Andrew Jackson: Man of the People?

Anyone interested in discussing whether President Jackson was a man of the people or not?
He benefitted from an expansion of the electorate in 1828 and 1832, and campaigned on a definite theme of deep reform in the Federal Government. But he took some positions that negatively affected the very people from which he gained support (the little guys/newly enfranchised).
For example:
• Nullification
• The Bank War
• Paying for Land with Specie rather than currency
• The Eaton Affair/Petticoat War

So... Jackson, man of the people or not?

Daniel

Jackson no doubt genuinely thought that he was; I'm not sure if that counts.

Ending the Bank of the United States was done because Jackson believed that the Bank was a bad idea for the country.

On the Nullification issue Jackson really had no choice. If he permitted South Carolina, and by extension every state, to follow only the Federal laws that they agreed with the Federal government would have as much power as a doorman at an owners meeting.

I have no use for the man. Ignoring the Supreme Court on the Indian issue was a bad decision for the nations, Indian and colonial.

Daniel, your list obviously omitted mention of Jackson’s actions taken in violation of the 1832 U.S. Supreme Court rulings on Indian removal as well as mention of his ethnic cleansing of several different Indian tribes.

Also, I am a little confused as to your definition of the term “man of the people.” In many ways, the folks at Fox New, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Bill O’Reily, et. al. see themselves as speaking on behalf of “the people.” Is that the meaning of the term as you use it in your question?

For the record, my experience from your writing over 2 years is that you are one very intelligent, articulate, detailed, knowledgeable teacher of American history. Usually you are very specific in your commentary and debate. The fact that you put up a general thread like this was just for a chat….right?

I would also assume you left out any mention of the Trail of Tears because you did not want me to interrupt an otherwise pleasant and well informed debate with discussion of his treatment of the Indians. So, I will refrain from further comment on this particular thread.

Respectfully……

Ur

Ur, I think that Daniel is referring to the fact that, as the founder of the Democrats Jackson was presented as someone who spoke for the frontiersman, the small farmer, the apprentice artisan, the everyman before people really thought of the "Everyman".

This representation was in opposition to the Whigs, the wealthy Eastern elites who led the Revolution and by that time were seen by some as the "Old Regime".

I am not really well read on the era, yet, so any corrections are welcome.

The slave holding south flocked to the Democrats, except of course for jilted South Carolina. This makes me doubt that Jackson himself or his legacy had any real benefit for the "Everyman".

Tim, thank you for the clarification; I confess I needed it.

Ur,
Yes, it is a general discussion question. I thought it might generate some interesting points of view. And it has.

Please understand that I was trained not to judge the past by present social values. I left out his comment to Chief Justice Marshall about the Georgia decision (as well as his lack of enforcement of it) because Jackson and most of the electorate at the time considered Native People political persona non-grata. Hence they have no bearing on the question.

That does not mean I believe the resulting Trail of Tears was in any way excusable. I just can't professionally call Jackson a racist and I have to recognize that the Cherokee and almost all other Native People are non-factors in American electoral politics of the era.

Daniel

And yet, you would agree that "the 1832 U.S. Supreme Court rulings on Indian removal" saw his actions as wrong.

Whether or not the Indians could vote, people of that time including the Supreme Court saw what he was doing to the Indians before his presidency and during it as wrong.

But we have been here before. Carry on......

I hate to bring this up, but Jackson's action re the Five Nations was indeed expressing the will of the average person, albeit in violation of the Supreme Court's ruling (which is one of the reaons he got away with it, imho).

Yes, there were people who opposed it; but the general population was either indifferent to the fate of the natives (and the law), or supported Jackson's actions.

In this matter, Jackson was acting as a 'man of the people'; whether he should have done so is another question.

The same is true with the Bank of the United States; whatever it truly was, many in the West saw it as a oppressive institution limiting their actions.

Nullification was an affront to both Jackson's beliefs and to the idea of Federal power in general; had it stood, as observed, the Federal government would have effectively ceased to be, and we would have reverted back to the Articles of Confederation...which had been abandoned long ago as a failure.

Over the weekend I read that during the 1832 cholera epidemic Jackson was asked to declare a national day of fasting to improve the nations spiritual health (and by the reasoning of the day improve the nations physical health). He refused based on the Constitutional separation of church and state.

"Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Bill O’Reily, et. al. see themselves as speaking on behalf of “the people.” "

Gather enough followers, blind or otherwise, and almost anyone can be a man (or woman) of at least some of the people.

~1

Leaving aside the Native American issue for the moment, because I think that we would mostly end up on the same side of that issue, I am rather curious whether there is any "social philosophy" or "economic philosophy" underlying your question.

Let's take, for instance, the War On The Bank or Paying For Land With Specie. Is there some sort of class warfare economic theory lurking in those issues from your perspective?

lawecon, No.
I have my political beliefs, but rather unusually in my experience I do not attempt to justify them by citing American history. Nor do I allude to them by posing questions. The question was for historical discussion only.

Daniel

~13

Sorry if the question appeared to be off base, but the term "man of the people" (particularly when followed up by terms like "little guy") has some rather sharp normative implications for many of us, and is not merely descriptive.

NP, lawecon.

We all see history through our own filters. The trick is recognizing the filter. I am not perfect, and I sometimes forget about my filters.

Daniel

When I think of Andrew Jackson I remember the courts-martial of three men he thought were aiding the Native Americans in the First Seminole War. The trial and the hanging took place on the same day. Jackson may have been a man of the people but he often ruled like an autocrat.

It's not necessary to be a 'man of the people' to be thought of as one, or even to act in what (the autocrat) perceives as the best interests of the common man. Think FDR, hardly a 'man of the people' and yet embraced by them.

~17

Do you think that the phrase/term "man of the People" has a meaning that is nonnormative? If so, what is that meaning? If not, what role does that term/phrase play in historical inquiry?

"Man of the People" has several (some ironic) meanings, especially since every tyrant seems to claim the title.

You have those 'men of the people' who are perceived as having generally worked towards the best interests of the common citizen (at least, as perceived by those leaders). FDR would fall into this category.

And you have those 'men of the people' who arose from humble, common beginnings into positions of leadership. In the United States, that would include Jackson, Lincoln, and Truman.

Note that the two meanings are separate; it is possible to have risen from the ranks of the average citizen but identify (and work towards the interests of) the upper classes. Just as there are some leaders who come from the upper ranks and yet seek to promote the interests of the average citizen ahead of the elites.

To add to the confusion, many tyrants and despots also claim the title of being a 'man of the people' even though they are no such thing in either sense of the word.

Jackson appears to have been a 'man of the people' in both senses of the term; both having risen from humble beginnings and looking out for the interests of the common citizen.

~19

O.K., well at least we now know what you mean when you use the term.

You do realize, of course, that it is entirely possible that Adolph Hitler and V.I. Lenin sincerely believed that there were "generally working towards the best interests of the common citizen (at least, as perceived by those leaders)" Each of their respective countries were a shambles when they took over and their immediate actions appeared to have resulted in some sort of revival for the typical median citizen after their take over. (Mussolini "made the trains run on time" and conquered Ethiopia, thus restoring the Roman Empire.)

Of course, as volumes like this one Hitler's Beneficiaries show, the revival was generally due to internal and then external plunder of certain groups in favor of "the common citizen." (Hey, that sort of works for Jackson too !!) But one does what is "necessary," even if involves "breaking a few eggs," when working for the benefit of "the common citizen."

On Nullification Jacksonʻs instincts were
against it -- I think correctly. I donʻt think
the nullification issue is very relevant to this topic. If anything, it probably went against
the "working philosophy" f most of his White Southern constituents. But, as president, his
whole constituency was much larger than that.
For that matter secession was first
seriously thought of in the North, not
the South (the Hartford Convention),
and there were two mini-Civil Wars,
(during Jacksonʻs youth) both fomented in the Northeast (Shaysʻs Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion.

I donʻt have the economic background
to judge how well his stand against the Bank
and for Specie correlates with his (usual) populism.
But I think he was right to be aware of the
danger posed by an institution (mostly controlled by one region of the country
--not Jacksonʻs own-- which had such power*

*The Bank had the potential of making currency nearly worthless -- not worth a ʻcontinentalʻ. as was said in an era gone by, but within living memory. So his stand on currency was almost dictated by his
opposition to the Bankʻs increasing power.
In practice, the immediate result (of Jʻs boosting of specie) may
have hurt more among those of "The People" --a big segment--who were would-be land owners, than it helped.

