Trump makes puzzling claim about Andrew Jackson, Civil War

[Archae]

Source: WBAY, ABC affiliate in Green bay, WI

NEW YORK (AP) - President Donald Trump makes a puzzling claim about Andrew Jackson and the Civil War in an interview.

Speaking to The Washington Examiner, Trump wonders why issues "could not have been worked out" in order to prevent the bloody conflict. Trump praises the accomplishments of Jackson, the populist president he has cited as a role model.

He makes the puzzling claim that Jackson "was really angry that he saw what was happening in regard to the Civil War." But Jackson died in 1845, and the Civil War didn't begin until 16 years later, in 1861.

Trump then says, "People don't ask the question, but why was there the Civil War?"

Read more: http://www.wbay.com/content/news/Trump-makes-puzzling-claim-about-Andrew-Jackson-Civil-War-420898364.html

---

Just how stupid is Trump?
This stupid.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. "Puzzling"? I think they mean "by now, completely expected." NT

[randr]

2. People don't ask the question???

The speculative writings on that single question would fill a library.
What an ignoramus is this lsos.

[PJMcK]

33. Sorry, but what does "Isos" mean?

Even Urban Dictionary couldn't help me! "In Search Of...?"

Thanks!

[Shrike47]

51. I think that's an under case l. Lying sack of shit, lsos.

[PJMcK]

54. Ha, ha, ha, ha

Thant's great! Thanks, Shrike47.

[randr]

62. He whom I refer to as

El Esos, the other one or just a lying sack of shit.

[niyad]

3. how stupid? more stupid than even we can believe.

[CountAllVotes]

4. Fool on the hill ...

n/t

[oberliner]

5. This is another BS non-story

His comments were not puzzling.

He said if Andrew Jackson was around later, he could've prevented the Civil War.

Remember the Nullification Crisis?

On December 10, 1832, Pres. Andrew Jackson issued his “Proclamation to the People of South Carolina,” asserting the supremacy of the federal government and warning that “disunion by armed force is treason.” Congress then (March 1, 1833) passed both the Force Bill—authorizing Jackson to use the military if necessary to collect tariff duties—and a compromise tariff that reduced those duties. The South Carolina convention responded on March 15 by rescinding the Ordinance of Nullification but three days later maintained its principles by nullifying the Force Bill.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/nullification-crisis

It's a legitimate (though certainly controversial) opinion to put out there about Jackson.

But more importantly, it is totally irrelevant to the real and damaging things that Trump is actually doing to this country in the here and now.

[6000eliot]

23. And his word salad said NONE of those things.

So, as usual, the idiots in the media are left to speculate on what his gibberish means.

[oberliner]

28. True

He is paraphrasing most likely from something Bannon told him or an article he skimmed about Jackson.

The point is - it's completely unimportant and irrelevant and just feeds into the idea that the press is out to get Trump for no reason. I wish the press would not bother with this kind of story.

People that already think Trump is a moron will get confirmation for that belief and people who believe the press jumps on Trump for every little thing will get confirmation for that belief.

There is nothing to be gained from this for anyone.

[atreides1]

50. I think you give Trump...

...more credit then he deserves!

[oberliner]

72. No credit

Just my hypothesis on the most likely pathway that led to Trump saying these things about Jackson.

Pre-Bannon, he had no idea who Andrew Jackson is or what he did as president.

Then Bannon told him a few things and said it would be good for Trump to associate himself with Jackson.

And here we are.

[6000eliot]

79. It sounds like the results of a briefing to which he was only paying partial attention.

[Blue_Tires]

52. +1

[yardwork]

38. Trump said that Jackson was really angry with what he saw of the CW.

That deserves a passing glance, at least. For one thing, the whole statement is a dog whistle to the pro-slavery crowd.

[oberliner]

41. The Civil War was brewing for many decades

The Nullification Crisis was a precursor. And Jackson was known for standing up in favor of the union staying together and against any threats of secession. Obviously, Trump didn't word it well, and was probably just going off something someone told him or part of an article he read, but the gist of what he was saying was legitimate.

