I'M FEELING patriotic today. After all, today is Presidents' Day, so maybe it's all the Jefferson-Jackson Dinners in Richmond. These are the two men who the Democrats hold in the highest esteem: Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson. Even outside the University, every politician loves to quote Jefferson. But the funny thing is, no one ever talks about Jackson.
And for good reason. To be fair, he did found the modern Democratic Party and he ushered in universal male suffrage. Good for him. Hitler brought crime down and Fidel Castro increased literacy rates. But a handful of good deeds doesn't excuse the fact that Andrew Jackson was a genocidal dictator. He butchered American Indians, destroyed democratic institutions and ruined the American economy. Jackson was one of the worst things to ever happen to the United States and we ought to own up to it.
Before he was president, Jackson was a military man. He first made his name in the Creek War killing "Red Stick" Creek Indians in northern Alabama and Georgia. He was so good at it that he forced them to sign the Treaty of Fort Jackson: a 20 million acre land grab.
Next up was the War of 1812. Historians mostly regard it nowadays as a pointless war that accomplished little. But it gave Jackson a chance to showcase his macabre talents. He routed the British in the Battle of New Orleans, which earned him the moniker "Old Hickory" and made him a national war hero. Congress even awarded him a gold medal, definitely the last thing his oversized ego needed.
Jackson was able to win the presidency in 1828, mostly by campaigning as a war hero. Wasting little time, Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act into law in 1830. The bill authorized the president to "negotiate" treaties to "purchase" tribal lands. Given that no tribes ever actually agreed to the act, it was just the legal nicety Jackson needed to evict the American Indians, settle their land and mine their gold.
Jackson began diligently enforcing the bill immediately. He ordered federal troops to round up 17,000 Cherokee and throw them in what would today be called concentration camps. The phrase "Trail of Tears" was originally coined to describe the forced removal of the Choctaw nation in 1831. Under modern international law, "crimes against humanity" include "deportation or forcible transfer of population" when "committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack." If Jackson were president today, he'd be locked up in The Hague. Instead we celebrate this maniac.
To our early nation's credit, the Supreme Court tried to rein Jackson in. In Worcester v. Georgia, the Court ruled that states did not have jurisdiction over tribal lands. That is, American Indians had real sovereignty. But not to be bothered by things as trifling as democratic institutions, Jackson reportedly said: "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it!" I find that comment eerily foreshadows Stalin's remark about the number of divisions the Pope has. Nice to know Jackson is in good company.
But mocking the Supreme Court, America's most venerable institution, is only one example of Jackson's attempts to dismantle the American constitution. Jackson ascribed to the philosophy that "to the victor go the spoils." He was a firm believer in giving important positions in his administration not to competent, qualified people, but to his fellow party members. Jackson measured appointees solely by their loyalty to himself, not by their ability to serve the American people well. Jackson had declared war on what Max Weber would term the rational-legal state.
But not only did Jackson commit crimes against humanity while destroying democratic institutions, he did a terrible job running the country. He single-handedly ran the American economy into the ground. It all started with his opposition of the Second Bank of the United States. Caught up in his own populist rhetoric, Jackson failed to realize that the Bank provided credit that kept American businesses expanding and enabled entrepreneurs to succeed. So he axed the Bank, which was replaced by state banks. These banks, which were not adequately capitalized, began issuing paper notes. This, unsurprisingly, led to runaway inflation. Jackson then compounded American economic woes by requiring that all lands be paid for in gold or silver, which the banks didn't have enough of to begin with. The result, in 1837, was a bank run that plunged the American economy deep into depression. I never understood why Jackson is on the $20 bill.
Yet Jackson is celebrated as a "man of the people." In reality, all he did was ruin our country. It's time to set the record straight and stop living mythologized, antiseptic history so that we can learn from our past mistakes. That's real patriotism.
Josh Levy's column appears Mondays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at jlevy@cavalierdaily.com.
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