History

I grew up in the fairly conservative educational environment of Zel Miller's Georgia in the 90s. During Georgia History, in the module on Cherokee history, the focus was on Andrew Jackson being an all around bad guy with no redeeming qualities, who was responsible for the trail of tears. Later in US history we were taught about how it was even worse because the Creek and Cherokee tribes helped him defeat the the English in the war of 1812. His success against the English helped him to gain wealth, and later to win the presidency and that him forcing all but a small few who sold out their kin off of the land was a personal betrayal to the very people who had put him in power.

Going off of these notions I figured it would be easy to find lots of examples of how he was a really bad president, and I was surprised that I'd never heard that:

1. He almost sent the US to war with France because they refused to pay off debts they owed, and they backed down after England begged them not to start another war with the US.

2. He won the election of 1824 against the secretary of state John Quincy Adams, the Speaker of the House Henry Clay, and a Georgian named William Crawford in the popular vote and in the electoral college, but didn't get enough electoral votes to get the Majority. the House of Representatives would have to vote for president with a single vote for each state. Adams won the vote and made Clay his Secretary of State, and Jackson claimed that Clay had approached him and offered to back him and have his supporters back him if he agreed to make him "Secy", and when he declined, Clay threw his support behind Adams, winning him the presidency. As a result of this he had a career long goal of abolishing the electoral college and setting up US elections as a popular vote.

3. He believed that Adams had fumbled agreements with the Spanish and given Texas to them despite it being part of the Louisiana Purchase and he wanted Texas badly. He was opposed to violating the US treaty with Mexico and fired his Mexican ambassador for trying to bribe Mexican officials into giving the land to the US without using the proper channels to get it. He was angry with Sam Houston, who he called a "former friend" after the fact, and Stephen Austin for taking Texas by force, and refused to aid them against Mexican soldiers and ships afterward. He was adamant about proving to Santa Anna that the US did not support or recognize the independence of Texas and did not aid them.

4. After the nation of Texas was more well established, he refused to annex or admit it into the US out of fears that another pro-slave state would cause uproar and possibly lead to a civil war, despite being the orphan of poor Irish immigrants who got rich selling and trading slaves, who was known for being especially brutal to slaves.

5. His primary work while in office was to oppose the Second Bank of the United States which was their equivalent of the federal reserve at the time. He was a populist who claimed the Bank’s charter gave the institution too much power over the nation’s financial markets, he argued—power that enabled it to generate huge profits for its stockholders, most of whom were “foreigners” and “our own opulent citizens.” “If we must have a bank with private stockholders, every consideration of sound policy and every impulse of American feeling admonishes that it should be purely American,” Jackson wrote. Daniel Webster and Henry Clay fought hard to protect the bank and Clay ran in opposition of Jackson for his second term expressly to protect its interests. He wrote that “It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes,” and that "This was unjust and dangerous to the humble members of society—the farmers, mechanics and laborers—who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves.”

After learning all this I am surprised more about him isn't common knowledge, I've never even heard Texans talk about his negative attitude towards their beloved fight for independence.

Does anyone think the Fed put him on the $20 bill out of spite?