1844.
What are your sources for your comments about the Bank of the United States? The country did need a central banking system and Alexander Hamilton was the first to realize that back in 1789 even if you can't. Hamilton's policies paved the way for literally thirty years of prosperity. There was no recession on par with the Panic of 1837 that occurred before. Assuming you have identified legitimate problems, Jackson sure had a strange solution. His solution wasn't to reform the bank it was to totally destroy it. Along with it he destroyed the only entity that had the ability to regulate interest rates and credit. He than proceeded to compound that error by issuing the Specie Circular and dragging this country deeply into a depression.
The central bank was acting a lot more like a corporation, and not really as a bank for the people with a national scope, and national growth in mind, the small guys (the common man) was being left out. Jackson made the common man's vote count for something. By putting money in a bunch of smaller banks all over the country, he insured more uniform growth. Actually, the economy still grew during the recession after Jackson left office, it was still a recession and there was deflation involved, but the figures still show small growth for that period. A few of the smaller banks in the west and south did lend out too much money, and became insolvent, but probably from lending too much to the common man for a change, lol.
Here we go again... "Jackson made the common man's vote count for something". How? I still don't get it. It sounds like something you heard once in high school and you have to repeat here.
Oh, and my suggestion about electing Supreme Court Justices to MarkG, I think the public should have more say about who they are and what their views are about various subject. I was not suggesting they be picked like a politician with no judicial experience, but from the higher courts of various regions of the country, where they will explain their positions on various subjects and go on a ballet for public vote, or let the state house of reps pick them, but always selecting from a different state, in order until every state has appointed a judge, then begin again. At the very least, the public should be able to vote out Justices that give unpopular rulings, where a 2/3 popular vote would get them kicked out.
The point is that the public opinion shouldn't control judicial decisions because those decisions are based on a set of principles that aren't supposed to change depending on how popular or unpopular a given litigant is in a given case. If we are going to make decisions that way, they should all just simply be entrusted to Congress or a purely political body. The Framers of our Constitution provided that the only way federal judges could be removed from office was if they were impeached for misconduct. The concept was very simple. Judges that could not be removed through the electoral process would not make purely political decisions. They would be free to vote their conscience. Subjecting federal judges to an election process like you describe is antithetical what the Founding Fathers desired. I submit that one important reason our Bill of Rights means something in 2016 is because we have judges that were selected in a manner where they could be independent and do what was right, rather than what was merely expedient. Changing the judicial retention process the way you describe is a sure way to undo the liberties and protections we enjoy as Americans.
The point is that the public opinion shouldn't control judicial decisions because those decisions are based on a set of principles that aren't supposed to change depending on how popular or unpopular a given litigant is in a given case. If we are going to make decisions that way, they should all just simply be entrusted to Congress or a purely political body. The Framers of our Constitution provided that the only way federal judges could be removed from office was if they were impeached for misconduct. The concept was very simple. Judges that could not be removed through the electoral process would not make purely political decisions. They would be free to vote their conscience. Subjecting federal judges to an election process like you describe is antithetical what the Founding Fathers desired. I submit that one important reason our Bill of Rights means something in 2016 is because we have judges that were selected in a manner where they could be independent and do what was right, rather than what was merely expedient. Changing the judicial retention process the way you describe is a sure way to undo the liberties and protections we enjoy as Americans.
The above is well reasoned and presented, but could not all of the concerns for independent judgment also be applied to the other branches of the US government? Aren't our executives and Congressmen influenced by purely political concerns because they are required to win elections rather than being appointed for life?
Why is it critical that the judicial branch be free from popular pressure, while not the others?
Gosh dang those Indians. How dare they live in a place that would impede the U.S. from building a route over the Appalachian Mountains! Hmmm....I wonder why it never occurred to Jackson or anyone else to simply pay the Indians for the rights to build this railroad? (At this point a little light should be going on in your head) I wonder how you would feel if you were forcibly dragged out of your own home and told you had to leave because you had a different race or ethnicity than the majority of people in the USA? End quote.
*******
You're not really thinking in terms of the 19th century, and using logic. No matter what my race, If I and my little band of 17K people get an eviction notice from a giant like the US government, and lets say I own 40 acres of somewhat marginal land with rocky soil, that I'm not really doing much with anyway, and I am offered YUGE parcel of land in eastern OK that was probably better land than what I had, and the cash on top of that, enough to rebuild upon that land..... I would get the heck out of there before the 3 year eviction. I would not wait around and risk losing both the money and the land to fight a losing battle.
I would not have any trust at all in the Winfield Scott travel accommodations waiting for me. I would assume it would be a trail of tears before the journey began. Also in keeping with 19th century thinking, suppose Jackson did not evict them and upheld supreme court decision. The Georgia state militia, the settlers, the railroads, the miners, they would all conspire to take that land by force. They would probably ride in there on horseback with guns blazing, and kill every last one of them, and they would end up with nothing. Jackson probably saved their lives by evicting them.
