Jackson, Andrew

Andrew Jackson was a general in the War of 1812 and became a national war hero after defeating the British at the Battle of New Orleans. Shortly after (and largely because of his militaristic fame), Jackson was elected as the seventh president in 1828. He was known as the "people's president"; and in his presidency, he destroyed the National Bank, established the Democratic Party, and fought for personal and individual liberty among the people. 
==Significance to Stevens==
In Stevens's work of prose, The Necessary Angel, he wrote of many images of nobility and practically snuffed Clark Mills's statue of General Andrew Jackson in front of the White House, saying that it is merely a "work of fancy" (10) with "not the slightest trace of imagination ... [and] in which neither the imagination nor reality is present" (11). The most noteworthy thing about the statue, according to Stevens, is that the horse has "one of the most beautiful tails in the world" (10). Stevens describes the statue as "gay" and seems to chastise it for its feminine nature in "saluting the ladies and gentlemen" in front of the White House (10), when Jackson was actually posed for a position of attack. "It would be going too far to suggest that Stevens's dislike of Mills's statue has something to do with his fears of an imaginative emasculation at the hands--so to speak--of an assumed feminine presence, or even that his preference for Verrocchio might not be an instance of sound aesthetic judgment" (Woodland 52).
In "The American Sublime," Stevens also mentions in lines 6-10:
 When General Jackson 
 Posed for his statue 
 He knew how one feels. 
 Shall a man go barefoot 
 Blinking and blank?
The feeling described here goes back to the facing of the sublime, "to confront the mockers" (line 3) as Jackson did while sending his troops into the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. (Others, however, might say that "the mockers" may refer to the people in the White House, since that is what Jackson faces on his statue, which is what Stevens is describing.)
In "The Lack of Repose," which examines the difference between the idea of the past and the past itself, the omniscient narrator never discloses the identity of the youth but instead labels him simply as "one of the gang / Andrew Jackson something," showing not only significance the use of the Christian name "Andrew" but also of his inability to recall his last name and, in consequence, refer to the famous American military hero and president; "That Stevens employs the Christian surname 'Andrew' is noteworthy (notice Andrew enjoys what appears to be no last name, or at least the poet fails to recall it) insofar as one of the George Zeller's sons was named Andrew, one associated, like Andrew Jackson, with American history ..." (Lombardi 134).
==Sources and Further Reading==
Wallace Stevens and the Pennyslvania Keystone by Thomas Lombardi
"Explore the Northern Trail" informational page about the White House
Wallace Stevens and the Apocalyptic Mode by Malcolm Woodland
Biography.com's Andrew Jackson biography (complete with video!)