The USA in Jackson’s Time 1829-1837
by Mike Donovan
#7 - VP- John Calhoun – Born in a log cabin – lawyer - VP Martin Van Buren – An ego bigger than Reggie, Jesse, or Janet - The first ‘man of the people’ as prez – Old Hickory -
“I demand to be on the 20!”
Andrew Jackson 1831
1824 is avenged. Adams had stolen the election of 1824 in the House of Representatives, when Andrew Jackson was clearly the nation's favorite.
In the re-match, the election of 1828 AJ defeated Quincy Adams by a score of 178-83.
Popular vote: ----Jackson -----647,000
JQ Adams---508, 000
“Disunion by armed force is treason.”
Jackson was so influential a person that his time as President is given historical titles like, “The Age of Jackson” and “The Jacksonian Revolution.”
What the Jefferson “Revolution of 1800” was in theory, the Jackson revolution of 1828 was in practice. Here was no powdered wig aristocrat preaching that he was a man of the people. This the revolution from below was being led by a man from below, a tobacco chewing barroom brawler, who only just happened to be a lawyer and a politician.
Only with the liberalization of voting rights in the popular election could a regular guy like Andy Jackson have made it to the White House. By 1828 most states had removed property qualifications, creating an explosive increase in eligible voters. The loser in 1828, John Quincy Adams, received more popular votes than all the candidates in 1824 put together.
In ’32 Jackson clobbered National Republican Henry Clay 219-49. The Anti-Mason Party ran William Wirt. The election of 1832 marked the beginning of the selection of the nominee by convention. The Anti-Masons are credited with the innovation.
Popular vote 1832: -----Jackson D)-----687,000
Clay NR)-------530,000
Andrew Jackson is generally remembered as a rough frontiersman in the White House who gambled, chewed tobacco, and would start a fistfight over the slightest even imagined insult. True in part, but in fairness, he was an older man when he was president, had refined manners and was quite sociable. He wasn't the illiterate roughneck his critics made him out to be. Andrew was a great reader. The man built up a private law library and read history books and 20 newspapers a day. However he was fimous fur being a bad speller.
Jax was also in poor health. His White House years were a battle with pain as well as with problems and enemies. The wild side of older Andrew Jackson came out only when he was crossed.
Jackson was the hero of the Battle of New Orleans in 1814. But he is no hero to American Indians. He violated their rights and their persons more than any person in American history. To many Cherokee people Jackson is a genocidal racist. To the Democratic Party of Obama, he is a Founding Father and patron saint.
So Andrew Jackson was indeed a man of the people; the white people.
Jackson’s finest hour came when he stood up to South Carolina’s 1932 threats of secession over the tariff issue.
In this affair he threatened to personally hang the first man from SC that would defy the federal authorities. This was no idle threat. Jackson had earlier in his career nearly single-handedly started a war between the USA and Great Britain when he chased down two Brits into Florida, Armbrister and Arthunot and hung them. A&A were allegedly assisting Indians in raiding American territory although this was never proven and the two men never had a trial, let alone a fair one. The British prepared for war and it took great diplomatic effort to avoid a bloody conflict over his reckless deed.
Jackson stared down South Carolina over nullification and established the precedent later followed by Lincoln that secession without the permission of the remaining states was treason and would not stand.
BIO
Andrew Jackson was born in Waxhaw South Carolina in 1767 near the North Carolina border. He was the son of Irish immigrants. His father died two weeks before Andrew was born.
Jackson was anything but illiterate. When he was nine little Andy read the new Declaration of Independence for a group of adults. At the ripe old age of 14 he fought in the Revolutionary War, joining the local militia. Young Andrew was captured at the battle of Hanging Rock, the only President ever to have been a PW. Prisoner Jackson refused to polish the boots of a British officer. The no-good redcoat drew his sword and cut little Andy across the skull. Jax carried the physical (and no doubt the emotional) scar for life. Just after the British released him his mother died.
The orphaned AJ inherited some 400 English pounds from his grandfather, a merchant who had died in Ireland. Jackson was young and wild and he blew all the money in Charleston, gambling much of it on dice games and horses, plus a few NFL futures.
Then he studied law in Salisbury, North Carolina.
Andrew’s marriage was a source of controversy. He had wed Rachel Donelson Robards in August 1791. At the time Rachel and Andrew were under the impression that the divorce was official from her first husband, Lewis Robards. They later found out that Robards had delayed his divorce until September of ’93. The embarrassed couple then re-married on January the 7th, 1794.
It was all unintentional but when Jax campaigned for president the charges that Rachel was an adulteress would wound him severely. Worse, when these charges were being hurled at his wife, she was ill and dying. Jackson shielded her form these stories, but after he won the vote, she found out about it when a gardener left a newspaper on the kitchen table that he shouldn’t have left on the kitchen table. She was badly hurt and died within two weeks of learning of the scandal. You can imagine how much this embittered up the already combative Mr. Jackson. He entered the White House an angry widower with a scar on his head from a British sword, riddled with illness and pain, and the proud owner of over a hundred slaves. Mr. Mellow he was not. The Cherokees would soon learn that Jax had little of the quality of mercy.
When Tennessee earned statehood in 1796, the Volunteers chose Andrew Jackson as its first US Congressman. In 1797 Jackson was elected to the Senate. In 1798 Jackson resigned and for the next six years was a judge on the Tennessee high court. He wasn’t known for letting people off with light sentences. He made Judge Judy look like a loving angel.
In 1802 Jackson was chosen the leader of the TN state militia. It was in this capacity that he served in the War of 1812.
Our 8th President killed men in duels more than once. In 1805 Jackson had a dispute with a man in Tennessee named Charles Dickinson. It was something to do with how Jackson had settled a gambling dispute with CD's father in law. Perhaps Dickinson wanted to impress his wife. In any case he began writing nasty letters to Jackson calling him yellow and dishonest.
Then CD crossed the line. In 1806 he published an attack on Jackson in the Nashville Review, calling Jackson a coward and a ‘poltroon.’ You couldn’t get anyone mad at you today for calling them a ‘poltroon,’ but in 1806 this was crossing the line. ‘Liar,’ ‘cheat,’ ‘coward’ hey, no problem, but poltroon? “Hold it right there, buddy. Nobody calls me a poltroon.”
Hell, I don’t even know what a poltroon is!
Jackson had little choice but to challenge Dickinson to a duel. Jackson proved that he was no coward in presenting this challenge. Charlie Dickinson had a reputation as one of the best shots in the state. He was Jack Wilson in Shane.
The two men met under all the insane rules and Jackson held his shot. At 24 feet Dickinson fired. Jackson took the bullet from Dickinson square in the chest. It was inside him now, two inches from his heart. Jackson staggered but did not fall. Dickinson must have known he was in trouble. He now had no choice but to stand there and offer a free target.
Jackson was in a position now to fire the gun in the air, become a magnanimous hero and retain his honor. He steadied his figure, took slow aim, and blew Dickinson away.
Dickinson’s bullet sat in the White House, an inch from Jackson cold cold heart for eight years. It was never removed.
Jackson was a US Senator from 1823 to 1825.
Jackson’s cabinet
Secretary of State - Martin Van Buren -1829-1830
Edward Livingston -1830-1832
Louis McLane -------1833-1834
John Forsyth----------1834-1837
Sec of War - J.H. Eaton (controversial)-1829-1831
Lewis Cass ---------------1831-1837
B.F. Butler --------------- 1837
Sec of Treasury-S.D. Ingham ----------1829-1830
Louis McLane--------1830-1832
W. J. Duane-----------1833
R.B. Taney-----------1833-1834
Levi Woodbury------1834-1837
Att. General ------J.M. Berrien ----------1829-1831
R. B. Taney-----------1831-1833
B.F. Butler------------1833-1837
EVENTS
ELECTION OF 1828
INAUGURAL DEBACLE
FULTON THE LAST
SPECIE CIRCULAR
MAYSVILLE ROAD VETO
SAM PATCH
BLACK HAWK WAR
ENTER THE MORMONS
GARRISON RIOT OF 1831
NAT TURNER’S REBELLION 1831
ELECTION OF 1832
CHEROKEE REMOVAL
NULLIFICATION CRISIS
PEGGY O’NEAL SCANDAL
ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT
BATTLE OF THE ALAMO
CRISIS OVER B. U. S.
