The Democratic Party first used a donkey symbol around 1830. Still does today.
Donkeys are members of the equine family, cousin to horses. Placid animals. Domesticated long ago. Jesus rode a donkey. Donkeys are intelligent, amiable creatures. Still used as work animals. Once their trust is earned, donkeys are good companions: willing, strong, hard-working, dependable. Also, Donkeys are notoriously stubborn.
In the late 1780’s, a great national debate ensued over our government structure. The Federalists, mainly individuals from the Northern colonies lead by Alexander Hamilton, argued the government should provide more services to the public, including establishing a national bank. Many other Founding Fathers, usually from the South, lead by Thomas Jefferson, argued against a national bank. The competing arguments were brought to Congress and to then President George Washington and a national bank was established on a twenty year charter. Those opposing the Bank challenged whether it was Constitutional or not and the Bank survived this seminal court challenge.
Opposition to the national bank did not cease. In the 1790’s, Virginians Thomas Jefferson and James Madison organized the anti-Federalist factions into the Democratic party. Generally, their platform favored state’s rights, championing the common man, and what they saw as strict adherence to the Constitution. They preached a populist creed, opposing the so-called intellectual elites and money interests. Specifically, they opposed a national bank. For many years, they tried without success to abolish it.
Finance, it has been observed functions as a sort of plumbing for the overall economy. Think of the National Bank as sort of an extremely large pipe. Plumbing or none, an economy will move along. The Southerners main objection may have been territorial, as the expansion of commerce would most benefit the industrialized northern states.
Enter Andrew Jackson of Tennessee. A former Revolutionary war soldier and the General who won the unnecessary Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812 with England. Like a donkey, Jackson was notoriously stubborn.
The Battle of New Orleans was fought in early January 1815. Jackson and his army had arrived in New Orleans December 1, 1814 and shortly thereafter, Jackson declared martial law. Unknown to Jackson, on December 24, 1814, the United States signed the Treaty of Ghent, thereby agreeing to end the war. Jackson won the battle about a week later, after peace had been declared.
By February, peace rumors circulated in New Orleans. Jackson, claiming his martial law declaration granted him unlimited powers, decided to muzzle them. A local gazette published an anonymous article criticizing Jackson's suspension of the laws. Jackson sent in troops. First, Jackson forced the gazette to name the writer. Then Jackson arrested the writer, Louis Louailler, for inciting mutiny in violation of his martial law order.
From his jail cell, Louailler sought protection from the Federal Courts habeas corpus. Judge Dominick Hall granted the request and set a hearing on the writ.
Rather than obey the Court order to appear at a hearing--at which the Court would hear arguments on whether summarily muzzling the free press or imprisoning Louailler were legal or not--Jackson instead jailed Judge Hall.
Official word of the war's end finally reached New Orleans March 1, 1815. By then, Louailler had been acquitted by a military court and sympathetic soldiers had released Judge Hall from prison. Not pleased, Judge Hall held Jackson in contempt and fined him $1,000—perhaps $100,000 by today’s dollars. Jackson paid. His victory made him famous. As a fighter, as the man who arrested a Judge, and as incredibly stubborn.
Fourteen years later, Jackson ran for President. His 1828 campaign used the Democratic party's early populist ideas, highly skeptical of the wealthy and the intellectual elite. “Let the people rule,” was a Jackson campaign slogan. Jackson specifically promised to abolish the national bank.
His opponents predicted that without a central bank various problems would quickly ensue. Jackson won the election, abolished the bank, and the problems quickly did. Central coordinating authority and regulations removed, the state banks started issuing their own script. Some did so excessively. Wild inflation ensued, along with several corruption scandals. Without a central bank, there were fewer tools with which to address financial system problems. The wild inflation caused much suffering for many merchants, honest savers, basically for everyone without sweetheart connections.
By 1837, near the end of Jackson’s second term, various state banks had issued so much script that Jackson placed the United States on a bullion standard, refusing to accept state script. Essentially, state script was then almost worthless. Abolishing the national bank was a near complete disaster. Commerce, the economy’s golden goose, was starved while its pen filled with excrement.
Jackson's actions culminated in the disastrous panic of 1837. From 1837 to 1844, the United States suffered through a severe depression. The national debt, for example, increased tenfold in a single year. In 1838, the United States Postal Service--in operation since the days of the Revolutionary War--suffered the first loss in its history.
Still, no matter what evidence presented itself that Jackson’s abolition of the national bank caused an economic disaster, nothing would sway Jackson to admit he was wrong. He was lambasted by a famous political cartoon, which likened Jackson to the notoriously stubborn donkey.
Apologizing was for lesser men. Jackson embraced the insult. A donkey is another word for ass. And if we add it to "Jackson" and abbreviate slightly we get "jack ass." A still used insult!
Jackson left office after two terms, dying with two regrets: he didn't shoot Henry Clay and he didn't hang John Calhoun. When Jackson was on his deathbed, Congress remitted Judge Hall's fine.
The donkey symbol fell into disuse. In the 1870's, cartoonist Thomas Nast, a staunch Republican, revived the symbol. Nast's 1874 cartoon Third Term Panic made the donkey symbol famous.
Third Term Panic addressed whether President Grant should run for a third term. For it, Nast chose the donkey to represent the democrats and the majestic elephant for the Republicans. The cartoon depicts a cowardly elephant, running scared from a donkey in a fake lion skin. The NRA still uses these themes in its anti-gun control ads.
The elephant and donkey symbols stayed with each party. As to the Democrat’s donkey? The fat elephant is the more majestic beast. The donkey, however, draws nicely. My personal favorite is the kicking donkey.
The kicking donkey is out of use. Probably because it makes Republicans scared. Now the Democrats use a tamer version. Some claim it is a female donkey but I'm unclear why this makes any difference.
Let us not forget the elephant.