Andrew Jackson: Hatred of the British

From a very young age, Jackson held a deep seated, Mel Gibsonish hatred of the British.

He volunteered at the age of thirteen to be a courier in the revolutionary War. He and his brother were captured and brought in front of a British Officer who ordered Jackson to clean his boots. Jackson refused and the officer then became upset, striking Jackson in the head with the flat part of his saber and leaving a scar running the entire length of his face for the rest of his life.

In prison, he and his brother nearly starved to death and became infected with small pox from the unsanitary conditions. His brother ended up dying on the journey back home after his mother won their release.

His mother died not too long after that and even if it was not directly caused by the British, he at least somewhat blamed them.

Jackson saw the British encroachments on American sovereignty such as the capture and impressment of American sailors after independence was won and saw many of the Indian revolts in the West as evidence of British aggression (he was probably right as often as he was wrong about this)

I think that if we try and look for the root cause of all his hatred of the British, we could also look to where his parents came from, Northern Ireland. I assume that his mother (his father died before he was born) had tales to tell of British Atrocities over there as there were many at the time.

Also, the class system created by the British Empire in which well born, educated elites rose to the heights of power and the lower classes toiled away in subservient roles created an environment that held Jackson, a poor self educated orphan, back.

He was a man that saw the world in black and white, and to him, the new Zion in which he lived was good, while the old world was corrupt and evil.

Does it still make sense for people to have this view of American Exceptionalism in the world of today? Can America have the moral superiority when it's not the underdog anymore?