How to Fight Andrew Jackson: The Deadliest President Ever
Where am I?
Hi there! Before I get into the "where," you should be aware that the "when" is just as important. I don't want to get into a whole lot of boring science stuff so, long story short, you've traveled through time and ended up ... somewhere and somewhen. As for when specifically, look around you, because context here is everything. Are there horse-drawn carriages? Are there roads? What about slavery, is that still happening in a big way? These details will really help place you on the timeline of American history, though you should only really dwell on them if you want to satiate your own curiosity. There's kind of a bigger issue to deal with.
Is it this wild-haired, crazy-eyed guy staring at me?
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It is indeed. That "guy" is former president of the United States of America Andrew Jackson, and you have pissed him off something fierce. I don't know if it was the time traveling or some other stupid thing you did, but the point is he is furious and cannot be reasoned with. Any attempts to calm him down will just aggravate the situation. You can't ask for help because you time traveled alone, and you can't call the cops because, what are you, a pussy? Bottom line: You are about to fight Andrew Jackson.
How did I get here?
That's not really any of my business and, frankly, it shouldn't be your biggest concern. How you ended up face-to-face with a dead president (and how you've subsequently pissed him off) is your thing, and I'm not here to judge. Admittedly, it's interesting, but you've got much more pressing matters.
Did I use a machine like in Back to the Future, or is it more of a Quantum Leap-type deal?
I would really appreciate it if you focused on the upcoming fight.
Well, sure, but I'd still really like to know ...
Look, guy, I don't need to be here. I'm not doing this for me, because I'm not the asshole who time traveled and ruined Andrew Jackson's day. That's you. You're that guy. I'm the guy who's trying to help you. And even though your mastery of the space-time continuum is intriguing, the bottom line is that Andrew Jackson's swinging a cane over his head like a lunatic. Do you really want to spend your last 10 minutes arguing about wormholes and nonlinear timelines?
No, I suppose I don't.
I mean, does it even matter at this point?
No, I suppose it doesn't.
No, it doesn't. Maybe if you had Stephen Hawking answering your questions, you two could go on and on about the mysteries of the universe and parallel dimensions or whatever, but you've got me, and all I know is dead-president-fighting, and there are worse guides for a person in your position to have right now. You should start asking the right questions now, while you still can.
What could I have done to piss Andrew Jackson off?
A number of things. You could have insulted his wife, threatened America or been an Indian. Or, and here's where it gets muddy, you could have done none of those things and he'd still be angry. It all sort of blends together for Jackson.
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This is as honest-to-God political cartoon about Andrew Jackson. What could this possibly represent if not madness?
See, Andrew Jackson was a whole lot of things, and all of them were crazy. He wasn't always crazy, of course, he aged into it, like a fine wine, fermented with poison in, like, an angry toilet. Stirred with an axe, or something.
About that wife thing ...
Right. When Jackson married his wife, Rachel Donelson Robards, in the late 1700s, she was still, unbeknownst to both, technically married to her first jealous, awful husband, as the paperwork on their divorce had not yet been finalized. When Jackson did find out about the previous marriage, he waited for the divorce to legally go through and they remarried in 1794, their love now being officially too legit to quit. No scandal there.
Jackson clearly didn't mind her previous marriage and the brief confusion of paperwork, but his 1828 political opponents most certainly did, and they attacked her relentlessly during Jackson's entire campaign in an election that is still considered to be one of the meanest in history. The opposing party, supporting John Quincy Adams, did not let the scandal that wasn't actually a scandal drop, and the campaign was seasoned with personal assaults on Rachel's character. She's a "convicted adulteress" unfit to sit in the "highest offices of this free and Christian land," said the Cincinnati Gazette. Rachel is "a dirty black wench," cried a member of Adams' camp, and "bitch ain't shit," reported a local respected doctor.
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"And furthermore I submit that the young woman in question is both a ho AND a trick. Verily!"
