Talk:Andrew Jackson

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You include in your quotes from Andrew Jackson the following: "Corporations have neither bodies to kick or souls to damn" (as do other selections of Jackson quotes). However, I have never seen anywhere the context in which this statement was made, and it has also been attributed to an 18th century English politician. Of course the fact that somebody else may have used it first would not have prevented Jackson from doing so, but in view of the uncertainty raised by the alternative attribution I would appreciate knowqing where and when Jackson is supposed to have said it.

[edit] Den of Vipers

Andrew Jackson and the Bank of the United States: An interesting bit of history concerning “Old Hickory” is very small booklet (only six pages of text) by Stan V. Henkels, privately printed in an edition of 310 books by his son, Stan V. Henkels, Jr. in 1928. According to this book, around the year 1883, Henkels found the original minutes of the committee of Philadelphia citizens that was sent to Washington in 1834, signed by the members of the committee. A few years later, a reporter from the Evening Telegraph asked him if he had anything new and interesting. Henkels told him about this story and it was printed in the paper under the title “A Relic of St. Andrew”. After seeing the story in the newspaper, Caleb Cope, one of the members of the committee, came by to take a look at the paper. He said, “Stanislaus, I thought those minutes had been destroyed many, many years ago. Yes, that is my signature—and that is Comly's—and Struthers', and all the rest. My, but those were exciting times. Many others beside myself looked upon Andrew Jackson as a tyrant, but Stanislaus, I lived to see the day when I could bend my knee and say ‘God bless Andrew Jackson! It is to his great foresight and wisdom that we owe the admirable banking system that we have today.’”

The paper was sold at auction a few weeks after this incident. It was purchased by a son of the William Struthers who signed the minutes.

The report of the Philadelphia Committee—which does not contain Jackson's colorful language—can be read in Niles' Weekly Register, Vol. XLVI, pp. 8-10, March 1, 1834. An excerpt of the report can also be found—along with reports from the New York and Baltimore committees—in Gales and Seaton's Register of Debates in Congress, Vol. X, Part III, pp. 3074-5.

KHirsch 00:59, 9 March 2009 (UTC)