The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-01-12
THE REAL GENERAL JACKSON.
D~emOcracy's Hero Was Not the Kind
of a Man They Make Believe.
Philadelphia Press, Saturday.

Philadelphia Press, Saturday.
This is the day which our Democratic
friends have selected for Saints .fay-not
All-saints' day, but one Saints isy-and
that saint General Jackson. Usually, it is
the saints birthday which is celebrated,
but this saints day celebrates the battle of
New Orleans. The Democratic idolat-y of
Jackson is not altogether u~naccountaDle.
He had many of the qualities which make
up the popular hero. First of all, lie was
absolutely fearless. The popular Judgment
runs strongly with Parson Wilbur: II don't
alters agree with him." SEE he, but, by
Time seq he, II like a man that amt
afeared." He was a vehement friend, as
well as a bitter hater. He had a real genius
for war. n his star arose
He gave the country a victory and a hero
just when victories and heroes were
sadly needed. The war had brought us,
on land. nothing but a series of defeats and
disgraces, eliminating in the capture of our
national capital and the burning OF the ma
tional buildings, which (while bringing little
glory to the enemy brought measurelesS
ignominy upon US. There was great rea-
son to fear a similar humiliation in the
capture of the capital of the Southwest. TO
defend the city against the British army
we had a handful of undisciplined troops,
made up of the local militia; hastily
gathered volunteers, negroes and Lahtte.s
pirates. No one dared hope that these
forces could make head against the veterans
of the peninsular war, who had defeated
marched in triumph from Torres Vedras to
Paris; of whom Wellington said, with
these men 1 could go anywhere"
1t was over this darkness that jackson
and the Sth of January flashed with a ra-
dance that startled not alone the Nation but
the world. WELLINGTON and Napoleon alike
recognized the splendor of the military gen
ius that had emerged from obscurity. The
plain people were all the more readily cap
of themselves man of humble birth, ow-
ing nothing to books or to the schools, who
did not really believe, to his dying day, that
the earth is round. His simple life. his
corncob pipe, his direct, unadorned, lucid
and forcible speech added to the charm.
lie was personally pure in life ana no
peculiarly the idol of the South and
the Southwest, which held then a politi-
cal predoninance that no longer exists. II
was no disadvantage to him in the eyes OF
Tennessee and Mississippi that he would
say to visitors, THAT is the pistol that !
shot Mr.. Dickinson, with and that he and
Colonel Benton each carried in his body a
bullet from the others rifle. Probably
Jackson's adherence to the DEMOCRATIC par
ty was largely a matter of accident, due 10
his Southern birth and associations; to the
fact that the Federals opposed the war; to
his own narrow minded view of the Con-
stitution Of we may suppose that ne ever
and to the rivalry existing between him
self and Henry Clay.
1t is a matter of congratulation and is an
evidence of advance in public intelligence
that such a career as that of jackson is
probably impossible at the present time.
When q later Tennessean imagined that
Andrew Johnson was but a modern spelling
of Andrew jackson and that ignorance and
bull-headed will were the only requisites for
greatness, the Nation smiled contemptuouS
ly and tossed him back into his proper OBJ
security. Even the great and meri.ed popu-
larlty Of the man who compelled the surren-
der of Lee was impaired by the suspicion
1--WE believe unfounded) hat he inspired -
something of abSolutism.
There is one ludicrous aspect of the DEM
ocratic canonizatiOn of Jackson. Tie lead
ing principles which he proclaimed are the
very principles which the modern Democ-
racy has ostentatiously repudiated. jack
son stood for honest money; for coin as
against unlimited and discredited paper; for
a dollar all the world over. The new
Democracy advocated imitation, and in its
national platform Of 1876 demanded the re-
peal of the act for the resumption of specie
payments. In 1896 it declared for q 50-cent
silver dollar and the reputation of all debts,
public and private, up to half their face.
The great passion of Jackson that did him
immortal honor was his intense love
for the Union, a love tersely eX-
pressed in the sentiment which he trans
mitt~d to a Democratic banquet In the days
of nullif1cation: The Federal Union-It
Must be Preserved" If he had been at the
head of the government in 1857-61, instead
of the dread and milk p~oultice who brought
the rebellion to a head" it is not difficult tC
imagine how he would have dealt with the
men who We're training their guns on Sum
ter and the flag. 1t is not hard to believe
that the bones Of the old warrior who sleeps
at the hermitage quivered with Indignation
when the Democratic convention Of 1864 re-
solved that "the war for the restoration of
the Union was a failure" In the worst as
poets of his character, the Democracy is en-
titled to claim Andrew Jackson; but In all
that was best, his true successors were Lin
coin and Grant.