Andrew Jackson, the US president who makes Trump seem (almost) nice

A large part of the world attends with an affliction to the election of the United States. In addition to the traditional complication that every four years brings to the surface the necessary attempt to explain how the hell this system works , the dispute this year was marked as the most aggressive in recent history. Much is speculated whether Donald Trump,   upon his election, will blow the apocalyptic trumpet and start the end of the world war .

Trump's statements denote a xenophobic, racist, and misogynist fellow who firmly believes that the wall he intends to build on the Mexican border will last longer than his own. topete) became US president.  If Trump wants the title of the country's worst president, it will not be an easy feud.

Other than that the electoral race was already much, but much worse. Especially in regional disputes at a time when the country was not the superpower with which we got accustomed. The New England Weekly Review , a 19th-century publication, recorded in 1830: "The election in Kentucky lasts three days, and in that period the whiskey flows through our cities and towns like the Euphrates in ancient Babylon ... A number of candidates, each one with a bottle of whiskey with his beak coming out of his pocket, was busy bribing voters ... One of them came to me, slapped his shoulder with his right hand, a bottle of whiskey on the left, asked if I was a voter. "I'm not," I said. "Oh, all right," he said, taking the cork out of the bottle. "Just give it a go and give it to the old Hickory boys"



Old Hickory was Andrew Jackson, the seventh American president and one of the founders of the Democratic Party. He led the country from 1829 to 1837 and is the thin face of the twenty dollar bill. When he was elected, 30,000 people accompanied him to the Capitol and tried to reach the White House. Those who succeeded stayed in the garden with barrels of whiskey and basins of orange punch. For months, Washington was crowded with outsiders, who quickly wiped out the city's alcohol, while waiting for government jobs as a prize for voting in Jackson. Corruption had reached new and drunken levels in a dirty voting machine and defamatory campaigns that would last a century .

During his tenure, Jackson made it clear that he saw the Indians as savages that hampered progress. He made deals with tribes at the same time that he armed with friends to take their lands. In Florida - which he, as a general, had conquered from the Spaniards - Jackson encouraged persecution of villages of the Seminole people, burned houses, and drove out inhabitants. All in the name of old letters up their sleeve, launched when one seeks to legitimize some atrocity: "national security" and "self-defense." Andrew Jackson was the president of the removal of the Indians and the Way of Tears: the forced pilgrimage of various tribes to remote and unknown regions . This policy changed the relationship between the new and old inhabitants of the country forever.

Jackson, like many riches of his time, was a slave owner who sold and bought people in bulk. If one of them tried to escape, Jackson offered a reward of $ 50 and $ 10 extra for every one hundred lashes fired in the run. Besides, part of his fortune came from lands that had been promised to the Indians.

Jackson's detractors also did not see honor in the way he practiced duels - yes, a real duel, a relatively common practice until the 19th century. He won at least two duels (depending on the source, he was in more than five hits). In 1806, Charles Dickinson, a rival farmer of Jackson, accused him of stealing in a horse race, cursed him of an unscrupulous scoundrel, and in the process, said that his wife, Rachel, was a bigamy. The future president Jackson challenged him to a duel. Dickinson was reputed to be a great sniper, which was proven by striking the opponent's chest. Jackson resisted, squeezed the wound and fought back, missing the target. That would mean he'd lost his duel. But he did not call. Even injured, he reloaded the gun and fired again, this time hitting and killing his opponent.

In any case, Jackson came to be seen as an American hero. After all, he has conquered Florida and is on the green cards - which changed last year. Jackson's face will be replaced by Harriet Tubman, a former slave hero of the War of Secession. Tubman was chosen in an online poll, but that change should only come into effect in 2030. Although the real motives are less humanistic than they appear (Jackson will fall more by opposing the country's centralized financial system than by being a slavish slayer of Indians), the symbolism of the exchange is strong. A man comes out, white, rich, slave, enters a woman, black, enslaved.

The result of the vote came out in April, at the beginning of a tense and stuffy electoral race. Donald Trump, of course, could not help expressing his opinion. Exchanging Jackson for Tubman on the 20 note? "Pure 'politically correct'. Andrew Jackson had a tremendous success story for the country . "