The Glenn Beck Program - Andrew Jackson vs. John Quincy Adams: The Birth of American Political Warfare | The American Story | Ep 13

Episode Date: July 11, 2026

Two American giants collide in the brutal birth of modern politics. John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson were born the same year, but they represented two radically different Americas. One was a polished diplomat raised for public service; the other was a fiery frontier warrior who carried bullets, grudges, and political rage. Their rivalry explodes through the “corrupt bargain” of 1824, the vicious election of 1828, and leads to the birth of the Democratic Party. This is the story of how Andrew Jackson forever altered the presidency, and how John Quincy Adams found new purpose as a warrior in the fight against slavery. GLENN'S SPONSORS: American Financing: American Financing can show you how to put your hard-earned equity to work and get you out of debt. Dial ⁠800-906-2440⁠, or visit ⁠https://www.americanfinancing.net⁠. Freespoke: With Freespoke premium, you get a completely ad-free experience that keeps you focused on what matters. Download it for free at get freespoke.com/beck and use promo code “Beck” for 20% off. Byrna: Not every threat requires lethal force. Byrna's less-lethal launchers give you the ability to stop an aggressor from a safe distance. Protect yourself and your family by going to Byrna.com. Real Estate Agents I Trust: When you’re buying or selling a home, you need a real estate agent you can trust. Visit realestateagentsitrust.com to find the top-selling real estate agents in your area. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

By 1806, John Quincy Adams had already served under George Washington as ambassador to Holland, then under his own father as ambassador to Prussia. Now elected by the Massachusetts state legislature, he's a U.S. senator. And just to keep things interesting, he's taken on a new gig as a professor of rhetoric and oratory at Harvard. Adams is 39 years old. He finds himself somewhat of a transnational. phase in his already prolific career. He can see the writing on the wall.

He's way too independent-minded for his own good. Federalists put him in the U.S. Senate, but he backs many of President Jefferson's policies, even when they clash with his party's line. Massachusetts is about to vote him out, but John Quincy Adams is all about principles over politics, constitution over convenience. He's really never been much of a party-neutral. man. His life as a senator and professor could hardly contrast more with the life of Andrew Jackson, who at the very same time, 1,100 miles west in Kentucky, is getting ready to shoot a man.

The frontier had its own code of honor. Words carry weight and are often answered with bullets. Jackson has been publicly insulted by a man named Charles Dickinson, who accused him of going back on a horse racing bet, It escalates when Dickinson insults Jackson's wife, Rachel, questioning her honor in ways that hit too close to home. Jackson, ever the hothead, demands a duel. When whispers reach him that Dickinson might skip town, Jackson snarls to a friend. It will be in vain, for I'll follow him over land and sea. 7 o'clock in a morning, May 30th, 1806. Jackson and Dickinson face each other.

24 feet apart, pistols loaded. Jackson playing it cool, or maybe strategic, lets Dickinson fire first. The shot cracks the air, slamming into Jackson's chest, lodging near his heart. Blood begins to soak his shirt running down into his boot. But Jackson steadies himself, levels his pistol, click.

The hammer catches halfway. Recocks, aims again, and fire. Dickinson is struck in the abdomen and crumbles to the ground. By sundown, he's dead. Jackson walks away. That bullet remained buried in his chest for the rest of his life. Later he boasts to a friend, If he had shot me through the brain, sir, I should still have killed him.

It would not be Jackson's last duel, nor the last time he would take a bullet in one. Violence shadowed his entire life. The statesman, John Quincy Adams, and the duelist Andrew Jackson, both born in the same year, 1767. Two sides of the same wild American coin, one modeled by books in diplomacy, the other by war and frontier grit. These two men are on a collision course, moving slow. but inevitably toward an election that will redefine power, politics, and the presidency itself. This is the American story, The Beginnings, Adapted from the book of the same title by David Barton and Tim Barton. Episode 13, the birth of American political warfare.

John Quincy Adams grew up with the weight of the Republic pressing on his small shoulders when his father was sent to Europe as a diplomat during the Revolutionary War, 10-year-old John Quincy went with him and served as his father's secretary. There he learned diplomacy before he learned how to shave. He didn't really have a typical childhood. Expectations were very high. In a letter from his mother Abigail written to him when he first went to Europe with his dad, she wrote,

You have constantly been upon my heart and mind. great learning and superior abilities, should you ever possess them, will be of little value and small estimation unless virtue, honor, truth, and integrity are added to them. Adhere to those religious sentiments and principles which were early instilled into your mind, and remember that you are accountable to your maker for all your words and actions.

Young Adams became something of a prodigy By his teenage years, he spoke eight languages and translated for diplomats. By adulthood, he had studied across Europe and then at Harvard, where he graduated second in his class. He trained as a lawyer. He served in diplomatic post under George Washington, who said this about him. I give it as my decided opinion that Mr. Adams is the most valuable public character we have abroad, and that there remains no doubt in my mind that he will prove him. himself to be the ablest of all our diplomatic corps.

