This portrait, by Ralph E. W. Earl, the closest the White House has ever come to a “court painter,” depicts the 7th president of the United States and a member of the early Democratic Party. This party was just about as far from the politically progressive, central government strengthening, anti-war Democrats of today as one can possibly be. The group Jackson ran for was a party of the working class and the rural, an avid supporter of state’s rights and the expansion of slavery out West. Born in Tennessee poverty, he rose up in early American society first as a young successful lawyer, plantation and slave owner, and politician as well as a war hero from the War of 1812. Looking at Jackson’s war record, it’s hard to argue he was anything other than an exceptional soldier and what my grandmother would call a “tough cookie,” receiving several scars on his face at the age of 14 for refusing to clean a British soldier’s boots after being captured. However, as political records go, Jackson’s wartime awesomeness did not translate into Presidential awesomeness. For his efforts, he was elected into the House as the first Tennessee rep and spent a short time in the Senate as well. Although he lost his first race for president against John Quincy Adams, largely due to a last minute rallying of support from Henry Clay, Jackson came back and won in 1928. Jackson was the first frontier president and represented not only a new faction of Americans but ushered in new trends in American politics, trends I would argue have not had the best effect on our history.

“Old Hickory” was strong and uncompromising in his values. His first real action in office was to establish a criminally nepotistic cabinet, filing all the seats he had control over with people from his family and his circle of close friends, despite their obvious lack of qualification for these crucial roles. In his personal life, Jackson began his term as president by throwing a massive non-exclusive party in his new home and allowing average citizens and his guests to get horrifically drunk and literally throw up all over one of our most cherished and respected symbols of our great nation, the White House. Despite being a member of and running on the ticket for the pro-states’ rights party of the time, Jackson quickly established himself as an exceptionally controlling President. Political cartoons at the time came out in droves proclaiming Jackson to be an American tyrant, nicknamed “King Andrew I,” throwing out executive orders left and right and exercising his veto to the greatest extent possible, often times for minor details in bills that he opposed. As a result, he undermined congress and maintained his own near absolute power and upsetting the balance of our democracy. During his term, the charter for the Bank of the United States, which Jackson hated, was set to expire. When congress voted fair and square to recharter the bank, Jackson immediately vetoed it, claiming the bank was supporting the “prostration of our Government to the advancement of the few at the expense of the many.” On a more fortunate note for this president, when South Carolina sat on the verge of civil war violence over a national tariff law they wanted not to follow, Jackson was able to insist (through threats) that they back down and preserved the union, a feat for which he received great credit. However for me, this accomplishment was quickly overshadowed by his ignoring a supreme court judicial review protecting Native American rights and subsequently ordering the mass move now deemed the “Trail of Tears” that led to the deaths of 4,000 Native American people.

So yeah. You could say I’m not a Jackson fan. Looking back at these past couple of posts in this series, you may notice a pattern, propaganda. This Earl painting is the same as any other, a beautiful, well-planned image of an unfortunate person. In Earl’s rendition of Jackson, his face in poised and stately, with a pensive positioning of his eyes and eyebrows, as if you’re just catching him deep in thought. The only sign of his legendary raging temper is in the flair of red in his coat draped over his shoulders. Looking at the man in this portrait, you’d never know who exactly he was. As President Trump continues on with his first year in office, he has a lot to learn. Though I have an obvious distaste for Jackson, he is a United States President and therefore someone I must embrace as a part of our country’s complicated history. Unlike “Old Hickory,” here, this is Trump’s first experience with a government position, and while I wish him all the best, I highly encourage he look a little farther into famed figures like Jackson before he jumps to put him on the wall of the highest office in the world. Earl’s exceptional skill as a portrait painter certainly made a regal image of Jackson, and one easy to see the best in. I understand the honorable values that Jackson is often made to represent such as strength, a refusal to give up on what one believes in, and the power of the people, but after more research, perhaps Jackson is not exactly the kind of man I would want our new President to be emulating. Either way, Earl’s portraiture genius has created this masterpiece of a highly complicated man, and that is a skill I can certainly respect.