There’s been a lot of talk about our new President’s connection to, affinity for, and resemblance to his Illinois forefather, talk which only increased when it came out that Obama has been reading about Lincoln recently, including (but not limited to) Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
if Obama wants to understand the evolution of the presidency, he would do well to study Jackson, the first president to use the veto power as a tool (he used it more than the six previous presidents combined), the first president to see himself as the representative of the people, and a president who faced some truly difficult and terrible situations during his two terms in office. I think that in modern times, we often only think of Jackson as the warrior-general who was the architect and instrument of some of the greatest human-rights debacles in our country’s history, and while he should truly be rebuked in our eternal memory for his part in Trail of Tears, examining the rest of his legacy need not minimize his role in that tragedy.
Jackson helped lead both an emerging national party and a country that was already starting to see evidence of the schisms that would result in the Civil War. The country was still viewed with suspicion by the rest of the world, and the borders were in flux, threatened by British and French interests, with the Indian Wars through the Southest and after his second term, the battles between Mexico and Americans in the Texas territory. He entered the White House almost immediately after the death of his beloved wife, and served much of his time in office with a bullet in his body from a long-ago duel. Nullification was a raging issue that threatened to rend the fabric of the Union, including Jackson’s own Vice-President, John C. Calhoun who left his administration to become a Senator arguing strongly for states’ rights. The economy of the United States also underwent major seismic shifts, from debates over tariffs to the battles of the Bank of the United States.
The more I read about our long national nightmare, the more I hope we are about to have a president with the kind of intelligence, courage of conviction, and force of will that we deserve. FDR, Theodore Roosevelt and Lincoln himself all looked to Jackson for inspiration and guidance, not because they agreed with his stance on issues like slavery or Native Americans, but because he stood as a model of strength and conviction determined to hold the Union together by the force of his own will, and determined to be a President who believed in the will of the American people and fought with all his might to do what he believed would serve them best.
