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Imperial Presidents
late September 17
Today was Constitution Day, a more sobering anniversary than it was eight years ago. Never in our lifetimes have an administration and congresses broken its vows to uphold the Constitution more than in the past eight years. But when we look back to the administration of Andrew Jackson, find some of the same complaints these past few years.
In this ca. 1834 cartoon, King Andrew the First, "King" Andrew Jackson, the seventh U.S. president (1829–1837) in royal raiment trampling the Constitution underfoot. (Edward Williams Clay, Lithograph, 27¾x 1 1¾ inches, courtesy of the Tennessee Historical Society.)![[Jackson_cartoon3.JPG]](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_a9M99rrGcEc/SNGAcKow9tI/AAAAAAAAANo/_PWd50yq4Jk/s1600/Jackson_cartoon3.JPG)
I came across this image while researching a piece I was writing for a Lebanese-American magazine on the historical subject of a painting by the famous Lebanese painter Victor Haddad that I had discovered. In reading about Jackson's foreign policy, I realized how much the Bush administration has in common with that of Jackson, something not lost on Haddad and all Lebanese.
Gen. Jackson is well loved in New Orleans and elsewhere.. It was the victory against the British he delivered to the city and the nation that made him a national hero. But as a president he circumvented the laws, Congress, and the Constitution to further global expansionism, particularly in the Middle East, where he serruptiously helped the Ottoman Empire rebuild its navy.
While some compared the President Jackson to to a king, there were others, such as Jesse Elliot, commodore of the USS Constitution, who saw him as an emporer, and themselves as his imperialists. There is a droll story that is the basis for Haddad's painting Julia Mamaea.
"In Théophile Gautier’s fantastique "Le pied de momie" (The Mummy’s Foot), first published in 1840, a man purchases in a Parisian curiosity shop the mummified foot of an Egyptian pharaoh’s daughter, only to be awakened the same night by Princess Hermonthis as she hops about his bedroom looking for her stolen appendage. The painting Julia Mamaea by the renowned Lebanese artist Victor Haddad evokes a similar scene: a Syrian Roman emperor and his mother, both of whom had been slain, search the world’s museums for their final resting places, which had been carried off in the late 1830s.
"That was when "the USS Constitution sailed into the harbors of Beirut," Haddad explains in the legend of the painting, included in Liban à travers les âges en cinquante trois tableaux—Lebanon Through the Ages in Fifty-Three Paintings. "On board were Commodore Jesse D. Elliott and his officers.…They went to work and in no time unearthed two sculptured sarcophagi of imported Preconnesian marble buried side by side. One sarcophagus bore an inscription to Julia Mamaea, mother of Alexander Severus. They placed them on board the frigate and took them back to the U.S.A., as Commodore Elliott thought it proper and fitting to offer the emperor’s sarcophagus to General Andrew Jackson, the president of the United States…as his last resting place."
"The Constitution was none other than "Old Ironsides," the War of 1812 naval hero spared the scrap heap thanks to public outcry and a little poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes. After undergoing extensive repairs at Charlestown Navy Yard under Comandant Elliott’s direction, it was recommissioned. Its first assignment was a three-year tour, from 1835 to 1838, as flagship of the Mediterranean squadron under Commodore Elliott.
"On March 18, 1845, approximately seven years after his return, Elliott wrote a letter to President Jackson, who was 'dying as fast as I can' at The Hermitage, to tell him of his intended gift: 'II made something of a speech at the National Institute and have offered for their acceptance the sarcophagus…with the suggestion that it might be tendered you for your final resting place. I pray you, General, to live on in the fear of the Lord; dying the death of a Roman soldier; an emperor’s coffin awaits you.'
"It will be no surprise to Tennesseans, New Orleanians, Floridians, and residents of places like Jacksonville, Florida—who know Andrew Jackson, respectively, as their noblest native son, the savior of their city, their first governor, and their city’s namesake—that President Jackson, champion of the common man, rejected Elliott’s gift.
"Feeble though he was, Jackson knew it was important enough a matter to put pen to paper and respond to the letter. 'I MUST DECLINE ACCEPTING THE HONOR INTENDED TO BE BESTOWED,' he wrote on March 26, 1845, less than three months before his death. 'I cannot consent that my mortal body shall be laid in a repository prepared for an Emperor or a King—my republican feelings and principles forbid it—the simplicity of our system of government forbids it.' He wished for nothing other than to be laid beside his departed wife, Rachel, in the garden of The Hermitage."
extract from:
"Two Sarcophagi from Beirut and The Man Who Would Be King: Based on the Painting Julia Mamaea by Victor Haddad" (<http://www.sendspace.com/file/88yz4m --downloadable pdf monograph)
It's certainly a droll story how that sarcophagus of a Roman emporer was offered to President Jackson as his "final resting place." The similarities between Jackson's administration to George Bush's has not been lost on Haddad. Reviewing Jackson's presidency and Jesse D.. Elliott's tenure as commodore of the USS Constitution has additional relevancy now if we comparing them to the potential President McCain. We all know what a military hero Jackson was, and McCain is no General Jackson. As everyone knows, but most are afraid to admit outloud, McCain is actually a counterfeit hero and can be better compared to the infamous Commodore Jesse Elliott than Jackson.
As much as having a military background has in the past been lauded as a superior qualification in a presidential candidate, it should be remembered that career military officers are by definition aggressive personalities and are trained to execute wars, not peace. What is needed now is not someone who uses his experience as a POW as a qualification for president. Everyone in the world is now a prisoner of war, thanks to George W. Bush, his administration, the neo-cons, and their congressional fellow travelers. We need an administration and congress who will free us.
What is needed in a vice president is not a hockey mom, a pit bull, a pig with lip stick and telescopic eyes which can see Russia from Alaska, or whatever the hell Sarah Palin is. What we need now more than ever are a president and vice president who are not aggressive personalities, who are interested in and capable of diplomacy and of appointing diplomats, not provocateurs, to be ambassadors, who have no interest in kicking the enemies' teeth in, or of being cheerleaders (or sideline moms) to those who do. We need to send our warriors (and socker moms) to war, but elect statesmen, not warriors, to end and keep us out of wars. And we need to end U.S. imperial expansionism, which is what the fraudulent War of Terror is.
While working on the article on this painting of Victor Haddad, I became good friends with him. He and, no doubt, the majority of Lebanese would like to see Obama become president, despite his pandering to AIPAC and Israel. It is our friendship that got me thinking how selfish we are if we don't think about how the rest of the world would like us to vote, and how who the next president could affect the lives of other people throughout the world more than it does us. It could be a matter of tens of millions more souls dying and suffering. It's likely that a higher percentage of the public in Lebanon are famliar with our constitution than of U.S. citizens. And certainly more Lebanese know about the USS Constitution sailing out of Beirut harbor loaded with their antiquities, including the sarcophagi of the Roman emporer Alexandrus Severus and his mother, Julia Mamaea.
In the past It has seemed a luxury to vote for a third-party candidate. Now it seems more necessary than ever. Yet, It's also apparent that this era of imperial presidents will continue no matter how we vote, especially if Congress continues to let us down.
From: ojosciollos@yahoo.com