Jackson won the election by a wide margin, but Rachel's disposition didn't handle the constant public "slut calls" well (for some reason) and she passed away just days before the inauguration. Experts and doctors didn't know what exactly got her in the end, but lunatic and soon-to-be-president Jackson sure did. He was convinced without a doubt that the vicious words being hurled at her for months killed her, and he further believed that everyone who had said a bad word about Rachel was, indirectly, a murderer and should be handled properly. To that end, Jackson said at her burial, "I can and do forgive all my enemies. But those vile wretches who have slandered her must look to God for mercy." Since he's letting his enemies slide, you'll know that, if Andrew Jackson is mad at you, it's because he thinks you're responsible for his beloved wife's death and should be dealt with accordingly. And Andrew Jackson is a man of his word.
That's absurd, can I just talk to him about this?
Goodness, no. Jacksonian scholar Robert Remini wrote, "When Andrew Jackson hated, it often became grand passion. He could hate with a biblical fury and would resort to petty and vindictive acts to nurture his hatred and keep it bright and strong and ferocious."
"And he hates you," Remini didn't add, but would have had he been writing this article.
Does he have previous fighting experience?
Oh yeah. This is a doozy. Jackson was born without a father, and his mother died when he was 14. As a result, he anticipated death all around him and was prepared to fight at any moment, which he did, all through school. Often picked on by very misguided bullies, it wasn't uncommon for Andrew Jackson to come home with bruises, scars and scrapes. At 13 years old, having bested every available schoolyard bully in a three-state radius, Jackson decided to fight the British in the Revolutionary War. You know, back when you were gleefully discovering your genitals for the first time, Jackson was tackling fully grown British soldiers with equal gusto.
That's a weird thing to bring up. I mean every 13-year-old gets --
In 1780, Jackson was captured by British soldiers and taken as a prisoner of war, along with his brother. There he was ordered to shine the shoes of his captors and, like the tiniest badass ever, refused, which earned him a long gash down his cheek at the sword of his captors. He was then forced to march shoeless, wound undressed, without food or water and full of bright and shiny hatred for 40 miles from one prison camp to another, all while suffering from smallpox. The smallpox killed his brother but was just terrified enough of Jackson to back off quietly. He lost his brother, beat smallpox, fought in a war, marched miles barefoot and got stabbed in the fucking face, all before you reached high school.
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Holy shit.
I know, right? And that's just adolescence. He also fought in the War of 1812 and the First Seminole War and, when he ran out of wars, he just went duel crazy. Jackson's been in 13 duels that we know of. While some historians dispute this number, everyone agrees that he loved him a duel. Every other day, Jackson was out dueling. Dueling this, dueling that. He was one dueling motherfucker.
Does he have any weaknesses?
In 1806, Andrew Jackson engaged Charles Dickinson in a duel that was chiefly over gambling debts, but also over an insult to Jackson's wife (probably). Though Dickinson was widely known as a good shot, Jackson allowed him to fire first. Dickinson fired, nailed Jackson almost in the heart and started to reload. Before he could finish, Jackson shot him dead. The man plays "Punch-for-Punch" with bullets.
Sort of sounds like a strength ...
No, no, no, you're thinking about it wrong. While Jackson is indisputably badass, the man does have an ego. If he thinks you're a pussy, he'll get cocky, he'll want to show off. So, as far as strategy goes, you need to act like such a wimp that Jackson, in all of his arrogance, gives you the advantage. Maybe he'll let you shoot first, like Dickinson, or maybe he'll give you two guns, or maybe he'll fight you blindfolded. It all depends on how sure of his victory he is, which all depends on how pathetic you appear as a fighter. Make him believe you're terrified. Whimper, beg to be let out of the fight and, if your threshold for shamelessness is as high as your will to live, see if you can muster up some pants-wetting. Your best bet will be to convince Andrew Jackson that you are a scared little baby who does not want to fight.
I can't imagine that'll be too hard.
Yeah, you ... Are you already pissing yourself? Good man.
What kind of fight will this be?
Have you been paying attention? This will be a duel with pistols at either dawn or whenever-the-fuck-Andrew-Jackson-wants o'clock. The man lived to duel, and you know there's only one way you can participate in multiple duels: you're really, really good at them. Losing a duel isn't like losing at soccer (unless your soccer league is really hardcore); you get shot and then you die.
