DBWI: Jackson Isn't Killed
- Thread starter Israel
- Start date
Jackson's assassination by a disgruntled South Carolinian bitter over Jackson's clampdown on the state two years earlier, was one of the key events that lead to the radicalization of the North and South in the years prior to the Second American Revolution. Without this event, we might see the Second Revolution not happen, or, at the very least, postponed a number of years.
This is also going to short circuit the near canonization of 'Saint Andrew' in American political mythology. I, for one, have never bought into much of it and believe that Jackson, if you look at his actual 'accomplishments' in office, was a pretty terrible president. His vendetta against the Bank of America was one of the leading factors that lead to the Crash of 1837, and that's not even getting into the Indian Removal Act and a number of other very amateur decisions he made. Even before his assassination, the makeshift political alliance he had brought together in the Democratic Party as fragmenting, with many hardcore Nullifiers forces turning towards John Flloyd. I could actually see a surviving, and vengeful, Jackson accelerating this rift (although how much more so than the more northern focused Van Buren in OTL, I am unsure of).
Now, by the time of his assassination in OTL, Jackson was already a lame-duck, so I'm not sure how much policy he would be able to craft if he survived. Would any of it be much different from the decisions that Van Buren made in OTL?
This is also going to short circuit the near canonization of 'Saint Andrew' in American political mythology. I, for one, have never bought into much of it and believe that Jackson, if you look at his actual 'accomplishments' in office, was a pretty terrible president. His vendetta against the Bank of America was one of the leading factors that lead to the Crash of 1837, and that's not even getting into the Indian Removal Act and a number of other very amateur decisions he made. Even before his assassination, the makeshift political alliance he had brought together in the Democratic Party as fragmenting, with many hardcore Nullifiers forces turning towards John Flloyd. I could actually see a surviving, and vengeful, Jackson accelerating this rift (although how much more so than the more northern focused Van Buren in OTL, I am unsure of).
Now, by the time of his assassination in OTL, Jackson was already a lame-duck, so I'm not sure how much policy he would be able to craft if he survived. Would any of it be much different from the decisions that Van Buren made in OTL?