Which President spoke seven languages and was later called Old Man Eloquent?
Like Obama, President JQ Adams was opposed by violent men who put private property above all else
Obama resembles John Quincy Adams; similarly intellectual and a better speaker, more charismatic. Our 6th President and hero of the movie Amistad was a man of principle, but his efforts on behalf of slaves, Indians and public education were thwarted by the macho culture of 19th century white America, a culture that remains very strong today.
The House of Representatives decided the 1824 Presidential election since no candidate won a majority of electoral votes. They chose Adams as president, although General Andrew Jackson, the macho Indian killer on our $20 bill, had more popular and electoral votes. Henry Clay, another Presidential candidate and speaker of the House, helped JQ into the White House, preferring him to the unruly Jackson. JQ tried to govern by consensus- this had worked for his predecessor James Monroe.
Times had changed and JQ was a rather ineffective President. He opposed slavery and the Georgia state Indian removal plan. Historians like Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. touted Andrew Jackson as a strong President, this brutal man famous for Indian wars and mistreatment even before he became President and defied the Supreme Court by ordering the trail of tears Cherokee removal. Jackson was our only President who had killed a man in a duel. He sometimes threatened to hang or shoot people when crossed. He was never squeamish about breaking the law.
Historians foolishly say that Jackson wasn't strong for slavery. He owned slaves but focused on land speculation. He had a terrible temper and threatened military action against South Carolina in the tariff nullification crisis of 1832, because he fought anyone, pro- or antislavery, who challenged his authority. This wealthy and violent white supremacist redneck was not a man that we should honor or emulate.
Obama has tried to govern by consensus and triangulation, as JQ did. If Hillary or John Edwards had become President, we would have the same uproar and death threats. The old system has collapsed, the extremists know this. Congress, like Bush, has unified the country against them. 80% of Americans and 95% of doctors are mad as hell with Congress. About 1/3 of MDs want a libertarian system with high deductible medical savings accounts that work for the very rich, 2/3 want something like Medicare for all who want it. Hardly any MDs defend the insurance companies. 80% of Americans including most tea-baggers are angry about the Wall Street bailout and the refusal of Dodd, Frank, Obama, Geithner and Bernanke to cut the big banks down to size.
Obama should review JQA’s failures. Turning the country over to violent men is no answer. We are moving toward a military/authoritarian takeover. Obama must dig in his heels somewhere on healthcare, the big investment banks and our ever-expanding wars. He can't solve them all, but if he doesn't get some of Harry Truman’s fire he will be voted out in 2012. If he passes a cosmetic healthcare reform without cost controls and restrictions on the insurance companies, the Dems will be crushed in the 2010 Congressional elections and deservedly so. Consider the 1828 election, the Adams-Jackson rematch. The knaves won big. One of their slogans was "vote for the Christian", i.e. Jackson. JQ and his father were Unitarians, not atheists or antireligious. Lincoln in fact was less religious than JQ and his father. Why did so many slavers and Confederate generals hide behind the cloak of religion?
Four of our first five Presidents were Virginia slave-owners: Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe. We had a basically one party system in 1818, controlled by the Democratic Party. The Federalists were isolated aristocrats and lost appeal after the Hartford Convention of 1814, when they seemed "too eager" for peace with Britain. Politicians had to be very tough with the British, which Jackson was. Cotton had passed tobacco as the number one US export in 1824 and the big Southern landowners wanted to grab Indian lands. Jackson promised Indian removal and he delivered on that promise. A powerful industrial and agricultural coalition based on free labor slowly emerged in the more populous North, but wasn’t ready to fight on these issues until the time of bleeding Kansas. Repeated compromises on slavery were followed by increasing radicalism of Southerners who moved from nullification to secession, led by South Carolinians. Is it surprising that Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond, who challenged Harry Truman in 1948, was a South Carolinian?
Who will emerge as the leader of today's violent neo-confederates? Not McCain, Romney or Petraeus. Maybe McChrystal, Sheriff Joe Arpaio or Newt Gingrich but don’t count out John Boehner, Joe Wilson and Pat Buchanan. Lou Dobbs is more likely than Sarah Palin.
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Note: the last president to own slaves while president was Zachary Taylor (1849-1850). The last president to own slaves at any time was #18, Ulysses S. Grant (1869-1877). J. P. Morgan was very powerful, but was never President. Franklin Pierce, from NH, never had slaves. I recommend the recent book, What Hath God Wrought, by Daniel Walker Howe, an Oxford historian. It is long and detailed but very readable for those who are interested. Our American nation and society underwent tremendous changes between the war of 1812 and the civil war; some were positive and some increased the violent and selfish strains in American culture. Reading about the 1820-1860 hatred reminds us that unresolved issues come back to haunt us.