ELECTION OF 1828
Everyone knew that John Quincy Adams was on borrowed time in the White House from 1825 to 1829, and that baring a major event that changed the picture, the next President would be the increasingly famous and popular populist, Andy Jackson.
Senators that run for President today not only keep their seat in the Capitol, they use the office to help generate publicity for their campaign. Jackson was different. After losing in 1824, Jax resigned in October of 25 and announced that he was running for the Presidency in 1828. It was an easy decision for Jackson as he had never really wanted much to be a Senator and had only been appointed one by the Tennessee legislature in order to help run for President.
During the John Quincy Adams years the one party nation of Democratic-Republicans finally split off into two parties that could slug it out fair and square in the political arena. The supporters of Jackson evolved into the one-word “Democratic Party” the very one that we know today under that name. Their power base was in the South and West and their first political principle was opposition to the dominance of the nation by the bankers and aristocrats of New York and New England. The Democratic-Republicans of the fading Federalist ilk became “National Republicans.”
The election of Jackson broke the dynasty of the Secretaries. Four consecutive Secretaries of State had gone on to the White House (Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and John Quincy Adams.) Secretary of State Henry Clay had hoped to continue the trend but he came up short in 1828, and twice more thereafter for good measure. The office is certainly not the stepping stone to the White House today that it was in Monroe’s time. Al Haig tried to use that job experience to run for President in 1988 but it was a pathetic effort.
In 1828 there was little to choose between the positions of Adams and Jackson on issues such as the tariff and internal improvements. There were in fact very few hot issues to argue about in the campaign of 1828 so it generally came down to a mudslinging and popularity contest. There were many seriously slanderous remarks made and printed about Andy’s technically illegal marriage to Rachel.
There was also the so-called “Coffin Handbill” a flyer, which reminded voters of six American militiamen that Jackson had allegedly ordered executed for some infraction that did not fit the punishment. The charges of marital impropriety were sadly malicious and unfair, but the symbolism of the coffin handbill was a valid criticism. Jackson could slay a hundred Indians and then sleep like a baby, not something I personally admire or desire in a presidential candidate. Some historians count both matters as cheap shots in an especially vicious campaign. I only count one.
The Jackson campaign made the most of an alleged incident that took place when John Quincy Adams was minister to Russia. JQA allegedly procured an attractive Russian girl for an important Russian official, and it wasn’t to help him with paper work.
One of Jackson's campaign managers was Martin Van Buren of New York state. Van Buren decided that Jackson “needed an image tune-up” and planted a story in a New York paper that Jackson was a very religious man, and a regular member of the Presbyterian Church in Tennessee. Jackson never went to church on Sunday, but all is fair in love and politics. Other pro-Jackson newspapers from all over the country picked up the story and embellished it. By Election Day 1828 it was well known that Andrew Jackson led his family in prayer at the beginning of the day, at the end of the evening, and at all meals. And he bowed to Mecca (D.C.) too. (When he became President, AJ would accompany his wife to the church but then didn't go in. But after office he became a regular Presby churchgoer. He had wanted to go to church as President, but he didn't want to seem like he was doing it for political image.)
Mud on the White House Carpet – Jackson over Adams 1828
Jackson righted the wrong of 1824 and won the election handily.
Jackson did not do well in New England but everywhere else had broad support. The new administration retained the old administrations vice-president, John Calhoun.
The South and the West combined to checkmate the North to win the Election of 1828. It was now clear that this was the way things might be for some time; Ollie North vs. Sam South with Jim West casting the tiebreaker. It worked out that way in 1860 when the west sided with the North and produced the Civil War.
INAUGURATION FIASCO
The campaign had been such no-holds-barred cat-fight that Jackson broke with custom and did not pay a visit to the outgoing chief executive, John Quincy Adams. Adams caught the first stagecoach back to Boston where the weather matched his personality.
Because Jackson was such a man of the people he invited the public into the White House for the Inaugural party. It was a disaster. The place was overrun and overcrowded with poor people. When the Adams coach left town it was like the nation’s parents had gone away for the weekend. Every wino in Washington was welcome inside the White House with muddy boots, ruining furniture, breaking glass and getting drunk. Jackson’s guests were making fools of themselves and of the new democracy. Giant tubs of electric punch eventually had to be put out on the White House lawn to draw the rabble out of the house. Some fights had broken out at the party. The Democrats were here.
The 1829 Inaugural was such a public fiasco that it was citied by Jackson’s opponents in the election campaign of 1832 as indicative of his scruffy incompetence.
SPOILS
One of the worst things Jackson did as president was to install the spoils system. Most government jobs up till now were won on merit and retained on merit. Jackson immediately began rewarding political supporters with jobs and thus created the “spoils system” in American politics. The spoils system put a lot of good people out of work unfairly and it grew worse with each decade. Jackson's spoils spoiled the American political structure, and it wasn't until 1881 that a lunatic office-seeker murdered president Garfield and finally woke the country up to the evils of the party favor.
The term came from a comment from Jackson supporter William Marcy, a New York senator who wrote, “To the victor belong the spoils.”
Jackson defended his spoils system, arguing that the entrenched officials become stale and ineffective with prolonged tenure, and that rotation was healthy for democracy. This was a valid argument, but not the real reason he did it. If that were his only motive he could have installed fresh faces into political posts from all political parties, not just Dems.
AMOS AND BILLY
Jackson politely spent time with all the members of his cabinet, but when anything important had to be discussed there were only two men in the inner circle and only a couple more in the next layer of intimacy after that. The two closest advisors and confidants are names nor famous today. One was the Postmaster general, Mr Amos Kendall of Dunstable Mass, and Major William B. Lewis of Tennessee.
Lewis was the ‘president maker.’ Billy Lewis was the James Carville, Hamilton Jordan, Dick Morris, Harry Hopkins type for Andrew Jackson. Lewis lived and breathed political campaigning. If Jackson owed his success in politics to one person, it was Major Lewis.
Amos Kendall was the Goebbels of the operation. Amos was a great writer and prolific too. He wrote countless articles for newspapers all over the country praising Jackson. When a great speech or document had to be written, they all turned to Amos Kendall. He was the James Madison of the Jackson Administration.
FULTON THE FIRST BLOWS UP IN NYC
The famous steamboat guy Bobby Fulton near the end of the War of 1812 built an ironclad floating battery he modestly called Fulton the First. One historian says that this ironclad warship was decades ahead of its time and could have dunked any Union warship afloat prior to the appearance of the Monitor at Hampton Roads in 1862.
Yes and no. The Fulton the First was indeed the first steam powered warship in human history, and could be called the first “ironclad” since it was armor plated.
But it wasn't really a ship that could have tracked down the ships of the Union Navy in 1862. Fulton the First was primarily a defensive floating armory designed to scoot around a big city harbor and sink anything that was trying to take out the city. The idea for such a ship was inspired by the British invasion of the Chesapeake and the burning of Washington D.C. in 1814. Construction of the Fulton the First began shortly after that happened, and it was no coincidence.
Fulton the First was launched a few months after the War of 1812 was over, so it never killed anyone. Not yet.
On June 4 1829, three months after Jackson took office, the Fulton blew up. A magazine explosion killed 29 men and one woman who was reading a magazine.
The technology to build ironclad steamships was available to the United States and never fully exploited except in wartime, which was 1814. The military did not resume research and development of the ironclads until war returned in 1861. Europe in the meantime, made more of an effort and had some ironclads in service at the time the South seceded. Neither side in the Civil War had any ironclads until March of 1862.