The fact that Jackson was a slave holder is definitely part of his appeal for some people, but I don't think Trump is informed enough to know that (Bannon certainly is - and was most likely the source of Trump's limited knowledge in this area).

[yardwork]

42. I get what you're saying but I disagree that this isn't worthy of comment.

[oberliner]

43. Worthy of comment, sure

But to be featured stories on the NY Times, Washington Post, CNN, NPR is a bit much.

I think it is a click-bait sort of situation at this point.

Remember that quote about Trump being great for CNN?

This feeds into the (truthful) idea that what news outlets are most interested in is getting people to read their contact and look at their advertising.

[Kingofalldems]

63. Your post is a clear defense of Donald Trump.

[oberliner]

71. It's odd that you think so

I will assert that the issues I have with Trump have nothing to do with whether or not he knows what years Andrew Jackson was alive.

[Worktodo]

57. Jackson did not have "a Big Heart"

He didn't death march people on the "Trail of Hugs and Kisses". Another shout out to racists from the Trump WH is why it's news.

[oberliner]

70. That's not why this is news

If he has just said Andrew Jackson had a big heart, no one would have reported it (he has praised Andrew Jackson several times before).

It's news because it's supposed to show how stupid Trump is (i.e. that he doesn't know when the Civil War was, etc)

[LanternWaste]

74. I enjoy both your rationalization and your justification of his blather.

I enjoy both your rationalization and your justification of his blather, though I cannot speak to its sincerity, nor that of your closing line.

It's fun to pretend we know what's BS and what isn't. It's allows us the pretense of cleverness that our arguments in fact, deny us.

[oberliner]

75. Thanks

I appreciate your kind words.

[forgotmylogin]

6. "But...Andrew Jackson was just doing a show on Broadway..."

"...and he looked just fine!"

Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson

[C Moon]

7. Did the clown mean Jefferson Davis?

[GoCubsGo]

15. More likely Stonewall Jackson.

[niyad]

8. ask the indigenous peoples about "indian killer" andrew jackson--indian removal act, trail of tears,

Portrait of Andrew Jackson, who earned the top spot on our list of worst U.S. presidents.

Portrait of Andrew Jackson, who earned the top spot on our list of worst U.S. presidents.
Indian-Killer Andrew Jackson Deserves Top Spot on List of Worst US Presidents
Andrew Jackson tops list of worst presidents for Natives
Gale Courey Toensing • February 20, 2017

Unlike the statement in Indian Country Media Network’s “Best Presidents for Indian country” story, it’s a bit easier identifying the “worst” presidents for Indian country. Five tend to stand out with the majority of the rest huddled together after that. Here are our nods to the presidents who did more harm than good for Native Americans while in office.

Andrew Jackson: A man nicknamed “Indian killer” and “Sharp Knife” surely deserves the top spot on a list of worst U.S. Presidents. Andrew Jackson “was a forceful proponent of Indian removal,” according to PBS. Others have a less genteel way of describing the seventh president of the United States.

“Andrew Jackson was a wealthy slave owner and infamous Indian killer, gaining the nickname ‘Sharp Knife’ from the Cherokee,” writes Amargi on the website Unsettling America: Decolonization in Theory & Practice. “He was also the founder of the Democratic Party, demonstrating that genocide against indigenous people is a nonpartisan issue. His first effort at Indian fighting was waging a war against the Creeks. President Jefferson had appointed him to appropriate Creek and Cherokee lands. In his brutal military campaigns against Indians, Andrew Jackson recommended that troops systematically kill Indian women and children after massacres in order to complete the extermination. The Creeks lost 23 million acres of land in southern Georgia and central Alabama, paving the way for cotton plantation slavery. His frontier warfare and subsequent ‘negotiations’ opened up much of the southeast U.S. to settler colonialism.”

