More on Harriet Tubman and the strange politics around Andrew Jackson's image

The Young Turks reported on the demotion of Andrew Jackson's image to the back of the $20 bill. Unfortunately, in this report they used some simplistic historical assumptions about Jackson, although Cenk Uygur does add a bit of sensible nuance. Harriet Tubman Will Soon Be On $20 Bill 04/20/2016:

Charlie Pierce actually is well-informed about Jackson's career and historical significance. He comments on the $20 bill controversy in Maybe the Arc of the Moral Universe Really Does Bend Toward Justice Esquire Politics Blog 04/20/2016.

I covered some of the same ground I've gone over recently. But I'm fine with putting Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill. I wouldn't even mind if they took Jackson off altogether. It is kind of depressing to see present-day white supremacists defending Andrew Jackson, most of them knowing nothing about what he did or who he was.

But hack history also bums me out. It's depressing to hear what most people on the left side of the spectrum seem to be saying about him. Because it sounds like many of them/us are willing to completely surrender the symbolism of the American Revolution and the early decades of the Republic to conservatives. Who use a shameless fake like David Barton to rewrite the Founders into whatever the Republican Party and hate radio want them to be at any given moment.

Jackson's successful fight against the Bank of the United States, aka, the Money Power, is one of the progressive/populist/left things he did that really was in support of the "common people," a phrase used often then.

And his successful fight against the vile Calhoun and South Carolina's Nullification Act was critically important to defending democracy and national unity. In fact, it was arguably Jackson who started the (still unfinished) identification of American patriotism/nationalism with democracy. As in, you can't have one without the other. And that means that secession for the defense of slavery was fundamentally anti-democracy. This is why in my mind, Jackson and what he represented is an appropriate counter-image against Lost Cause, neo-Confederacy ideology.

Also, he went for big changes. (He was obviously one of those BernieBros who don't understand that only small, incremental changes are worth talking about!)

Here is a YouTube video of a PBS documentary on Jackson - which annoyingly seems to be no longer available at the PBS website, Andrew Jackson - Good Evil & The Presidency - PBS Documentary 06/11/2016:

Contradictions, Contradicciónes and Andrew Jackson

I've changed the name of the blog from "Old Hickory's Weblog" to Contradicciónes (Contradictions).

Not because I've given up the positive image I have of Andrew Jackson as a historical figure. It's that his image at the moment among left-leaning Americans is so bad and, bizarrely, white supremacists are "defending" him over the Treasury Department's just-announced decision to put the image of black Abolitionist Harriet Tubman on the front of the $20 bill and move Jackson to the back.

Somewhere in Hell, John C. Calhoun is cackling madly in delight. About his political descendants the white supremacists praising Jackson, that is, not about me changing the name of the blog.

I don't have the text immediately at hand. But I recently read something by the left-Peronist Argentine leader John William Cooke (1919-1968) about Juan Manuel de Rosas (1793-1877), a major Argentine political leader in the 19th century. Known as the Restaurador de las Leyes (Restorer of the Laws), he served as Governor of Buenos Aires province in 1828-1832 and 1835-1852. He was a contemporary of Andrew Jackson and his governorship overlapped in time with Jackson's Presidency.

Juan Manuel de Rosas (1793-1877)

Rosas was a representative of the Federalist political current of that time, the main carrier of the democratic tradition in Argentina at that time. The more conservative trend was represented by the Unitarians. Or as, Rosas' followers called them, "the wild Unitarians." The Unitarian name had nothing to do with religion. It referred to the centralism of that faction which wanted Buenos Aires to have dominance over the other provinces that became the nation of Argentina.

But actually it was Rosas that first forged an effective national grouping of various provinces.

Rosas was a large landowner and a shrewd and ambitious politician. But he had particular appeal to the gauchos, the small farmers. He also gave strong support to the black Argentines who were a numerous group in the urban area of Buenos Aires. Slavery was never large in Argentina, nothing like in Brazil. But it Rosas explicitly abolished slavery.

Rosas promoted voting. But one could scarcely say that he was a "Jacksonian democrat." (Nor were the Wild Unitarians.) But he also empowered the lower classes in ways they had never been empowered before.

He also defended the Argentine national honor and independence against Britain and France. In 1845, when those two empires were blockading Argentine ports, Rosas mounted a naval attack known as the Vuelta de Obligado. He didn't have the forces that would have been necessary to force the lifting of the blockade. But it has been remembered ever since as an important moment in the defense of Argentine independence. José de San Martín (1778-1850), one of the great heroes of Argentina and of Latin American independence, sent his sword to Rosas in recognition of his actions in the Vuelta de Obligado.

Cooke's comment on Rosas that struck me was that though there were bad things about Rosas, it's also important to recognize that democracy and freedom come into being in the messy process of real history, not in pure declarations of principle. And left-leaning history in Argentina recognizes Rosas as a major figure in the development of freedom, democracy and national independence in Argentina. In her last speech as President celebrating the national day May 25 in 2015, Cristina Fernández mentioned Rosas and how San Martín had honored him by sending him his sword.

Rosas was a kind of Argentine Andrew Jackson, in other words. (Yes, Rosas fought Indians, too.) Or maybe Jackson was an American version of Rosas. Neither were model democrats by the standards terms of 2016. But they both led important advances in democracy in their respective countries.

History is messy. Which is my cue to roll out one of my favorite Hegel quotes that cautions us against expecting perfection in real history and reminds us to recognize the good parts: "World history is not the ground of happiness. The periods of happiness are blank pages in it ..." - Philosophy of History (German original: "Die Weltgeschichte ist nicht der Boden des Glücks. Die Perioden des Glücks sind leere Blätter in ihr ...")