PEGGY EATON SCANDAL
Jackson couldn’t seem to avoid trouble with women, no matter how innocent his own personal behavior remained. Which brings us to the famous Peggy Eaton story.
Jackson’s campaign manager was J. H. Eaton, who later became Secretary of War.
Eaton had been having relations with a certain tavern owner’s daughter by the name of Peggy O’Neal. Pretty Peggy had a reputation at the tavern for entertaining many a man on a stormy night. Even more so in good weather. Worse, she was married to a man at sea.
This was all hearsay, it should be said. No one has ever proved that Eaton entertained every other coachman who ordered a glass of double rum at her father’s tavern. For all we know she might have only been very flirty and outgoing and nothing more. But if the gossipers say you’re a tramp then you’re in hot water. Defending a charge means that you’re already 49% convicted.
Shortly after Jackson took over the White House Peggy’s sailor husband O’Neil died, freeing Peggy to be all she can be. At Jackson’s insistence, J. H. Eaton quickly married his now single lady.
Polite society of Washington politics decided, not surprisingly, to shun Mrs. Eaton like a plague. When Peggy and John walked onto a ballroom floor they were soon dancing alone. The wives of the other cabinet members (especially Mrs. Calhoun) refused to even speak to poor Peg. By today’s standards her behavior probably wasn’t particularly shameful, but by the rules of 1828 she was a very bad girl.
Jackson was furious with his henpecked cabinet members who could not control their priggish wives. When Miss Donelson, the hostess of the White House and the President's niece, joined the social boycott of Mrs. Eaton, Jackson sent his hostess home to Tennessee. Andrew was especially intolerant of all this moral condescension partly because he was still steamed about the unfair scandalous whisperings that had once been spread about his own dear Rachel.
Secretary of State Martin Van Buren on the other hand was a widower and he had no trouble treating Mrs. Eaton with every courtesy. Van Buren went one better. He devised a plan to get Jackson out of the Peggy mess. A scheme for a complete shake-up of the cabinet that would remove Secretary of War Eaton, and with him, his troublesome wife. Van Buren would even resign first, so that when Jackson ordered a shake-up, it could seem to have been triggered by the resignation of his Secretary of State, and not because of a social problem linked to his Secretary of War.
Van Buren resigned as Secretary of State. Other cabinet members were dismissed and in the middle of all the political battle smoke Secretary of War Eaton quietly resigned. The stupid Peggy Eaton scandal was over.
Van Buren’s behavior endeared him with the president and, combined with Jackson’s falling out with Calhoun over ‘Nullification,’ led to Van Buren’s supplanting Calhoun as the heir apparent to King Andrew’s throne. Van Buren also helped his own cause because Jackson had publicly declared that he did not want Presidential candidates in his cabinet (the Jefferson in the John Adams cabinet precedent worried him.) If “Matty,” as Jackson called him, wanted to be the successor he had to get out of the cabinet first and he did.
The Peggy Eaton affair became commonly known as “The Petticoat War.” It was the subject of a major movie in 1933 titled “The Gorgeous Hussy” starring Joan Crawford as Peggy O’Neal Eaton. I haven’t seen it so I can’t rip it, but John Randolph gets assassinated in the movie for some reason. Obviously he did not in real life. Jackson’s romance with his wife Rachel was also made into a 1966 movie called The President’s Lady starring Charlton Heston as Jackson, with Irene Ryan as Rachel.
MAYSVILLE ROAD
In 1830 Jackson vetoed the Maysville Road Bill, which was going to provide $150,000 in federal funds to help build a 60 extension of the national (or Cumberland) road to Maysville Kentucky. Because the Maysville road was wholly within the boundaries of Kentucky, Jackson declined to support it. In Jackson’s view, only interstate roads deserved US money.
This veto was a blow to the dreams of Henry Clay. Maysville Road was in his state and Clay had major presidential aspirations. Clay had been actively promoting his “American System.” This was the use of federal money to stimulate, promote and support the economy through high tariffs, internal improvements and a national bank. John Quincy Adams would have supported Clay but Adams wasn’t the boss anymore. Jackson was and his veto deprived Clay of a road and a win for his “American System.” What Jackson really vetoed was the Claysville Road to the White House.
Jackson used the veto more often that all of the other previous presidents combined. He used it twelve times and the other presidents had used it a total of nine.
SAM PATH – ROCHESTER DAREDEVIL
In November of 2007 famed daredevil Evil Keneival passed away. Keneival died as America’s most famous daredevil, but he was not the first. That honor belongs to Samuel L. Patch.
Sam Patch may have been the first celebrity in America who was not a politician. Sam the daredevil and had quite a national following in the late 1820’s. First he jumped across a deadly gorge in Passaic New Jersey, making him instantly famous. Then he became the first person to go over Niagara Falls and live. He was the invincible. Until…
One day in late 1829 Sam had a crowd of no less than 8,000 people in Rochester, New York for his daring jump into the Genesee River Falls. Sam had made the same jump earlier in the year to a much smaller crowd. This time he had a full house, many of them thoroughly drunk. Half the town had hit the taverns all day in anticipation of the thriller. First he tossed his pet bear cub over (I kid you not.) Then he jumped. Some witnesses say he fell off the edge involuntarily, causing him to have an improper body trajectory. In any case Sam hit the water and never came up. For months people thought the missing publicity hound was hiding somewhere and enjoying the fame of his mysterious disappearance. But on St Patrick’s Day 1830 his frozen body was found upriver. He had landed shoulders first and both were separated. Unable to swim, Patch had drowned.
The death of Patch was a signal to the temperance movement, already especially strong in western New York, to step up their campaign against demon rum. Patch became the poster boy for the anti-saloon crowd. He hadn’t been drunk himself when he jumped but the spectacle of all the Rochester drunks cheering while this man plunged to his death was ammo enough. (This reminds me of a story from the Glenns Falls NY outdoor music festival in the 1970’s when a parachutist entertained the crowd by coming down while shooting off fireworks. 300,000 people were cheering like mad as the flaming parachute dropped to the ground in the early evening. What the crowd didn’t know was that that the parachute wasn’t supposed to catch fire and the poor man was parachuting to his death. I know two people who were there and witnessed the event. I regret to say that they tell the story as one of amusement and not tragedy, and that I enjoyed hearing the story in the same insensitive spirit.)
DEBT REFORM
In the time of Jackson and Van Buren the country was undergoing a liberating trend in the field of imprisonment for debt. It was being done away with. By the end of the 1820’s several states had outlawed sending people to jail for owing money.
However, there were still many states continuing this barbaric insanity. The Boston Prison Discipline Society did some research and published their findings in 1830. At least 70,000 people were in jail for debt, probably more. Half of them were in jail for owing someone less than twenty dollars! 31 people in one jail alone were there for bills due of less than a dollar!
I'm glad that's all changed for the better. Otherwise I'd get 7 years for what I owe the Military Book Club from 30 years ago, and another five-to ten for what I owe American Express.
BOOK OF MORMON 1830
The Mormons are a powerful religious group today. They are everywhere. Mitt Romney is running for the Republican nomination for President in 2012 and he is a Mormon.
Their holy book, the Book of Mormon was published in 1830. Their great leader Joseph Smith wrote it after he spoke with God. There are a lot of things that the Mormons believe that seem absurd to me. I accept God but deny all forms of divine revelations given to select human leaders, so I am going to deny their tenets on principle. I don’t believe that God gave a special live audience to Joe Smith any more than I believe he ever gave one to Moses, Mohammed or John Schneiderman, my mailman.
And even if God did decide to choose a special servant for a live interview, doesn’t it seem odd that God waited until 1830 before getting around to it, and that he’d give it to a guy named Joe Smith?
In a recent Presidential debate Mitt Romney was asked if he believed in the Bible and he said “Yes, I believe that the Bible is the divine word of God.” No one asked the follow up question about how this fits in with his co-adherence to the Book of Mormon.