Andrew Jackson was not only a genocidal maniac against the Indigenous Peoples of the southwest, he was also racist against African peoples and a scofflaw who “violated nearly every standard of justice,” according to historian Bertram Wyatt-Brown. As a major general in 1818, Andrew Jackson invaded Spanish Florida chasing fugitive slaves who had escaped with the intent of returning them to their “owners,” and sparked the First Seminole War. During the conflict, Jackson captured two British men, Alexander George Arbuthnot and Robert C. Ambrister, who were living among the Seminoles. The Seminoles had resisted Jackson’s invasion of their land. One of the men had written about his support for the Seminoles’ land and treaty rights in letters found on a boat. Andrew Jackson used the “evidence” to accuse the men of “inciting” the Seminoles to “savage warfare” against the U.S. He convened a “special court martial” tribunal then had the men executed. “His actions were a study in flagrant disobedience, gross inequality and premeditated ruthlessness… he swept through Florida, crushed the Indians, executed Arbuthnot and Ambrister, and violated nearly every standard of justice,” Wyatt-Brown wrote.

https://indiancountrymedianetwork.com/history/people/indian-killer-andrew-jackson-deserves-top-spot-on-list-of-worst-us-presidents/

[Kingofalldems]

31. Amazing how some posters jumped into this thread to defend Jackson AND Trump.

[niyad]

77. disgusting, really.

[Judi Lynn]

37. He was criminally insane. Thanks for your information. n/t

[niyad]

78. you are most welcome.

have you read "an indigenous people's history of the US" by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz? The information on this murderous bastard is sickening.

As someone said elsewhere, "get that genocidal maniac off the $20 bill"

[dmosh42]

9. And I thought it was Teddy Roosevelt at Appomattox!

[DK504]

10. Considering EVERY "reporter" has a smart phone, tablet, what the hell ever,

or even the producer will have that equipment there is NO way someone could look this shit up in 5 seconds????

WTF??? WTF??? WTF??? These are the laziest m-fers ever, I mean ever. If we had been so unprepared fro school, basic entry level job, our asses would be out, immediately. Immediately.

An interviewer that doesn't stop mid sentence and question the person with the chagrin deserving of disdain should be fired.

"Trump then says, "People don't ask the question, but why was there the Civil War?""

I want to know why EVERY single news presenter, god knoew they aren't reporters, and their producers aren't screaming at the top of their lungs about what a dumb mother fucker the Orange Baboon is, is unforgiveable.

[bora13]

11. a smart cookie

told him that Andrew Jackson and "Stonewall" Jackson were one and the same.
sheeesh, even bannon could have told him that Thomas Jackson was the confederate general.

[modrepub]

12. Panic of 1837

Interesting that Trump would champion a President who set the stage for the United State's first major Depression. Banning the 2nd National Bank and Jackson's "Hard Money" policy implemented just as he was exiting the Presidency contributed to a major worldwide economic panic. To be fair Jackson was only trying to reign in speculative banks and their impacts on western land prices. I doubt Trump has any idea what I'm talking about.

[Faygo Kid]

13. I screamed from the rooftops about his ignorance!

I am a history buff, admittedly. I begged for any media outlet anywhere to ask him a single question about American history. But, no - and this comes as a surprise? Shame on the media - and all of us for not holding him accountable.

We are screwed.

[Sancho]

14. After the massacre at Bowling Green, the War of Northern Aggression was inevitable...

[yardwork]

39. Thread win.

[David__77]

16. I think that this is an intentional communication to self-identified white supremacists.

And I imagine that the smarter among those white supremacists see that this is the case. Some of them have been down on Trump recently, perhaps believing he has politically capitulated to "the establishment." I think that this is a message: "I'm with you."

[bettyellen]

26. Bingo

[William Seger]

17. Jackson owned 150 slaves when he died

... and his family's wealth depended entirely on his cotton plantation. I don't think he'd have any trouble figuring out "why was there the Civil War."

[modrepub]

21. Civil War Trigger is Complicated

I have no doubt that the institution of slavery was the ultimate cause of the war. But I think most people in the northern states would cite the institution of slavery as it pertains to a small segment of society (large slave holders and norther bankers) having undue power in the country. The slave repatriation and Dred Scott decisions were repugnant to most northerners but I'd hate to say this but there was probably little to no sympathy for slaves themselves in most people's eyes. If you polled most northerners at the time I wouldn't be surprised if they felt slaves were inferior to themselves; even Lincoln toyed with finding another home for the freed slaves outside of the US. Sad, but I don't think we've truly reconciled with this war that is now 150+ years in our back mirrors.

