Trump Visits Andrew Jackson's Grave

            President Andrew Jackson has been attacked from several directions, and Barack Obama attempted to remove Jackson’s picture from the $20 bill. However, Donald Trump respects Jackson. He recently honored the seventh U.S. President by visiting his home in Nashville, Tennessee.

            Jarrett Stepman explains why Trump’s visit to Jackson’s grave matters in his article titled “Why Trump’s Visit to Andrew Jackson’s Grave Matters” published at The Daily Signal. Trump’s visit took place on March 15, the 250^th anniversary of Jackson’s birth. He is the first President since Ronald Reagan to visit Jackson’s home.

            There is a reason why Trump is drawn to Jackson. They are both outsiders who ran for office as a means to restore the United States to the nation created by the Founding Fathers. Stepman says that Jackson “attacked the permanent, entrenched bureaucracy, took action against crony capitalism, and fought to ensure that the ideas of limited government and federalism would survive.” Stepman continues:

   Jackson trusted that America would be strong if the people were strong, and the federal government limited to its proper place. And when the existence of the country itself was threatened, when so-called “nullifiers” threatened to disobey rightly-enacted federal laws and secede from the Union if they didn’t get their way, Jackson moved into action to defend the Constitution he swore to protect.

   For Jackson, the Constitution and the Declaration were at the heart of what he fought to preserve in this country. He wrote to a friend, “I have suffered too many privations in my youth for the establishment of that happy Constitution, and form of government, under which we live ever to violate its provisions, unless when dire necessity compels me; and then only to preserve my country, and the Constitution with it.”

            Stepman concludes his article: “The president is taking a stand for Jackson with this small gesture, which simply draws the line. It shows the world and the American people that we are proud of who we are and what we mean to be again.”

            Do you think that our current President is like Andrew Jackson in any way? I believe that he is like Jackson in much more than simply being an outsider. Jackson was very patriotic, and Trump is also. I believe that Jackson is one of Trump’s heroes. I believe that this is the reason that Trump went to Jackson’s home to honor him by laying a wreath on his grave for his birthday.