Of course, there is a possibility that he'll choose to fight you with his trademark cane, in which case you will also lose. In 1835, a lunatic named Richard Lawrence made the first documented assassination attempt on a president's life when he pulled a gun on Andrew Jackson. The gun misfired, so he pulled out a second gun, which also misfired. Later, upon inspection both guns fired without error. Some historians blamed the weather for the temporary misfiring, but it's pretty clear that the bullets, having previously consulted the other bullets rattling around Jackson's body, had no interest in getting involved in what would end up being a futile suicide mission, as every bullet knows that Jackson doesn't believe in getting shot to death. When Jackson was tired of watching his would-be assassin pull out gun after terrified gun, he beat the shit out of Lawrence with his cane until presidential aides had to restrain Jackson.
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Jackson's not just badass by presidential standards. He's not just badass by human standards. He stacks up against John McClane and Shaft; the man is badass by fictional hero standards. He's badass enough to be entirely made up, except he's terrifyingly real and wants to kick your ass.
Do I stand a chance?
God no. Nope. No way. No. Here is what you need to know about Andrew Jackson: He is a man followed by tragedy. He lost friends, family members and his beloved wife. He never remarried after Rachel passed, and so America became his replacement family. And this was one family Andrew Jackson was determined not to lose. He loved, lived and worshiped America -- it completed him.
Additionally, as the first popularly elected president, Jackson saw himself as both the physical embodiment of America and its sworn protector. If Jackson was one thing in his life, it was extra strength, shit-hurlingly crazy. But if he was two things, it was crazy and loyal. If he thought someone wanted to hurt America, he'd react like a father protecting his children, or a son responding to a particularly vicious "Yo' mamma" joke. He viewed every attack on America like the attacks that he suspected killed his late wife, and this time, he was going to make sure he stopped the attackers before they could kill America.
So do you see where this is going? Jackson obsessively loved America, and he considered himself the manifestation of America, the embodiment of the only constant in his life that loved him back. An attack on Jackson is an attack on America, and he will defend his country with the fervor and intensity of a rabid dog. And, trust me, you have never loved anything as much as Jackson loves America.
OK, we're clearly about to duel now. Anything else?
He's been shot so many times that according to Chris Wallace's Profiles in Presidential Courage, he "rattled like a bag of marbles" when he walked as a result of all of the never-removed bullets chilling in his body. The pieces of shrapnel that he carries around like internal medals of honor are about 10 times larger than your balls and infinity times as armored.
Was that your pep talk?!
Happy President's Day weekend!
Daniel O'Brien is Cracked.com's Senior Writer (ladies), and he has an entire book about fighting presidents sitting in his computer (publishing houses). Also, Daniel will be performing sketches and stand-up Friday (2/17) and Saturday (2/18) in Beloit, Wisconsin. Follow him here for details.
For more from Dan, check out 7 Great Men in History (And Why You Should Hate Them) and 5 Famous Inventors (Who Stole Their Big Idea).
Jackson wasn't really racist. Pick up any middle school history text book and you will see that, after Jackson's wife died, he fell in love with one of his slaves, brought her on all of the trips he had to make, and had multiple children with her. He still kept her as his personal slave so that no one became suspicious, but his children were never put to work. Racist, no; slave owner and arrogant, yet sexy prick; yes!!!
Reply Hide All See All 3 Replieshe was certainly racist against native americans.
Doesn't mean he wasn't a racist.
Having sex with a slave does not magically make him not a racist.
You left out the bit where his best friend and appointee was held up to all kinds of scandal because HIS wife was a ho, and Jackson defended him vehemently because of his own past personal experience, even though, in all probability, she was a total ho.
ReplyYou also left out the bit where his niece and White House Hostess, his closest confidant and wife to his presumed heir died of illness while he was in office.
And you left out the bit where he took on the Bank of the United States, the sort of spiritual predecessor to the modern Federal Reserve and WON.
