Did Andrew Jackson think the earth was flat?
Upvote:4
Almost nobody thought the Earth was flat by the 19th century. Even as early as Columbus, the argument was not that the Earth was round, but that it was small enough to go to India from Spain (it wasn't). The ancient Greek mathematician Eratosthenes was able to calculate the circumference of the earth with relatively good accuracy i.e. not flat. Columbus used Eratosthenes measurements and others' to convince the Spanish royalty that the Earth was smaller than it was. It was only after the new world was discovered that people began to be accused of being "flat-earthers" as just an unfounded insult to generally mean uneducated or outdated.
Upvote:9
The way that was phrased should be ringing bells right off the bat. The USA has a long and proud history of having tall tales (iow: outrageous lies) made up about opposing politicians. As a man who split and refounded the Democratic Party, and the first President from a "western" state, Andrew Jackson had more than the typical share of political opponents.
Here's how James Parton himself put it in his forward to his Jackson biography:
For many months I was immersed in this unique, bewildering collection, reading endless newspapers, pamphlets, books, without arriving at any conclusion whatever. If any one, at the end of a year even, had asked what I had yet discovered respecting General Jackson, I might have answered thus: “Andrew Jackson, I am given to understand, was a patriot and a traitor. He was one of the greatest of generals, and wholly ignorant of the art of war. A writer brilliant, elegant, eloquent, without being able to compose a correct sentence, or spell words of four syllables. The first of statesmen, he never devised, he never framed a measure. He was the most candid of men, and was capable of the profoundest dissimulation. A most law-defying, law-obeying citizen. A stickler for discipline, he never hesitated to disobey his superior. A democratic autocrat. An urbane savage. An atrocious saint.” So difficult is it to attain information respecting a man whom two thirds of his fellow citizens deified, and the other third vilified, for space of twelve years or more.
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