Andrew Jackson
7. Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767-June 8, 1845; President 1829-1837)
Robert V. Remini, The Revolutionary Age of Andrew Jackson (Avon Books: New York, 1976).
John Buchanan, Jackson’s Way: The People of the Western Waters (John Wiley & Sons, Inc: Hoboken, NJ, 2001).
Jon Meacham, American Lion (Random House: New York, 2008).
ANDREW JACKSON (1767-1845) was the seventh president from 1829-1837 as a Democrat. His life spanned years in which America moved from colonial status to an independent, bustling, thriving republic. It became an industrial society, sure of itself and its future. The westward expansion continued under presidents of all stripes, clearing the West of the dominance of Indians, Mexicans, Spaniards, and the English.
He was born in South Carolina, son of Andrew Jackson and Elizabeth Hutchinson, both Irish immigrants. His life began in poverty. His mother wanted him to become a Presbyterian minister. Yet, his fits of anger, which would be common in his life, showed itself early. At age 13, while serving in the militia, the British captured him. The British officer in charge ordered Jackson to clean his boots. Jackson refused; the officer struck him with his sword, leaving Jackson's face and hand permanently scarred. He read and practiced law. He speculated in land. Jackson’s wife, Rachel Donelson Jackson, was charged with adultery when it was discovered that her first husband had never completed their divorce, as she believed. The divorce was finalized and Jackson and Rachel were remarried. None of this hindered his early career. It became an issue later at the national level. He loved to duel. He killed Charles Dickinson in a duel that he fought to preserve his wife's honor. He had no college education. He had one child.
In 1796, he helped draft the constitution of Tennessee. He was a justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court. He was in the House of Representatives in 1796-1797. He was twice in the Senate: 1797-1798 and 1823-1825. In between, serving in the military, he defeated the Creek Indians at Horseshoe Bend, Alabama in 1814.
Jackson reflected the vision that most Americans had of the westward advance of the nation. During the revolutionary era of Presidents, the hope was that the nation could advance without harm to the Indian. Many Americans came to believe this was not possible. The Indian needed to be defeated. Yet, his victories against the Indian were not the reason he became a national figure. With his 6,000 troops, he defeated 12,000 British troops in New Orleans in 1815. Here is where he gained the nickname “Old Hickory,” the toughest wood his soldiers knew. The war of 1812 experienced so many American defeats at the hands of the British it put into question the ability of America to defend its independence. Jackson became the national hero. In 1818, he briefly invaded Spanish Florida to stop the Seminoles from harassing frontier settlements. The American people could never do enough of Jackson. He had their devotion, trust, and love. They had profound faith in his ability to govern.
He once said, "I know what I am fit for. I can command a body of men in a rough way; but I am not fit to be President."
In 1824, he ran for president and had the most popular and electoral votes but not a majority. The House decided the election in the House in favor of John Quincy Adams. I start the Jacksonian era of American political life in 1825. The reason is that Jackson revealed much about his character in this defeat. He worked behind the scenes against everything John Quincy Adams sought to do during his presidency. John Quincy represented the privileged class from which America needed rescue.
In 1828, he defeated Adams, carrying the South and West. His Vice Presidents were John C. Calhoun and Martin Van Buren. He was 62 years old. He was suspicious of privilege, which he understood to be the new aristocracy, a term the revolution placed in contempt. To become truly democratic, the nation must end privilege. "Let the people rule" was theme. By this opposition, Jackson actually meant John Quincy Adams and the founders of the nation. He was the first president to openly campaign against the men who founded the country. He opened the doors of the White House on his Inauguration Day to his fellow Americans, admitting over 20,000 of them within 24 hours. People were so desperate to shake his hand that they almost suffocated him. According to Daniel Webster, impressed by the massive crowds, the people seemed to think Jackson was rescuing America from danger. Little did they know that Jackson was the danger from which America would need rescue. This would not become clear until the election of Lincoln. In spite of this populist appeal, he did support strict constructionist policies against the expansionist West. He stopped the congressional caucus from nominating presidential candidates and substituted the national convention in 1832.