RESTORATION OF TRADE WITH THE WEST INDIES 1830
Since he was such a combative man, it's hard to imagine that in foreign policy Jackson would win a big victory by humbly compromising in an area where previous President's had stood tough. But that is the case with trade with the West Indies.
As punishment for the War of 1812, the UK had banned all American trade with the West Indies; the rich islands of the Caribbean. The damage of the American economy from this trade sanction, enforced by the powerful British Navy, was considerable. President's Monroe and Adams (John Quincy) had tried to get tough with the British. Those two guys demanded that Great Britain allowed the United States to trade with the islands. They said it was America's right to do so and that Britian was breaking international law.
When Jackson took over in Washington he tried a different approach. Instead of demanding that Great Britian allow US trade with the West Indies. Jackson asked if the United States could trade with the West Indies.
“In that case,” said Britian, “we will allow such trade.”
The UK granted trading rights with the Indies to the USA in 1830.
Nations are just like people.
It's all about pride.
Any analysis of Jackson's foreign policy record must include credit for this important positive breakthrough. It was one more step on the long road to the grand alliance we know today between the US and UK.
The only catch was that the British imposed high tariffs on the trade. It was not an easy buck to be made down there with these trade taxes.
One newspaper complained,
“If Jackson negotiates a few more such trade treaties, the
people of Mobile will be as poor as he looks.”
In a way Jackson was lucky. The British had dumped Canning and seated Aberdeen in the Prime Ministers' chair just as Andy took office in DC. The new man in London was more agreeable to settling this problem.
Aberdeen was under pressure from the British West Indian merchants who wanted the trade re-opened as badly as the Americans did. A lot of Englanders by 1830 also felt that Great Britain couldn't bully the world on the sea forever and it was time to lighten up. Jackson caught the falling diplomatic apple.
DEATH OF MONROE 1831 – In New York City former President James ‘Jimbo’ Monroe died on the Fourth of July, 1831. He was the third President to die on the independence holiday.
Monroe had been chasing the government for money he claimed was owed him and was living with one of his daughters and her husband. To paraphrase Bacon, “Blow blow thou winter wind, thou art no so unkind as a nation’s ingratitude.”
WALKER’S APPEAL 1829
Some history books refer to it as a book, but it was actually just a pamphlet. Book or no book, ‘Walker’s Appeal’ had far more impact in this world than a million other published books of greater length before or since.
David Walker was a free black, who was born in the South but in 1829 lived in Boston. He was operating a tailor shop on LaGrange Street. Walker wrote a dramatic appeal to the nation. It was a majestic protest against slavery. Dave was trying to ring that fire bell in the night that Jefferson had nightmares about some years back. Walker’s Appeal condemned the hypocrisy of the Declaration of Independence and wasn’t very kind to Jefferson. Most important it contained implied threats of revolutionary violence if slavery was not soon abandoned and defeated in America.
Until this time, the prevailing anti-slavery momentum was all about re-colonization. Walker’s Appeal wanted freedom from slavery but without conditional re-colonization.
NAT TURNER’S REBELLION 8-31
Over the years there were many US slave revolts of various size, but seldom was there one more violent and politically significant than that of the Virginia slave, Nat Turner.
The storm broke when Nathaniel and seven of his fellow slaves massacred the master and his family at the Turner big house and then fled the plantation. They gathered 75 other rebellious slaves and marched towards the town of Jerusalem, Va. killing white people along the way. Turner's angry insurrectionist mob massacred 51 white people on the march to Jerusalem.
The rebs were hoping to capture some weapons at the Jerusalem arsenal and flee into the Dismal Swamp. But a militia of 3,000 European-American free men finally stopped and captured Turner’s army of slaves. Turner got away for six weeks but the charismatic king of the uprising, Nat King Turner was eventually captured and executed.
Nat King Turner’s rebellion ignited a reaction against what little freedom black salves had ever possessed in the ante-bellum South. Southern states and towns passed new laws restricting the movements of blacks both slave and free. New laws outlawed the gathering of more than two black persons anywhere for any reason. The South, already on the defensive about slavery, now had personal safety paranoia to add to the mix. Who knew what terrorist black plot could erupt in Southern areas where slaves vastly outnumbered their masters?
READING IS FUNDAMENTALLY FORBIDDEN
At the same time the British were freeing their slaves all over the West Indies. This of course put more pressure on the South to face up to the moral crisis.
Nat Turner was a literate slave. After his rebellion the South stepped up its anti-literacy campaign among the slaves. The combination of Walker’s Appeal and Turner’s Rebellion were too much. It ‘literally’ became dangerous for a slave to be seen with a book. Teaching a slave to read was a crime. The slave and the free teacher would both face punishment. This was even worse than Fahrenheit 451.
CALHOUN’S VP HOPES TOASTED
The prelude to the famous Nullification Crisis came on April 13, 1832 at a festive 1832 dinner to honor the late Thomas Jefferson. President Jackson and Vice-president Calhoun were both in attendance at the dais. Several men had already spoken about the supremacy of states rights and everyone knew where Calhoun stood. Political pundits all over the country were watching the dinner with great interest.
When it was time to toast, President Jackson stood up and pledged that the Union must be preserved. He was short and sweet and mentioned nothing about states rights. Then it was Calhoun’s turn to toast. He toasted specifically to states rights and in one sentence burned his chance for being re-nominated for the Vice Presidency in ’32. It was a dramatic moment. The break between the President and his Veep was now undoubtedly complete.
The old history books always tell this story. Most of the newer textbooks don’t have time for it with all the social history chapters and the pile up of events over time, but up until about 1940 this divisive toast at the Jefferson Day dinner in 1832 was something every American schoolchild knew all about.
JACKSON IS AGAINST FORCED BUS-ING
The fight over the Bank of the United States dominated Jackson’s second term. He didn't want the BUS forced on him, and he didn't like it.
The U.S. Government in this era coined very little money and printed no paper money at all. State banks printed virtually all paper currency and these bills were not uniformed, but notes issued by private banks redeemable in hard coin (gold) at a later date. There was more paper out there than hard coin to back it up, but this was no cause for panic… not at the moment.
The USA had all its money locked up in the specially chartered Bank of the United States in Philadelphia (which was been re-chartered in 1816 as the Second Bank of the United States.)
But Andrew Jackson hated banks, partly because he lad lost a lot of money in a speculation earlier in life. He also resented the BUS location, snobby Philadelphia, not earthy Washington D.C. He was sick of hearing about how great the Phillies are.
Jackson was determined to put an end to the Bank of the United States, whose charter was due to expire in 1836.
Supporters of the Bank, led by its president the wealthy Nicholas Biddle, were equally determined to keep it alive and humiliate Jackson in the process. In early 1832 they proposed to renew the banks charter, years before the deadline. They thought that by forcing 'Waxaw Andy' to make a decision they would hurt him politically in the upcoming election either way. But Jackson had fought men in duels with pistols. Andrew was not afraid of political setbacks. Losing an election isn’t that big of a deal when you are widower with a bullet in your torso. He would call em as he sees em.
Jackson did the Biddle Bunch one better. First he defiantly vetoed the Bill for the bank’s re-charter and did it in the middle of an election year.
Then he began withdrawing all of the United States money from the BUS and depositing it in various state banks, or “pet banks” as they came to be called because they were those banks that favored Jackson’s Democratic Party. Suddenly it no longer mattered whether the Bank was renewed or not, since it had no government money in it. The BUS stayed barely afloat without US dollars and disappeared on time in ’36.
Jackson’s dispersal of US funds into lesser banks encouraged excessive lending, created confusing and excessive paper currencies, and cost the nation some of its economic confidence. The next president would pay the price for Jackson’s’ financial paranoia about banks.
Congress in December of 1833 officially censured President Jackson for removing the federal deposits from the Bank of the United States. It’s ironic that we put him on such a key piece of currency as the 20 dollar bill. Jackson did everything he could to ruin our currency system.
