Andrew Jackson Vs. John Adams Vs. Barrack Obama.

A long time ago during senior year I was having a conversation between me and two other people in my high school,   right before the election.  And we were…well talking about the election.

The subject came up on which kind of President that you would have wanted to have, someone who was an ‘elitist’ like John Adams, who basically knew what they were doing, or a rabble rousing country rouser like Andrew Jackson.

Now I do disagree with some of the assertions made, but that is not really the point.  Oh and by the way, Barrack was being compared to John Adams in this specific metaphor.

But I do want to make two points about this.

First off, I do not really think John Adams was an elitist, just a flawed man in many ways.  Second of all, I do not personally care, you can be a country bumpkin, you can be an idiot, you can be from Harvard or Yale, as long as you live out your oath that you took to support and defend the constitution of the United States of America.

That is it, that is all I want, as long as one understands the concept of living and let living, I could care less whether you are an elitist or not…though part of the definition of being an elitist is a busy body that likes to stick their noses…where they do not and should not belong.

Second off, I think she has it backwards.  Andrew Jackson is President Obama, and John Adams was the old guard and rigid McCain…in this analogy.

Now, often people who are not really for the people, use the people to try to gain their power.  To tell them that they are being screwed by a group of politicians that are currently in office, and that they the people should rise up, demand their rights, and give the power to someone with better guards.  Not to say that this is inherently bad, it’s actually healthy, but it has been what…lesser politicians…have done to get elected in the past.

Using the people as a wagon to get into office, and rallying the ‘populist masses’.

Also around that time the politics of the situation were a mess.  The franchise had not yet been extended yet to all the adults of the nation, just land owners, so he had them on his side.

The last election had some questionable results. When John Quincy Adams was accused of ‘buying’ the election by offering one of his opponents a sweet heart deal so that he could be the winner.

He was a much hated President in certain areas that let Jackson draw a difference between himself, and the ‘politics of the past’ especially in regards to the franchise.

And when Jackson got into office he: Bullied the Supreme Court, expanded the powers of the Federal Government, fought actively with John Calhoun on issues of States Rights at a time when our country was rapidly heading for civil war.

Doesen’t this all sound just a little familiar?

This also brings up one great and important lesson in history to me.  Great men do not make great Presidents, in fact it takes only a very special kind of man to successfully be a President.  So much so that when I look back I can only think of two, maybe three Presidents that truly fit that bill.  Most of them were just adequate, doing their jobs, or much worse.

People like John Adams, who was a founding father, and rabble-rouser, and one of the people who fought hardest for independence from Great Britain.  But yet passed many laws in his administration that did not sit well with being so early in the Republic’s life.

Andrew Jackson, the hero of the battle of New Orleans.

Theodore Roosevelt, who led the charge up the San Juan hill, and whose philosophies were mostly right, just not when applied to government.

And then you have someone like Abraham Lincoln who lived his life, and then failed many times, before he became one of the most beloved Presidents in our nations history, for saving the Union.

I do not care what you are, you can be smart, or stupid, as long as you leave me with me and mine.  It takes extraordinarily special, but yet regular people to realize this.