Among the issues throughout the Jacksonian Era (1825-61) were questions like the following.
How does America become truly democratic? The development of a two party system became the way politicians enticed or encouraged people to exercise their right to vote. People like van Buren, Clay, Webster, and many others, became professional politicians. The pattern was Jefferson and limited federal government or Hamilton and a strong federal government. The Democrat Party emerged out of the labor of Martin van Buren, one who celebrated states’ rights, bringing together plain people of the North with the South. Calhoun would become the primary exponent of the theory of states’ rights. Democrats carefully staged the excited crowds that surrounded Old Hickory. The Republicans, people like John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, and Daniel Webster, accepted the basic principles of Alexander Hamilton. The two parties brought the political process closer to the people, in spite of their tendency to debase the whole notion of debating serious public issues. For the second term of Jackson and van Buren, the opponent was Henry Clay. For the Democrats, Clay represented financial power, privilege, and elitist rule. Jackson represented equality, liberty and popular rule (exempting the slave and the Indian). For Republicans, the election of 1832 was a struggle for representative government and against monarchy. Both parties appealed to the masses of the people. This would be the great contribution of the Jackson Era to American history. The President could be a leader of the masses of the people. The assumption of increased executive power by Jackson led to a new coalition that developed the Whig party, the traditional name for those who oppose concentrated political power in the hands of the chief executive. For their part, the Democrats assaulted the influence of privilege in the halls of Congress. Daniel Webster, emerging as the primary defender of the Constitution, stressed that the president is not the sole representative of the American people. The President seemed to seek a war with the Congress because of his belief that the American people were with him. Jacksonian democracy was the triumph of popular rule, setting aside the fears of the revolutionary war era for unbridled majority rule.
How does America hold the Union together when slavery threatened to tear it apart? The anti-slavery mood grew in the North. Most of New England had long since made it illegal. New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey followed. As Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin became states, they were also slave free. Europe had set slavery behind them. Most of Latin America (except Cuba and Brazil) had done so as well. It had become embarrassing to many that such a modern nation still had slaves within its borders. The rise of abolition in the North led to the rise of defenders of the peculiar institution in the South, Calhoun strongest among them. The emphasis of politicians was to preserve the Union at all cost.
With the sense of westward destiny, what should the country do with the Indian? The American people, in support of Jackson, knew what to do with the Indian. They would drive them off their ancestral lands. As important as the notion of equality of opportunity was to Americans, it never included the Indian. In a letter to James Monroe, he stated that he thought treaties with the Indian made no sense, since they were subjects of the United States. Jackson and the Congress united in the Indian Removal Act of 1830, requiring the Indian to move to territory west of the Mississippi, to what is now Oklahoma. It was, whether he knew it or not, the darkest chapter of the Jackson presidency. Many tribes moved willingly. Some soldiers forcibly removed them. A special horror awaited the Cherokee in Georgia. They called it their “trail of tears.” The total process removed 60,000 Indians beyond the Mississippi, with around 15,000 dying in the process. A biographer a few generations later could say that the Seminoles in Florida, under pressure from the firm policy of Jackson of removing all the tribes to the west of the Mississippi, was cruel, “as is so much of the progress of civilization.” Yet, their removal was wise and necessary. The government could not tolerate nomadic savages within regions devoted to the arts and the governing of white people.[1]
How should the nation resolve the struggle between the President and the Congress? The center of attention here was the Bank War, the war of Jackson against the Bank of the United States. It had a staggering impact on the course of American history. The Congress passed a bank bill. Many Americans had concern for the power of the Bank to control economic matters in the country, and Jackson was among them. Jackson vetoed the bill. The uniqueness here was that until now, the only time a President vetoed a bill was because he questioned the constitutionality of the bill. Jackson told Congress that they had better make sure he liked the Bill. It was news that Jackson said the Bank was not constitutional, when John Marshall in 1819 declared it was. Jackson would eventually dry up the resources of the Bank of America, making a united financial position by the country impossible and strengthening state banks. In his second term, Jackson dismissed a member of the Cabinet. Until then, a President had to seek the approval of Congress for dismissal, since Congress had acted to approve them in their position. Jackson took this power for himself and for all future presidents. He became the first “modern” President in terms of the executive power he used.