[BumRushDaShow]

24. For Northerners (outside of abolitionalists), it boiled down to "unfair economics"

They had to pay their laborers and the southern slave-owners didn't.

[KingCharlemagne]

45. No, it's not. It's actually really simple. PGT Beauregard opened fire on a

U.S. facility in Charleston Harbor in 1861. Q. E. Fuckin' D.

[modrepub]

60. I beg to differ

One has to work their way through the 1860 election to get to Charleston. The Republican party increased their popular vote total by 500k votes, a nearly 50% increase from 1856, and flipped PA, IL and IN to easily win the electoral college. This even though everyone knew if Lincoln was elected there would be a serious crisis. People in the North had had enough of the institution of slavery is my point. That didn't necessarily equate to any love of the slaves themselves.

[KingCharlemagne]

61. Are you a Civil War denialist? You arent denying, I trust, that

Beauregard opened fire on Fort Sumter. No one held a gun to that hothead BeAuregard's head, IIRC.

[Yupster]

69. Beauregard was ordered to open fire

It was no spur of the moment emotional decision.

It was carefully mulled over by Davis and his advisers for weeks before the order was given to open fire.

[KingCharlemagne]

73. Most people in the North in 1860 were indifferent to the institution of slavery, provided

it remained within its current borders (the core of the Republican Party position in 1860). The abolitionists in 1860 constituted a tiny fringe of probably no more than 5% of the population of the North.

[Cattledog]

55. And was a vile Killer of Native Americans.

[IronLionZion]

18. Was that when America was great?

for certain privileged few. Yep, nothing worth fighting over.

Is this what its come to now? Years ago, someone this dumb would have been taken out by his own party very early in the process.

[Bleacher Creature]

19. People don't ask the question???

Somebody need to tell these guys: http://scwhistorians.org.

[KingCharlemagne]

46. LOL - I was imagining all my Civil War history profs

(most of whom are now in retirement) shaking their heads at this drolerie.

[PurgedVoter]

20. The Lament of Fort Sumter

Since Trump read a book on Andrew Jackson, does anyone remember an alternative history novel that goes along these lines?

In 1861 Andrew Jackson was 94 years old and had served as president for 32 years. After the Battle of Fort Sumter, Andrew Jackson lamented that the United States attacked the Confederacy for no reason. The United States having a fort in the way of the Confederate Armies cannons was clear provocation.

[KingCharlemagne]

47. Thread winner! - nt

[nycbos]

22. Every day you think it can't get anymore embarrassing...

... there is something knew to surprise you.


But since Andrew Jackson is the news I can't resist saying...


Andrew Jackson in the main foyer of his White House had a big block of cheese.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

25. ....

[former9thward]

27. Jackson was angry about South Carolina and its threats to leave the U.S.

He threatened to send troops to S. Carolina in 1832 to keep them from seceding from the Union. That threat caused S. Carolina to back down over the tariff issue. Of course they they did 30 years later.

The link in the OP repeats the myth that the Civil War was about slavery. It wasn't as Lincoln said on many occasions. It was about the country being preserved. Jackson was the first president to confront the issues which led to the Civil War.

[Marthe48]

35. My history teachers taught

The Civil War came about because of States' Rights vs. US Government. The slave holding states, mainly southern, wanted to be able to make the decisions about slave ownership, tariffs, whether the Federal Government or the individual states had more power to mandate policy. Maybe the slave states saw the U.S. as a loose arrangement of independent states. The anti-slave states, mainly northern, wanted slavery to be outlawed in all states and believed the USA to be more powerful as a single entity. There were several compromises as new states joined the Union to maintain a balance of power. It just put the whole thing off for 40 years. I went to London a few years ago and our guide said the American Civil War was just an continuance of the English civil war, and even in modern times, that war continues to influence politics. I can't help wondering how much the states' rights advocates are undermining our country, even now. How much of the enmity carried by generations over the Civil War is eroding the Constitution of the U.S.A?

