Presidents Used To Go To War And Stare Down Enemies With Stiff Upper Lips
A story about ‘Old Hickory’
As I was reading up about President Andrew Jackson’s 1832 veto of the Second National Bank of the United States, I was reminded of a great story about Old Hickory before he became president.
It wasn’t during the Creek War, the War of 1812, the Battle of New Orleans, or Jackson’s audacious invasion of Spanish Florida. It wasn’t during his time in the Oval Office. It was during the Revolutionary War, when he was just a boy.
At 13, Jackson served as a local courier and scout for Patriots militias in the Carolinas. In 1781, the British captured Jackson and his brother, Robert. One British officer cruelly demanded that Jackson polish his boots. Jackson stood tall and refused. In response, the officer drew his sword and slashed the future president across the face, leaving lifelong scars. Jackson and Robert were taken as prisoners of war in South Carolina, during which both brothers suffered malnutrition and smallpox. By late spring, they were freed as part of a prisoner exchange. Tragically, Robert passed away two days after they were released. Jackson was nursed back to health and survived.
Aside from simply being an amazing, inspiring, almost unbelievable story about the legendary president whose face is on our 20-dollar bill, what is the point of mentioning it today?
First, here’s a thought experiment. If you could only read about and study the life of only one president for an entire decade, who would you pick?
I might be wrong (and if I am, please comment below), but I suspect you would likely pick Ronald Reagan or a POTUS from the 18th, 19th, or mid-to-early 20th centuries (definitely not Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, or JFK).
But who in their right mind would pick George H.W. Bush, Bush Jr., Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, or Donald Trump? Their biographies and correspondences would be mind-numbingly tedious and shallow. They are all thoroughly modern in the worst possible ways: uninspiring, un-heroic, lacking grandeur. I could see someone making the case for Trump because he led such a colorful life in New York City real estate before taking office. But Amtrak Joe? Who wants to spend a decade reading about a mediocre career politician from Delaware?
New Release
Inside CECOT: The World’s Most Dangerous Prison
The Daily Caller went where almost no Western media has gone: inside CECOT, El Salvador’s controversial maximum security mega-prison.
We sat down with the prisoners themselves. We talked to the senior officials who run it. We found out what’s actually happening inside the walls.
Inside CECOT: The World’s Most Dangerous Prison is streaming now for just $1.
The rest of this article continues below
This all goes to show how modern presidents pale in comparison to the greats of our past. From the Founders to Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant, Teddy Roosevelt and FDR, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover — the late 20th century and early 21st century moderns do not hold a candle to these men, some of whom came from nothing. Richard Nixon was famously self-made, and Robert Caro, LBJ’s biographer, described the president’s Texas hometown as “a land without electricity, where the soil was so rocky that it was hard to earn a living from it.” Jackson was born in the Waxhaws and was raised without a father.
Unless something radically changes about politics and how warfare is conducted, we will never have a president who fights in a war, and, because wars of the future will be fought with drones and robots in all likelihood, we may never have a president who acts heroically in a war before he takes office. Nor will we have a president who is truly grand, or a president with Thomas Jefferson’s philosophical depth and erudition. We will never again have a man of letters or a warrior who led armies into battle. Can you imagine Bush rolling into Baghdad on a tank, or Trump leading a platoon of Marines to seize Kharg Island? Can you imagine Biden writing this?
What will we get instead? More empty corporate suits and Ivy Leaguers like Obama. More dull and slippery career politicians like Joe Biden. More bombastic and farcical mavericks like Trump. Having grown up poor, Vice President J.D. Vance might be the closest thing we get to a Nixon-esque president who never enjoyed a silver spoon. But he might be the exception to the new rule: presidents who feel more like donor-pleasing automatons rather than statesmen deserving of the highest office in the land. We will get more Rhodes Scholars before we get a man who was a self-taught lawyer and war hero.
When Andrew Jackson was 13, he was scouting for militias during the Revolutionary War. When Bill Clinton was 13, he was singing in the boys’ choir and practicing saxophone. That, I think, just about sums it up.
Like what you’re reading? If so, please consider subscribing to State of the Day or sharing this with a friend. You’d be supporting this newsletter and helping keep independent journalism alive.
If you are already a paid subscriber, make sure to join the conversation in our subscribers-only chat below.
Life in the 17th & 18th Centuries was much, much harder than the late 20th Century to today. Infant mortality, disease and other perils were abundant. We've got it easy & I'm glad. Warfare has changed, too. And, I'm thankful for those that choose to serve. It's called service for a reason.
With all that said, we need to be careful about the leadership we choose or our Republic will disappear.