ANDREW JACKSON BORN IN SOUTH CAROLINA

THE HERMITAGE CELEBRATES OLD HICKORY'S BIRTHDAY

The Waxhaws* (JFK+50) On March 15, 1767, the future 7th President of the United States, Andrew Jackson, was born along the border of the Carolinas on the South Carolina side.

While there has been some controversy regarding the exact location of Jackson's birth, it is known for certain that "Old Hickory" grew up on the frontier and eventually moved to Nashville, Tennessee where he made his home and practiced law.

Jackson became the 1st federal congressman from the state of Tennessee and later won acclaim at the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812.  AJ was elected POTUS in 1832 and re-elected in 1836.  After two terms, he retired to his plantation home "The Hermitage"** in Nashville.

His mark on the United States was so great, historians refer to the period that he was in power as "The Age of Jackson."

*The Waxhaws was located in the Piedmont Region of the Carolinas SW of the Uwharrie Mountains.  The region was first occupied by the Waxhaw tribe & later Scots-Irish immigrants who were decidedly anti-British during the American Revolution.

**Today the Hermitage celebrated Old Hickory's birthday  with a "traditional wreath-laying ceremony, educational program.....and birthday cake."  

SOURCE

"Andrew Jackson's Birthday Celebration". Andrew Jackson's Hermitage, www.thehermitage.com/

The Hermitage

Nashville, Tennessee

Photo by Jim Bowen (2012)

Birthplace of Andrew Jackson

South Carolina Historic Marker

HIS LEADERSHIP WAS HOPELESSLY WEAKENED

JFK+50:  Volume 7, No. 2215

HOUSE PUTS JOHN QUINCY ADAMS IN THE WHITE HOUSE

Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) 192 years ago today, February 9, 1825, the presidential election of 1824 was decided in the United States House of Representatives.  A majority of the votes went to John Quincy Adams* of Massachusetts who would be sworn in as the 6th President of the United States on March 4, 1825.

Mr. Adams, former Secretary of State under James Monroe, had received the second highest number of electoral votes in the fall election with Andrew Jackson receiving the highest but  because no candidate received a majority of the votes,  the 12th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives the responsibility to select the winner to the House of Representatives.**

Senator Henry Clay*** of Kentucky, who personally detested Jackson,  gave his support to Adams and would become Secretary of State in the Adams administration.  Jackson's supporters called that a "corrupt bargain"  which they claimed had cheated their candidate out of his deserved victory. 

The Election of 1824 was historic for another reason.  It was the first presidential election in which no candidate represented the Federalists.  All five of the original candidates were Democratic-Republicans.  In addition to Adams, Clay and Jackson, other candidates were John C. Calhoun and William H. Crawford.


According to the Miller Center, as President of the United States, "John Quincy Adams was hopelessly weakened in his leadership potential as a result of the Election of 1824."

*John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) was born in Braintree (Quincy) Massachusetts & graduated from Harvard in 1787.  He then studied law, earned a MA in 1790 & was admitted to the bar in 1791.

Before becoming POTUS, JQA served as Minister to the Netherlands, Minister to Prussia, US Senator, Minister to Russia, Envoy to UK,  & Secretary of State.
After leaving the presidency, JQA served in the US House of Representatives from 1831 until his death.

**Andrew Jackson won 43% of the popular vote in the Election of 1824 with John Quincy Adams winning 30%.  Of course, our presidents are not elected by popular vote but by majority vote in the Electoral College.

***Henry Clay, Sr. (1777-1852) was born in Hanover County, VA & graduated from the College of William & Mary.  He was admitted to the bar in 1797.  HC served in the US House of Representatives where he was elected Speaker, was Secretary of State and represented the state of Kentucky in the US Senate.


SOURCES

"John Quincy Adams:  Impact and Legacy," The American President, Miller Center, www.millercenter.org/

"The 1924 Election and the 'Corrupt Bargain'," Politics and the New Nation, U.S. History, www.ushistory.org/

John Quincy Adams

6th United States President

by George Peter Alexander Healy
White House Historical Association 

I WAS BORN FOR A STORM & A CALM DOES NOT SUIT ME

JFK+50:  Volume 7, No. 2212

I KNEW ANDY JACKSON, HE WAS A FRIEND OF MINE & YOU, MR. TRUMP, ARE NO ANDY JACKSON

Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) Although University of Tennessee history professor Daniel Feller* was not around during the lifespan of the 7th U.S. President, as director of The Papers of Andrew Jackson, he knows him very well.  Dr. Feller sees little resemblance between Jackson and Trump.

Michael Collins addressed the comparison of Old Hickory and the Tweeter-n-Chief for USA Today pointing out that the 45th POTUS has put up a portrait of the 7TH POTUS, by Ralph E.W. Earl**, in the Oval Office.  In fact, it hangs in just the right spot behind the Resolute Desk so that it appears in photos of President Trump signing Executive Orders.

Mr. Collins points out that Mr. Trump's team has been saying that he, like Jackson, is an "outsider who took on the political establishment and return(ed) power to the people."  While historians generally agree that Jackson was a populist president whose origins were of the common man,  by the time he was elected POTUS, Mr. Jackson had served in public office for almost 3 decades.  

And while Mr.Trump's presidential demeanor is under question,
Mr. Collins summarizes Dr. Feller's view of President Jackson as being "polished, courtly and even polite." 

Mary Jordan of The Washington Post writes that Jackson and Trump share some noted similarities.  Both are known for their "rabid fans and rabid foes," and both share the following description, spoken by Andrew Jackson and on display at The Hermitage...

