He learned to fight in the Revolutionary
War
He used what he's learned to kill a man gambling death
He led the American army to the most
surprising victory in its history but
He also launched an unauthorized invasion
of Florida he added vast regions of the
south to the United States but it was
land he brutally rested from Native
Americans
Americans
he was the founder of the Democratic Party but his enemies accused him of
being an American Napoleon
his name was Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson is made possible by 
major grant from the National Endowment
for the Humanities democracy demands
wisdom by the Ahmanson foundation
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by contributions to your
from viewers like you
thank you
in 1859, as America was rushin towards  Civil War, James Parton, the first
historian to attempt a biography of
 Andrew Jackson arrived at the hermitage
Jackson's beloved home
he was escorted through the mansion by Hannah Jackson who had been Andrew
Jackson's slave from the time she was 10 until Jackson died.
Partin knew that many Americans
considered Andrew Jackson the country's
greatest leader since the founding
fathers. Parton wrote during the last 30
years of his life. He was the idol of the 
American people.
Columbus had sailed, Washington fought,  Jefferson written fifty years of
democratic government had passed, and the result of it all was that the people of
the United States honored Andrew Jackson before all other living men.
Andrew Jackson, in my mind, is one of the great presidents; and it's not surprising
that he was so loved. In fact, it is said that when the Civil War broke out in
1861. People wanted to vote for Andrew Jackson hoping he would come back and
save the Union. He was that beloved for all of his flaws, for all of his
contradictions, Andrew Jackson did more than any other American of his
generation to enlarge the possibilities of American democracy in doing that
seeing himself as president, as the
Tribune of the people, he did more than
anyone to change to enlarge the
possibilities of the American presidency
but Jackson was also one of the most
controversial presidents in American
history his policies on issues like
Indian Removal and slavery provoked
fierce opposition not only in his
lifetime but beyond Andrew Jackson for
African Americans is not sort of figure
that one who was very dear he wouldn't
form part of the the ranks of the great
men of American society because never in
his reign as president in his terms as
president
did he ever attempt to expand the rights
of people on the contrary he did
everything he could it seems to me to
constrict those right to limit those
rights people talked about Andrew
Jackson's black moods people talk about
Andrew Jackson's red hot temper but the
color of this story is green and it's
the grain of envy and it's the grain of
coveting Indian lands
at the Hermitage Parton discovered a
portrait of Jackson finished just before
he died
it was completely unlike the many heroic
portraits of the great man and the
vulnerability it captured brought to
life partners most insightful
description of Jackson he was a
democratic autocrat an urbane savage an
atrocious saint Americans have always
looked at Andrew Jackson and seen
themselves but over the years they've
looked at Andrew Jackson and seen
different versions of themselves at one
time they saw the frontiersman the poor
boy made good the classic self-made man
today some Americans look back at
Jackson and they see the slaveholder the
Indian oppressor even the Indian hater
so the debate about Andrew Jackson is
very contemporary one he's an
inescapable quintessential American but
of what kind is he a man whom we should
admire or is he a man whom we should
despise is he a man whom we should
celebrate or is he a man for whom we
should apologize Thomas Jefferson he
could never speak on account of the
rashness of his feelings I have seen him
attempted repeatedly and as often choked
with rage
in the 1760s Andrew Jackson's parents
traded desperate poverty in Ireland for
an equally hard life on the Carolina
frontier Andrew never met his father
before he died when his wife was
pregnant with Andrew leaving the boy and
his two older brothers to fend for
themselves when the Revolutionary War
began in 1775 the Carolina frontier
became a dangerous place with one farmer
siding with the Patriots and his
next-door neighbor with the British it
was a brawling violent way to grow up
you made a living with your hands and
with your spirit your military spirit to
defend yourself and your hands to pull
something out of the soil
so you had a constant wariness and a
constant threat of violence and I think
that's one of the many reasons Jackson
became a man who was so prone to
violence he grew up with it he didn't
know anything else during the revolution
the fighting in the Carolinas was the
most vicious of the entire war both
sides executed men they captured and
committed atrocities against civilians
outnumbered and desperate the Patriots
relied on young boys who knew every
twist and turn in the woods to carry
orders through the
one of them was Andrew Jackson there was
a famous story about young Andrew 13
years old being commanded by his by the
British officer who captured him to
clean his boots and Jackson refused to
take such a servile job and the officer
slashed him across the face with a sword
and Jackson put his arm up to defend
himself and he carried the scars all his
life the war inflicted other even more
horrible scars on Jackson
one of his brothers died of heatstroke
while in battle and his mother and other
brother died of disease in the boys eyes
it was the British who were to blame for
leaving him suddenly alone in the world
for Andrew Jackson the American
Revolution was a formative psychic as
well as political event for the rest of
his life he would despise the British
Empire he would grow up feeling as if he
owed the British a kind of repayment for
