72 Reasons Why Andrew Jackson is the Most Bad-Ass President of the United States of America

Gaunt but striking, with a formidable head of white hair, sixty-five years old that winter, stood six-foot one and weight 140 pounds over a midday glass of whiskey in the White House…

1.“I was born a storm and a calm does not suit me.” ~Andrew Jackson
2.God was the only will Jackson ever bowed to, and he did not do even that without a fight.
3.At a young age, when some boys played practical jokes on him (putting extra gun powder in a musket which recoiled more than expected and put him to the ground), he threatened to kill them if they laughed.
4.At 14, he tried to fight the British, but was captured. Instead of being submissive to their power by shining their boots, he refused and asked to be treated as a POW. He got a large scare on his forehead after being struck with the blunt end of a sword.
5.He models himself as being triumphant over a larger foe by comparing himself to King David.
6.His all-time favorite hero was Scotland’s William Wallace.
7.Soon after completing law school, he challenged the first lawyer he ever tried a case against to a duel.
8.Andrew Jackson told Robards, the current husband of his eventual wife, “If I had such a wife, I would not willingly bring a tear to her beautiful eyes.” To which Robards replies, “Well perhaps...she is not your wife.” Two year later, Andrew Jackson married her.
9.While being chased by Indians, Andrew Jackson rowed across river rapids to save him and two friends. One friend said, “You were within an ace, sir, of being dashed to pieces.” Andrew Jackson responded, “A miss is as good as a mile, it only shows how close I can graze danger, but we have no time to lose, follow me and I will save you yet.”
10.A man made a remark about his wife so, naturally, Andrew Jackson challenged him to a duel. He let the man shoot first which struck him in the chest. Andrew Jackson, then, looked up cooly and shot the man dead. The bullet remained with Andrew Jackson the rest of his life.
11.After being shot by this man, he looked down at his severe wound and said without flinching, “If he had shot me through the brain, I still would have killed him.”
12.While Andrew Jackson was a judge, he was overseeing a case where a man cut off the ears of his child during a drunken episode. He refused to turn himself in and the sheriff was too scared to go, so he asked Jackson to come along. Jackson went up to the door and said, “Now, surrender, you infernal villain, this instant or I’ll blow you through.” The man walked outside, dropped his guns and said, “I will surrender to you, sir, but no one else.
13.During an Indian battle many soldiers were sick and sounded when the government refused them any more wagons or horses. Jackson, then, made all officers including himself give up their horse. “Not a man, sir, must be left behind.”
14.When Jackson saw a man who previously insulted a friend, he chased after him with a horsewhip and a pistol. Jackson was shot and wounded but still tried to kill the man. Later surgeons said his armed needed to be amputated. Andrew Jackson simply replied, “I’ll keep my arm.”
15.Andrew Jackson imposed martial law in New Orleans during the War of 1812 and defied the writ of habeas corpus. Year later, Lincoln cited Jackson’s precedent during the Civil War.
16.His victory in New Orleans was cited as being reminiscent of Shakespeare’s Henry V at Agincourt.
17.After New Orleans, a priest thanked God for sending Jackson and said, “It is Him we intend to praise, when considering you general, as the man of His right hand.”
18.During an Indian battle, find a young boy on the battle fields after losing his mother and father. Andrew Jackson adopted him on the spot and considering him his son. His name was Lyncoya.
19.President Monroe asked General Jackson to subdue the Seminole threat in Florida, which was occupied by the Spanish. Instead, he conquered both the Seminoles and Spanish and acquired Florida for the United States. Although he overstepped his boundaries and people in Washington criticized him for what he did, he never even got his hand slapped.
20.When Jackson took office the railroad system was a dream. When he left there was 3,200 miles of track in the United States.
21.During Jackson’s years in power liberal arts colleges were found more than twice the rate of previous decades.
22.The White House after Jackson’s inauguration was overwhelmed by excited citizens. It was so crowded that all the food and alcohol was taken out to the lawns, so people started jumping through windows.
23.During this era, when people got sick they went to a doctor to get bleed, but Jackson didn’t need a doctor for this. He bled himself…for internal hemorrhaging.