Years later, when President Madison appointed John Quincy as America's diplomat to Russia, Adams and his wife Louisa moved there without their sons who were left behind with their grandparents, John and Abigail Adams. John Quincy wrote to his nine-year-old son, George, in a way reminiscent of how his mother wrote to him at a similar age. I have myself for many years made it a practice to read the Bible once every year. My custom is to read four or five chapters every morning immediately after rising from my bed. It employs about an hour of my time and seems to me the most suitable manner of beginning

the day. So great is my veneration for the Bible and so strong my belief that when duly read and meditated on it is of all books in the world, that which contributes most to me. make men good, wise, and happy. That the earlier my children begin to read it, the more steadily they pursue the practice of reading it throughout their lives. The more lively and confident will be my hopes that they will prove useful citizens to their country, respectable members of society, and a real blessing to their parents. John Quincy Adams was raised in and for public service. His parents took it seriously as a high and vital calling, and so did he.

Now, on the opposite spectrum, in the late 1700s of America, was Andrew Jackson. He was the youngest of three boys. His parents immigrated from Ireland, his father died days before Andrew's birth, and Andrew was the only one in his family born in America. He grew up poor, angry, and tough. He became the first president who was the son of an immigrant. He was born in a remote Scottish Irish settlement near the border of South and North Carolina. Even the people who lived there didn't know which state they were technically in.

His mother and two brothers died during the Revolutionary War. At 14, Andrew was an orphan, passed around to live with various relatives. One family member later recalled, He once said he never remembered receiving a gift as a child, and that after his mother's death, no kind encouraging words ever greeted his ear. At 17, he began studying law in Salisbury, North Carolina. But he was far from the bookish type.

One person who knew him at the time remembered, Andrew Jackson was the most roaring, rollicking, game-cocking, horse-racing, card-playing, mischievous fellow that ever lived in Salisbury. Yet, against all the odds, he rose, and he rose fast. He became Tennessee's first U.S. representative while George Washington was still president.

Shortly after, he was elected to the U.S. Senate. Thomas Jefferson, who presided over the Senate at the time as vice president, watched Jackson often boil over in debate. Jefferson later wrote, His passions are terrible. When I was president of the Senate, he was senator, and he could never speak on account of the rashness of his feelings. I have seen him attempt it repeatedly and is often choke with rage.

Then, Andrew Jackson fell hard, in love. Her name was Rachel, and to Jackson she was perfect in every way, except for one tiny inconvenient problem. She was already married to Louis Robarts. That was a really rocky marriage, and she fled back home to Nashville at one point, which is when the sparks flew between she and Jackson. Roberts eventually filed for divorce from Rachel, and then she married Jackson, only to be shocked three years later to find out that her divorce had not legally been finalized.

Once Robarts finally obtained the official divorce, Jackson and Rachel tied the knot again to demonstrate their commitment to keeping things proper and legal. At least that was the version of the story that Jackson insisted on as he entered politics. But evidence points to Jackson and Rachel living together his husband and wife way before Robarts filed for divorce. There were references to Rachel being called Mrs. Jackson in late 1790 and early 1791. That scandal never left them, and it would later be weaponized. When James Monroe became the fifth president, he selected John Quincy Adams as a secretary of state. Adams became the chief architect of American diplomacy. The Monroe Doctrine? Yeah, mostly designed by Adams. In December 1817, Secretary of War, John Calhoun authorized Andrew Jackson to pursue Seminole Raiders into Spanish Florida.

But Calhoun strictly told him not to attack Spanish forts. The U.S. didn't want to jeopardize its negotiations with Spain to acquire Florida. Jackson ignored the restraint. He stormed into Spanish territory, rolled over the Seminoles, and, he stormed into Spanish territory, rolled over the Seminoles, and, seized Pensacola. He effectively took control of West Florida. He claimed Monroe had authorized it, but no such evidence ever surfaced. Speaker of the House, Henry Clay, viewed Jackson as dangerous. Clay pushed for a congressional investigation into Jackson's Florida campaign. The hearings, they dragged on for weeks, and in the end, Jackson was cleared. But the attention boosted his political profile all across the small nation. Not long after, Florida officially passed into American hands through the Adams-onis Treaty of 1819,

who was negotiated by John Quincy. The statesman and the duelist. Jackson took Florida by force. Adams took it by diplomacy. These two sides of America finally collided in 1824 in the presidential election. There were four candidates, Adams, Jackson, William Crawford, and Henry Clay. newspapers were already in love with Jackson. He was the hero of the Battle of New Orleans.