all that the British had done to him
personally and to his family
Andrew Jackson with that kind of a
background you would expect him to be a
very angry and frustrated young man and
he was and he made quite a reputation
for himself as a man who is getting into
trouble causing all kinds of problems a
fellow resident of the town of Salisbury
described the young troublemaker this
way Andrew Jackson was the most roaring
rollicking horse-racing card playing
mischievous fellow that ever lived in
Salzburg he got a small inheritance from
a grandfather back in Ireland and he
went down to Charleston to collect it
and spent the whole thing in a week on
horses and liquor and maybe some girls
too but it was all gone pretty fast and
he had to trudge back to the upcountry
of South Carolina to somehow pull his
life together again there are a lot of
15 year-olds who would not have made it
and it wouldn't have surprised anybody
if Andrew Jackson just went down the
tubes and was forgotten at that point
but all the people who knew him when he
was a boy and a young man said he had
passion fire determination audacity and
refusal to be crushed by the kinds of
things that might wipe out anybody else
after apprentice in with a lawyer
Jackson became a lawyer himself at the
age of 20 and when he was offered a job
as a prosecutor on the frontier he
jumped at the opportunity to join the
waves of Americans heading west
when the revolution ends particularly
for young men like Jackson with very
little going for them in the East there
is this huge expanse of territory
Kentucky and Tennessee to be precise
that there was the place you could start
off one of the attractive features of
this frontier experience was that all of
these new places were in need of
founding fathers so to speak
and they're like a job placement at a
new founding father needed for County
and Tennessee and and people like
Jackson could apply I mean basically you
show up and say I'm here to create a new
community
in 1788 three months before George
Washington was elected the first
president of the United States Andrew
Jackson arrived at a new settlement on
the edge of the American West it's name
was Nashville Tennessee
besides practicing law
Nashville's newest citizen bred horses
speculated in land and most
significantly fell in love with Rachel
Donaldson robots daughter of one of
Nashville's most prominent families
Rachel returned Andrews feelings but
their relationship faced an
insurmountable barrier
Rachel was already married to a man from
Kentucky named Lewis robots when Jackson
arrives his this wild kid and Rachel you
know was sort of wild herself she should
never have married Louis Robards and she
finds I think companionship and a kind
of kindred spirit in Jackson and they
fall in love but in most of 1790s
America women literally belonged to
their husbands I think it's very hard
for us to understand that there was a
time in the history of our country where
it was virtually impossible for people
to divorce the woman became a part of
the husband and she had no separate
legal rights whatsoever from her husband
so in the event a woman who wanted to
leave the household she had to leave her
children behind because the children did
not belong to her she had no legal
ownership to children to property a
woman had no legal identity whatsoever
except as a part of her husband
most unhappy couples lived in loveless
marriages rather than flout the law but
Andrew and Rachel were not the kind of
people who let social convention stop
them from following their hearts these
two hapless people up until this point
find each other and the opportunity and
the desire merge for a really
extraordinary decision which is for the
two to elope to Natchez the two young
lovers headed south along the Natchez
Trace trail their goal was the wild and
wooly town of Natchez on the Mississippi
River which was governed by Spain by
running off with Andrew Rachel was
making it clear that she was never going
back to her husband no matter what the
consequences
for a woman to choose to leave her
husband especially one who came from
Rachel Donaldson's background was an
extraordinarily courageous decision on
her part because in Rachel's case she
knew that she was essentially setting
herself up to be condemned by the
society that she lived in and the shadow
of this decision would haunt them
through the rest of their days in the
beginning the couple's daring elopement
was worth it for they made an ideal
match where others could not tame him
she could there's one incident that
occurred when they were floating down
the Mississippi River and there were
some people that annoyed Jackson I don't
recall exactly what it is they did and
he took a rifle and he starts shooting
at them and right away they ran down
into the cabin and told Rachel she said
please tell mr. Jackson I would like to
see him she could handle him she was the
right person for him
with Nashville still a frontier town
with few churches and fewer courts
Rachel and Andrew were able to return
home after six months and be accepted by
most of the community as man and wife
but Rachel's husband was not so
forgiving and he took his case against
her to the state legislature where he
won permission to sue for divorce on the
grounds of adultery in 1793 the courts
granted Louis the first divorce in the
history of the state of Kentucky not
long after Rachel and Andrew were
quietly married in Nashville Rachel
hoped that if she and Andrew were loving
and faithful the fact that she had been
branded a Scarlet woman would soon be
forgotten but her new husband was
interested in politics and her adultery
would one day be a central issue in the
race for president of the United States
for all his wildness the young Andrew
Jackson also had the determination
vision and charisma of a born leader and
in 1796 the state of Tennessee sent him
as its lone representative to Congress
but the learnin statesman who filled the
nation's capital didn't quite know what
to make of the fiery frontiersman