24.At the beginning of our country’s history, men in office typically remained in office from one president to the next. The most changes prior to Jackson was 39 by Thomas Jefferson. When Jackson took office, he replaced 919 offices, which about 10 percent of the entire federal government.
25.He firmly believed he was coming to power after a long period of sustained official corruption- he called the government “the Augean Stable,” seeing himself as Hercules and viewed what he broadly referred to as “reform” as a moral as well as political task.
26.A postmaster, fearing he would be dismissed from his position because Jackson’s supporters called for his removal, pleaded with Jackson by stripping himself naked and showed the wounds inflicted on him by the British. He remained in his position to much of the chagrin of his supporters and Jackson stated, “By the Eternal! I will not remove the old man- I cannot remove the old man, I cannot remove him… do you not know that he carries more than a pound of British lead in his body?”
27.Some of his Cabinet members disagreed with the appointment of the Secretary of War. Andrew Jackson replied in a letter, “I did not come here to make a Cabinet for the ladies of this place, but for the nation.”
28.Andrew Jackson was a devout Protestant. When a powerful minister from Philadelphia tried to convinced Jackson the presidency was only worthy for Christians, Jackson embarrassed him by explaining one of the country’s greatest strengths was freedom of religion, a freedom that also gave the skeptical the right to live unmolested and unevangelized.
29.Another minister in Washington tried to attack Jackson for not making Christianity a focus in his presidency and unwillingness to condemn other religions. Jackson replied in a speech, “With regard to the tale of the clergyman, it seems to me to be so inconsistent with the charities of the Christian religion, and so opposed to the character of an ambassador of Christ, that it gives me pain to read it.”
30.The removal of Indians has been a plan for every president prior to Jackson in hopes to gain more land. Jackson was the first one to believe Indians were a mortal threat to the security of a nation.
31.The Bank of the United States was free of check and balances and acted without regard to government and had the ability to influence politics without reprimand. Jackson felt the president of the United States and no one else, and certainly not a banker, spoke for a free people.
32.Andrew Jackson’s adopted nephew had a son and asked a friend of the family and Martin Van Buren to be the Godparent’s. However, when the minister asked the two if the would renounce the devil and his works for the child, all you could here at the church was Andrew Jackson saying, “I do, sir, renounce them all.” The author noted that no little girl had more of a sincere protector speak for her at such moment.
33.Andrew Jackson vowed to veto any bill that came to him if it only benefitted a state rather than the entire nation.
34.During a stretch of three day, Jackson vetoed 4 bills.
35.Andrew Jackson was the first to theorize that Congress should ask him what laws to vote on, so they won’t waste time voting on something he will veto. This Jacksonian theory in regards to the president’s power to veto was used by Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and FDR.
36.Jackson decided, without consultation or consent of Congress, that states were no longer allowed to make treaties with one another without consent of the federal government.
37.Jackson was the first to coin the term “Democratic Party” which is similar to the one we see today.
38.John Q. Adams wrote in his diary, “General Jackson rules by his personal popularity, which his partisans in the Senate dare not encounter by opposing anything he does.”
39.Although Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall did not support the idea of removing Indians, he allowed the improper hanging of an Indian in Georgia, because he was afraid to oppose Andrew Jackson.
40.Even though when talked about he was called the president, but when addressing him, he was always the General.
41.Andrew Jackson was the first president to create his own newspaper to eliminate partisanship.
42.“Bloodthirsty bids for power often provoke equally bloodthirsty reactions, especially when the target is a man like Jackson, whose own appetite for control and for the elimination of enemies knew few bounds.”
43.“Qualifications for President avast there, Sparta hath many a wiser son than he…” ~George Bancroft
44.(On hearing the Senate didn’t accept Van Buren as French Ambassador) “By the Eternal! I’ll smash them!” ~Jackson
45.Andrew Jackson mandated all messages from foreign ministries, that were once addressed to the President and Congress of the United States, to just “To the President of the United States of America” because he felt foreign intercourse should be vested only in the executive branch.