So... Jackson v. Roosevelt... who wins? More importantly, who's writing THAT article?
American Lion was an AWESOME book
and you left out that whole bit about the indian removal act and the trail of tears where thousands of native americans died a terrible death. dude was a racist prick.
andrew jackson was an insane racist, and a badass, proving the badass does not make you a good person.
ReplyFrom wiki on the Dickinson duel: "While Jackson could easily have fallen from such a wound, he said later, "I should have hit him if he had shot me through the brain.""
ReplyCongratulations, Cracked. You've officially taught me more about Andrew Jackson than 17 years of formal schooling, and I'm likely to remember more of this than I remember from any of that schooling.
ReplyThey need to make movie trilogy called "Jackson: A Boy Of War", "Jackson: Bittersweet Retribution," and "Jackson: Personal Revenge"
ReplyThe first opens with Morgan Freeman saying: "this is a very true story, about one man that changed America." The movie's about a boy name Jackson and his brother trying to survive the harshness of being captured by the British army, in which they had to march shoeless, foodless, and waterless from camp to camp, while having small pox. Jackson then nurse a deep hatred for the British when his brother from smallpox, and his mother died from cholera trying to nurse them in a prisoner war ship, leaving him orphaned at the age of 14. He vowed revenge.
"Jackson: Bittersweet Retribution," document the slow decent into madness of Jackson, now a very capable, but ruthless commander during the Seminole War (because he was still bitter from the death of his brother and mother). He struct fear into his native american enemies, and receive the name ""Sharp Knife" from them by burning down their villages and crops. He later found out about two Englishmen that has been helping the Seminole attack his men, and, due to his nursed hatred of British, he killed them (this was bitter sweet, as it is the only act of revenge he will have against Brits). He then invades neutral Spain territory, and was heavily criticized as a war criminal for these actions. After the war, he broke down from the horrible things he has done, and vow to do something that will help his people. It ends with Morgan Freeman saying: "Little did anyone guess, the ruthless general that struck fear into the heart of his enemy will become one of the greatest President the United States ever has."
And in "Jackson: Personal Revenge," the newly appointed president Andrew Jackson goes around early century America, taking revenge on the men who had flamed his wife into illness and death during his campaign. In the end, Morgan Freeman reads "I guess in the end, you really can't take the bitterness out of the man."
Awesome, I never knew how badass AJ was until reading your articles
ReplyHe wasn't a racist. His own adopted son was an Indian. (And yes, it sounds like it's made up, but he really did pick an abandoned baby out of the ruins of an Indian village, try to find out whose kid it was, keep the kid fed and clean, and brought the baby home for Rachel to raise. When he got old enough, he trained the kid himself to be a lawyer. And then, just when things were looking up, his adopted son died.)
ReplyIf you think of Jackson as a lot like a medieval Scottish chieftain, raining fire and blood on his enemies and obsessively protective of his friends and family, you'll understand him. He was a tribalist more than a racist.
I wish history classes were this amusing.
Reply...Can I fight Taft instead?
ReplyYou'd better go for a head punch.
f**k Andrew Jackson. He can burn in a*****e hell for eternity. Don't mistake badass for piece of shit. A piece of s**t who doesn't give a f**k is just that. Anyone who is arguing "you can't judge him by today's morality" is stupid and an article glorifying anything about him is stupid too. Facist, genocidal American presidents are not to remembered as anything but. I am aware this is a comedy site, and understand DOB's intentions as trying to produce comedy, but am disturbed by the comments that Jackson was anything but terrible. Populist my ass. That doesn't count when you intentionally wipeout a large part of the population. Anything else he did is overshadowed by his involvement in the Indian Removal Act and the Seminole Wars.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesThis article isn't saying he was a good man or even a good president - it's saying he was a badass. He might of been a piece of s**t, but he was still walking around with a bunch of bullets stuck in him.
Yeah, reread my third sentence. I will stick to Seanbaby articles, fun all around!
