Some History

Sometimes I hate learning new things. Actually, I guess it's more that I kinda hate knowing some of things that I learn.

Paraphrasing Jackson Browne: I wanna be a happy idiot.

Ever wonder why 45* picked Andrew Jackson as his favorite POTUS / historical figure?

WaPo:

Even for those who are convinced that President Trump must go, the prospect of impeaching him is daunting.

In part, that’s because Trump is already calling his critics “spies” and “savages” and has warned of a civil war if the charges against him move forward. Imagine what the man will tweet if the U.S. Capitol Police ever turn up at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., telling him to pack his things.

The deeper reason there is so much uncertainty around impeachment is because no sitting president has ever actually been thrown out of office for high crimes and misdemeanors. Richard Nixon resigned before Congress could decide that he was, in fact, a crook, and both Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson were acquitted in their impeachment trials. Removal from office is hard to imagine because it has never happened.

Except that it has happened, to another real estate mogul turned politician with improper ties to foreign leaders. It’s just that he was a senator, not a president.

His name was William Blount, born in 1749 to a wealthy family in North Carolina, one of the most corrupt parts of British North America. In 1776, Blount joined the patriot cause as paymaster for the new state. While handling large volumes of IOUs, many of them in the form of western lands promised to soldiers, he saw firsthand how those in power could profit from their duties.

He liked what he saw.

With independence won in 1783, most people in North Carolina wanted to make western lands available for poor settlers as well as patriotic veterans. But with so many groups — the Cherokee and Creek nations, the Continental Congress, the British, the Spanish, etc. — vying for the southern frontiers, no one knew how to claim those lands. Indeed, many settlers wanted to start a new state just west of North Carolina, where no one owned too many acres and people could pay their taxes in pelts.

Blount had other ideas.

His strategy was simple: Make up the names of hundreds of settlers and then snap up the best plots with these ghost entries at North Carolina’s new land office, which opened in 1783. Then, he tried to raise land values by luring British investors with fairy tales of North America’s emerging real estate markets. “You will necessarily keep up a Report of as many [settlers] being about to go [west] as you possibly can,” he told one of his minions, “whether true or not.” There were many shady speculators in post-Revolution America, but none as audacious as Blount.

With his associates, among them a young lawyer named Andrew Jackson, Blount eventually “owned” about 1 million acres, much of it deep inside Indian country. He used these claims to gain influence with both state and federal officials. In 1790, Blount became governor of the Southwest Territory (today’s Tennessee), rejoicing to his brother that this post was “of great Importance to our Western Speculations.”

In the face of constant invasion, several hundred Cherokees declared war on the Southwest Territory on Sept. 11, 1792. For the next two years, Blount begged U.S. officials for aid, but federal authorities were focused on Ohio, prompting Blount and his confidants to privately rage that the do-gooders in the nation’s capital preferred “savage” friends to white families. So they took matters into their own hands, with Blount quietly instructing Jackson and other confidants to launch scorched-earth missions into Indian country.

Of course, the administrations of George Washington and John Adams were no friends of any Indians, but they still required U.S. citizens to abide by solemn treaties, including a new one with the Cherokee in 1794. Blount was all for peace if it would improve land values, but this treaty blocked white settlers from further trespassing on Indian grounds, which meant they could not buy Blount’s more remote claims.

The parallels are too fuckin' spooky:

Vastly in debt because of his high-flying speculations, Blount could not wait for federal officials to open more land for legal sale. So, in early 1797, he used his position as one of the first senators from Tennessee to approach British agents about invading the Spanish-held lands of the Gulf Coast. (Spain and Britain were then at war because of the French Revolution, while the United States clung to neutrality.)

They never really caught up with Blount, but they managed to drive him out of office, and he lived out his days in semi-exile in the wilds of Tennessee.