#jackson administration

[deadpresidents]

Do you ever have ideas for historical tv series or movies about presidents like Death by lightning or Manhunt?

Of course. I have a notebook full of ideas that will never get made!

If I still knew how to write, I'd be making a series right now about the Petticoat Affair. John and Peggy Eaton, a grieving Andrew Jackson, clever and ambitious Martin Van Buren, troublesome John C. Calhoun, sex scandals, a catty Cabinet and their stuffy political wives causing drama in Antebellum Washington! How is this not a limited series on Netflix already?!?!

If you've never heard of it, just go read that Wikipedia article and then tell me how badly you want to watch six episodes about that story. I'm already casting Sarah Paulson as Floride Calhoun.

[deadpresidents]

"Van Buren is as opposite to General Jackson as dung is to a diamond...He is what the English call a 'dandy.' When he enters the Senate chamber in the morning, he struts and swaggers like a crow in the gutter. He is laced up in corsets, such as women in town wear, and, if possible, tighter than the best of them. It would be difficult to say, from his personal appearance, whether he was a man or woman, but for his large...whiskers."

-- Congressman Davy Crockett of Tennessee, on then-Vice President Martin Van Buren, 1835