I think it was NBC’s Saturday Night at the Movies where I first saw The President’s Lady, a film about the relationship between Andrew Jackson and Rachel Donelson Robards. I believe it’s a reasonably faithful depiction of the story of Jackson falling in love with Rachel who was married to a cad. Her husband told her that he had obtained a divorce which allowed Jackson and Rachel to marry, but two years later they found out that the divorce was never completed and their marriage was not legal. Then her husband got a divorce on the grounds of adultery, and they remarried, but the charge of adultery was hurled at her for the rest of her life, leading her to an early grave, or so believed Andrew Jackson.
The movie is a very sympathetic portrayal of both Rachel and Andrew, and it’s a shame that they had to put up with that narrow minded bigotry in those days.
And that’s the last sympathetic thing you’ll ever hear me say about Andrew Jackson. Because he was a piece of shit as far as I’m concerned. Long before he ran for president.
His reign on terror on the American Indians, his killing off of the banks, his spoils system. I won’t go on because like Trump, he just makes me sick. Unlike Trump, he had that one redeeming quality, his genuine love for his wife Rachel.
He’s the first president to rate the thumb down from me.