Thank You Andy Jackson, But You Should Not Have Been President

If  only Andrew Jackson had never been President, he would have remained an American hero. Instead, he won and power was wholly bad for him.

Andrew Jackson was not a good President of the United States of America. He was an angry, unstable, and a tyrannical man who is responsible for one of the worst episodes in American history: the relocation of the Cherokee nation. Andrew “Old Hickory” Jackson founded the modern Democratic Party as the first populist candidate to win the office. Jackson developed irrational ideas about monetary policy that directly led to one of the worst depressions in American history. He was a slave holder who should have known better and crude to the point of barbarism.

Yet Jackson saved New Orleans, the greatest port in the United States, during the War of 1812. When I was in school, his victory was down graded because the peace treaty that ended the War had been signed before the battle, but that turns out to be wrong. Instead, the British were trying to seize New Orleans and used a cleverly worded clause in the treaty to keep the crucial port.

Only Jackson could have saved the City.  I heard a guide describe it this way: “Jackson pointed out that the City of New Orleans might be burned by the British, but if they did not defend the City, Jackson would surely burn it. We were more afraid of Jackson than the British.” Given his career, that strikes me as about right. In fact, the War of 1812 was the perfect Jacksonian moment where all his virtues, resiliency, folk wisdom, courage, were needed and all his vices, temper, brutality, became, for just a moment virtues.

The trouble is that Americans came to think of Jackson as a “problem solver” in general when he was only competent in the particular. We all wish every problem could be solved by the bombastic snarl from Old Hickory. He was quotable, tough, and consistent, but he was also a bit lunatic and the highest office in the land did not belong in his hands.

Being President is an odd job . . . there are not really any comparative tasks, even in the early nineteenth century. That’s why Americans have always looked to temperament when they examined candidates. Abraham Lincoln had made a good living as a lawyer, was a political player, but had limited elective experience. He was our best President. Theodore Roosevelt was self-confident, bombastic, and loved using the “bully pulpit,” but he kept us out of war. TR earned his Nobel Peace Prize by helping end the Russo-Japanese War. For a variety of reasons, some related to painful dentistry, Washington was quiet, but was still the indispensable man in forming the Republic. Both Roosevelt and Washington prove a war hero can make an effective President.

What made Jackson a failure? He had courage, native wit, and the confidence of the voter. He had experienced hard times and conquered them. Jackson was stubborn, proud, and unwilling to compromise. He tended to surround himself with inferiors, see Van Buren, the Little Magician, who could never upstage him. Jackson reminds me more of the Quaker Nixon, than the war hero Eisenhower. It was not his courage, confidence boldness, or risk taking that were the problem. We have good Presidents with those traits.

Yet when we look at a candidate like Hillary Rodham Clinton, we must ask: does she have the temperament to lead? She will compromise, change, but all with the inflexible goal of more power and money for HRC. This is frightening. She is running less as a Democrat and more as HRC. This too is frightening. The GOP should avoid anyone like Jackson or HRC with a fixation on power.

Jackson was petty and inflexible. He knew he was right and pursued his rightness without deviation. He was an ideologue whose ideology was Andrew Jackson’s opinions. In short, he was a tyrant. He was a patriot with admirable qualities, but he was a tyrant. In the election of 2016, I fear the brash less than the narcissistic, the inconsistent less than the ideologue, the happy warrior less than the person driven to rule, the Jacksonian cult of personality more than the party man.

To run for President of the United States, a candidate will have done many good things, occasionally like Jackson a really great thing, but one great thing should never come with the Presidency as a reward.