This situation with the Cherokee was different then the treatment of most the other Indian tribes. The Cherokee got big money and even more land than what they originally had, a whole friggin state to move to, 20-X bigger than that crappy little corner in NW Georgia. I feel bad for what happened to the Cherokee on the Trail of Tears, but feel much more sorry for the other tribes that were outright betrayed, given no money and no land, and were butchered like what happened at Wounded Knee, or the Sioux in the black hills region, or Chief Joseph in Idaho. They got nothing, and it's going to take more than a 1970's song about Cherokee People to get me feeling that they should be the focal point of bad treatment from the whites, when they got the best deal an Indian ever got from a white man in 19th century America.
Isn't the head of the executive branch the one charged with seeing that the laws are executed? Wasn't it President Jackson's responsibility to see that Georgia complied?
The President is head of the federal executive branch. Georgia has a governor who heads its own executive branch. There is no constitutional provision that allows the President to take over Georgia's police or send in the army to ensure that Georgia complies with the Court's ruling.
There is no constitutional provision that allows the President to take over Georgia's police or send in the army to ensure that Georgia complies with the Court's ruling.
Except that there clearly is:
Article II: Section 3 of the Constitution states "He shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed".
Unless that has been amended very recently, there is indeed such a provision.
It would be up to the Georgia governor to comply with the Federal law as decided by the Supreme Court. It would be up to the US president to make sure that the governor does comply.
We have historical examples...President Eisenhower federalizing the Arkansas State Guard to force the governor of that state to comply with the Supreme Court's school desegregation decision.
Giant figures dominated the American scene in those early decades of the century,: the great jurists Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and John Caldwell Calhoun of South Carolina, whom many Northerners believed was the Devil himself; John Quincy Adams, scion of a family whose name was virtually synonymous with American politics. Martin Van Buren, consummate political manoeuvrer. But high above them all in executive ability, political skill and appreciation of public wants rose the tall,lanky, shape of Andrew Jackson. Though he was not a great political theorist, like his one-time friend and later opponent John C.Calhoun, Jackson brought about a bigger change in America politics than any other individual. He was the most positive personality ever to hold presidential office. Rugged and self-opinionated, no one made executive decisions but 'Old Hickory'. It was inevitable that he should become a folk hero, but the romantic framework that legend built around him obscures the sharp outline of the hard achiever. If Americans in the doldrums of late twentieth-century presidencies should wish to recall, like King Arthur to a modern Camelot, some past 'Chief', it is not Kennedy or Lincoln or even Washington but Andrew Jackson to whom they should look.
The above is well reasoned and presented, but could not all of the concerns for independent judgment also be applied to the other branches of the US government? Aren't our executives and Congressmen influenced by purely political concerns because they are required to win elections rather than being appointed for life?
Why is it critical that the judicial branch be free from popular pressure, while not the others?
I submit the nature of the judiciary is different than the other two branches of government. Our framers created an entirely separate branch of government for the judiciary and created the concept of judicial independence precisely because of these differences. It was thought that someone who is called upon to decide whether a man should go to prison or even receive the death penalty should be judged by someone who could act independently of politicians.
It is an expression of the sentiment that politics may be a good thing, or at least an acceptable thing when it comes to making laws. However, it is not acceptable when it comes to interpreting them and applying them to specific individuals.
I submit the nature of the judiciary is different than the other two branches of government. Our framers created an entirely separate branch of government for the judiciary and created the concept of judicial independence precisely because of these differences. It was thought that someone who is called upon to decide whether a man should go to prison or even receive the death penalty should be judged by someone who could act independently of politicians.
It is an expression of the sentiment that politics may be a good thing, or at least an acceptable thing when it comes to making laws. However, it is not acceptable when it comes to interpreting them and applying them to specific individuals.
That explains the way it is but does not explain why it is...which was my question. Why are we concerned that our judges remain free of political influence, but not our executives and legislators? Those are also "entirely separate branches" are they not?
Giant figures dominated the American scene in those early decades of the century,: the great jurists Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and John Caldwell Calhoun of South Carolina, whom many Northerners believed was the Devil himself; John Quincy Adams, scion of a family whose name was virtually synonymous with American politics. Martin Van Buren, consummate political manoeuvrer. But high above them all in executive ability, political skill and appreciation of public wants rose the tall,lanky, shape of Andrew Jackson. Though he was not a great political theorist, like his one-time friend and later opponent John C.Calhoun, Jackson brought about a bigger change in America politics than any other individual. He was the most positive personality ever to hold presidential office. Rugged and self-opinionated, no one made executive decisions but 'Old Hickory'. It was inevitable that he should become a folk hero, but the romantic framework that legend built around him obscures the sharp outline of the hard achiever. If Americans in the doldrums of late twentieth-century presidencies should wish to recall, like King Arthur to a modern Camelot, some past 'Chief', it is not Kennedy or Lincoln or even Washington but Andrew Jackson to whom they should look.
I appreciate you like Jackson and that is a well written paragraph.
I'm still wondering--specifically--what Jackson did that made him a good President. This post is long on style and short on substance.
I get the feeling that many think Jackson was a "great president" simply because they have been told this by others for years. When it comes to ranking substantive accomplishments--as president--I have only heard one or two posters really mention anything.
For that matter, I don't regard John Kennedy as a great president either. Yet, a huge number of people rank him as a great president, primarily because of the Kennedy mystique.
It would seem that many people determine who was a great president less by their substantive accomplishments in office than by simply a general feeling they had about the president. Interesting indeed.
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