The AJ censure was later rescinded by a new vote. This reversal of a solemnly voted on censure was cited in 1999 as an example of the ineffectiveness of censure. The Democrats were pleading for the censure option as the proper answer to the moral misconduct of President Clinton. The Republicans argued that censure was something that could merely be overturned and expunged from the record later as in the Jackson censure over the BUS.
ELECTION OF 1832
Dem Jackson’s opponents of 1832 were the National Republicans and the Anti-Masons. These groups never combined forces but even if they had, they would still not have beaten the very popular Andrew Jackson.
The Election of 32 had a few firsts. It was the first time the candidates were chosen by national political conventions. It was the first time that a strong third party candidate played the game. Most important, 1832 was the first time since 1789 that an important and controversial issue was placed before the people in no uncertain terms and the candidates openly said that the election was about this issue and please vote accordingly. All three candidates threw the election of 1832 under the BUS.
Even though it was Jackson who took the initiative on the Bank of the United States, condemning it and demanding its destruction, the President did not plan to make it the issue of the campaign of 1832. The anti-Jacksons decided to make the BUS the key issue of 1832. They appreciated the personal popularity of President Jackson, and knew they had to run on some hot issue if they were to have any chance to win. Jackson knew about this impending dare and rubbed his hands with delight. He had dueled drunks in bars with knives and pistols since he was 16 years old. Jax wasn't really terrified about losing a political battle over a bank.
The new kid on the block was the anti-Mason Party. They held the earliest convention of the three in September 1831 in Baltimore. In fact, all three parties held their conventions in Baltimore. The Masons were, and still are, a secret society with a lot of rituals. In recent times the “secrets” of the Masons have been revealed on TV documentaries, and I don't think anyone really cares anymore. But what these Masons were up to was a big deal in 1832.
The Anti-Masons nominated William Wirt (VA) for President, and Quigley Parrish (NC) for Vice President. Wirt was an ex-Mason apostate.
The National Republicans met in December 1831 and nominated the man they called “Hammerin' Hank,” the great Henry Clay of Kentucky. Clay was destined to win the party nomination for President three times and losing all three elections. Clay was the Buffalo Bills of Presidential Elections.
Clay ran on what was known as the “American System.” He believed in a bigger and better federal operation. Clay wanted higher taxes on imports (tarriffs,) more federal spending on roads and bridges, and loved the national bank. Hammerin Hank Clay was the perfect leader for that party often referred to as simply “The Anti-Jacksons.” The Tea Party would have hated Clay. He liked big government.
The Dems at least waited until 1832 to have their convention. Jackson was the easy choice, but the VP spot was open. Martin Van Buren of New York became the number two man, beginning his own road to the White House in 1836. MVB was a dandy.
Jackson won re-election on December 5 1832. He had a mandate to manhandle the Bank of the United States, and keep up the bad work with his Indian policies.
MASON FALLS
The Anti-Masons were a formidable factor in the Jacksonian era. In Massachusetts former President John Quincy Adams was elected to Congress as an adamant anti-Mason. Other prominent Mason haters included Chief Justice Marshall, John Calhoun and William Henry Harrison. About 20 years later the Republican Party's very first official proclamatory platform was almost as much against Masons as it was against slavery. The Republican party was officially begun as an Anti-mason.
However the election of 32 was also the swan song of the Anti-Masonic Party. After its dismal national tally of four electoral votes (all from Vermont,) the party met and declared itself terminated in December of 33. The party’s over. You win, Mason.
THE WHIGS ARE BORN
Jackson’s victory in 1832 was indeed overwhelming. He trusted that now he could continue to destroy the Bank of the United States, and to do whatever else he wanted for that matter. His power increased so much in his second term that it inspired the creation of the Whig party. The name was a nod to the Whig Party in England which had also opposed royalty. The American Whig Party was opposed to the excesses of ‘King Andrew the First.’
The Whigs were a collection of everyone that was mad at President Jackson.
The Whigs were a mix of the Southerners who believed in nullification and states-rights, the Friends of Henry Clay (FOH), Anti-Masons, Democrats who disagreed with Jackson on the BUS, and the National Republicans who had lost the last election.
Over the course of 1833-34 the Whigs coagulated into a powerful political party. The EOA, the Enemies Of Andrew, became a force to be reckoned with.
NULLIFICATION CRISIS
South Carolina, led by John Calhoun was opposed to the high tariff (that he and it had conspired to create in 1828, the 'Tariff of Abominations.')
SC finally determined that it simply did not have to abide by the tariff. The palmetto state decided that the tariff was unconstitutional because it only helped one part of the country while hurting the other.
South Carolina was in an unhappy condition. Overproduction of cotton had caused the price to drop from 30 cents a pound in 1818 to 9 cents a pound in 1828. New Orleans and Mobile were siphoning off Charleston’s shipping commerce, white labor was fleeing west for land and personal independence, and the slave population was outnumbering the free more and more each year. There was a great white fear of a great black uprising. Nat Turner’s shadow hung over the palmettos.
Calhoun was Jackson’s Vice President but that didn’t stop him and his followers from devising a philosophy through which to defy the wishes of the President. They called it “nullification.”
This meant that South Carolina was free to “nullify” any law that it did not care for. It would then be up to higher courts to try to overturn the nullification with due process of law. The burden of proof would be on the federal government to prove that South Carolina was wrong and the arguing would come after the annulment. South Carolina might eventually back off from a given nullification, but first she was entitled to do it.
Nullification was not new. Jefferson and Madison floated the idea in 1798 in their writings, and the Federalist Hartford Convention in 1814 had considered it seriously. But 1830 was not 1798. The national government now had a history and there was an entire new generation of adults whose first loyalty was to the USA, not their home state.
Jackson would have none of this nullification nonsense. He threatened to hang SC leader John Calhoun and declared that he was going to “meet treason at the threshold.” Jackson declared angrily that he was going to send 50,000 federal troops to South Carolina to collect the customs duties there. A few units were soon en route to South Carolina.
Calhoun suddenly began to fear for his neck. Suddenly South Carolina was out there all alone on this one.
Calhoun and Clay hammered out a compromise measure to stop the crisis. South Carolina backed down in exchange for a reduction in the rates of the terrible tariffs. But Jackson attached conditions. He tacked on a “Force Bill” to the settlement. This was a declaration by the federal government that in the future if there were any difficulties regarding the proper collection of custom revenues, the Army and Navy would be called out to finish the job.
The Force Bill was passed on March 2, 1833. South Carolina accepted the compromise and rescinded the tariff nullification.
NULLIFICATION OF THE FORCE BILL ON NULLIFICATION
Later in 1833 South Carolina passed a statute nullifying the Force Bill.
So the sequence went like this. South Carolina defied the federal government and the President over nullification, was threatened with Federal troops over its nullification position, saw its tariffs reduced with a warning called a “Force Bill” that declared nullification illegal, then rescinded the nullification, and then nullified the Force Bill.
The South Carolina declaration is filled with lines in the sand. SC declared that the federal authority was inferior to that of the state and they were feeling brave. South Carolina was ready for Civil War even if the rest of the country wasn’t. If any other states had gone along with her, South Carolina would have gladly seceded from the Union in 1832. The South Carolina note of defiance read that the Force Bill,
“is unauthorized by the Constitution of the
United States, subversive of that Constitution
and destructive of public liberty. The Force
Bill is null and void within the limits of this
state.”
It was also the duty of state authorities,
“to inflict proper penalties on any person who
shall do any act in execution of enforcement
of the same within the limits of this state.”
South Carolina was going to arrest anyone even trying to collect the tariff duties even if they were feds! The logical extension of this would see South Carolina militia resisting federal troops by clash of arms.
Fortunately Jackson treated the Force Bill Nullification as a face saving gust of wind from a quarrelsome but small state, and the crisis did subside. The political fallout from the Nully crisis included the resignation of Vice President Calhoun. He could not support his President when Jackson’s policies were being directed against his home state of South Carolina.