They compared him to George Washington. Jackson was the first candidate to run against the Washington, D.C. establishment, and he framed himself as the enemy of elites and political insiders. It is now a contest between a few demagogues and the people. Jackson won, the most electoral votes, but not the majority. The final tally, Jackson with 99, Adams with 84, Crawford 41, Clay 37. That meant, according to the Constitution's 12th Amendment, the election went to the House of Representatives, and each state got one vote, determined by a vote taken among all the congressmen from that state.

Only the top three candidates were on the House ballot, so Henry Clay was eliminated. Since Clay despised Jackson, he threw his support behind Adams. The two had worked together before, including being on the team in Belgium that negotiated the treaty ending the War of 1812. Adams and Clay held a private meeting before the House vote, though there's no evidence that any specific deal was made. Two of Jackson's men cornered the lone representative from Illinois in a hotel room, pressing him to vote against Adams. They promised to ruin him if he didn't. Finally, the House voted.

On the first ballot, seven states chose Jackson. Four went to Crawford. Thirteen chose Adams. It was over. Adams became the sixth president of the United States. A friend sprinted from the Capitol to Adams' home on F Street with the news. When Adams then chose Henry Clay as Secretary of State, Jackson and his camp exploded. they labeled it a corrupt bargain.

They insisted the presidency had been stolen, even though Adams was chosen in strict compliance with the provisions in the Constitution. Adams, however, asked Jackson to serve as the Secretary of War. But Jackson refused. There was no way he would serve the man he thought had cheated him out of the presidency. Jackson left Washington enraged, but determined.

From that moment forward, he declared political war on John Quincy Adams. It's no secret that the checkout line feels a lot heavier now, doesn't it? Those daily essentials are ending up. She's on a credit card. Those double-digit interest rates are quietly draining your bank account. If that debt is starting to feel heavy, you are not alone. And if you're a homeowner, you've likely looked at your mortgage rate and thought, I can't touch that.

Well, American financing smart equity loan. With this, you don't have to. It allows you to wipe out high interest debt and lower your monthly overhead while keeping your primary mortgage intact. It's a surgical strike against debt. And unlike fluctuating HELOC, the smart equity loan is a fixed rate loan. That gives you the predictable monthly payment, month after month. At American financing, there's never any upfront fees to find out even qualify for it. So talk to a salary-based consultant today, the experts who are paid to help you save not to sell you more than you need.

There's no upfront fees to find out if you qualify, so call them at 800906 2440, 8009062440, or visit Americanfinancing.net. NMLS-18233-4, NMLS Consumer Access.org. APR for rates in the 5 starts at 6.327 for well-4%. Call 800906 2440 for details about credit costs and terms. Visit Americanfinancing.net, average savings based on borrowers who save it for $200. Hey, if you're enjoying this and you want to keep going, you don't have to wait a week for the next episode. Torch Insiders already have access to episodes 1 through 15 of the American story right now, ad-free. Just go to glenbeck.com slash torch or torch250.com and unlock the full experience today. From day one of John Quincy Adams' presidency, Andrew Jackson's supporters launched an all-out assault. They repeated the wild charge that Adams win was a corrupt bargain with Henry Clay, stealing the election from the people's hero, Jackson.

It was a full-blown campaign of character assassination, and over the next four years, the attacks were unrelenting. Jackson's crew formed a central corresponding committee in Nashville to crank out this propaganda. Similar committees popped up all across the South and the West coordinating smears on Adams and rallying the Jackson base. Meanwhile, President Adams ran the White House like it was still the 1700s. He had his cabinet, of course, but he had no personal staff other than his middle son, John, who worked as his secretary and ran errands. Jackson supporters accused Adams of filling the government with his allies. But the irony was, he didn't use patronage at all. In fact, his own supporters were furious with him

for failing to do so. It drove Henry Clay out of his mind. Adams' vision for America was expansive and optimistic. He promoted domestic improvements, highways. canals, the Department of the Interior to oversee the development. He called for a national astronomical observatory, scientific expeditions, a national university, and a naval academy. This whole agenda became known as the American system. It was a grand plan to knit the nation together with infrastructure and innovation. At first, Adams supporters had a majority in the House of Representatives, though not in the Senate. Adams could have pushed his American system plans, but he didn't think it was the proper role for a president to lobby for

legislation. He missed his small window, because after the 1826 midterm election, for the first time in U.S. history, a president faced a Congress entirely controlled by the opposition. Congress froze him out. By the time the 1828 election approached, Jackson's supporters had already been campaigning against Adams for four straight years. They introduced tactics that would define modern political warfare, focus on personalities, not policies. Team Jackson weaponized the press nationwide to amplify those claims. And at the center of this machine stood Amos Kendall,

a brilliant but ruthless strategist. Adams described Jackson as, The tool of Amos Kendall, the ruling mind of their dominion. Then the campaign turned physical. In 1828, April of that year, Adam sent his son John to deliver military nomination documents to Congress. As John passed through the Capitol Rotunda, Russell Jarvis, a reporter for a pro-Jackson newspaper, lunged from behind a pillar and punched him in the face. John chased after Jarvis until guards finally separated them.

