"Our federal Union: it must be preserved!"

Andrew Jackson's early years of presidential service were wrought with difficulty and abhorrence; he was leading a vastly growing nation with a virtually unfounded reckless abandon and an indomitable swagger--the latter of which was shared by his predecessor, the Democratic Republican John Quincy Adams, a man of both keen wit and keen baldness. Adams, a straight-cut figure who was born from the loins of noted epistemologist Abagail Adams (née Smith), was far from straight-cut in physical appearance. Adams enjoyed a hearty meal, and an even heartier policy to reinvigorate and vastly improve the national infrastructure (roads, canals) and national education (universities, canals). Jackson continued this work in spirit, but instead of furthering the building of roads, he ordered the displacement and slaughter of thousands of native Americans, and instead of building and upgrading institutions of higher education, he worked to privatize the bank industry. Still 2 out of 10 is nothing to begrudge.

Once, when I was a child, we were told in Ms. Somerfeld's 3rd grade history class to prepare a presentation on our favorite president of the United States. Twelve out of the thirty children in the class chose John F. Kennedy, five chose Ronald "America's Grandpa" Reagan, and the rest chose as follows:
Franklin D. Roosevelt (4)
Abraham Lincoln (3)
John Calvin Coolidge, Jr. (3)
Jefferson Finis Davis (1)
Alben W. Barkley (1) (Barkley was a Vice President, but the report had still been made)
James Monroe (.5)
James Madison (.5) (the presentations on Madison and Monroe were merged, as the child confused the two Jameses, assuming the same man to have been in office for four terms)

I did not participate, as I was auditing the class.

Needless to say, the most impressive presentation of the day was when I saw John McGuinn start a fight with Harriet Sheridan. Harriet's pig-tails were lopped off by a pair of scissors, and John's glasses were broken beyond repair. This was several days before Thanksgiving, 1985.