Both sides had won. If there had been a clear cut winner, the entire Civil War might have been avoided. With both sides winning, the issue was not settled. South Carolina would “nullify” the election of 1860 and send 600,000 young men and some old ones too to their deaths.
TROUBLE WITH FRANCE
France had agreed in 1831 to pay the USA $25 million in reparations. This was a bill left over from the wars of Napoleon. French ships had seized US ships at sea and now Sam wanted the bill paid if the two nations were to have good relations. The US in turn had agreed to pay $1.5 million to France for wrongs against France in the same time period. The French Parliament continuously delayed appropriating the payments. It was now 1834 and still no money had been sent. Jackson fumed.
Andrew addressed a special session of Congress and said that,
“If the frogs did not pay up I will order the seizure of French property in America as involuntary compensation.”
The Congress cheered, of course.
This angered the French who closed their legation in Washington in protest. The charge d’affairs, Alphonse Pageot returned to Paris along with his wife and their son, Andrew Jackson Pageot. Anphonse and Andrew were friends. Jackson was the godfather of the child. But this Godfather was not backing down even for friends. Politics is business and business is business. The US legation in Paris also closed up shop. There was talk of war. Even the good offices of famous French writer Alex de Tocqueville weren’t enough to settle things.
A British official scanned the Jackson speech and found what he decided was an apology to France, which made up for hurt French feelings over Jackson’s threats. The diplomats haggled over language. The British finally convinced the French to bury the guillotine and make up with the Americans. It was semantic hair splitting. France accepted this “apology” and then began paying the money. Jackson denied that he had apologized for anything but the French had saved face and the problem was solved. Andrew Jackson Pageot returned to America.
DEATH OF RANDOLPH
On May 25 1833 a Virginia Representative rose in the House to announce solemnly that one of their own had passed away. John Randolph had died the day before in Philadelphia. Randolph had served in both the House and Senate from his beloved Virginia and was one of the more fascinating characters in all of American history. He was even known to have once or twice tried smoking opium. Wow. What a hep cat.
When the Representative finished announcing the death of Randolph he sat down at his desk and died right there and then of a heart attack. That is a true story.
ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT
On January 30, 1835 Andrew Jackson attended the funeral of Senator Warren Davis in Washington D.C.. Davis was a loyal Democratic from South Carolina who had died in office the day before. As Jackson was leaving the funeral services an unemployed house painter walked up to him and fired a pistol from about 20 feet away. The powder ignited in the weapon but the ball failed to discharge. Jackson raised his cane in anger and began to move towards the assailant when the painter fired a second shot from another loaded pistol. Shot #2 also failed. Again the bullet never got out of the barrel. Before Jackson could cane him, bystanders tackled the gunman to the ground like Rosy Greer.
Lunatic Tries to Kill Jackson 1.30.35
The gunman’s name was Richard Lawrence, and he had somehow gotten it into his head that Jackson had personally conspired to keep him out of a job, Dick was probably schizophrenic.
The incident was not dissimilar to the two shooting attempts at President Ford in 1975.
Lawrence was acquitted of attempted murder by reason of insanity but spent the rest of his life locked up in the nut house. Jackson was convinced to the end of his days that Lawrence had not acted alone and had been in fact been a part of an assassination conspiracy by the Whig Party. Jackson was perhaps even more paranoid than Richard Lawrence. (Mark Lane in 1987 wrote a book saying that Richard Lawrence was indeed part of a major conspiracy.)
The attempted murder came almost 20 years to the day after Jackson’s victory at New Orleans when the General had marched up and down his lines on horseback defying British bullets.
GARRISON RIOT – OCTOBER 21 1835
The state of slavery in America is reflected pretty well in an anti-Abolitionist riot in October 1835. What is impressive is not just that a mob tried to lynch an Abolitionist leader. What is impressive is who it was and especially, where it happened. This wasn't Charleston or Baltimore. This was Boston, the place where slavery was outlawed first back in 1790. A mob of several thousand Bostonian bums nearly murdered William Lloyd Garrison, the publisher of the Liberator, and the leader of the Abolitionist movement in Boston.
They dragged him through the streets of Boston and nearly killed him.
The trouble when Garrison sponsored a speaking engagement for an Englishman named George Thompson. GT was a leader of the successful emancipation movement in England. When the bad people of Boston heard that he was going to speak against slavery they organized a riot a thousand times worse than the Occupy Wall Street pinheads of 2011 down at Dewey Square (more like Doy-eeee Square.)
There were at least 5,000 people in the ant-Abolition riot. You would think that history would tell a story about Boston in 1835 regarding an ant-slavery riot. But this was anti-anti-slavery these reptiles were rioting against.
First they tried to find and beat up speaker Thompson. He beat it out the back door before getting to say “Ladies and Gentlemen.”
Not satisfied without a victim, the rioters searched the building at 46 Washington Street
SPECIE CIRCULAR - 1836
One of the more specious acts of President Jackson was his order that no one could purchase government land except in hard coin currency. This man of the people was not living up to the image with this action.
The Specie Circular of 1836 was one of the toughest smack-downs ever put upon the back of the working farmer or the aspiring emigrant. It would now be a lot tougher to go west young man. If you didn’t have the hard metal coin, you could no longer buy land. The SC helped to create the Panic of 1837 and the resulting Depression of 1837 to 1843. So it was President Van Buren who paid the bill for this and other examples of ‘Jaxonomics.’
YOU WON’T HAVE CROCKETT TO KICK AROUND ANYMORE
The changes in voting laws had opened up the playing field for grass roots democracy. Many a hayseed was now in the Congress.
Between the House of Representatives and the Senate, there was a remarkable difference in decorum and talent. The state legislatures still picked the US Senators. Senators were met in fancy suits and used proper English, while the House was largely filling up with inarticulate men with holes in their socks, feet up on the desk, firing wads of tobacco into spittoons with the accuracy of a New York City subway punk.
No better example of this new democracy can be found than the person of Davey Crockett.
The legendary American frontiersman was elected to the House of Representatives in 1828, and was re-elected, defeated, re-elected and defeated again.
In 1834 he employed a ghost author to help him with his autobiography, The Narrative of the Life of David Crockett. It was a popular book but was so full of tall tales that the expression ‘a crock’ meaning less than true derived from it. Not even Al Gore could match Crockett in exaggerations and self-serving falsehoods!
After his 1835 defeat he told the Tennessee legislature that “You can all go to hell and I’m going to Texas.” He packed up his bag of stories and left for the west. What he couldn’t know was that hell awaited him in Texas.
REMEMBER THE ALAMO
On March 6, 1836, 186 Texans, including Davey Crockett, died at the Alamo after fighting off an overwhelming force of Mexican soldiers.
The ruler of Mexico, Santa Anna led the Mexican forces. This would be like Woodrow Wilson leading a bayonet charge in a gas mask against the German lines in Chateau Thierry.
The Mexicans attacking the Alamo were close to 3,000 in number, but most of them were Indian draftees. This was not the best division in the Mexican Army. Santa Anna won at the Alamo through simple direct determined assault and a numbers advantage of about 25 to one. More than 1,000 Mexicans died in the battle.
The Alamo is a dramatic part of American history but at the time the site was not American soil. Travis and Crockett were fighting to win independence for Texas, not Texas admission to the USA. Technically, the battle of the Alamo belongs more to Mexican history than American.
There have been two historically useless movies made about the Alamo, one in the 1960’s starring John Wayne and the other in 2004 starring Ice T as Davey Crockett.
ORIGINS ALAMO
What were they fighting about?
Mexico had needed settlers in the province of Texas and wanted the Americans to come in. But over the years too many gringos began to overrun the place. Soon these Yankees were petitioning Washington D.C. for admittance to the Union. This angered Mexico. To make things even more volatile, the very Catholic Mexican government enacted laws discriminating against non-Catholics, and most of the American settlers in Texas were not Catholic.
Texas decided to secede from Mexico and declare itself a new nation. If the United States wanted to absorb the new nation of Texas later on, fine. If not, fine, too. But first had to come independence from the Catholic oppressors in Mexico City.
