THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD

A NEW "DEMOCRACY?"

Andrew Jackson c/o thepapersofandrewjackson.utk.edu

      He may be bumped off the front of the $20 bill by Harriet Tubman but Andrew Jackson reshaped the American government in ways that still resonate today 187 years later. As the criteria for who could vote expanded with America's expansion, ownership of property did not have to be as important for participation in the great American democratic experiment. Thus, as the elite class complained at the time, now every dirt farmer who could make an "x" for a signature could elect a president. And they did: a rough and tumble military man of humble beginnings who had become a successful lawyer (self-educated, unevenly, some charged), Tennessee planter/ slave owner, Indian fighter, and the American general who routed the British at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815 (nobody had told either side that the War of 1812 had already ended).

He was nobody's idea of Presidential. He had killed a man for accusing his wife of bigamy (which was true- she was separated from her first husband, not divorced). He distrusted banks and bankers and fought tooth and nail to demolish the Bank of the United States. He blew his top over trivialities like the good name of a lady friend. He marched troops into South Carolina to rough up John C. Calhoun over "nullification" issues. And of course he uprooted thoroughly Americanized Indians like the Cherokee and forced them westward on foot to Oklahoma so his constituency could get at the mountains of gold said to be in Georgia and the Carolinas (there wasn't much). Yes, folks, he was the architect of the "Trail of Tears" (though technically it happened after he was out of office).

c/o unitedcherokeenation.net

 He fired everybody in the government and put his friends in plumb positions regardless of experience. He met with his closest advisers in the White House kitchen- the breakfast room then called "the cabinet" and from that time on the Executive branch department heads comprised THE CABINET. His inauguration was a riot as his backwoods friends trashed the White House.

c/o alcademics.com

   
Clearly, thought many career politicians and statesmen at the time, thanks to Jackson, any boob could be President.