"I was born for a storm and a calm does not suit me."***

JFK+50 NOTE

Another major difference between Presidents Jackson & Trump is that Jackson was a DEMOCRAT while Trump is a REPUBLICAN.  Although there are exceptions, generally presidents like to honor other presidents from their own political party.

*Daniel Feller earned his PhD at the University of Wisconsin.  He taught at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque & came to the University of Tennessee in 2003.  

**Ralph Eleaser Whiteside Earl (1788-1838) was born in New York City & studied under John Trumbull in London.  He met Andrew Jackson at the Hermitage in January 1817 & became the "court painter" for the presidential administration of Andrew Jackson.

***Dr. Feller kindly informed me that this phrase was not written by Jackson as I originally posted but was spoken by him "or so said James A. Hamilton, a close confidant of Jackson's, who repeated it in a letter right afterwards."

SOURCES

"Professor:  Trump is no Jackson," by Michael Collins, USA Today Network-Tennessee, February 6, 2017, Knoxville News-Sentinel, www.knoxnews.com/

"The TV star and the war hero:  Donald Trump compares himself to Andrew Jackson," by Mary Jordan, February 5, 2017, The Washington Post.

Andrew Jackson
by Ralph E.W. Earl
White House Image
www.whitehouse.gov/

MAHATMA GHANDI SHOT

MAHATMA GHANDI SHOT TO DEATH IN NEW DELHI 66 YEARS AGO TODAY

New Delhi, India (JFK+50) Mahatma Ghandi, known worldwide for peaceful disobedience, was fatally shot sixty-six years ago today, January 30, 1948, here in New Delhi.

Ghandi was shot three times in the chest by 39 year old Hindu extremist, Nathuram Godse.  

The Mahatma was walking  to his prayer meeting, on the lawn of Birla House, when the shooting occurred.

Mahatma Ghandi was 78 years old.

As a young man, Ghandi studied law in Great Britain where he was influenced by reading Henry David Thoreau's Civil Disobedience.  He practiced law in South Africa before returning to India in 1914.

By 1930, Ghandi had a mass following.  He protested the British salt tax and led a 200 mile march to the Indian Ocean to make salt.

Ghandi's goal of an independent India had just been realized the year before his death.

In the days before the assassination, the Mahatma had been fasting in an effort to end religious strife in his country.

The assassin, Nathuram Godse, was editor of the "Agrani," a newspaper.  

Godse had written in his last editorial...

"Gandhi must be stopped--at any cost.  I am going to assassinate him in the open, before the public....as my duty..."

A memorable comment of a journalist of the time went...

"Just an old man in a loincloth in distant India:  Yet when he died, humanity wept."

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. patterned the methodology of the civil rights movement after Mahatma Ghandi's approach to civil disobedience.

Statue of Mahatma Ghandi

Martin Luther King, Jr.

National Historic Site

Atlanta, Georgia

Photo by John White (2008)

Jennifer White

MLK, Jr. National Historic Site

Photo by John White, 2008

1ST PRESIDENTIAL ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT 179 YEARS AGO TODAY

Washington, D.C.  (JFK+50) 179 years ago today, January 30, 1835, the seventh President of the United States, Andrew Jackson, was the target of an assassination attempt.

The first presidential would be assassin was identified as an unemployed house painter with a history of mental illness.

Andrew Jackson, who was in the process of leaving a funeral service at the United States Capitol, was approached by Richard Lawrence, who was carrying two pistols which had been primed and ready to fire.

When the President was within 10 feet, Lawrence fired one of the pistols but while the cap exploded the bullet did not discharge.

A navy lieutenant accompanying Jackson knocked Lawrence down but the would be assassin pulled out his other pistol and fired it at the President.

The second pistol also misfired.

In the meantime, President Jackson proceeded to raise his hickory cane and beat Richard Lawrence over the head.

Etching of Assassination Attempt

on President Andrew Jackson

                      
A group of people came to help restrain the shooter including Congressman David Crockett of Tennessee.

Crockett wrote...

 "I wanted to see the damnedest villan in the world and now I have seen him."

As to the reasons why the pistols misfired, Senator Thomas Hart Benton surmised....

"Both weapons later were tested and found to be functional.  At least one newspaper chalked this up to a miracle--but the humidity of the gloomy day most likely played as big a role as providence."

The odds of both pistols misfiring were said to be 125,000 to 1.

Richard Lawrence, who claimed that he was King Richard III, was prosecuted by Francis Scott Key, best known for his poem which became the American national anthem. 

The jury only took 5 minutes to come back with a "Not Guilty by reason of insanity" verdict. 

Lawrence spent the rest of his life in an insane asylum.

President Jackson, who carried a bullet in his chest from an 1806 duel, suspected his Whig political enemies were behind the attempt on his life.

Vice-President Martin Van Buren, concerned about his own safety, began to carry loaded pistols when he visited the Senate.

SOURCE

"The Daily: The History Page, Hard Target Andrew Jackson escapes an assassin's point blank pistol shots," by Ruth Graham, January 14, 2012,
www.thedaily.com

JFK+50 NOTE

The four United States presidents who have died at the hands of assassins include...

Abraham Lincoln, 1865
James A. Garfield, 1880
William McKinley, 1901 
John F. Kennedy,  1963

The United States Secret Service was created by President Lincoln on the day of his assassination, but its original purpose was only for the suppression of counterfeiting US currency.

After the assassination of McKinley, Congress requested the Secret Service provide protection for the President, a duty it assumed in 1902.

Assassination attempts were also made on President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Presidents Truman, Reagan and Ford.