Mexico did not take independence for an answer. An army under Santa Anna marched to the Alamo to destroy the Texan dream of Independence. By massacring the defenders to the last man (one Indian woman living inside the fort survived) Santa Anna won the battle but lost the war. He provided the Texans with a victim's role instead of the aggressors they actually were. “Remember the Alamo!” became a rallying cry for the fighting Texans and they eventually won their goal of independence.
TRAIL OF TEARS
If it were up to the Native Americans, Andrew Jackson might not be on the 20-dollar bill. He might not even be on the halfpenny. Jackson’s presidency had blood on its hands with the tragedy of the Cherokee Indians. There were other Indian tribes (particularly the Choctaws, Creeks and Seminoles) victimized by white American aggression in Jackson’s time but the Cherokees particularly suffered during a ‘Long March’ from Georgia to Oklahoma. They were migrating involuntarily. The United States was evicting the Cherokee from their homelands in Georgia and exiling them to Oklahoma. They could have the dryer second-rate land out west while the verdant east belonged to whitey. It was not a square deal.
Georgia for the longest time had no problem with the Cherokees living in the state. Unfortunately for the Cherokees, the whites discovered gold in northern Georgia in 1829. Three thousand white ‘29er miners' invaded the Cherokee lands. In addition to the abusive invasion, the Georgia House passed a law that Indians were not allowed to mine in the state. The ‘29ers could mine the gold on Cherokee land but the Cherokees couldn’t.
The next offense against the southeast Indians was the Removal Act of 1830. It wasn’t so much a bill to decide about removal of the Indians, but rather a bill on whether to appropriate the funds to do this. Removal per se was a foregone conclusion. The question was whether Congress was going obstruct a presidential foreign policy decision within our borders by not funding it. Congress did not obstruct. With the Removal Act Jackson expanded the powers of the Presidency.
Some Cherokees took a collective five million dollar bribe from the US government and left voluntarily for Oklahoma. But the majority resisted.
A long legal battle took place between the federal government, the Supreme Court, and the state of Georgia on the one hand; and advocates of the rights of the Cherokee and other Indian people on the other. Chief Justice John Marshall of the Supreme Court in his Worcester vs. Georgia 1832 decision overruled Georgia's decision to force the Cherokees out. Jackson defied the court and said, “Justice Marshall has made his decision. Now let’s see him enforce it.”
The final outcome was that the entire tribe of 20,000 Cherokees marched at gunpoint a thousand miles on foot with inadequate food, clothing and shelter in bad weather on bad roads. More than four thousand Cherokees died during the march! Few of the seven thousand troops guarding them suffered much. This has been remembered in Native American history as the Trail of Tears. One can only imagine how much crying was heard on this road. This was our home game version of the Bataan Death March of 1942. The entire incident is a great shame on America and on the record of Andrew Jackson. Needless to say, the Cherokees had never previously expressed any particular interest in moving to Oklahoma.
It must be added that there had already been other ‘trails of tears.’ In 1831 more than three thousand Creeks had died in their forced march westward. This would seem to be a clear warning to government officials that future marches of this kind needed better provisions and protection for the Indians. The Cherokee horror show has received much more ink because of the higher casualty rate and the catchy nickname, many other tribes suffered badly. The Choctaws (1830) and the Chickasaws (1830) also suffered forced removal to the west under Jackson.
The US fight with the Seminoles went on long past the Jackson administrations. Many braves, both male and female, refused to go, peacefully or otherwise, and hid in the Florida Everglades, conducting a guerilla war of resistance that lasted well into the forties.
The US Army won the guerilla Seminole War only through treachery. Chief Osceola agreed to meet General Joseph Hernandez under a flag of truce in order to try to obtain the release of a POW Indian chief. He entered the General's tent. The Americans immediately jumped him and clapped him in irons.
There is little to say in defense of the ‘Indian removals.” The tribes that had obeyed the laws and stayed out of trouble were all that were left in the east. So now, only the most co-operative Indians were being singled out for the most severe punishment. The Indians of the southeast were assimilating well and had been led to believe that they owned some land within the United States. They were taken out criminally by eminent white domain.
The only apology worth considering is that all over the world there was a trend towards expansion of industrialized races into more primitive land without a condition, a price, or a hearing. The same thing was happening in Russia where the Urals were being crossed by the industrialized Slavs. Native Siberians and Uzbeks were pushed aside rudely and ruthlessly. The same tragedy of progress was hitting the outback of Australia and the veldt of South Africa. But ten wrongs elsewhere don’t make America right. But if we are going to blame America, don’t blame America first or only. We didn’t invent greed and invasion. But to some professional America-haters it seems to be that way.
Might was right. As political satirist Kenneth Rogerson put it, “I wrote a book called “Tough Luck, Featherhead, A History of the Indian Treaties.” Andrew Jackson set a tough precedent for later presidents to live up to.
Many historians have suggested that Jackson’s Indian policy was following the leadership of Thomas Jefferson who had originally promoted the concept of Indian removal to western lands.
SLAVERY IN JACKSON’S TIME
The Constitution of 1787 protected slavery without using the name. There were “free persons” discussed in Article One Section Two, and there was a reference to “all other persons.” meaning slaves. Article 9 of Section 1 kept the international slave trade legal until 1808. The Constitution provided for the recovery of runaway slaves in IV.2.
The slave system thrived under the racially insensitive Jackson. The Nat Ted Turner revolt has already been noted. Although the tariff at this time was slightly more divisive than the “peculiar institution,” slavery was growing at a healthy pace, and problems with it.
Some Southerners had pleaded with reformers that slavery was going to fade away with the beginning of non-importation. But the birth rate in the slave huts was outpacing the numbers of slaves that would have been imported even if the overseas trade had still been legal. Interstate slave commerce spread the wealth, the black gold. The business of selling slaves from one state to another was almost as profitable as working the slaves on the home fields.
Historians usually neglect a bizarre twist of slavery that is almost hard to believe. Blacks owned black slaves throughout the South. The practice was more widespread than most historians realize. In the federal census of 1830 in the four states of Virginia, South Carolina, Maryland and Louisiana, black masters owned more than 10,000 slaves! Black slaveowners were not a negligible factor in the industry of human bondage.
And what of mulattos? Was there such a thing as being half black? Genetically, the answer of course was yes. Politically and socially the answer of course was no. It was one or the other. For the most part mulattos were considered black, but it seems that those mulattos who became prosperous became white. The white neighbors of successful mulattos were less apt to make any accusations of African heritage against those light skinned blacks that had big money.
There were few if any absolutes about slavery, except of course that it is a great sin. Laws and customs varied from state to state, from community to community and from plantation to plantation. Each location large and small was its own world of slavery with its own rules. Generalities can apply based on historical research, but there were so many exceptions to every rule that the absolute model stereotype of slavery in the pre-Civil War South is almost impossible to draw. Slavery was such a delicate and evil subject that whites tended to not want to talk about which made it that much easier for each plantation to write its own rule-book. A thousand plantations were a thousand different slavery systems.
SUPREME COURT
In 1829 Jackson named a real die hard to the Supreme Court. His name was John McLean and he served from 1829 until 1861 as an Associate Justice. McLean is loved by history for dissenting in the atrocious Dred Scott Decision of 1857.
Not coincidentally, John McLean was in the hunt for the Presidency as Republican in 1856 and again in 1860 as a Republican.
In 1830 Jackson put the hot tempered Henry Baldwin (PA) on the court. Baldwin may have been losing it near the end of his tenure. He couldn’t get along with his fellow Supreme Court members and had frightening fits of temper over small things. One or two of them expressed genuine concern that he might commit some act of violence against them. He'd threaten to “crack your skull with my gavel” and then would later just say he was only joking. Baldwin could have had a slight case of schizophrenia.
Jax appointed James Wayne to the Court in 1835. James showed the courage of John Wayne when he refused to support his home state of Georgia when it seceded in 1861. JW remained on the United States Supreme Court throughout the Civil War.