~20
It seems to me you are conflating two very distinctive sets of circumstances: 1) Jackson's actions as a military commander and 2) Jackson's sense of political justice. A general cannot, by definition, be a man of the people. A general must lead a military, a politician must lead a polity. Different kettles of fish. For example, Washington had deserters hung but showed restraint in dealing with the Whiskey Rebellion.

I find comparison's between Jackson, Hitler, and Lenin (let alone the United States of the 1820s and 1830s, Germany in the 1930s, and Russia in the late teens and early 1920s) fraught with difficulty. They lack some very basic common factors and are thus not at all similar.

Daniel

>22 JFCooper:

I would definitely agree; geographically alone (the United States having a large frontier that was (from a white perspective) unused and mostly uninhabited, while Germany was surrounded by populous nation states with vigorous economies and modern militaries) the conditions were widely different.

>21 rolandperkins:
I agree that Nullification would run counter to where one would expect Jackson's sympathies to lay. Indeed Calhoun, as a South Carolinian and Jackson's Vice President, was utterly blindsided by Jackson's decision to fight SC on the issue of Nullification. And again, I agree with your assertion that it was floated in the north at the Hartford convention of the Federalist Party in 1814 (or was the 1815?)

But Nullification was a creation of Jefferson and Madison. The principal was proposed in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798 and 1799 as responses to what the Democratic Republican Party saw as a massive overreach of Federal power. The Federalist Party at Hartford 15 years later merely adapted a Democratic Republican Party idea to its own circumstances.

(We need to remember that Marbury v. Madison (1801) had not yet been decided when Madison and Jefferson wrote those resolutions on behalf of Virginia and Kentucky and thus Chief Justice Marshal, a Federalist, had not offered the Supreme Court as the final arbiter of the Constitutionality of laws. So Jefferson and Madison were simply offering what seemed to them a plausible mechanism for checking Federal power in the absence of any other mechanism. That it turned out to be a bad idea was not apparent in the late 18th century.)

Further, I don't see Nullification as a sectional issue. I think we have the luxury (or myopia) of imposing sectionalism on Nullification because we know that SC is where the Civil War started in earnest and that attitudes created and fostered by the Tariff of Abominations, Nullification, the Force Bill, and SC political leaders like Hayne and Calhoun led to an unparalleled zeal for "States' Rights" in SC.

I think Nullification was a SC thing because the Tariff of Abominations affected SC inordinately deeply, and they were forced to attempt a remedy of their own. It became a national issues because it threatened the legitimacy of the Federal Government.

Your thoughts on specie were entirely on point, at least the way I was thinking about Jackson's dual nature. Specie was hard to come by, currency was not. Supporting a law that forced all land sales to be transacted in specie was tantamount to making farming solely the pursuit of the economic elite.

Great stuff! Thanks!
Daniel

Just two things. The Whiskey Rebellion was on the western frontier. It was not in a place that today we think of as frontier or even as west but then it was the western frontier.

Post Fugitive Slave Law the south was decidedly against any states right to disobey federal law. This lasted until Lincoln was elected and then only changed in the narrow context of being able to revoke their accent to be governed. Enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law lasted well into the war with Union military units returning contraband to rebellious plantation owners.

~23

"I would definitely agree; geographically alone (the United States having a large frontier that was (from a white perspective) unused and mostly uninhabited, while Germany was surrounded by populous nation states with vigorous economies and modern militaries) the conditions were widely different."

Strange, it seems to me that the analogy is a very close one. Jackson and like minded people believed that Native Americans were less than full human beings (I believe that Hitler's term was "vermin"). Hitler believed the same, to varying degrees, about all "non Ayrans". I fail to see a distinction based on population density. If Native Americans were of negligable density, why were they killed or relocated rather than just ignored?

I'm not sure why you are unable to see a distinction between organized governments with a well-supported military infrastructure and a warrior culture that lacked such a structure; it's quite clear, given the difference in military preparation, that the Third Reich most certainly could perceive such differences.

Or, for that matter, the difference between a 'discovered' landscape that might well have seemed endless to American pioneers, and a long-settled countryside with maps and known resources.

