Marathon Pundit: Andrew Jackson, Tea Party President

Who was a Tea Party president?

No other than the hero of the Battle of New Orleans, the American Spectator argues.

The answer is Andrew Jackson, who would have slapped down the notion of American greatness conservatism with utter contempt because he believed the country's greatness emanated from its people, not its government. Jackson was the great conservative populist of American history, and his story bears study at a time when the country seems receptive to a well-crafted brand of conservative populism.

Indeed, conservative populism is the essence of the Tea Party -- opposed to big, intrusive government; angry about the corporate bailouts of the late Bush and early Obama administrations; fearful of the consequences of fiscal incontinence; suspicious of governmental favoritism; wary of excessive global ambition.

These concerns and fears were Jackson's concerns and fears 180 years ago when he became president, and his greatest legacy is his constant warning that governmental encroachments would lead to precisely the kinds of problems that are today besieging the country -- and roiling the Tea Party. That legacy deserves attention.

JACKSON WAS OF COURSE a Democrat, but the Democratic Party of that era was almost the polar opposite of today's version. The 19th century party emerged from the politics of Thomas Jefferson, who despised the governing Federalists of the early Republic for their elitist tendencies and push for concentrated federal power. Jefferson brought forth new political catch phrases: small government, strict construction of the Constitution, states' rights, reduced taxes, less intrusion into the lives of citizens. His administration, historian Joyce Appleby wrote, would speak for "the rational, selfimproving, independent man who could be counted on to take care of himself and his family if only intrusive institutions were removed."