THE FIRST DEMOCRAT The real founder of the modern Democratic Party was Andrew Jackson. Jackson, an orphan from Appalachia, rose from obscurity to become America's most celebrated general and military hero after George Washington. He won the presidency by a landslide in 1828 and an even bigger one in 1832. His proteges dominated the Democratic Party for half a century, until the Civil War. During his lifetime Jackson was immensely popular with ordinary people, earning him the reputation of being the common man's president. One might expect the Democrats-who even today purport to be the party of the common man-to embrace Jackson and acknowledge his paternity of their party. This, however, is not the case. So why do they distance themselves from Jackson? Why do progressives consider him such an embarrassment? Not only do many on the Left refuse to acknowledge Jackson's founding role in the Democratic Party, they also want to kick him off the $20 bill where his face currently appears. Progressives want to see him replaced on the currency with the woman who ran the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman. To some degree, the progressive objective seems clear. Jackson, after all, owned some three hundred slaves during his lifetime. At one time he ran a plantation that had 150 slaves. So Jackson's expulsion seems consistent with the general progressive antipathy toward slavery. The same antipathy explains the choice of Tubman, who was a female abolitionist. Moreover, Tubman was a woman. If the Democrats are going to place a woman, Hillary, on the presidential ticket, why not also have a woman, Tubman, on the currency? Even so, the proposal is interesting because Jackson was a Democrat-the founding father of the Democratic Party-while Tubman was a Republican. Admittedly progressives have no intention of highlighting that fact about Tubman; indeed it goes virtually unmentioned in the news reports. The progressive media is not comfortable with a female black abolitionist representing the Republican Party while a white male slave owner represents the Democratic Party.
( Dinesh D'Souza )
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