The mind-set required to remove people who are capable of putting up substantial resistance is certainly different than the one required to remove indigenous peoples who can at best be an annoyance to the central government and elites.

If you are arguing that the American settlers of Jackson's time held similar views towards Native Americans that the Reich held towards 'non-Aryans', then I believe you are drifting a bit off-topic; the view often held was more paternalistic in justification. "We must frequently promote their interest against their inclination." (Lewis Cass) The idea was that the natives should be educated, converted, and turned into civilized people. (Yes, this was a justification for seizing their land through treaty, purchase, and force for those who were willing to better use the land. I believe very similar arguments have been recently sustained by the Supreme Court.) The force came when the natives failed to understand that their choices were to change/abandon their way of life, move, or be moved.

In any event, by supporting a popular viewpoint among his fellow common citizens, Jackson was certainly acting in the interests of average pioneers and settlers.

Hitler used prejudice to create scapegoats and attempted an outright extermination. Jackson's views regarding Native People are considerably more complicated and less self interested. And Jackson was happy enough to have Native People put far enough away where they would presumably pose no military threat. Thus we have the Trail of Tears rather than the Final Solution.

I see very little in common between the two positions.

Daniel

~28

Obviously, you're not very familiar with Hitler's history or the evolution of his views and programs. What he wanted was a "Jew free" Germany. Then, when Germany had conquered virtually all of Eastern Europe and most of Western Europe, he wanted a "Jew free" Greater Reich.

It was only when he also became convinced that the U.S., the British Empire, etc. were not interested in absorbing the Jews he was driving out of the Reich that he turned to extermination.

I guess it was good for the Native Americans that there was a Western North America available for their actual relocation and escape. Too bad that there wasn't something similar for Jews.

Hitler was hell-bent on extermination. If Rommel hadn’t been defeated in North Africa and moved his forces toward the Levant, the Einsatzgruppen would not have been far behind. Instead of Ukrainian or Latvian assistance, it would have been Arab.

The 19th Century Americans wanted the land the natives were using. They didn't really care (well, most of them didn't) about the fate of the natives. Whereas the Reich wanted to remove the Jews, and did so even when it was militarily unreasonable and diverted vital resources from the war. (cf Inferno by Hastings, among other sources.)

Consider that some frontier settlers aided the natives in attacking other settlers, and yet were eventually admitted into the Union. I can't imagine that scenario working in the Third Reich.

Calhoun and his followers, to get back on topic, seemed to blame Jackson for "mobocracy". They were not happy with Jefferson either but for other reasons. Could Jackson, in addition to founding the Democratic Party also been the first to run a "populist" campaign?

The Cherokee, possibility the Cree and Creek, had assimilated. They owned plantations, owned slaves, had their children educated in "western" cultural traditions. The problem that Georgia leaders had with them, if I understand correctly, was that the land they owned contained gold. Once this was discovered whoever owned that land was doomed to be removed one way or another.

Jackson was the first President not to come from either plantation owner stock (the Virginia dynasty) or New England professional background. Jackson's campaign (s) would certainly be in the running as the first 'populist' campaigns.

~31

"The 19th Century Americans wanted the land the natives were using. They didn't really care (well, most of them didn't) about the fate of the natives. Whereas the Reich wanted to remove the Jews, and did so even when it was militarily unreasonable and diverted vital resources from the war. (cf Inferno by Hastings, among other sources.)"

I guess I don't get this part of your argument. "Americans" (or at least Americans like Jefferson and Jackson) wanted to remove Native Americans from land they wanted for the American Race. Hitler wanted to remove Jews, Slavs, Gypsies and other "vermin" from Germany, and then the Greater Reich, to create Lebensraum for the "Ayran Race". Indeed, there were some dissenters to such a program in both cases. There were, for instance, the White Rose Movement in Germany and the Rosenstrasse protest in Germany

~32

"The Cherokee, possibility the Cree and Creek, had assimilated. They owned plantations, owned slaves, had their children educated in "western" cultural traditions. The problem that Georgia leaders had with them, if I understand correctly, was that the land they owned contained gold. Once this was discovered whoever owned that land was doomed to be removed one way or another."

And what was said about the Jews in Germany to motivate Ayran Germans to permit their plunder?