Weeks earlier, Jarvis had crashed a White House event. where the young John had loudly called him out for insulting the president. President Adams was inclined to move on from the incident, but his cabinet insisted that he take action. So Adams sent a letter to the House of Representatives, which put together an investigative committee stacked with Jackson supporters. In the committee hearings, John Jr. ended up being questioned by the editor of the very newspaper that his attacker worked for.

Jarvis, of course, walked free. zero punishment for assaulting the president's son. Adams then realized his enemies had free reign when it came to he and his family. In a letter to his youngest son Charles, he vented that Congress was, united by a spirit of bitter, unrelenting, persecuting malice against me individually and against the administration, which they conspired to overthrow. By this point, Adam's supporters had begun to fight dirty as well. They launched attacks on Jackson's personal life, claiming his wife Rachel was an adulteress and a bigamist,

digging into her messy first marriage and a quick remarriage to Jackson. This marked the very first time a woman became the central target in a presidential campaign. The public cruelty had a devastating effect on Rachel Jackson. She said, The enemies of the general have dipped their arrows in wormwood and gall and sped them at me. Almighty God, was there ever anything equal to it? Well, Jackson boiled with rage. He wasn't used to being unable to retaliate physically.

He told a close friend, How hard it is to keep the cowhide from some of these villains. I have made many sacrifices for the good of my country, but the present being placed in a situation that I cannot act and punish those slanderers, not only of me, but Mrs. Jay, is a sacrifice too great to be well endured, yet I must bear with it. Andrew Jackson won in a landslide, 178 to 83 in the Electoral College, with 56% of the popular vote. His supporters across the nation were as static, but Rachel Jackson said,

Well, for Mr. Jackson's sake, I am glad. For my own part, I never wished it. At that point in our nation's history, Adams and his father were the only two presidents to be denied a second term. Adams thought his life in public service was over, writing in his journal. The son of my political career sets in deepest gloom, but that of the country shines unclouded. On December 17th, 1828, just weeks after the election, the Jackson's were the hermitage, their plantation. outside of Nashville, Tennessee, and Rachel suddenly collapsed in pain.

Five days later, she died of a heart attack. She was 61 years old. Jackson was devastated and furious. He blamed the campaign attacks for her death. On her tombstone, he had these words inscribed. A being so gentle and so virtuous, slander might wound but could not dishonor. Adams knew that Jackson burned with fury,

blaming him for the campaign attack, so he opted not to attend Jackson's inauguration and moved out of the White House the night before the ceremony. Jackson's inauguration party turned into total chaos. A mob crashed the White House, trashing the place, spilling food and punch and breaking furniture. Stewards tried to lure the crowd outside with tubs of whiskey while Jackson fled to hotel.

The party chaos was an indicator that Jackson's presidency would be unlike any other previous version. His administration became an insider's game. From Washington's presidency to the start of Jackson's, only 74 officials had been removed from civil service. But within the first year in office, Jackson had removed almost 1,000 and replaced them with his allies. Amos Kendall brought Francis Preston Blair to D.C. to run the Washington Globe newspaper as a total mouthpiece for the administration. In short order, Jackson essentially controlled the executive branch, Congress, and the press. Jackson also had a long tangled history with Native Americans. He had fought alongside them and mostly against them in countless battles.

The bottom line for him was that Indians were simply not compatible with white American interests. One of his top policy priorities was seeing Indians removed to designated territory west of the Mississippi River. He first said it would be a voluntary move. But it was never going to be. Congress obliged his passion with the Indian Removal Act of 1830. New Jersey Senator Theodore Freeling Heisen, a devout Christian, was one of the very few leaders to argue for the Indians. During the debates about passage of the Indian removal bill, he said this, where the Indian always has been, he enjoys an absolute right still to be

in the free exercise of his own modes of thought, government, and conduct. Do the obligations of justice change with the color of the skin? Is it one of the prerogatives of the white man that he may disregard the dictates of moral principles when an Indian shall be concerned? No. But Jackson argued removal was vital for making America safe. In his letter to the Creek Indians, he wrote, Friends and brothers, listen.

