Would Andrew Jackson Be A Democrat Today?

I was trying to dig out some Hall County history the other day, about the period in which Andrew Jackson spent a few nights at Young's Tavern, a frontier stopping place located just about where you enter the Falcon's complex near Flowery Branch. And it got me started reading a bunch of Andrew Jackson history. He was quite a guy, was Old Hickory. He was a rough, tough frontiersman who could put together the durndest collection of rag-tag people you ever saw ... uneducated pioneers, Presbyterian preachers, Indians, pirates, whoever came along ... then demand unwavering loyalty from them in battle no matter what he ordered them to do. Most of his battles were what today's politically correct people would call "pre-emptive strikes" ... in other words, you hit them before they hit you. And Jackson and his unregimented men would win. Then they would go have a big celebration. In politics Andrew Jackson was a populist; a man of the people. As in war, he didn't worry much whether people liked him or not so long as they were willing to follow him. Jackson understood power, and he knew how to use it. When I was growing up Southern Democrats were often referred to as Jacksonian Democrats, and in my judgement they could make that claim. Like Jackson, they were solid and conservative. But the more I read about Old Hickory, the more I've got to wonder: if Andrew Jackson were sitting on the porch at Young's Tavern, sipping a drink with his friends, and somebody handed him a report explaining what his political party was doing in Washington right now, would he say he was a Democrat? The more I read about Andrew Jackson, the more I think of Zell Miller.

This is Gordon Sawyer, from a window on Historic Green Street.

http://accesswdun.com/article/2007/2/97119