![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Just read a rather fascinating article in this week's New Yorker magazine, entitled "Bound for Glory - Writing Campaign Lives" by Jill Lepore.
The article detailed the first real "Presidential Marketing Campaign" - which was for Andrew Jackson. Jackson ran against John Quincy Adams in 1828, and he won both the popular vote and a plurality, though not a majority, of the electoral vote. The election was thrown to the House, which chose Adams.
**[Recently learned via my parents who are in Williamsburg and just heard a historical lecture on the topic - that Thomas Jefferson, Adams and the other founding fathers of the American Electoral System - would never have allowed the Judiciary to decide such a case. They didn't trust them with such matters. Actually for that matter, Jefferson would have been against Nationalizing the banks - he and John Adams fought over it. And the electoral college was set up because the vast majority of the voters were uneducated. The intention was to elect educated representatives in each state who would make an informed decision for the voters. It was also set up to ensure smaller states got a voice, and there was a large rurual/farm population - they were concerned about. The number of electoral votes each state got was based on the number of senators and congressional representatives or districts. Now, the population mass has changed and is more centered in urban areas, also the population is more educated - so instead of voting for someone who will make the decision for us, we vote for a rep of the party who will in turn vote for the candidate of that party. Example - Democrates vote for Obama. Republicans vote for McCain. Independent vote for Ron Paul. For more on the electoral college - go here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_(United_States).
Oh another anecdote - back then, the Vice President was the runner up to the Presidency. Not his running mate. (ie. Kerry would have been Bush's VP not Dick Cheney back then.) This changed sometime in early 1800s.]
At any rate, Andrew Jackson was a military hero, with several years experience in the Senate. He was not an educated man nor a scholar. A bit crass around the edges, and a bit of a maverick. The campaign for Jackson back then is very similar to John McCain and Sarah Palin's campaign tatics now - rustic, pioneer, military background, anti-Washington, outsider, non-elite. Jackson's claim to fame was as War hero. He had been a General in the WAR of 1812, where he led American forces in a stunning defeat of an invading British Army, winning the Battle of New Orleans. With a political career in mind - he hunted down a biographer - to tell his tale, much as John McCain did, except Jackson's biographers hit with a string of bad luck. The first one was shot in the back by a mad tailor. The second took suddenly and strangely ill. The third was a huge success and rewarded with a position in Jackson's cabinet, only to end up being banned from Washington due to a scandle, infamously called the Petticoat Scandel, regarding Eaton's wife.
Jackson was considered by his colleagues to be - provincial and poorly educated. Thomas Jefferson declared him to be one of the most unfit men I know of for such a place. A despot - prone to temper and somewhat rancorous. But he was wildly popular with the American People, according to the article. And a born strategist. The Army needed men like Jackson, whether the Presidency did was another matter.
Even though he lost the first election to Adams, he rallied and won in 1828 - when Jackson trounced Adams. Was a Jackson a good President? Well....
1. Jackson retired the national debt.
2. He killed the Bank of the United States.
3. Made free use of the pocket veto
4.When the Supreme Court ruled against his plan to force the Cherokees to move to lands west of the Mississippi (you know the Trail of Tears?) - Jackson went ahead anyway.
5. Nine Weeks after Jackson left office, the nation's financial system collasped.
Andrew Jackson vastly expanded the powers of the Presidency.
The article ends, with a comparison of Andrew Jackson to Abraham Lincoln, who was the polar opposite to Jackson. Lincoln is perhaps the least experienced man to become President of the US, Barack Obama actually has slightly more experience than Lincoln. A self-taught man, Lincoln read his way out poverty. He was thoughtful and a scholar. And the biography that was written of him? Lincoln made corrections to it - writing in the margins of a copy he had checked out of the Library of Congress - twice. Jackson on the other hand did not make these corrections to the biography he had someone write of him.
Lincoln - the biographer said was a staunch Adams man. Lincoln crossed out Adams and wrote "anti-Jackson."
In 1828, the writer of the article tells us, Americans first voted for a President whose campaign touted him as a rugged, stubborn, hot-tempered war hero, a man of the people.
This was 184 years ago. "There is no older or more hackneyed gambit in American politics, no maneuvre less maverick. The Erie Canal is younger."
The question is have we really moved on? A friend of mine recently sent me a piece about how when Jackson became President he invited the populace into the White House with him. They literally tour the place apart, destroying more than one historical relic. That luckily has not happened since.
**(Another antedote my parents told me over the phone the other night - apparently during Jeffersonian times, the President's salary was used to pay for his staff and housekeeping. There was little left. Now, the government pays those salaries and the President's salary. Also back then, Senators and Congressman didn't make much, very little in fact, just a stipend. The view was if they made too much and got too comfortable, they may never want to leave.]