Where you now are, you and my white children are too near to each other to live in harmony and peace. Beyond the Great River Mississippi, where a part of your nation has gone, your father has provided a country large enough for all of you, and he advises you to remove to it. There, your white brothers will not trouble you. They will have no claim to the land, and you can live upon it,

you and all your children, as long as the grass grows or the water runs, in peace and plenty. It will be yours forever. The Cherokee wondered what more they have. to do to keep their land in the South. They had developed an alphabet for their language. Written, a constitution, published a newspaper, became farmers. It was much closer to assimilation than most tribes even attempted, yet they were still forced out. Even an 1832 Supreme Court

decision in favor of Cherokee rights couldn't save them. That decision ordered the release of Christian missionaries who had been jailed for working with the Cherokee in Georgia. But the state of Georgia and President Jackson refused to enforce the court's order. Jackson hated how those, quote, religious enthusiasts, as he called them, interfered with his Indian removal plan. But they could not stop it with Jackson at the helm. You know, people don't even realize that they're getting half the story online. If you only read one version of events, even from people you generally agree with,

you're still missing part of the picture. You're not finding the truth, the whole truth. you're finding their version of it. And that's why I love Freespoke. Free Spoke will let you compare how the left, right, and independent sources are all covering the same story. So you can draw your own conclusion.

The truth gets buried under bias and agenda, and Freespoke helps us dig it out. Even the searches, all of the searches, independent podcasts. So you can hear from people who have a conversation instead of reading from just the mainstream media. Freespoke doesn't track your searches or build a profile on you.

everything remains private and no algorithm is deciding the truth you're allowed to see. With Free Spoke Premium, you get a completely ad-free experience that keeps you focused on what matters. Download it for free. Freespoke.com slash Beck. Use a promo code Beck at 20% off. Stop letting others decide. Think for yourself with Free Spoke. Keeping yourself and your family safe means being prepared for situations that can, you know, put you or them in danger. It means being prepared for all the situations, you know. even those situations where deadly force is not needed.

In fact, it's a real problem. There are more of those than you think. And if you're a gun owner, it's unfortunately easy to think a gun will provide you all the safety it needs, but you never pull a gun unless you're prepared to kill somebody. And I'm not in all situations, you know, but they can go bad, fast. There is a tool for this. It's the burn a launcher. It's a non-lethal alternative to safeguarding your home that will teach somebody a very painful, non-lethal lesson.

It's legal in all 50 states, no permits or background checks. required and it can be used by all age groups over 18. My kids carry them in their backpacks. You'd be confident that you are prepared to defend yourself against potential threats. Go to burnah.com slash Glenn. Learn more about it. Try before you buy it a sportsman's warehouse located near you. You can find that location at Burnah, B-Y-R-N-A.com slash Glenn.

After losing the 1828 presidential race, Adams returned to his farm in Massachusetts, planning on a quiet life of books and nature far from the political grind of Washington, D.C. But the country, or at least Massachusetts, did not let him go so easily. In 1830, without him even campaigning, his neighbors elected him as Plymouth's representative in Congress. No president before or since has ever gone on to serve in the House. But Adams was old school, believing that if your community called you to serve, you had to go. But secretly, he relished the challenge. In his journal, he confessed,

My election as president of the United States was not half so gratifying to my inmost soul. No election or appointment conferred upon me ever gave me so much pleasure. Once in the House, Adams morphed into the ultimate defender of the people's voice. He became the nation's go-to champion for the right to petition the government.

He received stacks of these petitions from every corner of the nation, and he introduced every single one of them. Every other Monday, the House would set aside time for petitions, and Adams would unleash his hall. More and more, though, these pleas zeroed in on one explosive issue. The abolishing of slavery. Well, the tension built, like a storm cloud gathering over the Capitol. Adams had been growing increasingly bold in his anti-slavery stance for years. Flashback to the tail end of James Monroe's administration. During a heated cabinet debate, where everybody except Adams was a southern slaveholder,

Treasury Secretary William Crawford argued that a state could sneak in slavery after joining the union as a free state. Adams recorded his response to Crawford in his journal. I said that whatever a state legislature might do in point of fact, they could not by any rightful exercise of power establish slavery. The Declaration of Independence not only asserts the natural equality of all men and their unalienable right to liberty, but that the only just powers of government are derived from the consent of the governed. A power for one part of the people to make slaves of the other can never be derived from the government. the consent and is therefore not a just power. As Adams waged this lonely fight in the House, Andrew Jackson was gearing up for re-election

in 1832. His supporters embraced a new label, the Democratic Party. Jackson was the face of that party, but Martin Van Buren was the architect of the organized apparatus that stretched out through the states coordinating the newspapers, the committees, and turnout. For the campaign, Jackson embarked on the first major personal presidential tour, barnstorming from his Tennessee home all the way to Washington, D.C. His team was a well-oiled machine by now, and Jackson cruised to victory.