He 'twas a badass, but he was also a terrible President who ignored his executive duties by refusing to carry out Supreme Court ruling, and he probably deserved to be impeached. That being said, DOB off-handedly mentions that event when he states that Jackson hated Indians, and the article itself isn't about Jackson's political career or his morality, it's about exactly what the title states: Fighting that crazy fucker.
Custer you make me ashamed to like Seanbaby, geez.
Don't forget that he abolished the US central bank at the time. If only we had someone in favor of that today...
Reply Hide All See All 6 Replies...we do? Ron Paul is trying to end the Federal Reserve (which is basically another name for the central bank). It's been a long hundred f*****g years since any President even attempted to bring an end to the central bank/fed reserve since it was established in 1913 (Jackson being the last hero who saw the evil of a central banking system... that can senselessly print money).
Here here! Ron Paul has all of the good aspects of Jackson (sound money, ferocious ideas about defence, and adherence to the Constituion) and none of the rabid racial cleansing.
Seriously folks, let's get Ron Paul elected for DOB Jr can write articles about him in 40 years!
Ah yes, and the Depression of the 1830s and early 1840s which followed; good times.
I can't decide if MrOversight's name is an intentionally ironic one, or if he's really claiming Ron Paul isn't for "rabid racial cleansing". The man proudly put his name on about a decade's worth of newsletters that offered white folk, among other horrible things, advice on how to get away with killing a black kid, how to avoid getting AIDS from vengeful homosexuals out to deliberately infect the straight population, and suggested that the L.A. riots could have been stopped by giving out welfare checks early.
No, Kennedy tried to get rid of the Federal Reserve as well….then blammy…..hmmm
Huh. Last I checked abolishing the central bank led to widespread inflation and an eventual economic collapse.
Upon being confronted with Andrew Jackson, the human body's involuntary response is the Wilhelm Scream. When Jackson begins beating the s**t out of said human body, the involuntary response is two Wilhelm Screams at once.
ReplyI heard all this in H. Jon Benjamin's voice.
ReplyAnd it was glorious.
I have no interest in American presidents but this was really fun to read.
ReplyBloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (the musical about Andrew Jackson) was so epic, the guy who played AJ is now playing Honest Abe in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.
ReplyHistorians have suggested that US president Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) experienced lead and mercury poisoning following his therapeutic use of calomel (mercurous chloride) and sugar of lead (lead acetate). To evaluate these claims, we performed direct physical measurement of 2 samples of Jackson's hair (1 from 1815, 1 from 1839). Following pretreatment and acid digestion, mercury was measured using cold vapor generation techniques, while lead levels were measured by electrothermal atomic absorption spectrophotometry. Mercury levels of 6.0 and 5.6 ppm were obtained from the 1815 and 1839 hair specimens, respectively. Lead levels were significantly elevated in both the 1815 sample (mean lead level, 130.5 ppm) and the 1839 sample (mean lead level, 44 ppm). These results suggest that Jackson had mercury and lead exposure, the latter compatible with symptomatic plumbism in the 1815 sample. However, Jackson's death was probably not due to heavy metal poisoning.
ReplyWait... you said we? You are a scientist? You did this yourself? Wow, impressive. Look everyone! This man here is a scientist.
i assume it was a quote and he just missed the punctuation., but just incase it wasn't feel free to continue being an ass masterninja.
Trail of Tears. That's all I have to say about Andrew Jackson.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesI don't argue his craziness there, but I wish like f**k we had someone in some kind of office like him now.
That's all you're going to say? Then I will just have to assume you're a fan of both.
I will add Seminole Wars because of his brutality during those battles and Indian Removal Act because its important to realize that he completely ignored the Supreme Court.
Jackson was a genocidal dick. He can go f**k himself.
To all of the posters who think Roosevelt would kick Jackson's ass, I say that you are vastly incorrect. Teddy Roosevelt wouldn't bother interceding on your behalf. If you pissed off Jackson, Roosevelt's just gonna sit back and enjoy some wholesome ass-caning entertainment. "Sorry, son, but when one incurs the wrath of Jackson, just whimper softly as he beats you with a big stick."
ReplyAwesome article, man!
Reply