It would be a nearly impossible proposition even today that a man with no formal education, who was the son of poor Irish immigrants and orphan at the age of fourteen, and not a member of the Washington elite would be a contender for the presidency of the United States of America. Moreover, how could a man with a mercurial temper, consumed by contradictions, and a reputation as a brutish thug who, not only lacked civility, but also who was known to confront his adversaries in brawls or duels even be a contender for the presidency? But not only was he a three-time candidate for the office of the presidency, Andrew Jackson was twice elected president and won the majority of the popular vote in the 1824 election. His predecessors—Washington, John Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and John Quincy Adams—had all been well-established, wealthy landowners before being elected. Jackson, who had escaped “living on the margins and at the mercy of others,” (Meacham: 8) and become not only an attorney, judge, congressman, but a famous general officer and war hero as well, was still not considered by the Washington elite to be a man of intelligence and scruples, and was therefore not worthy of the presidency. Jackson sought to prove them wrong, however, he did not intend to prove the establishment wrong by acquiescing and shifting to their vision of the presidency. Instead, Jackson desired to demonstrate to the people—he felt more than capable himself—of preserving the Union and further the supplanting of democratic ideals and prosperity to the American People. In doing so, Andrew Jackson would redefine the presidency itself and provide a preamble for the future of the nation. Jackson’s presidency and presidential legacy were shaped largely by Jackson’s steadfast commitment to upholding the Union, political ambition, and even Jackson’s personal passions.
Birth of Republic, Tragedy for Jackson
Andrew Jackson, named for his late lather, was born on March 15, 1767 in a settlement that some historians believe was in South Carolina. As a boy, Jackson was known to be somewhat slovenly and ill tempered. “Although fond of mimicry and crude levity, Andrew was not a particularly happy youngster. He was often cantankerous and extremely defensive. In part this sensitivity had physical origins…He was extremely sensitive to criticism in general and would try to punish anyone who ridiculed him, no matter how slight the offense” (Curtis: 8). This contempt of criticism and derision would never escape Jackson. Another aspect of Jackson’s character that followed him into the White House was that “He continually needed to prove himself. In short, he was a violent and predictable youngster—a most difficult but lively companion” (Curtis: 8).
“The birth of the Republic was, for Jackson, a time of unrelenting death” (Meacham: 10). Death surrounded Jackson. A battalion of British troops killed 113 men near Waxhaw, where Jackson was residing at the time. Jackson reveled in the stories his mother told him of Ulster heroes and of his Uncle Hugh’s tales of his military adventures. His relatives who had gone to fight the British were either returning with horrific scars, or worse, like Andrew’s brother Hugh, not returning at all. The young Jackson, however, developed not only a deep reverence for soldiering but also, what’s more, the cause of liberty itself. In 1781—which would prove to be a tragic year for Jackson, the fourteen-year-old Jackson had what was to become a famous encounter with the infamous Lieutenant Colonel Tarleton. “Bloody Tarleton”, as he was known due to his rapacious butchery, entered the home of a Jackson relative where the young Jackson was now trapped and demanded that the young man polish his boots. Jackson refused and an incensed Tarleton swung his sword at Jackson’s head. Jackson managed stop the blade with his left hand just as it reached his head. But Jackson’s brother Robert received a vicious blow to the head when he refused Tarleton’s order. Robert survived, but would soon thereafter, while still recovering for the blow to head, perish. Jackson’s mother would also die in 1781 Elizabeth Jackson had been tending to the needs of Jackson’s cousins in Charleston; her cause of death and burial place are unknown.
Jackson viewed his family as martyrs; they had died for the cause of liberty, he thought. Furthermore, Jackson always retained deep love and respect of his mother. After his triumphant victory at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815, General Jackson recounted some of the last words his mother spoke to him.
