How to Fight Presidents: Defending Yourself Against the Badasses Who Ran This Country (7 page)

Andrew Jackson, the wild-eyed, hard-fighting, hard-partying, cane-wielding, and ball-stomping son of a bitch who ran our country for eight years was a whole lot of things, and all of them were crazy. He wasn’t always a lunatic, of course, he
aged
into it, like a fine wine, fermented with poison and stirred with an ax. If “violence and hatred” were a drink, it would never leave Jackson’s flask, but it’s
not
a drink, so instead he drank whiskey to fuel his rage. Jackson would hate with a “grand passion” and would “resort to petty and vindictive acts to nurture his hatred and keep it bright and strong and ferocious,” much like the man himself. It’s not said but widely believed that we had no use for the word “badass” until the minute Jackson was born.

Jackson’s measured and practiced hate-lust started when he was very young. Jackson was born without a father and his mother died when he was fourteen. As a result, he anticipated death around
every corner and was prepared to fight at any moment, which he did, all throughout school. Often picked on by very misguided bullies, it wasn’t uncommon for Andrew Jackson to come home with bruises, scars, and scrapes. At thirteen years old, having bested every available schoolyard bully in a three-state radius, Jackson decided to fight the British in the Revolutionary War. At the age when most of us were gleefully discovering our genitals for the first time, Jackson was tackling fully grown British soldiers with equal gusto.

In 1780, the thirteen-year-old Jackson was captured by British soldiers and taken as a prisoner of war, along with his brother. He was ordered to shine the shoes of his captors and, like the tiniest badass ever, refused, which earned him a long gash down his cheek from the sword of his oppressor. He was then forced to march shoeless, wound-undressed, without food or water, and full of bright and shiny hatred for forty miles from one prison camp to another, all while suffering from smallpox. The smallpox killed his brother but was just terrified enough of Jackson to back off quietly. He lost his brother, beat smallpox, fought in a war, marched miles barefoot, and got stabbed in the
fucking face
, and that’s just adolescence.

Having learned nothing about the evils of war, and because he simply had additional testicles instead of the part of the brain that regulates fear, Jackson went on to fight in the War of 1812 and the First Seminole War and, when he ran out of wars, he just went duel crazy. Jackson’s been in thirteen duels
that we know of
. While some historians dispute this number, everyone agrees that he loved him a duel. Every other day, Jackson was out dueling. Dueling this, dueling that. He was one dueling motherfucker.

One duel in particular stands out among all the rest. In 1806, Andrew Jackson engaged Charles Dickinson in a duel over gambling debts. Though Dickinson was widely known as a good shot, Jackson allowed him to fire first. It would be irresponsible of me not to repeat that: in a duel with pistols, Jackson
politely volunteered to be shot first
. Dickinson fired, nailed Jackson almost in the heart, and started to reload. Before he could finish, Jackson shot him dead. The man plays “Punch for Punch” with
bullets
.

Were Jackson to challenge you to a fight, it would most likely be a duel with pistols at either dawn or whenever-the-fuck-Andrew-Jackson-wants o’clock. The man
lived
to duel, and you know there’s only one way you can participate in multiple duels: you’re really,
really
good at them. Losing a duel isn’t like losing at soccer (unless your soccer league is really hardcore); you get shot and then you die. Between his dueling and his military career, Jackson had been shot so many times that scholars say he “
rattled like a bag of marbles
” when he walked, as a result of all of the never-removed bullets taking up residence in his body. The pieces of shrapnel that he carries around like internal medals of honor are about ten times larger than your balls and infinity times as armored.

Of course, there is a possibility that he’ll choose to fight you
with his trademark hickory cane, in which case you will also lose. In 1835, a lunatic named Richard Lawrence made the first documented assassination attempt on a president’s life when he pulled a gun on Andrew Jackson. The gun misfired, so he pulled out a second gun,
which also misfired
. Later, upon inspection, both guns fired without error. Some historians blame the weather for the temporary misfiring, but it’s pretty clear that the bullets, having previously consulted the
other
bullets rattling around Jackson’s body, had no interest in getting involved with what would end up being a futile suicide mission, as every bullet knows that Jackson doesn’t believe in getting shot to death. When Jackson was tired of watching Lawrence pull out gun after terrified gun, he beat the shit out of Lawrence with his cane until presidential aides had to restrain
Jackson
.

Jackson’s not just badass by presidential standards. He’s not just badass by
human
standards. He stacks up against John McClane and Shaft; the man is badass by
fictional hero standards
. He’s badass enough to be entirely made up, except he’s terrifyingly real and wants to kick your ass.

Here is what you need to know about Andrew Jackson: he is a man followed by tragedy. He lost friends, family members, and his beloved wife, Rachel. He never remarried after Rachel passed (shortly before he took office), and so America became his replacement family. And this was one family Andrew Jackson was determined not to lose. He loved, lived, and worshipped America; it completed him. Additionally, as the first popularly elected president, Jackson saw himself as both the physical embodiment of America and its sworn protector. If Jackson was one thing in his life, it was extra-strength, shit-hurlingly crazy. But if he was
two
things, it was crazy and loyal. An attack on Jackson meant an attack on America, and if he thought someone wanted to hurt America, you’d better believe he’d react like a crazed father protecting his children (assuming most fathers are nuts and, instead of fearing death like normal people, actively challenge it to fights).

Despite a legacy consisting of enough violence and death for twenty men, Jackson admitted to having two regrets on his deathbed:
“I didn’t shoot Henry Clay and I didn’t murder John C. Calhoun.” In a life rich with murdering people for little-to-no reason, Jackson’s only regret was that he didn’t kill
quite enough people
. People like Calhoun, who, it should be noted, was Jackson’s vice president.

No one is safe from Jackson’s wrath.

Martin Van Buren was a shitty guy. Not just because he was a bad president (though, yes, he was), and not just because he was pro-slavery (though, for the record, it is the stance of this book that slavery was and is wrong). Van Buren was shitty in a very general sort of way, and with all that that implies. If you were related to him, you’d dread Thanksgiving every year because you’d know
he
would be there, with his stupid stories and overbearing shittiness. If you saw him walking toward you, you’d cross to the other side of the street, out of fear that his aggressive and practiced shittiness would rub off on you. If you two went to high school together, you wouldn’t be friends with him. You’d be all “No, screw that guy, he’s so very shitty.”

It is my personal and admittedly ridiculous theory that Van Buren’s schoolteachers are solely responsible for his shittiness. Looking at Van Buren’s handwriting, and reading accounts about the man
from people who knew him, all signs point to the fact that he was most likely born left-handed. His schoolmasters, worried, perhaps, that Van Buren was a witch, would regularly beat him in the hand with a cane until he learned to write with his right hand. This lesson possibly informed everything about Van Buren, because it forced him to act in a way that was counter to what was right. Writing with his left hand felt right, but he had been conditioned to do the
opposite
of right (which, yes, troublingly, in this case means using his right hand). As a result of this conditioning, from that moment on, Van Buren was determined to, at every pass, do what was wrong. Or, for the purposes of this chapter, what was
shitty
.