~30

"Hitler was hell-bent on extermination. If Rommel hadn’t been defeated in North Africa and moved his forces toward the Levant, the Einsatzgruppen would not have been far behind. Instead of Ukrainian or Latvian assistance, it would have been Arab."

I would suggest that you might want to read the history of this period a bit more carefully. Hitler was "hell-bent on extermination" only after he became convinced that there was no other way to rid the Greater Reich of Jews. You might want to ask Roosevelt and the British Foreign Office how he came to that conclusion........

Well, Jackson was born after his father died. From Pox Americana I know that he and his brother were held in A British POW camp and both came down with smallpox. They were released to their mother who took the sick boys home then returned to nurse other prisoners. She became sick and died. However, in How Lincoln learned to Read Wolff wrote that an uncle took Jackson in and helped him get an education.

He was no "distinguished Southern planter" nor a "Northern capitalist" but he was also far better off than the common laborers I would associate with a "man of the people". However, voting rights were in flux at that time and I am not sure if any common laborers could vote. In the South they could not hold office, there was a minimum net worth requirement that increased as the office became more important. Since these varied from state to state and were often changed when state constitutions were rewritten I am not sure who would be the "common man" he would need to appeal to. Maybe small land owners like those that filled western Virginia?

Undoubtedly those in the Western (at that time) states who thought that Eastern capitalists were at fault for everything that was going wrong except the weather and the Indians. (And I'm not so sure about the latter...)

Very few leaders have come from the absolute bottom of the heap, socially or economically. Certainly Jackson was far closer, socially and economically (at the beginning of his life) to the common labor force than the Southern planters and Northern professionals who had held office until then.

"(Jackson) was no ʻdistinguished Southern planterʻ nor a ʻNorthern capitalistʻ but he was also far better off than the common laborers I would assoicate with a ʻman of the peopleʻ ".

Even though it is somewhat negative, the above does describe Jackson better than anything I have seen in this thread. I would dissent from the implication, though, that the "common Man"
was typically a "laborer." He would more likely be a struggling small farmer; his Northeastern and
Central States* counterpart
would be likely involved marginally in the
financial world. In the next generation, the non-immigrant among my own great-grandparents, born in 1841 , was for a while a"Yankee peddler".,
then briefly a student, then a Union Army soldier, then a high school Math teacher. The financial world was becoming involved with the new industrial world, but industry was not yet primary.
And his top political aide, Martin Van Buren,
was a Northern aristocrat, but not really a
prominent capitalist. The capitalists were represented politically by the Federalists, in
a sot of coalition with the old aristocracy in
which you were supposed to "have" money, not "make" it. Their pro-British and anti-French
leanings caused their demise when Britain became the naional enemy again in the War of 1812.
The Jackson/Van Buren alliance marked the
beginnings of a politics in which the U. S. stopped having two Conservative parties, and having, instead, a Liberal and a Conservative Party. Many Democrats, however, continued to uphold the
traditional, r egional-influenced conservatism of the party.
Interestingly, Van Buren was also the last
incumbent vice-president# to be considered
the natural candidate for president until
George H. W. Bush in 1988.
The "Common Man" began to be a factor in
the Democratic Party in the Jacksonian era
(roughly 1820 -- 1848), but, I think, did not
become a very influential factor until
there was, decades later, the entrance of many
immigrants and immigrant children into
poltics.

*Abraham Lincoln was a "Westerner" , as they called it then, from what would become the "Middle West". But, born of Virginian parents in Kentucky. he sometimes referred to himself as a "Southerner". (perhaps to shake up the "Yankees" of his cabinet.)

#Even the first three vice-presidents who becam president did not produce a viable candidate.
John Tyler was a Whig in name only
and had no loyalty to the Whig Party --
none to the Union either, as it turned out later!
Whig Vice President Fillmore was briefly president, but had so little Whig support, that he joined a "minor" party, the execrable American Party ("Know-Nothings"). Andrew Johnson
an East Tennessee Democrat was impeached
and nearly convicted by the so-called Radicals
of the Republican Party, (who were really conservatives on almost evey issue except
Reconstruction.