Andrew, if I should not see you again, I wish you to remember and treasure up some things I have already said to you: in this world you will have to make your own way. To do that you must have friends. You can make friends by being honest, and you can keep them by being steadfast. You must keep in mind that friends worth having will in the long run expect as much from you as they give to you. To forget an obligation or be ungrateful for a kindness is a base crime—not merely a fault or a sin, but an actual crime. Men guilty of it sooner or later must suffer the penalty. In personal conduct always be polite but never obsequious. None will respect you more than you respect yourself. Avoid quarrels as long as you can without yielding to imposition. But sustain your manhood always. Never bring a suit in law for assault battery or for defamation. The law affords no remedy for such outrages that can satisfy the feelings of a true man. Never wound the feelings of others. Never brook wanton outrage upon your own feelings. If you ever have to vindicate your feelings or defend your honor, do it calmly. If angry at first, wait till your wrath cools before you proceed (Meacham: 14)
As Meacham then points out, how much of this speech were truly Elizabeth Jackson’s words and how much of it was a canonization by her son his unknown, but his mother’s shadow and, what’s more, the shadow of the Revolutionary War invariably shaped Jackson profoundly. “Death had spared him, but only for a purpose: to build the ‘goodly heritage’ that could justify his mother’s sacrifice and his own survival” (Curtis: 18).
Jackson, the West, and the Indians
After the death of his mother, Jackson was not in good spirits. The modest inheritance he had received was foolishly squandered. He harbored resentment towards his relatives whom is mother had been attending to when she died. To make matters worse, Jackson was living with these relatives in Waxhaw, and refused repeated requests to merge his interests with interests of the family. Jackson had grand aspirations, was self-assured, and he was not going succumb to the will of anyone else.
Jackson moved to North Carolina and became an attorney. From there, Jackson received an appointment as a prosecutor that would send him into the frontier. Despite not being a naturally gifted frontiersman, Jackson proved himself capable. While in the frontier, Jackson first encountered Native Americans for the first time. Jackson, devote of cultural curiosity and experience with these Indians, shared the same attitudes towards these unknown people held by Nashville society. John Donelson, a friend of Jackson’s and soon to be Father-in-Law, was an experienced frontiersman by the time he and Jackson met. In January of 1779, Donelson had witnessed open hostilities by Chickamamauga warriors after, according to Donelson, the tribe had appeared to be friendly. Such stories, combined with his lack of intellectual curiosity on the issue, deeply influence the highly impressionable Jackson.
The frontier was attracting more and more settlers and there was not only a potential for hostilities, it was becoming to many a major issue of the day. “According to one estimate, from 1780 to 1794 Indians killed an average of one person every ten days within a five-mile radius of Nashville. Thirty settlers died in 1788, the year Jackson reached the settlement” (Curtis: 21). Every man in the Cumberland settlement was required to be armed and forming militias was thought to be a vital imperative. In his correspondence Jackson continually wrote described the Indians as “savages” and “barbarians.” But, as John Buchanan points out in Jackson’s Way: Andrew Jackson and the People of the Western Waters, Jackson always needed enemies—especially in politics—and the Indian issue was not going away.
Jackson had developed powerful friends while in Tennessee and Kentucky: William Blount, the first governor of the Southwest Territory; John Donelson, now Jackson’s Father-in-Law; and James Robertson, brigadier general of the militia, and other elites found Jackson poised for political ascension. All of Jackson’s friends were strong proponents of Western expansion and “land grabs.” Jackson’s support of Blount’s campaigns earned him a seat in the House of Representatives and an appointment to the United States Senate. Jackson gained notoriety when “At the end of his first session in Congress, Jackson refused to join in a vote for outing President George Washington. When Jackson did rise it was to speak on behalf of frontier preparedness. As congressman, he introduced a bill to reimburse Tennessee’s expenses on the Nick-a-Jack expedition of 1794. The young congressman was more angry than eloquent. He spoke of the savage barbarity of the frontier, of the tomahawk and the scalping knife. Having heard such blusterings before and having financed such retaliations in the past, Jackson’s new colleagues rapid Tennessee handsomely--$20,000 for defense, not one cent for razed fruit trees” (Curtis: 31). Jackson, however, loathed his senatorial position and resigned in 1798.
