Andrew Jackson: Hero, Heel or Both?

Andrew Jackson has always been controversial.  He is the only man in American history to spawn two political movements:  the Democrat Party which he founded, and the Whig Party, and after it the Republican Party, founded in opposition to Jackson and his policies.  In his lifetime he was celebrated as the brilliant general who won the battle of New Orleans, and condemned as a frontier duelist and near murderer;  he lived one of the great love stories of American history, and was condemned as an adulterer;  condemned as a pitiless persecutor of Indians, he is the only American president to adopt an Indian child;  a champion of freedom for the common man, he was a slaver-holder who never said a word against the Peculiar Institution.  Jackson and his legacy will be debated as long as there is a United States of America.

My own take on President Jackson is contained in the post The Devil and Andrew Jackson which may be read here.

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