Just weeks after Jackson's re-election, a crisis erupted in which had been slow-boiling for years. In 1828 and 1832, Congress had passed sweeping tariff bills, which hammered the South's export-heavy economy. Southerners felt targeted by northern interests, suspected the terrorists were the opening act in a campaign against slavery itself. South Carolina nullified the tariff of 1832. Nullification was the theory that a state could void a federal law that it didn't like. It made Jackson nuts and furious, and despite being a southern slaveowner himself, Jackson was adamant. pro-union. Both sides took stock of their arms. Jackson shipped rifles to loyalists in South

Carolina, and the crisis hurled toward armed conflict. In December, Jackson unleashed a blistering public message to South Carolina. Nullification is incompatible with the existence of the union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded and destructive of the great object for which it was formed. Disunion by armed force is treason. Are you really ready to incur its guilt? Jackson's vice president, John Calhoun, was a nullification hawk.

He resigned in the middle of the crisis, accepting a U.S. Senate seat from South Carolina's legislature. Well, Jackson refused to blink as the crisis dragged on into March 1833. And his old nemesis, Henry Clay, swooped in with a compromise tariff that appeased the nullifiers. Jackson signed the bill, and South Carolina finally backed down from their secession threat. Jackson was perceptive about the crisis and what it meant for America's future, writing, The tariff was only the pretext and disunion and Southern Confederacy the real object. The next pretext will be the Negro or slavery question.

Jackson's next battlefront was money. Since he took office, he had always been hostile to the Second Bank of the United States. He believed the bank was an unaccountable engine of privilege. The bank's president, Nicholas Biddle, knew the bank. was vulnerable because of Jackson's opposition, so he decided to get the bank's charter renewed well ahead of when it was officially set to expire by law in 1836. He thought an early vote to renew would lock instability. Well Jackson, as he did with most things, took it personally. He told his new vice president, Martin Van Buren,

The bank, Mr. Van Buren, is trying to kill me, but I will kill him. it. Shortly into Jackson's second term, Congress approved the bank's re-charter, surprising, given that it supported the president on most other issues. But Jackson promptly vetoed the bill. It was a bold and unusual move since all previous presidents had only used the veto to block bills they considered unconstitutional. Jackson now claimed a broader mandate. He believed Congress should consult him on legislation. It was the opposite of John Quincy Adams and his philosophy. But then Jackson went even further. He planned to remove federal deposits from the bank and disperse them to hand-picked state banks. His cabinet disapproved. His Treasury Secretary

even refused to pull the trigger. So Jackson replaced him with a loyalist, Roger Taney. Then while Congress was out of session, Taney just moved all the deposits. During this, Controversy is when the donkey became the symbol of the Democratic Party. Jackson's critics had called him Andrew Jackass for his stubbornness. And in 1833, there was an editorial cartoon that showed a donkey with Jackson's face as federal funds moved from the national bank to state banks. The donkey stuck. And that's how we have the democratic symbol. The U.S. Senate soon delivered a major rebuke. In March 1834, spearheaded by Henry Clay, it passed the first ever censure of a president

for Jackson's removal of the federal deposits. Resolved that the president in the late executive proceedings in relation to the public revenue has assumed upon himself authority and power not conferred by the Constitution and laws, but in derogation of both. Jackson's contempt for Clay just poiled over saying,

He is certainly the basest, meanest scoundrel that ever disgraced the image of his God. Meanwhile in the House, Adams continued confronting what he called slaveocracy. From its very beginning, the Democratic Party fiercely protected slavery. Because Adams continued presenting anti-slavery petitions, Democrats implemented a House rule forbidding any anti-slavery petition from being received, considered, discussed, or acted on. It actually became known as the John Quincy Adams' gag rule, but Adams just kept presenting petitions anyway, and because of it, he received a steady stream of death threats. One promised,

You will, when least expected, be shot down in the street. All your damned guts will be cut out in the dark. Adams wrote, The best actions of my life make me do. nothing but enemies. The threat of political violence was growing now in American life. In January 1835, President Jackson was leaving the Capitol after attending a funeral when an assassin stepped in his path, pulled out a pistol, and squeezed the trigger.

Luckily, it failed to fire. The assassin dropped the pistol and immediately pulled out another, again, pulling the trigger at point-blank range. The second pistol also misfired. The odds of two guns in a row misfiring like that were later calculated at 125,000 to 1. The would-be assassin, Richard Lawrence, was found not guilty by reason of insanity and spent the rest of his life in a mental institution. The deadline for the final removal of the Cherokees was 1838. The year after Jackson left the White House.

