Andrew Jackson as Trump’s Predecessor

Dueling, Populism, Democracy

Photo by Elsa Olofsson on Unsplash

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Much has been made in liberal media over the past decade about Andrew Jackson being Trump’s most easily identifiable political predecessor.

And it’s true: The two men share an astonishing amount in common.

Most of the Founding Fathers—James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams—believed more or less in a representative republican government, not so much a “popular Democracy.” What I mean by this is that, as the French writer Alexis de Tocqueville noted in his brilliant 1835-40 book about the States, Democracy in America, popular direct democracy, where the unwashed masses simply vote and the winner becomes president: This was, for most of the Founding Fathers, a terrifying idea.

This is why we have the Electoral College, and why in the early days of the United States, after we broke from Britain officially when the Revolutionary War ended under the Treaty of Paris in 1783, men like Jefferson were insistent that voting be limited only to white male property owners. The property owning part was crucial; he wanted citizens who were somewhat educated and had some financial skin in the game to be participating. (Women and free Blacks and poor whites were generally, though not entirely, excluded; some states did allow free Blacks and women to vote as far back as 1776, such as New Jersey.)

The attitude of the Founders during this period reminds me of some Far-Left people in contemporary times who have quipped over the past decade—half kidding and half not—that only the elite coastal educated classes should be allowed to vote. It’s the same anti-Democratic instinct.

Andrew Jackson was the Trump, if you will, of his era. He grew up in South Carolina. By 14 he’d lost his parents and a brother and was an orphan. He ran away to Tennessee. This was in the late 1700s (he was born in 1767). He became somewhat of a rapscallion. Joining the military, he briefly also served in the Tennessee House of Representatives, and then briefly again as a senator from Tennessee. He was a justice of the Tennessee Superior Court for about six years. He fought in the War of 1812 against Britain and he captured Florida from Spain for America without permission. (Jackson had guts like you wouldn’t believe.)

Jackson dueled with people over the smallest slight, especially after he married Rachel Donelson; she turned out to still be married and so Jackson had unwittingly married an already married woman. When her husband sued for official divorce two years after the couple being together, Jackson and Rachel were forced to remarry. This indiscretion haunted Jackson. When a newspaperman, Charles Dickenson, made a remark about the fiasco in his column, Jackson challenged the man to a duel. Dickenson fired first, wounding Jackson’s lung, which he suffered from all his life. Jackson killed Dickenson. People ever after called Jackson Old Hickory.

In 1824—when Jackson was 56—he ran for president. It was a very complicated election that year, between four candidates but mainly the National Republicans (similar to Democrats today…or until recently) Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams (son of John Adams, second president of the States and VP under Washington), versus Andrew Jackson, a Democratic-Republican (similar to traditional Republicans today…or until recently).

Jackson—shocking almost everyone—won both the popular vote and the electoral college…but he didn’t win enough of a majority to be elected. Thus the 12^th Amendment came into effect which said that in this case the election would be decided by the House of Representatives, where both Adams and Clay held sway. Adams and Clay cut a deal, Adams “won,” and immediately brought on Clay as his Secretary of State. This became a scandal and was seen as venal and it haunted Adams and Clay all their political lives.

Nevertheless, Jackson was out; John Quincy Adams was America’s 6^th president.

In 1828 Jackson, however, was back. And pissed as hell. He was a populist who appealed to the American People and who desired direct, popular democracy in the most literal sense. He was pro-States’ Rights, anti-Indian, anti-U.S. Second Bank, for specie (coin) money and against the issuance of paper money. He craved a weak federal government, strong tariffs, anti-internal improvements (such as road and rail) and lusted after more westward expansion (and Indian removal).

There were political propaganda campaigns painting Jackson as a heathen, as an immoral buffoon who’d married an already married woman, a man who’d shot and killed another man in a duel over his ego and pride, a “military chieftain” who’d spent such little time in government prior to becoming president (about three years between being in the House and Senate combined) and who had such little experience, that he had no business even running. (Sound familiar?)

Jackson was not an intellectual; he did not read books often. He was hard as stone. He vowed to ruin his political enemies. He vowed to fire his enemies in government, and he did.