Jackson also suspected the Native Americans of collusion with foreign agents from England and Spain who encouraged the Indians to take up arms against the Americans in hopes of undermining the fledgling Union. In 1802 the governor effectually appointed Jackson to the position of major general of the Tennessee Militia. Already a staunch advocate of Indian removal, Jackson also proved himself to be a good commander. “What emerged over the next several years was a genuine military figure of commanding presence, a man who would demonstrate keen military intelligence, and a man who showed concern for his troops and went out of his way to see to their comfort and care” (Remini: 47). Jackson believed that his position was to serve not only his soldiers as best he could, but to also serve the people who had elected him.
Jackson’s days in the frontier shaped his presidency by instilling three things. First, Jackson developed a great appreciation for his friends and became fiercely loyal to those who were loyal to him. From the friends he made during his early years to loyal officers who served under him, Jackson would always seek their counsel and consistently convey his gratitude. Second, now a seasoned Indian fighter, Jackson did not believe that any harmonious existence could be forged between whites and Native Americans. Despite the fact that Jackson adopted an Indian child after finding him on the battlefield, Jackson always retained a negative view of Native Americans, constantly portraying them as backwards, bloodthirsty savages. In his Farewell Address in 1837, Jackson sought to justify his policy of removal. “The States which had so long been retarded in their improvement by the Indian tribes residing in the midst of them are at length relieved from the evil, and this unhappy race—the original dwellers in our land—are now placed in a situation where we may well hope that they will share in the blessings of civilization and be saved from that degradation and destruction to which they were rapidly hastening while they remained in the Sates; and while the safety and comfort of our citizens have been greatly promoted by their removal, the philanthropist will rejoice that the remnant of that ill-fated race has been at length placed beyond the reach of injury or oppression, and that the paternal care of the General Government will hereafter watch over them and protect them” (Jackson: 431). Finally, Jackson gained an enhanced drive to serve the Union. Besides his victories over Indian tribes, Jackson’s victories of the British and Spain bolstered his need to protect and advance the United States.
Jackson and the Presidency
When Jackson ran for president in 1824 he ran as a war hero and a champion of the people. His campaign diatribes continually played up his humble roots and how he had brought himself up by his bootstraps to become an accomplished politician and war hero. Jackson sought to give the people a greater voice—he viewed the President of United States as the voice of the people. “He viewed himself as a democratic tribune representing the people. And what Jackson meant by the people was ‘the real people,’ those yeoman farmers, laborers, mechanics, and planters who made up the vast majority of honest Americans, who worked for a living with their hands to produce tangible products, who were self-reliant, who believed in God, and who practiced economy and self-denial” (Ellis: 15) Populism was gaining more ground was the nation grew and grew up and the population at-large desired greater influence. But the political establishment did not view it that way. Many felt that the peasantry was not capable of political participation and were thusly not intended to have too much power.
During the debates between Federalists and Antifederalists, participants on both sided had either demurred or abrogated the need for an executive. Wasn’t the point of the revolution to get out from under crown rule, was the question asked by some. But the argument that won out was the need for a statesman so that foreign powers would take the fledgling nation seriously in international affairs. Speaker of the House Henry Clay, and presidential hopeful counter to Jackson in 1824, feared that Jackson would turn the presidency into a dictatorship. Clay was not unlike Jackson, he was a frontier lawyer with a penchant for drinking and gambling—Jackson too lived a rough and tumble life on occasion in the frontier. But whatever chances may have existed from political cooperation and coexistence between disappeared after the election. “Despite winning the popular vote by more than 40,00 votes out of 350,00 cast, Jackson was unable to secure a majority in the Electoral College because there were four candidates who won at least one state. Pursuant to the Twelfth Amendment, this sort of electoral deadlock is broken by the House of Representatives, which chooses from among the top three candidates. Clay…finished third but decided not to sit idly by. To stop Jackson, he offered his support to Adams, the runner-up, and this was decisive. Shortly thereafter, Adams chose Clay as his Secretary of State” (Magliocca: 17). This Corrupt Bargain, as it came to be known infuriated Jackson. Jackson had already despised the corruption he saw in Washington, but, apart from personal attacks on his wife Rachel, made his blood boil perhaps more than anything else. Moreover, it gave vindication to Jackson that the people needed a voice and further galvanized his supporters.