When the time came, most Cherokees had not left their lands. So the forced removal began. U.S. soldiers escorted families west. The march was brutal. Of the 16,000 Cherokees forced out, 4,000 died along what became known as the Trail of Tears. Years later, a Georgia soldier said, I fought through the Civil War

and have seen men shot to pieces and slaughtered by thousands. But the Cherokee removal was the cruelest work. I ever knew. During the final removal, Martin Van Buren was president. But the policy that led to the deaths was 100% Andrew Jackson's. In Jackson's farewell address in March, 1837, he somehow claimed benevolence in this policy. The philanthropist will rejoice that the remnant of that ill-fated race

has been at length placed beyond the reach of injury or oppression, and that the paternal care of the general government will hereafter watch over them and protect them. The words rang hollow against the miles of Cherokee graves. You've been hearing about the struggles with the country's housing market for a couple of years now. Higher mortgage rates have led to stagnation, and home sellers and buyers are sitting on the sideline. Well, the Fed has dropped the rates, but it really hasn't solved the issue.

Home buyers and sellers are facing, and if you need to sell or buy a home, I strongly urge you to check out my company. Real estate agents, I trust.com. Our agents are remarkable and equally important is that they're just good and decent people. They're like-minded. They share your values, my values, and they excel in helping people when the market is really tough. Our network of agents has helped us have our best year ever in 2025. We have served more of you than any other year since we started almost 15 years ago. In fact, Tanya and I used our agents in Florida and in Texas to sell our home in Texas, buy a home in Florida.

Just go to real estate agents.I trust.com. We'll show you how to sell or buy a home even in this tough market. The name says it all. Real estate agents, I trust.com. For more of the history that inspired this podcast series, be sure to read The American Story, The Beginnings, by David Barton and Tim Barton, available now at Wall Builder, It's 1839. The small ship sails through the night off the coast of Cuba.

In the bleak darkness of the ship's hold, a group of Africans pick at the locks of their chains. There are 53 of them, mostly men, and a few young women. They're all crammed together in this tiny space, seasick and terrified. Several of the men managed to wriggle free from the chains and find sugar cane knives in the hole. in the hold. They're desperate.

There's no time to deliberate. This may be their only chance. Suddenly, the men surge onto the death. In a burst of chaos, their blades flash in the moonlight and shouts split the air. Two crew members are quickly bludgeoned and stabbed to death. The ship's captain kills two of the Africans with his dagger before he meets the same fate. Blood mixes with assault water on the boards of the ship, and the Africans tie up the few surviving crewmen. surviving crew members, including Ruiz and Montez, two Spanish slave owners.

The Africans demand the Spaniards set a course for their home, which is Sierra Leone, on the west coast of Africa. The Africans, most of them from the Mende tribe, were kidnapped by Portuguese slave hunters and shipped in horrific conditions to Cuba. Cuba, a Spanish-speaking colony, had become a Spanish-speaking colony, had become. a thriving black market hub of the international slave trade, even though Spain itself had outlawed the practice. When the ship reached Cuba, the Africans were marched into holding pins and sold as property in open defiance of Spanish law. Two Spanish plantation owners, Ruiz and Montez,

purchased 53 of them. They herded the Africans aboard a small schooner named La Amistad, Friendship in Spanish. The plan was to move them to plantations elsewhere in the Caribbean for a lifetime of endless slave labor. Well, after the Africans took control of the Amistad, Ruiz and Montez, led them to believe they were sailing towards Africa. During the day, the Spaniards turned the ship eastward, letting the Africans believe the horizon pointed back to freedom. But at night, they quietly angled the ship north and west, steering it towards the United States. Well, days bled into weeks, and the captives began to realize something was wrong. The air grew cooler, with little to drink on board, dehydration set in, and the Amistad finally drifted near Long Island, where it was intercepted by an American Navy vessel.

The U.S. officers boarded. The Spanish slave owners rushed forward, pleading for protection. They claimed the Africans were criminals, murderers, and mutineers. is guilty of capital crimes, and they painted themselves as poor victims. While the Americans took control of the ship and released the Spaniards, the Africans were chained and thrown into a dank jail in Connecticut. Their revolt, their desperate fight for freedom, was now being described in legal terms, mutiny, murder, crimes punishable by death. The Spaniard government demanded that the Africans be returned as Spanish property under treaty obligations. President Martin Van Buren

agreed with Spain. He didn't want to offend foreign power or anger the slave-holding South. To him, this was all about diplomacy. To the captives, all signs pointed towards a death sentence. But a small group of Christian abolitionists refused to let the story end there. They recruited lawyers and raised money. Now, the language barrier was a huge. obstacle, so a local professor combed the docks of New York in hopes of finding somebody who could speak Mende. After days of searching, he found a former slave from West Africa, who is now a British sailor. The man understood enough Mende to serve as translator for the imprisoned Africans. At last, they could tell their story. Students and professors from nearby Yale University helped teach

the African prisoners English. Abolitionists brought them food. in clothing and read the Bible to them. The Amistad case went to a federal district court where the defense argued that these men were not slaves. They were kidnapped, free men. Their uprising was pure self-defense against pirates. The district court judge agreed, ruling the Africans, were free. But President Van Buren's U.S. attorney refused to accept the ruling and immediately appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Meanwhile, in Washington, the silver-haired John Quincy Adams continued waging his lonely war against slavery in the House of Representatives. Southern Congressman Henry Wise declared Adams was,

