When things are happening that seem crazy and out of the blue, the question we must ask ourselves is:
Where have we seen this before?
Believe it or not, the election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton has eerie parallels to elections from nearly two centuries ago, the presidential elections of 1824 and 1828.
The History Dr’s goal is to show how the past opens windows of understanding into our society. In these two contests, two essential questions arise:
- Whose qualifications for office are more useful in leading a democratic people?
- Whose temperament and leadership style is best suited?
The historic elections of 1824 and 1828 saw the Ivy League-educated John Quincy Adams, a studious career politician who prepared for public service his entire life, running against General Andrew Jackson, a scrappy nationalist candidate, who was belligerent toward Native Americans and also mocked for his poor spelling. (Remember Dan Quayle’s potato in 1988?)
Jackson, you may know, is the soon-to-be-history face of the $20 bill, to be superseded by Harriet Tubman at this writing.
The only things Adams and Jackson seemingly had in common were being born in 1767 and a common desire to be president of the United States.
An unpolished political outsider who got things done
Andrew Jackson and his family were detained by British troops during the Revolutionary War. The young Jackson fought bravely against British troops to defend his family. His face was slashed by a Red Coat, leaving him with a lifelong animosity to the British.
A self-made man, Jackson went on to teach himself the law, although his spelling was poor. He became a frontier judge in Nashville, Tennessee, known for his wild temper; his drinking and gambling; and a propensity to brawl. He killed a man named John Dickinson in a duel for insulting his wife. (In those days duels weren’t legally sanctioned but still not uncommon; Alexander Hamilton was killed in such a duel in 1804.)
Jackson undertook a vengeance mission against the Creek Indians after the massacre of Fort Mims. Later he forcibly evicted Native American tribes in the 1830’s, which was in tune with popular sentiment. Arriving immigrants and an expanding population justified the removals on the grounds of national interest.
Not all these are similar to Trump, who reportedly abstains from alcohol and was not self-made, but inherited wealth. However, his proposals indicate a willingness to single out Muslims, and deport millions of undocumented aliens. He has characterized Mexicans as “rapists, drug dealers and criminals.”
Gen. Jackson was known for military belligerence, threatening South Carolina over the payment of federal taxes in 1832. He also forcibly destroyed the Bank of the United States, a misunderstanding of the American banking system at the time that unleashed the Panic of 1837, which was not unlike the Great Recession of our time, but shorter. Some of Trump’s proposals regarding the national debt, such as defaulting on the United States’ bonds, have been deemed dangerous and counterproductive by economists.
Connections to former presidents and relationships with European power brokers
Now let’s look at John Quincy Adams, the Massachusetts-born scion of a revered president who married one of the most learned woman in colonial America, Abigail Adams. His father, John Adams, was a lawyer, diplomat, vice president and the second president.
Precocious John Quincy Adams graduated Harvard at a very young age. As secretary to his father the diplomat and president, he lived in places such as Germany, Holland, Russia and England, speaking several languages fluently. He was on a first name basis with the royal families of Europe.
Quincy Adams, like Hillary Clinton, served as secretary of state and Senator. Hillary Clinton is the wife of a revered president and also has Ivy League credentials, although she did not have famous parents.
John Quincy Adams, the accomplished diplomat and erudite scholar, is quite similar to Hillary Clinton. Both had impeccable academic qualifications for the nation’s highest office. Both were known to be diligent and relentless in their studies and in their service at the highest levels of our government.
Another way to understand the present election is to look at leadership style, and the temperaments that each candidate has manifested.
Whose leadership style is best for the nation?
John Quincy Adams was personally stiff and a wooden speaker. He was considered rather stodgy and a loner, preferring to be left isolated to read his Bible and write in his diary. Hillary Clinton’s style is often compared unfavorably to the warm, crowd-pleasing, joking and hand-shaking repertoire of the outgoing former President Bill Clinton.
Do you want a political leader who will examine problems slowly and study them as a scholar? That would be Quincy Adams and Hillary Clinton.
Or do you want someone who acts forcefully and aggressively, who sees what needs doing and then does it regardless of who likes it or not? That’s both Jackson and Trump.
Also recall the shoot first and aim later style of Theodore Roosevelt at the turn-of-the-century, whose actions gained the U.S. the land for the Panama Canal.
Today historians consider Republican Teddy Roosevelt among our nation’s greatest presidents, but critics at the time denounced Roosevelt as imperialistic for wresting the land for the canal away from Colombia. Meanwhile, Roosevelt quipped that the senators could debate while he built the canal.
The 1820s elections help us understand the choice we face today.
In 1824, John Quincy Adams beat Jackson. Adams went on to have a lackluster presidency but a distinguished career as a federal representative after leaving the White House.
Jackson prevailed in the 1828 rematch, and his presidential career, while marred by his Native American evictions, contained significant achievements and helped usher in a new era of suffrage for common men. He preserved the federal union against a state tax revolt. In 1832, Jackson annihilated his challenger Henry Clay in the election.
Gen. Jackson and Donald Trump lead similarly. They are aggressive nationalists; they appear to want to kick ass and get things done forcefully. Even if that means circumventing rules and processes. Trump even suggests violating international law by killing the families of terrorists. He proposes registering Muslims, putting more guns in more places, and forcibly deporting millions of people to Mexico.
In contrast, John Quincy Adams and Hillary Clinton are policy wonks who’ve spent many years at the highest levels of our government and in public service studying the nation’s problems. She’s not a natural politician, however, struggling to inspire a significant number of even her own party. She represents stability, at a time when the mood of the country appears to favor change.
So I ask you, we the people: Whose qualifications for office are better suited and more useful for leading a democracy? Whose temperament and leadership style would you like to see with the keys to the nation?
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