The country would move from a struggling to maintain its existence alongside the eastern seaboard to a continental power guaranteed of future greatness. Colonial life had a sense of belonging, with strong links to family, community, and church. The Jackson Era was a time of families disbursing westward. By the age of 21, a man was to have his place of work or “living” established. Women were to be wives and mothers. Bustling activity led to increase in the standard of living. The railroad brought people west. Americans accepted such change easily. Their inventiveness and adaptability drew the admiration of foreign visitors. When accused of pursuing wealth, Americans pointed out that the pursuit of wealth was open to all persons, whereas in Europe it was only the upper classes allowed to pursue it and keep it. It was a time when equality of opportunity was the emphasis, producing universal ambition and restless activity. The main purpose of government was to make sure that the contest was fair. In this Era, people wanted to make it materially and they championed equality. Unfortunately, they did not apply such ideas to blacks or to the Native American. It was a time of the rise of the common person, and Andrew Jackson was the supreme image of that rise.
He was the first president to ride on a railroad train, the first to be born in a log cabin and the first president a political party nominated.
He survived the first attempt to assassinate a president.
Spoils System--- Jackson rewarded many of his political supporters with government jobs. His critics coined the phrase the "spoils system." Jackson called the rotation system. It expanded the number of employees in the government. Its practical use was that the party in power determined who received government jobs.
Tariff and Nullification— When South Carolina refused to collect imports under his protective tariff he ordered army and naval forces to Charleston. In opposition to the Tariff of Abominations, the southern states, led by John C. Calhoun, declared that states had the right to nullify a law. If the federal government did not respect this right, the state had the right to secede from the Union. The Webster/Haynes debate centered around these concerns. Webster made an impassioned plea for liberty and Union. The result was that Jackson decided he wanted van Buren for his vice-President for his second term. The further result was that all Calhoun had was loyalty to his section, the South, rather than a national party. Jackson used armed forces to collect import duties; the crisis was resolved with a compromise bill sponsored by Henry Clay. South Carolina would back down because other slave-holding states saw the dubious quality of the right of nullification.
The Bank of the United States---Jackson vetoed the charter for the second Bank of the United States on the grounds that the bank was unconstitutional and favored eastern manufacturers instead of the common people. He ruined the Bank of the United States by depositing federal funds with state banks.
Jackson recognized the Republic of Texas in 1836.
The pro-slavery forces responded to abolitionist petitions, which began in 1831, with a series of gag rules that automatically "tabled" all such petitions, preventing them from being read or discussed. The House passed the Pinckney Resolutions, authored by Henry L. Pinckney of South Carolina, on May 26, 1836, the third of which was known from the beginning as the "gag rule" and passed with a vote of 117 to 68. (The first stated that Congress had no constitutional authority to interfere with slavery in the states and the second that it "ought not" do so in the District of Columbia.)
The life of Jackson ended in unparalleled success and triumph. His life represented what people later described as the American Dream. He was a self-made man, to use a term invented at this time, who through his own efforts and talents climbed from obscurity to the rank of first citizen in the nation.
He died eight years after his second term. He was happy to see the election of van Buren, the third Jackson term, so to speak. He was also proud to see the election of his protégé James K. Polk in 1845. Franklin Pierce, President in 1853, supported the policies of President Jackson as a member of Congress. James Buchannan, President in 1857, had been a member of the Jackson Administration as minister to Russia. My point is that the influence of Jackson extended well beyond his death.
As family, friends and servants surrounded him on the day of his death, people sobbed. “What is the matter with my dear children? Have I alarmed you? Oh, do not cry. Be good children, and we will all meet in heaven.”
[1] Edward M. Shepard, Martin Van Buren: American Statesmen (The Riverside Press: Cambridge, 1899).