The acuteest, the astutist, the archest enemy of southern slavery that ever existed. In 1839, Adams introduced a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery outright. The House's infamous gag ruled smothered it before it. even be debated, but Adams pushed on anyway. He pushed so relentlessly that colleagues nicknamed him the hellhound of abolition. For the upcoming Supreme Court battle, the Africans abolitionist supporters decided they needed more legal firepower. So they approached Adams. By this time he was 73 years old. His hands trembled, his eyesight was failing, but he had argued before the Supreme Court decades earlier as a U.S. Senator, and he agreed to make sense.

the case before the court again, this time for a group of kidnapped Africans. Seven of the nine justices who would hear the Amistad case had been appointed by Andrew Jackson, including Chief Justice Roger Taney. Five of the judges were southern slave owners. This was not a friendly room for a case about black men claiming freedom. Adams addressed the court for nine hours over three days. He ranged across law, treaties, history, and conscience, and at the heart of it, he insisted on something older than any statute. I know of no other law that reaches the case of my clients, but the law of nature and of nature's God, on which our fathers placed our own national existence. When Adams had made his argument, he waited, nervously. The court took an unexpected

two-day recess when Justice Philip Barber died in his sleep. Now, only eight justices would decide the African's fate. On March 9, 1841, Adams was in the courtroom when the decision was announced. The government's appeal was dismissed by a vote of seven to one. Justice Joseph's story delivered the opinion. There does not seem to us to be any ground for doubt that these Negroes ought to be deemed free, and that the Spanish treaty interposes no obstacle to the just assertion of their rights. The captives were ordered released. Adam's arguments were widely printed, fueling the abolitionist cause. The founder of the Amistad Committee wrote him a formal letter of thanks, noting that he had refused any payment for his work.

When more money was raised to send the Africans home, of the original 53, 35 survived. The others had died along the way in prison or at sea. After two years of captivity in courtrooms, the survivors were finally going home. Now let's zoom out from that courtroom triumph. Contrast is jarring. While those 35 Africans sailed homeward, Andrew Jackson held over 150,000. 50 slaves at the Hermitage, his spread in Tennessee. He freed none of them in his will. In an 1804 advertisement for a runaway slave, Jackson offered a $50 reward for the man's

return and, quote, $10 extra for every hundred lashes any person will give him in the amount of 300. In his biography of Jackson, historian John Meacham includes an exchange between one of Jackson's slaves named Alfred and a white tutor at the Hermitage. The tutor wrote, quote, You white folks have easy times, don't you? asked Alfred. Why so, Alfred, I asked. You have liberty come and go as you will, he replied. I soon found that he was full of discontent with his lot.

I thought it wise to turn his attention to the brighter side. I showed him how freedom had its burdens as well as slavery, that God had so constituted human life that everyone in every one in every station had a load to carry, and that he was the wisest and happiest who contentedly did his duty and looked to a world beyond where all inequalities would be made even. Alfred didn't seem disposed to argue the question with me or combat my logic. He just quietly looked into my face and popped this question at me. How would you like to be a slave?

It is needless to say I backed out as gracefully as I could, but I have never yet, found an answer to the argument embodied in that question." The freeing of the Amistad Africans and the bondage of the people at the Hermitage existed at the same moment in the same nation, liberty and chains, law and cruelty, two realities moving side by side, often pretending not to see each other. By then, America had carried those two contradictions for over two centuries, but the Amistad case had cracked the facade just enough to let the truth shine through. A collision was coming. But that was still on the horizon with plenty of twists and turns on the American journey, including further

expansion and a strange war between neighbors. Coming up on the American story, The Beginnings. Houston is walking back to his hotel with a couple of Senator buddies, likely a few drinks deep, when he spots a large figure crossing the street just ahead. Houston rushes toward the man calling out in a booming voice. Are you Mr. Stanberry? The startled congressman turns towards him. Yes, sir.

Then you are a damned rascal. Well, out comes the Hickory cane that Houston whittled himself from a tree at Andrew Jackson's hermitage. Houston unloads on Stanberry, cracking him across the head, shoulders, and the back. Well, Stanberry staggers and tries to run, but Houston leaps on him like a wild slamming the big man to the ground. They wrestle in the dirt but horrified witnesses frees. Stanberry manages to pull a pistol out. He jams the barrel against Houston's chest and pulls the trigger.

Misfire. Houston, shocked that he's still alive, rips away the pistol. He jumps to his feet and aims more cane blows between Stanbury. Annsbury's legs. Just a reminder, I'd love you to rate and subscribe to the podcast and pass this on to a friend so it can be discovered by other people.