Do people on here like Andrew Jackson?

Jackson's letters and correspondence rarely argued for "limited government."

The "small change bill" (I've written about it: “Jacksonian Ideology, Currency Control, and `Central Banking': A Reappraisal,” The Historian, November 1988, pp. 78−102) was ONLY about small change notes, and I (and economic historian David Martin) explain the significance of that. Martin has a three- or four-article series on Jackson's big-government anti-money impulses. But NO ONE has ever challenged my discoveries of Jackson's national bank plan---and it was a "national bank," not a subtreasury as some apologists suggest. They NEVER cite the actual documents I found.

On Maysville, most historians I know agree that this was specifically done out of spite against Clay, and had nothing to do with his "small government" tendencies.

Paying off the debt? I dunno, but look at the data. It's irrefutable.

Most of all---and here, you have to examine more than one or two of his acts---Jackson was the child of Van Buren's system whose very CHARACTER was to grow government through giving out government jobs. (See my chapter in "Seven Events that Made America America"). Van Buren also politicized (and Jackson approved of his doing so) the newspapers and controlled them (hardly small government). And it's hard to argue that an institution that is 4/5s private is "public." No government official---not a SecTreas, not a President---EVER tried to tell the BUS what to do or whom to loan to. Even Jackson didn't---he just killed it.

I have not read your material, so I’m going to read this article, and I’m going to read your chapter concerning Van Buren’s creation of a national political party in seven events that changed america. And after that, I’ll get back to you! My MA was on Jackson and the Nullification Crisis; my knowledge of the Bank war is decent, and my knowledge of Jackson historiography is really good, but not necessarily on the bank war. After I’ve read, I’ll let you know what I think.

By your last post, are you suggesting that Van Buren was more of a creator of the Democratic Party than Jackson himself?

Absolutely VB was THE creator. See Richard Brown's seminal article, "The Missouri Crisis, . . . " forget the rest of the title, but I cite it in all my work. VB gave it a dry run in 1824, but didn't have the right guy. But he did have the right system. The party structure he created guaranteed that after that, government would grow (even faster) with every election because you gave away jobs ("spoils, patronage") to get elected. When a rival party (the Whigs) came on the scene, they could only compete in the same way, hence the "bidding" got even more intense.

As I show in the book chapter, the Pendleton Act, designed to "reform" this, really made it worse because after the PA, pols could no longer give away a few thousand jobs to supporters, they now had to promise huge blocs worth of jobs (ethanol subsidies, gay rights, whatever) to different groups of people to get out the vote.

The Indian child that Jackson adopted? He found him next to his dead parents. Jackson’s racist troops had butchered them. So yeah he adopted an Indian orphan, after he slaughtered that kid’s parents. The Seminoles lived in Florida, which was controlled by Spain at that point. Jackson then started to raid Seminole villages in Florida, not because they had attacked the US, but because the Seminoles harbored fugitive slaves. A part of the Creek tribe, called the Red Sticks, sided with the British during the War of 1812, but a large part of the tribe, called the White Sticks were either neutral or actively helped the US. Some White Stick Creeks actually fought with Jackson against the Red Sticks. After the war, Jackson took away half the Creek land, and didn’t care that a lot of it belonged to White Stick Creeks. 800 Creek men had fought against the Seminoles on the condition that their land would not be taken. When they came back, they were told they had to move out west to what is now Oklahoma. Jackson was one of our worst presidents.

Andrew Jackson forced many Indians to give up their lands and move west. Thousands of people died on these marches, men women, children. the reservations he set up their were even worse. thousands, in some cases 50%, of people on the reservations, died the first winter.
so yeah, he was a bad man.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.