Former Democratic presidential candidate Jim Webb blasted the “myth of universal white privilege” in an op-ed praising former President Andrew Jackson after it was announced last week that he would be replaced on the $20 bill by abolitionist Harriet Tubman.

In an op-ed for The Washington Post, the former Virginia senator wrote that left-wing criticism of Jackson’s presidency “offers an indication of how far political correctness has invaded our educational system and skewed our national consciousness.”

“This dismissive characterization of one of our great presidents is not occurring in a vacuum,” Mr. Webb argued. “Any white person whose ancestral relations trace to the American South now risks being characterized as having roots based on bigotry and undeserved privilege. Meanwhile, race relations are at their worst point in decades.

“Far too many of our most important discussions are being debated emotionally, without full regard for historical facts,” he continued. “The myth of universal white privilege and universal disadvantage among racial minorities has become a mantra, even though white and minority cultures alike vary greatly in their ethnic and geographic origins, in their experiences in the United States and in their educational and financial well-being.”

Mr. Webb praised Jackson as “a transformational president, hated by the reigning English American elites as he brought populist, frontier-style democracy to our political system.”

He acknowledged that Jackson ordered the removal of Native American tribes east of the Mississippi River, but said the move was “supported by a string of presidents” and questioned whether Jackson’s motive was genocidal.

“Indeed, it would be difficult to call someone genocidal when years before, after one bloody fight, he brought an orphaned Native American baby from the battlefield to his home in Tennessee and raised him as his son,” Mr. Webb argued.

“Jackson was a rough-hewn brawler, a dueler and a fighter. For eight years he dominated American politics, bringing a coarse but refreshing openness to the country’s governing process,” he argued. “Mark Twain once commented that ‘to arrive at a just estimate of a renowned man’s character one must judge it by the standards of his time, not ours.’ By any standard we should respect both Jackson’s and Tubman’s contributions. And our national leaders should put aside their deliberate divisiveness and encourage that we do so.”

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