46.“The Bank (of the United States) is trying to kill me, but I will kill it.” ~Jackson
47.(Discussing the Bank of the United States) “But when laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society- the farmers, mechanics, and laborers- who have neither the time or the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their Government.” ~Andrew Jackson
48.Andrew Jackson gave more power to the presidency in vetoing a bill of The Bank of the United States based on its constitutionality, which is significant because he felt he was bound to interpret the laws as he understood them regardless of what the court said.
49.During his 1832 campaign, Andrew Jackson began to set up and attend “Hickory Clubs” across the country, which were barbeques promote Jackson’s cause. One of these “Hickory Clubs” took place in Lexington, Kentucky, just miles from Ashland, Kentucky where his opponent Henry Clay was from.
50.“I had no doubt that if a war came, as some feared it must, General Jackson would hang those gentlemen if he could get hold of them…and there would be a bloody war of it.” ~John Randolph
51.General Jackson instead of lashing out, isolated South Carolina rhetorically by appearing reasonable about the general principles at stake. With his secret military preparations, he bolstered the spirits of the Union Party in the sate and put the federal government in position to fight if things came to that.
52.“My duty is emphatically pronounced in the Constitution…Discussion by armed force is treason. Are you really ready to incur its guilt?...On your unhappy state will inevitably fall all the evils of the conflict you force upon the government of the country. It cannot accede to the mad project of disunion, of which you would be the first victims.” ~Andrew Jackson
53.“I pray God to preserve your life…that you may preserve this Union.” ~James A. Hamilton
54.A Unionist told Jackson that his supporters comforted themselves with the cry: “What have we to fear, we are right and God and Old Hickory are with us.”
55.“…came away with a still warmer feeling towards Old Hickory, who, I swear, is one the truest old caballeros I have ever known.” ~Washington Irving (caballero meaning: knightly, courtly gentleman, calm rather than angry.)
56.On May 7, 1833, Jackson named a postmaster for New Salem, Illinois, a lawyer who had lost a race for state legislature, Abraham Lincoln, his first governmental post.
57.Robert Randolph assaulted the General and bloodied his face, but stopped the assailant with his stare.
58.JQ Adams cousin recalled that parents in the Northeast sometimes invoked the name of Andrew Jackson to frighten misbehaving children.
59.According to Harriet Martineau, a New England Sunday school teacher once asked a child who killed Abel. The answer: “General Jackson.”
60.When asked what he would do if Congress called for impeachment with Jackson’s incessantness on dissolving the Bank of the United States, Jackson replied, “Then, sir, I would resign the presidency and return to Hermitage.”
61.“Sooner than restore the deposits or recharter the bank I would undergo the torture of ten Spanish inquisitions. Sooner than live in a country where such a power prevails I would seek an asylum in the wilds of Arabia.” ~Andrew Jackson
62.On the refusal of repayment of money from France to America, French diplomat, Serurier said, “The president could not be stopped, his iron with subdued all resistance.”
63.Under Andrew Jackson, on January 8, 1835, the first and only time in our nation’s history, the National Debt was completely paid off.
64.When an assailant attempted to murder General Jackson, both guns failed and Jackson began brandishing him with his walking stick.
65.After examining the gun, it was later determined the odds of two guns failing during the attack was 125,000 to one.
66.On Jackon’s death bed he said, “Do not cry, I hope to meet you all in Heaven, yes, all in Heaven, white and black.”
67.After his death, a visitor asked a slave what she thought about Jackson getting into heaven to which she replied, “If the General wants to go, who’s going to stop him?”
68.In Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address, he consulted Jackson’s Proclaimation to the People of South Carolina.
69.“Jackson had many faults, but he was devotedly attached to the Union, and he had no thought of fear when it came to defending his country…with the exception of Washington and Lincoln, no man has left a deeper mark on American History.” ~Theodore Roosevelt.
70.“For Jackson, the presidency, in this light, was not an arm of government but its heart, beating vitally.” ~Theodore Roosevelt
71.FDR was so fascinated by Jackson that he walked with support of braces in pain(refusing to use ramps because this occasion was too important) through Hermitage to pay tribute to Jackson.
72.In 1945, Harry Truman put a small bronze of Jackson in the Oval Office and drew Jacksonian imagery to build on the New Deal.