[Worktodo]

56. Read the Articles of Secession please

The northern states didn't want to return escaped slaves. That's "state's rights" and the southern states were against it. And they had a point -- slavery was in the constitution.

Anyway the Civil War was about slavery. Just read the articles of secession from any of the states.

[Marthe48]

58. Slavery was a big issue

But there were other discussions from the early years of the USA up until the civil war about states rights. The early Supreme Court judges such as John Marshall and John Jay ruled in favor of the federal government's stand on issues such as states being subject to judicial review, ruling that state laws were unconstitutional (such as Fletcher vs. Peck) or enforcing the idea that federal laws took precedence over state laws. The question of slavery of course became the defining point of law and things like taxes (McCullough vs Maryland), interstate commerce and so on were overshadowed. I read the S.C. articles of succession a couple years ago. I didn't want to.

[Yupster]

53. Obviously the causes of the Civil War are a lot more complicated than the word "slavery."

Otherwise there wouldn't be a whole library of books written on the topic.

The immediate cause of the war was the election of Lincoln. Slavery was around from long before the US, and there wasn't a Civil War. Lincoln was elected and within a month S Carolina left the Union.

Would a President like Andrew Jackson have avoided the Civil War? Possibly. When S Carolina threatened to secede, Jackson threatened to flood the state with federal troops and they backed down. Would they have backed down again in 1860? Maybe. Even if they didn't, maybe the other states wouldn't have followed them out if federal troops were taking over S Carolina. The problem with this was the long lame duck time frame between the election in November and the inauguration in March. It was during that time that the first group of states left the Union, so this is not on Lincoln, it's on Buchanon.

Could a deal have been made to avert the Civil War at the last minute. Absolutely and just such a deal was being worked on until Christmas. The proposed deal was called the Crittenden Compromise and was being worked on by a group of senators, led by Kentucky Senator John Crittenden and included Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis. Could it have succeeded? Of course. This one is Lincoln's fault. The President-elect wouldn't give any instructions to Senator Seward representing the Republicans so no deal could be made.

Anyway, I agree with the person up thread who said this is a stupid thing to criticize Trump over. For us, it's another chance to say how stupid Trump is but we're preaching to the choir. To Trump's supporters, it's another chance to say that people go after Trump for everything he says.

In this case I agree with them. There's no reason this should be a story.

[Kaleva]

59. The Freepers are fighting amongst themselves about this.

[Kathy M]

68. Thanks for posting , agree .....

[Kathy M]

67. This

[FigTree]

29. It's not puzzling.

In his usual slithering, allusive way, this fraction of a man in reality blames the war on black people. His base, who can barely read the lines but reads better between them, will get it. As they read between the lines of make america great again.

[yardwork]

40. That's it.

[TheDebbieDee]

30. MORE PERFORMANCE ART!

To keep us all guessing...

[keithbvadu2]

32. Donald got confused again... He meant Michael Jackson.

[Rollo]

34. How ironic considering how polar opposite Jackson was from Trump...

Jackson:

"It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their own selfish purposes."

[Judi Lynn]

36. How embarrassing are Republicans? Palin, Michelle Bachmann know as much about US history.

Trump is the king, however.

He beats "Is our children learning."

[MBS]

44. This person has no business being in the White House

At all.

[DeminPennswoods]

48. Wait, didn't Trump attend military school?

Trump attended military school. I'd think somewhere along the line there was a lecture or two on the causes of the Civil War.

[onetexan]

49. shouldn't surprise any of us the orange one is a total dufus

[spiderpig]

64. I liked the movie with Charlton Heston and Susan Hayward, though.

[truthisfreedom]

65. Alzheimer's.

Alzheimer's Alzheimer's Alzheimer's Alzheimer's Alzheimer's Alzheimer's Alzheimer's Alzheimer's.

[HubbleSN]

76. The bozo also doubled down on Twitter.

Incompetence ought to be enough to get rid of him, though there are plenty of other reasons, too.