Daniel Feller, professor in the department of history and director of The Papers of Andrew Jackson, was recently interviewed by two national media outlets on President Trump’s admiration of President Andrew Jackson.
POLITICO interviewed Feller on recent remarks made by President Trump praising both Andrew Jackson and Jackson’s rival Henry Clay.
President Trump recently paid a visit to the Hermitage, the home of President Andrew Jackson, where he spoke highly of the former president. Trump also complimented Jackson’s rival, Henry Clay, while in Louisville, Kentucky.
Feller weighed in on the positive remarks of the two rivals, stating that it’s par for the course for presidents to compliment other presidents with whom they disagree.
Feller was also interviewed for two separate Smithsonian articles.
One article compared Elizabeth Warren’s populism to that of Andrew Jackson’s.
“That populist rhetoric itself, since Andrew Jackson’s day, has become kind of constant. What Elizabeth Warren has been saying about bankers’ influence and lobbyists’ influence over legislation, however, has more direct echoes to what Jackson was saying,” said Feller. “You could take whole passages out of her speech and mix them up in a bowl with Jackson’s Bank Veto and you wouldn’t know which was which.”
The other unrelated Smithsonian article explores an attempted assignation of President Andrew Jackson in 1835. Although the attempt was unsuccessful, it caused Jackson to ponder which individuals he had become the enemy of, and what would inspire this action.
Jackson believed he had raised the ire of fellow politicians after he spoke out against the Bank of the United States (BUS), which was believed to behave responsibly by most observers.
“In 1829, Jackson attacked the banks and that kind of startled everybody,” said Feller. “He said it represented a dangerous concentration of power.”
Eventually, Jackson vetoed a bill to re-charter the BUS and it ceased to exist.