Andrew Jackson was the first presidential candidate to run a populist campaign. Old Hickory's supporters were well-organized and, for the first time, employed electioneering techniques previously used only for local and state contests. Surrogates organized parades, banquets, rallies, wrote songs and slogans aimed to attract the support of the "common man". They were successful. Voter participation more than doubled in 1828 due, in great part, to the Jacksonians' efforts to appeal to small landholders and newly-franchised white male voters, who included laborers, frontiersmen and immigrants--the "acreless men".

Bruce you are right of course, Jackson was as close to the bottom rung of the economy as any of our presidents at the beginning of his life and that did shape his actions. Look at his and his vice-president's reactions to the Eaton Affair.

His life had its ups and downs and he , unlike Calhoun, refused to discard someone simply because their life had some down points.

Roland, you are right, at the time Jackson ran the small farmer was still the biggest demographic group. Even though I know that The Past is a Foreign Country I need to work on seeing what country I am talking about. The 19th century changed so quickly that I need to be especially mindful of the decade in discussion.

Fillmore's candidacy for the American Party is interesting. According to Anbinder in Nativism and Slavery he was drafted and it was never clear if he actually joined the party, it was originally a secret society and membership might have cost him votes.

Thank you Mr. Holmes, can you recommend a source on the political campaign?

#36 I took your advice and did a little reading about that time period.

On January 30, 1939, Hitler said that if war was going to happen; “the result will not be the bolshevization of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.” Quoted in Auschwitz and the Allies by Martin Gilbert.

Annihilation is a word that doesn’t leave a lot of wiggle room. Some would say that Hitler had always intended to completely destroy the Jews, based on things written in Mein Kampf and speeches. Others say this occurred because America, Britain and others restricted Jewish immigration. These restrictions were obvious by the late 1930s, specifically with the Evian Conference, in 1938, when 32 countries gathered to discuss the problem of Jewish refugees, which ended up taking no action. Hitler would have known, before the war that the allies had no intention of allowing Jewish immigration at a level that would clear out Europe.

If Hitler’s intentions had been more benign, he could have established a large reservation area in part of the conquered Eastern Europe. Europe’s Jews could have been deported to this area and left to do their own thing. However, this did not happen. As the army moved east, killing squads were close behind, shooting and gassing Jews and other undesirables. When this proved to be to slow, places like Sobibor and Treblinka were established to speed up the process. Ghettoes were established in several cities, to separate the Jews, but in the end all this did was make it easier to round them up for a final deportation to Auschwitz or Treblinka or… Had Hitler’s empire expanded to include Palestine, there is no reason to believe that he would not have taken advantage of a concentration of Jews and establish extermination camps to deal with them. Why stop when you're on a roll?

To blame America or Britain for the actions taken by the Reich is to apologize for Hitler and to absolve him of responsibility for his actions. It doesn’t matter what the allies did or did not do; Hitler and company had a choice and they chose attempted extermination.

Lynn Hudson Parsons has written an informative and readable book, "The Birth of Modern Politics--Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams and the Election of 1828". My only complaint is that the indexing could be better.

~42

Thank you for your gracious and objective evaluation of my conclusions. Sadly, it is clear who is being an apologist here and who is not. For instance, your assertion that "It doesn’t matter what the allies did or did not do" is just plain silly.

Hitler did not try to keep Jews from emigrating during the earlier part of his reign. In fact, that was just what he wanted to encourage. Any significant control of Jewish emigration didn't really get underway until late 1938 (that is until over 5 years after Hitler took power http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_policy_of_Nazi_Germany ), and thereafter Jews who had made it to the East could still usually find a way to make it out of Europe - at least until they were eventually murdered by benevolent Slavs or Greeks or by the advancing Nazi troops.

The problem was simply that they had no place outside of Europe which would accept them as immigrants.

Your dates are also wrong, probably because you don't understand how to read the snippet you quote from Gilbert. Hitler always blamed the Jews for the defeat of Germany in WWI and considered them as racial enemies, but until sometime in the period between Kristallnacht in late 1938 and August, 1941 his policy was to push them out of the Reich and then the Greater Reich, not to engage in mass murder.http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/genocide/radicalisation_01.shtml
Most Jews could have been saved if anyone outside of Europe cared to save them.

What could the aliies have done - they could have easily provided places where Jews could emigrate, but they chose not to do so.

