The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1884-08-07
Old Hickory.

1t had been quite essential TO the
self respect of the new republic, at the
outset, that it should have ut it, head
men who had COPIED with European
statesmen on their own soil and not
been discounted. This was the case
with each OF tue early Successors OF
fest superiority, this advantage was not
needed. Perhaps it was in different
way a sign of self-respect that tie new
republic should at last turn from this
tradition, and take boldly from the
ranks strong and ill-trained leader. to
whom all European pr~cedent-and,
indeed, all other precedent-counted
for nothing. In jackson, moreover.
there first appeared uton our national
stage the since familiar figure OF the
self-made man. Other Presidents had
sprung from q mooest origin, but no.
body had made al especial point OF it.
Nobody had urged Washington for
once because he had been q surveyors
lad; nobody had voted for Adams
merely because stately old ladies de,ig-
mated him AS shat cobblers SON" But
when jackson came into Office the peo-
pie had just had almost a surfeit of
regular training in the + Chief Magis-
trates. There was certain zess la tae
thought of change, and the nation
certainly had it.
1t must be remember red that Jackson
was in many ways far above the sue
cessive modem INIT tors who have
posed in his image. He was narrow,
ignorant, violent, unreasonable; he
punished his enemies and rewarded his
friends. But he was, on the other
hand-and his worst opponents hardly
denied it--chaste, honest, truthful. and
sincere. 1t was not commonly charged
upon him that he enr ched himself at
the public expense, or that he deliber-
ateiy invented falsehoods. And as he
was for q time more bitterly hated
than any one who ever occupied his
high Office, we may be very sure
that these things woald have been
charged had it been possible. In this
respect the contrast was enormous be-
tween Jackson and his imitators, and It
explains his prolonged i1tiuence. He
never was found out or exposed before
the world, because there was nothing
to detect or unve;l; his merits and de-
merits were "a visible as his long,
narrow, firmly set features, or as the
old military stock that encircled his
neck. There he was, always fully re-
vealed; everybody could see him; the
people might take him or leave him
and they never left him.
Moreover, there was after the eight
years of Monroe and the tour years OF
Adams an immense popular demand for
something pi uant and even amusing,
and this quality they always had from
jackson. There WIS nothing In the
least melodramatic about him; he never
posed or attitudin zed--it would have
required too much patience-but he
was always piquant. There was
formerly good deal OF discussion as to
who wrote the once famous Jack
Downing" letters, but we might almost
say that they wrote themselves. No
body was ever less of a hume ist than
Andrew jackson, and it was therefore
the more essential that he should be
the cause OF humor in others. 1t was
simply inevitable that during his
progresses through the country there
should be come amusing shadow
evoked, some Yankee parody of the
man, such "a came from two or three
quarters under the name of Jack
Downing. The various records of
Monroe's famous tours are as tame "a
the speeches which these expedition,
brought forth, and John Quincy Adams
never made any popular demonstrations
to chronicle; but wherever Jackson
went there went the other Jack, the
crude frst-fruits of what is now known
through the world as american
humors." Jack Downing was Mark
Twain and Hosea Biglow and Artemus
Ward in one. The impe uous Presi-
dent enraged many and delighted
many, but 1t is something to know that
under him serious people first found
that it knew how to Taught. W.