Old Hickory on religion and politics

It's gratuitous Andrew Jackson quote time again.  This one is from historian and Jackson biographer Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., The White House Wasn't Always God's House Los Angeles Times 10/26/04 (also at CommonDreams.org).

George W. Bush's presidency is the first faith-based administration in U.S. history.

The founding fathers did not mention God in the Constitution, and the faithful often regarded our early presidents as insufficiently pious.

George Washington was a nominal Anglican who rarely stayed for Communion. John Adams was a Unitarian, which Trinitarians abhorred as heresy. Thomas Jefferson, denounced as an atheist, was actually a deist who detested organized religion and who produced an expurgated version of the New Testament with the miracles eliminated. Jefferson and James Madison, a nominal Episcopalian, were the architects of the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom. James Monroe was another Virginia Episcopalian. John Quincy Adams was another Massachusetts Unitarian. Andrew Jackson, pressed by clergy members to proclaim a national day of fasting to seek God's help in combating a cholera epidemic, replied that he could not do as they wished "without feeling that I might in some degree disturb the security which religion now enjoys in this country in its complete separation from the political concerns of the general government." (my emphasis)

Not that Old Hickory wasn't religious.  On the contrary.  Under his wife Rachel's influence, he became a devout Presbyterian.  It goes without saying that the General wasn't using the Bush dynasty's translation of the Bible. 

Robert Rimini tells the following story in Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Freedom, 1822-1832 (1981):

One clergyman, Peter Cartwright, acknowledged that the General "was, no doubt, in his prime of life, a very wicked man, [!??! urk!! ark!! sound of clothes rending] buthe always showed a great respect for the Christian religion, and the feelings of religious people, especially ministers of the Gospel."  Cartwright then related an incident that he had witnessed.  It seems he had preached one Sunday near the Hermitage [Old Hickory's home] and Jackson, by special request, invited him to dine along with several gentlemen and ladies.  One of these gentlemen, a young lawyer from Nashville, began baiting Cartwright during the dinner about his Christian beliefs.  The clergyman tried to evade the argument since he "plainly saw that his head was much softer than his heart."  He also "saw General Jackson's eye strike fire, as he sat by and heard the thrusts he made at the Christian religion."  Finally, the lawyer asked:

"Mr. Cartwright, do you believe there is any such place as hell, as a place of torment?"

"Yes, I do," replied Cartwright.

Jackson stirred in his seat, his eyes nailed to the lawyer.

"Well," chortled the lawyer, "I thank God I have too much good sense to believe any such thing."

Jackson could keep silent no longer.  "Well, sir," he stormed.  "I thank God that there is such a place of torment as hell."

The young man was astonished by the "great earnestness" with which Jackson spoke.  Unfortunately he did not have enough sense to leave it at that.

"Why, General Jackson, what do you want with such a place of torment as hell?"

To which Jackson replied, quick as lightning, "To put such d----d rascals as you are in, that oppose and vilify the Christian religion."

The young man gasped and fled the room.

If a genie were to appear and offer me three wishes, what I would wish for (after the ones having to do with Nastassja Kinski and Britney Spears) would be to have Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld required to spend just one hour locked in a room, arguing with the General.  If he was willing to scare the daylights out of some atheist punk lawyer, Old Hickory would have Rummy and the Dark Lord crawling out of there, trembling and whimpering, at the end of the session.