PBS profile Andrew Jackson, Democratic Party "founder" - look for it this week

[msongs]

Most people only know Andrew Jackson as the guy on the 20 dollar bill but there is much more to him than that. His political organization labeled itself as the Democratic Party and intended to restore presidential elections and government to "the people" instead of east coast wealthy elites and washington insiders (does that phrase ring a bell?).

He had strong positives and even worse negatives.


Positives:

Jackson, the 7th president, was the first president elected as spokesperson for the newly founded Democratic Party. He was the first president to come from a hardscrabble raise your self by the boot straps background instead of the wealthy east coast aristocracy. He was the first "westerner" elected president (Illinois-Indiana-Tennessee being considerd the west at that time). His campaigns used the most advanced technology of the day to generate a personality cult of sorts by dispensing his image widely across the entire "nation". He believed in eliminating the electoral college and replacing it with direct election. He thought that the people as a whole should determine who was president, not an elitist group selected by legislatures.

In his second term he warned of the dangers of corporations and their potential stranglehold over the people and government.

His political machine created the mule as the democrat's mascot. In those days most americans lived outside the cities and mules were considered to be highly valuable. While the big city republicans ridiculed the mascot, it was very effective as a symbol.
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And the negatives:

He became a southern wealthy plantation owner who made his fortune on the backs of slaves. he had no regard whatsoever for his slaves and expected slavery to last.

He was a major perpetrator of the removal of native americans from southern states and territories so that native american lands could be used to grow cotton.

By most accounts he was a mean SOB who held grudges and was unlikely to forgive. He is quoted as saying his only regret on leaving office was that "...I didn't shoot Henry Clay, and I didn't hang John C. Calhoun."

His campaigns (by his party AND his opposition) were marked by perhaps the most nasty and hateful campaign tactics in American history.
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Many of his political values are still recognized and practiced by Democrats today, and many have thankfully fallen away or been adopted by the republican party.

Msongs

[Demeter]

1. And Here I Thought Jefferson Is Our Founder

He was the eponym of Jeffersonian democracy and the co-founder and leader of the Democratic-Republican Party, which dominated American politics for a quarter-century and was the precursor of the modern-day Democratic Party.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson

Jackson may have created the apparatus, but Jefferson accumulated and established the ideas.

[msongs]

3. you'll have to take up that argument with PBS....

according wikipedia (and PBS's show), "The party faction that supported many of the old Jeffersonian principles, led by Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, became the Democratic Party."

Msongs

[Wizard777]

6. Exactly! The democrat Republican party split. They then devoured the whigs and federalist.

They have been keeping us choosing between the lesser of two evil every since. One day we might actually have a two party system. As of lately it seems as if the democrat republican party has reformed. It's harder and harder to tell the difference between Hillary Clinton and George Bush. She's even playing the fear card.

[Warpy]

2. Mostly, he issued warnings about cartels of extremely rich men

called corporations and what effect those cartels would have on a beginning democracy. He was swept into office by one man, one vote, after the restrictions that had limited the privilege of voting to the wealthy were mostly done away with. He started out about as poor as one could, orphaned by war and on his own at a young age.

For the record, I agree with him about Clay and Calhoun.

[Forkboy]

4. Watched that yesterday....pretty interesting.

He wasn't a very nice guy. :)

[ashling]

5. I was dissapointed in the PBS presentation

I guess I was expecting more ... in fairness, I didn't see the whole thing, but what I did see was a really cursory approach. . . . both as to the positives AND the negatives.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

7. Having recently read

a biograpghy of Andrew Jackson by Marquis James- {The Life of Andrew Jackson (1937), for which he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1938}
I have to say that Jackson was a complicated and conflicted man. I never got the impression he was wealthy due to his plantation holdings. As for racial and sexual prejudice, he was a man of his times.
I did get this from the book on Jackson; you didn't want to cross him!

[undeterred]

8. I watched it. He was quite a character.

Very determined man, with a lot of tragedy in his life. Its hard to judge someone - in the context of his time he was not horrible, but slavery and the massacre of indians were certainly horrible. It was interesting to see the invention of the political campaign and the smearing of his wife.