To many the recent antagonistic threats made by the US president have been a joke at best and shocking at worst. But any history buff would betray their profession if they didn’t admit that the common, modern tendency to tout that these two countries share the longest undefended border in the world is…well…modern. The sentiment that one often fights hardest with those they’re closest to has held true in many instances for the history of the peoples occupying this territory over the past 500 years. If the average person was more privy to the knowledge that much of Canadian history and identity was born out of NOT being American, like border issues around the war of 1812 or the 1867 US purchase of Alaska from Russia, what may initially produce confusion and fear may alternatively bring calm in the midst of chaos and clarity in the midst of confusion.
There are many time periods, political reactions and segments of society that are involved when talking about social change. In this series of examinations, I will begin with 7th American president Andrew Jackson and eventually expand to events before and after his terms.
The choice to focus on this man is unequivocally because he is the closest former US president to whom modern president Donald Trump can be compared. Jackson to some was seen as a quintessential, American rags to riches story. He also grew up during an era when the right to vote, arguably the barrier between first and second class citizenship, was primarily born out of one’s ability to acquire and/or maintain a considerable amount of wealth. It is important to note that this means that there were women and African-Americans (however small a proportion) who could legally vote before many white men across America. By the end of his presidency, the latter had gained voting rights at the direct price of the disenfranchisement of the former. For the mayhem-driven, allegiance-demanding, partisan president, this was no coincidence.
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