After a particularly vicious campaign—not unlike a one that took play 90 years later—in which supports of John Quincy Adams repeatedly and fecklessly portrayed Rachel Jackson as a bigamist and a whore, Jackson was elected President of the United States of America. An already emboldened Jackson was poised to take on the establishment and propagate his policies when, sadly, Rachel fell ill and passed away. Jackson, while feeling guilty for Rachel’s death himself because of her dislike of politics and life in the public light, blamed his opponents. He took public criticism even more personally now than he had in the past.
Aside from Indian removal, Jackson had two major issues to address. First, despite every president before him arguing otherwise, Jackson viewed the Second Bank of the United States as unconstitutional entity. The tenants of Jacksonian democracy are those that state the government should be beholden to the people. Who retained oversight over the Bank? The Bank was chartered by Congress and could only be rechartered by Congress. Jackson felt the people deserved a say in what they the Bank did with taxpayers’ money. Furthermore, Jackson did not like the idea of a few elites using tax dollars to invest as they saw fit, making a tidy profit for themselves and increasing national debt. Jackson abhorred debt. As a young man in Charleston he had got himself into stifling debt that took him years to get out from under. Apart from being undemocratic, Jackson also viewed the Bank is another corrupt entity within a corrupt system. One way that Jackson has differed from subsequent presidents is that while most have been—to use the cliché—heavy on rhetoric, light on action, Jackson was heavy in both areas. In the election of 1832, the Bank’s president, Nicholas Biddle, had wisely brought the Bank up for recharter in Congress. Biddle bet that during an election year Jackson would not make such a politically audacious move as to veto the Banks charter. But Biddle’s gamble didn’t pay off. Andrew Jackson, like he had already so many times before, vetoed the bill. “His predecessors had limited themselves to sending back bills on constitutional grounds. The first six presidents of the United States vetoed a total of nine bills’ (Meacham: 140), Jackson had just used his thirteenth veto.
Secondly, South Carolina had been threatening nullification of tariff laws that they felt unfairly targeted cotton producing states. Jackson’s Vice President, John C. Calhoun, a South Carolinian who Jackson would increasingly view as a conspirator, called these tariffs “abominations” and asserted that the North was profiting at the expense of the South. Calhoun argued that it was indeed constitutional for states to nullify federal laws if they imposed an undue burden on them. Furthermore, the sentiment of the Antifederalists was still rife among Southerners. The issue of States Rights is still a divisive on today. At the heart of the issue was the growing abolitionist movement in the North. If abolitionists gained enough momentum, they could indeed threaten the institution of slavery. Jackson himself was no abolitionist. He had owned slaves. For Jackson, all that mattered was the safety of the Union.
When it looked as if South Carolina would enact nullification, Jackson threatened military intervention to quell the insurrection. Jackson mobilized his cabinet on the legal and diplomatic fronts. Jackson also appealed to the public’s patriotism. “This wise and statesmenlike reassertion of the permanence of the Union was another broad appeal to all Americans to rally in defense of their country. It rejected secession in any form. And nullification was an abomination. Jackson labeled both pernicious. Many Americans at the time regarded secession as an intrinsic component of states’ rights, and for them to surrender it would not only emasculate the states’ rights philosophy but subvert individual liberty. Jackson divorced himself from these men with this message. He still retained his states’ rights creed, but now totally shorn of any authority to tamper with the structure and integrity of the Union.
Jacksonian democracy arose as the nation was maturing and growing, but, as Jacksonians' purported, the system of governance was not maturing at the same rate. Americans had not shed their blood and given their lives in order to secure better rights for wealthy landowners. All Americans felt they deserved a voice and sought someone who would be that voice. Politics was no longer an arena just for the privileged. Furthermore, Jackson transformed the executive branch from the chief statesman, diplomat, and steward of the constitution, to what Americans are more familiar with today; an executive who enforces laws and plays an actively role in the crafting and passing of policy. Jackson also paved the way for another lawyer of humble beginnings to ascend to the presidency. Furthermore, the precedent set by Jackson during the South Carolina crisis set the stage for an even greater debate over states’ rights and secession, with which that attorney would later deal with the consequences.