Phil Barbour became an associate justice in 1836. Phillip was a big states-rights guy and passed away after only five years on the court.
Roger B. Taney replaced Marshall place as Chief Justice in 1836. Taney is one of the scoundrels of American history for spearheading a very racist decision in 1857. Taney was at the head of the court for almost 30 years.
AFTER OFFICE
Jackson left Washington and became a hermit at the Hermitage, his home in Nashville, Tennessee. The Panic of 1837 hurt Andy’s cotton crop badly and he was forced to borrow to stay afloat.
AJ campaigned hard for Van Buren in 1836 and in 1840. Andrew died on June 8, 1845 after a long illness. Jackson’s next to last sentence was that he wanted to meet all his friends again on the other side, “Both black and white.”
He didn’t include “red.”
SOURCES
America and its Peoples; A Mosaic in the Making, by Kirby and Martin –for the point about the same trends against the Indians taking place in Russia and South Africa.
Modern textbook for high school seniors, but for some reason it's being assigned in colleges.
The American Experience, A Study of Themes and Issues in American History c) 1971, by Robert F. Madgic, Stanley S. Seaberg, Fred H. Stopsky, and Robin W. Winks - c) 1971 - Addison-Wesley
The first two are high school teachers and the last two college professors. Robin Winks taught at Yale. This one is all over the road.
The American Pageant, A History of the Republic, by Thomas A. Bailey of Stanford University – c) 1961 D.C. Heath
Bailey is a great writer but he is just as great an editor. Half of his 'wit' that he is credited for as an author is actually his talent for finding the truly worth telling witticisms from the million pages of American history sources, and passing them on at just the right moment.
The American People, A History, by Pauline Maier - c) 1986 DC Heath
Pauline has written some mature and scholarly works for the university student. This is not one of them. This is for eighth graders, which is why I am reading it.
The American Presidents, by Grolier c) MCMXCII (whatever year that is)
The American Spirit, A History of the United States, by Clarence L. Ver Steeg of Northwestern University - c) 1980
Very erratic design and concept. A lot of wasted space and the author can’t decide if he wants to tell a story or not.
Black Slaveowners, by Larry Koger, c) 1985
A very surprising number of free black in the South owned slaves. How Uncle Tom can you get?
A Diplomatic History of the American People, by Thomas A. Bailey – c) 1958 – One of my favorite historians. Tom is always readable and opinionated.
A Diplomatic History of the United States, by Samuel Flagg Bemis of Yale – c) 1934 Henry Holt
Bemis was one of the most influential historians of his era. He is sometimes a blame America first guy, and sometimes a chauvinist. I wish more writers had such admirable inconsistency. Most often Sammy the Flagg is fair and balanced and doesn't have many axes to grind. He operates at a high plane of academic aloofness and this allows him to hit hard because the blows are just delivered as facts, not emotions.
Empire for Liberty, The Genesis and Growth of the United States - Volume One - To 1865, by Dumas Malone and Basil Rauch - c) 1960 - Appleton-Century-Crofts
Great writers and scholars. The book would be perfect if they didn’t slow the narrative down with the analytical and social history chapters.
The Enduring Vision, by Paul S. Boyer, Clifford E. Clark Jr, Joseph F. Kett, Thomas L Purvis, Harvard Sitkoff, and Nancy Woloch
I’ve only read 1,120 pages so far.
What a masterful complete work both academically and physically. EV is slanted lefty to the offensive max, but that does not diminish this book’s greatness. It is what it is and I love it, even when I hate it.
The Graphic Story of the American Presidents
The Great Republic, A History of the American People, by Bailyn, Dallek, Davis, Donald, Thomas, and Wood c) 1992 (fourth edition)
You have to dig down to read it but GR is one of the finest history books ever written.
History of a Free People, by Henry W. Bragdon and Samuel P. McCutchen – c) 1954 MacMillan
Many presidents get buried in American History textbooks as part of some larger era, but Andrew Jackson always gets his own chapter. Brag taught at Phillips Exeter and Cutch at NYU. I have defaced many of the bad cartoons in this old hardcover.
A History of the United States, by Daniel J. Boorstin and Brooks Mather Kelly - c) 1986 Ginn & Co.
Boorstin is my hero for having written the book The Image, an expose of fake hype in the modern media.
This is for ninth graders and it’s very smooth.
Out of Many, A History of the American People, by John Mack Faragher (Yale); Mary Jo Buhle (Brown), Daniel Czitrom (Mount Holyoke); and Susan Armitage (Washington State), c)1994 – This is liberal pseudo-history, although in this era it isn't much of a problem yet..
Faragher Czitrom, and Buhle say that if Rachel Jackson had been alive she certainly would have disapproved of Peggy Eaton along with just about everyone else. I doubt it. After the mean things whispered about her, Rachel Donelson Jackson might have had an abnormally sympathetic view of a woman in O’Neal’s’ situation.
Oxford History of the American People, by Samuel Eliot Morison – c) 1965 Oxford University Press - 1,128 pages
He quotes way too many dreadful song and poem passages. I wish all historians would stop doing that.
A People’s History of the United States, by Howard Zinn, c) 1992 – Howard isn’t what you’d call an Andrew Jackson fan. Zinn ignores almost every issue of general importance and concentrates this so called “history” on polemical arguments in the labor against capitol arena. Jackson oppressed the Indians and didn’t do anything else. Only a Howard Zinn could pin me into a position of defending in a huff the record of Andrew Jackson.
Zinn died recently, like it wasn't risky already to criticize him.
The Record of America, by James Truslow Adams and Charles Garrett Vannest, c)1944 – This is a pro-South anti-North polemic general history book pretending to be an innocent story-tell, but I have come to expect nothing less from any work involving the great Truslow Adams. I’ve read several of his astonishingly angry histories and biographies. A real jerk. I don't know what Vannest would sound like alone, but this book sounds like the other books I've read by Truslowlife.
The Revolutionary Age of Andrew Jackson, by Robert V. Remini - c) 1987
A short but effective book. A lot of material for the size. I keep losing it, then finding it. If I can put a beeping device on RAAJ I will finish it. The little paperback weighs only 1.6 ounces.
A Short History of the American Nation, by John A. Garraty, c) 1966 –
I own the revised 1974 second edition. Garrity is unusual in that he wrote a college General US History textbook after 1960 all by himself. Everything is collaborative now.
Garraty writes of Daniel Webster that “he was too fond of alcohol and adulation.” Webster should have gone into show business where that is a compliment.
Isn't it funny how only racist old white historians used the word “niggardly”? Yes, technically it is a perfectly polite word meaning “cheap,” but only disagreeable writers like Garraty and Truslow Adams or Claude Bowers ever use it. Its certainly a subliminal telegraphing of their inner jerk.
A Short History of Mexico, by J. Patrick McHenry
The United States to 1865, by Michael Kraus – c) 1959 University of Michigan Press – Volume Four of the University of Michigan History of the Modern World
This Mike likes AJ more than this Mike.
Overall Kraus does pretty good relative to his era on the racist test and slavery. But he does often write of Northerners who are “hostile” to slavery and pro-slavery politicians. But isn't slavery 100 times more “hostile” than anyone's opposition to it? That's like calling someone 'incendiary' for pummeling some guy who keeps lighting houses on fire.
The United States of America; A History, by Hank Bamford Parkes - c) 1967 Knopf
Excellent general history by a classy writer.
The United States: The History of a Republic, by Richard Hofstadter of Columbia, William Miller co-author of The Age of Enterprise, and Daniel Aaron of Smith – c) 1957 Prentice-Hall – 812 pages
This book could hurt someone if you threw it at them. A full-fledged history reading assignment from three famous historians. An expensive textbook in 1957, I got it for two dollars at the Brandeis Book Stall during its sale month.
Hofstadter wrote a fairly famous Andrew Jackson chapter in his renowned book, The American Political Tradition.
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