After 1941, when emigration was entirely cut off and the killings began in earnest, Jewish organizations begged the allies to bomb the railroad lines leading to the killing camps and to bomb those camps themselves. Was that ever done? No, of course not.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0002_0_01610.html

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005182

Not only did the allies not encourage Jewish emigration, they returned shiploads of Jews who did manage to make it out of Nazi controlled territory to that territory.

See, e.g., for one of several notorious episodes http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/stlouis.html

Both the American and British governments did everything possible to suppress news of the holocaust, although they early knew exactly what was going on.
Official Secrets: What the Nazis Planned, What the British and Americans Knew

I see you're still trying to Godwinize the thread here.

And I fail to see what events of nearly a century later have to do with an evaluation of Jackson's Presidency or claims that Jackson was a 'man of the people' and did his best to act in the interests of the common citizen. Or is your thesis that Jackson was morally equal to Hitler? (Which, although possibly an interesting theory, is still not addressing the original question.)

But your screed seems to imply equal guilt for a murderer and those who fail to take action against the murders. Have there been many convictions of people who witnessed a crime and failed to take action to stop it? And was what Hitler was doing against international law (or custom)? After all, the Reich was not acting in a vacuum with the Final Solution; there were prior precedents (albeit not on such a scale).

~45

"And I fail to see what events of nearly a century later have to do with an evaluation of Jackson's Presidency or claims that Jackson was a 'man of the people' and did his best to act in the interests of the common citizen. Or is your thesis that Jackson was morally equal to Hitler? (Which, although possibly an interesting theory, is still not addressing the original question.)"

I am saying, if you have been reading my posts, rather than just assuming you know what they say, that there are certain patterns that repeat in both individual psychology and history. You can call this "human nature," or whatever term you want, but there are, for instance, xenophobes who want to conquer and remove the "vermin" for the benefit of "their people" in every society and in every generation.

It seems to me that if terms such as "man of the people" and observations that someone "did his best to act in the interests of the common citizen" have nonnormative meaning then so do the sort of observations I am making. Perhaps you could point out the differences? Or perhaps you could just define more closely what "the people" Jackson was a "man of"? Certain it didn't seem to be "the people" he was "relocating" or slaughtering, wouldn't you say?

So, you are saying that Andrew Jackson is morally equivalent to Hitler. That is, as I stated, an interesting observation and theory, and certainly may be worth its own thread. However, it still remains off-topic.

"One way to view Jackson’s attitude toward Indians was that he was paternalistic, believing the Indians to be like children who needed guidance. And by that way of thinking, Jackson may well have believed that forcing the Indians to move hundreds of miles westward may have been for their own good, as they would never fit in with white society." McNamara

Clearly, the Indians and their supporters disagreed with that assessment. However, Congress (the neglected actor in our little drama) did not. Jackson certainly supported the relocation bill, but Congress passed it; an indication of public support.

So, your indictment will have to be expanded to include all U.S. citizens who supported the relocation; not simply the leader who carried out those wishes. Jackson was carrying out the wishes of the common citizens of the United States. The Indians were not citizens, although they were thought to have some legal rights.

Whereas the Jews in Europe were most certainly citizens (if second class) of their respective nations.

#44
Actually, I am not being an apologist for anything.

~47

And I suspect that a case could be made (and for that matter has been made in several very well documented volumes) that the German People (well, the nonJewish, nonGay, nonGypsy, nonsocialist, German People) supported Hitler. Indeed, his support, with the few exceptions I mentioned above, seemed to be almost universal among them. So? Did that make what he did acceptable to others or to history?

As for your citizen/noncitizen point, you've got to be kidding? Where in the American Bill of Rights does it say anything about such rights being restricted to citizens? Are noncitizens just nonhuman?

~48

Perhaps you could illustrate that point by explaining away the facts I cited contrary to your view that I was apologizing for Hitler?

Attempting to point out to lawecon the historical invalidity of his comparison of Hitler and Jackson with regard to portions of the populations they governed is pointless. It is a position he has every right to hold, regardless of the validity and arguing about it will get none of us anywhere.

This is turning into a troll-fest.
Please let's move on.

Daniel

#50
Daniel is right. This has become pointless. Move on.