[BroJoeK]

tanknetter: "All discussion about the merits of Jackson aside..."

Well... before we get too far off-topic, it's worth noting some things about Andrew Jackson:

1. Born in the Carolinas, served in the Revolutionary War, lived in Tennessee, an 1812 war hero and slave owner, dismantled the Federal Reserve's predecessor, paid off the national debt -- so what's not to like?
   You'd think Democrat President Jackson would be lionized by our pro-Confederates, but no, they loathe and despise him almost as much as that Black Republican, "Ape" Lincoln.
   Why?

2. Because, like most Founding Fathers, Jackson was a patriot first, with little tolerance for "states rights" or "nullification", or the constant whining and complaining from South Carolina about tariffs:
   "...please give my compliments to my friends in your State and say to them, that if a single drop of blood shall be shed there in opposition to the laws of the United States, I will hang the first man I can lay my hand on engaged in such treasonable conduct, upon the first tree I can reach..." April, 1830

   "I consider, then, the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by one State, incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which It was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed." December, 1832

   Even "Ape" Lincoln never spoke so abruptly to the Deep South's great slaveocracy.

3. Virtually everybody will tell you -- even our own highly respected scholars here -- that Jackson founded the modern Democrat party.
   But it's not true, Jackson only re-founded the Slave-Power party first created by Thomas Jefferson under the name "Democratic Republicans", in opposition to the Northern Federalist party of John Adams.
   But Jefferson's young protégé, John Quincy Adams, joined Jefferson's party, and the old Federalists collapsed after the Hartford Convention, leaving the US with just one party -- Jefferson's.
   Andrew Jackson merely reestablished the split between northern & southern political alliances, renaming the mostly southern party "Democrats".

   Point is: Jackson was one of the last of the great pre-war Southern patriot presidents -- one-term Polk was the last.

Bottom line: as the only president who ever paid off the national debt, Jackson deserves his richly ironic place on our $20 bill, ironic because Jackson opposed a national bank.
And, as the last of the Founders who clearly understood and confronted just what "nullification" and "states rights" amounted to, he deserves the same place in our hearts as "Ape" Lincoln's Black Republicans.

Jackson is rightly condemned for his actions relocating Indians west of the Mississippi -- the "Trail of Tears" -- but we might remember that rounding up & transporting masses of people is not so unusual for Democrat presidents -- Wilson in WWI, and especially FDR rounding up Japanese civilians in WWII come to mind.
It's just one of those "things" Democrats like to do.

[X Fretensis]

Very Good

[1010RD]

Excellent and very accurate exposition on the subject.

[Sherman Logan]

Andrew Jackson merely reestablished the split between northern & southern political alliances, renaming the mostly southern party "Democrats".

It's true that the Democratic-Republican Party split into pro-Jackson and anti-Jackson factions, after a while formalized as the Democratic and Whig parties.

But they weren't initially particularly regional in nature. Both parties were well-represented in all sections till at least 1850.

The demise of the Whig Party, unable to navigate the shoals of slavery politics, was one of the first harbingers of disunion. The last was the split of the Democratic Party in 1860 into three factions, each of which ran a candidate for president.