It's probably worth stating that Andrew Jackson was a Democrate and Abraham Lincoln was a Republican.
The article detailed the first real "Presidential Marketing Campaign" - which was for Andrew Jackson. Jackson ran against John Quincy Adams in 1828, and he won both the popular vote and a plurality, though not a majority, of the electoral vote. The election was thrown to the House, which chose Adams.
**[Recently learned via my parents who are in Williamsburg and just heard a historical lecture on the topic - that Thomas Jefferson, Adams and the other founding fathers of the American Electoral System - would never have allowed the Judiciary to decide such a case. They didn't trust them with such matters. Actually for that matter, Jefferson would have been against Nationalizing the banks - he and John Adams fought over it. And the electoral college was set up because the vast majority of the voters were uneducated. The intention was to elect educated representatives in each state who would make an informed decision for the voters. It was also set up to ensure smaller states got a voice, and there was a large rurual/farm population - they were concerned about. The number of electoral votes each state got was based on the number of senators and congressional representatives or districts. Now, the population mass has changed and is more centered in urban areas, also the population is more educated - so instead of voting for someone who will make the decision for us, we vote for a rep of the party who will in turn vote for the candidate of that party. Example - Democrates vote for Obama. Republicans vote for McCain. Independent vote for Ron Paul. For more on the electoral college - go here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_(United_States).
Oh another anecdote - back then, the Vice President was the runner up to the Presidency. Not his running mate. (ie. Kerry would have been Bush's VP not Dick Cheney back then.) This changed sometime in early 1800s.]
At any rate, Andrew Jackson was a military hero, with several years experience in the Senate. He was not an educated man nor a scholar. A bit crass around the edges, and a bit of a maverick. The campaign for Jackson back then is very similar to John McCain and Sarah Palin's campaign tatics now - rustic, pioneer, military background, anti-Washington, outsider, non-elite. Jackson's claim to fame was as War hero. He had been a General in the WAR of 1812, where he led American forces in a stunning defeat of an invading British Army, winning the Battle of New Orleans. With a political career in mind - he hunted down a biographer - to tell his tale, much as John McCain did, except Jackson's biographers hit with a string of bad luck. The first one was shot in the back by a mad tailor. The second took suddenly and strangely ill. The third was a huge success and rewarded with a position in Jackson's cabinet, only to end up being banned from Washington due to a scandle, infamously called the Petticoat Scandel, regarding Eaton's wife.
Jackson was considered by his colleagues to be - provincial and poorly educated. Thomas Jefferson declared him to be one of the most unfit men I know of for such a place. A despot - prone to temper and somewhat rancorous. But he was wildly popular with the American People, according to the article. And a born strategist. The Army needed men like Jackson, whether the Presidency did was another matter.
Even though he lost the first election to Adams, he rallied and won in 1828 - when Jackson trounced Adams. Was a Jackson a good President? Well....
1. Jackson retired the national debt.
2. He killed the Bank of the United States.
3. Made free use of the pocket veto
4.When the Supreme Court ruled against his plan to force the Cherokees to move to lands west of the Mississippi (you know the Trail of Tears?) - Jackson went ahead anyway.
5. Nine Weeks after Jackson left office, the nation's financial system collasped.
Andrew Jackson vastly expanded the powers of the Presidency.
The article ends, with a comparison of Andrew Jackson to Abraham Lincoln, who was the polar opposite to Jackson. Lincoln is perhaps the least experienced man to become President of the US, Barack Obama actually has slightly more experience than Lincoln. A self-taught man, Lincoln read his way out poverty. He was thoughtful and a scholar. And the biography that was written of him? Lincoln made corrections to it - writing in the margins of a copy he had checked out of the Library of Congress - twice. Jackson on the other hand did not make these corrections to the biography he had someone write of him.
Lincoln - the biographer said was a staunch Adams man. Lincoln crossed out Adams and wrote "anti-Jackson."
In 1828, the writer of the article tells us, Americans first voted for a President whose campaign touted him as a rugged, stubborn, hot-tempered war hero, a man of the people.
This was 184 years ago. "There is no older or more hackneyed gambit in American politics, no maneuvre less maverick. The Erie Canal is younger."
The question is have we really moved on? A friend of mine recently sent me a piece about how when Jackson became President he invited the populace into the White House with him. They literally tour the place apart, destroying more than one historical relic. That luckily has not happened since.
**(Another antedote my parents told me over the phone the other night - apparently during Jeffersonian times, the President's salary was used to pay for his staff and housekeeping. There was little left. Now, the government pays those salaries and the President's salary. Also back then, Senators and Congressman didn't make much, very little in fact, just a stipend. The view was if they made too much and got too comfortable, they may never want to leave.]
It's probably worth stating that Andrew Jackson was a Democrate and Abraham Lincoln was a Republican.