Jackson was so passionate when he came
to Congress in the 1790s the Thomas
Jefferson remembered that he would get
on his feet and become overwhelmed with
his emotions literally choked with rage
could not get out of word and red-faced
had to sit down again if the Washington
elite were unimpressed with the
passionate mr. Jackson the feeling was
mutual
Congress was stifling for Jackson it was
a place where people met in committees
and did backroom deals and Jackson
despised backroom deals it was a place
where people traded favors with one
another in order to get what they wanted
and Jackson thought that was hideously
corrupt
after just over a year in Congress
Jackson resigned declaring I was born
for the storm and a calm does not suit
me raising racehorses now became his
favorite pasta and betting enormous sums
on those horses in match races became
his passion Andrew Jackson loved horses
violence whiskey he was also someone who
if you were his friend
you were his friend forever if yours
enemy god help you in 1805 Jackson won a
huge sum of money when his opponents
horse came up lame but a dispute over
how the payoff was made led to an
escalating series of insults between
Jackson and a young Tennessee and named
Charles Dickinson later his friends
insisted that Dickinson had said
something about Rachel Jackson and
here's something else that Jackson is
very sensitive about because his whole
marriage to Rachel had been under a
cloud from the beginning and anybody to
raise that point in any direct or even
indirect way would trigger a very
violent response
on May 30th 1806 Charles Dickinson and
Andrew Jackson met on a dueling ground
Dickinson was reputed to be the best
shot in Tennessee and when the signal
was given to fire he fired first but to
his shock he apparently missed
then Andrew Jackson took careful aim and
mortally wounded Dickinson only then did
Jackson's second notice that he was
bleeding Jackson had in fact been shot
in the chest with the bullet lodging
next to his heart when he shocked ii
asked how he could possibly have fired
back accurately jackson replied i should
have hit him if he had shot me through
the brain jackson carried the bullet for
the rest of his life it was unmistakable
evidence of how unsuited he was to the
give-and-take of politics but his future
in a different arena could not have been
brighter Sam Houston the reputation of
general Jackson will adorn the proudest
brightest pages in the nation's history
he wears the laurel wreath which his own
valor
in 1812 the United States declared war
on Great Britain Andrew Jackson had been
yearning since he was 13 for another
shot at the British and having been
voted commander of the Tennessee militia
his dream had now come true
to inspire fellow Tennesseans to join
his army he declared who are we and for
what are we going to fight
are we the titled slaves had George the
third the military conscripts of
Napoleon the great or the frozen
peasants of the Russians are no we are
the Freeborn sons of America the
citizens of the only Republic now
existing in the world and the only
people on earth who possess rights
liberties and property which they dare
call their own but the mission Jackson
in his men were ultimately given was far
from glamorous tramping and slogging
through the forests and swamps of the
southeast until they had found and
defeated Creek Indian warriors who were
allied with the British well Jackson is
in an enviable position he has one of
four armies assigned to punish the
creeks he is poorly supplied his troops
are very poorly trained they have very
short enlistments and it's cold and wet
and they want to return home things are
not going well
after months in the field Jackson supply
lines broke down fearing starvation some
of his soldiers Newton ate and began to
walk home to Tennessee but Andrew
Jackson threatened to kill them if they
took another step it was not an idle
threat for on two other occasions
Jackson had men under his command
executed I see in Jackson's Indian
campaigns a ruthlessness that is
frightful to behold he seemed possessed
almost with a determination to go on no
matter what finally in March of 1814
Jackson cornered the main creek force it
was camped on a peninsula called
Horseshoe Bend because it was protected
on three sides by the Tallapoosa River
with the fourth side protected by a
mammoth breastwork of logs they had
built the creeks were convinced that
their position was impregnable
but then Cherokee waters fighting with
Jackson's swam across the river to the
creek village and set it on fire
Jackson saw his chance and ordered his
men to storm the barricade
after brutal hand-to-hand fighting
Jackson's forces took the barricade from
that point on after the barricade was
breached it's no longer a battle
it is a Search and Destroy mission it is
a slaughter
of the 1,000 Creek warriors not one
surrendered
it was Andrew Jackson's first great
child but to his friend Sam Houston and
fought beside him it was also a tragedy
the Sun was going down and it's set on
the ruins of the Creek Nation where but
a few hours before a thousand brave
warriors had scowled on their assailants
there was nothing to be seen but volumes
of dense smoke rising heavily over the
corpses of painted warriors the burning
ruins of their fortifications more
Native Americans were killed in the
Battle of Horseshoe Bend than on any
other day in the history of the United
States one of the American participants
who went down to the river that night to
fill his canteen said it very very
nicely the Tallapoosa might very well be
called a river of blood because as the
dead and dying made it to the river
the Tallapoosa was turned red
Horseshoe Bend was one of the only
victories in a war that was turning out
to be a disaster for the United States
the British had captured Washington DC
following the Battle of Bladensburg
which military historians have called
the worst disgrace in American military
history when the American militia broken
ran hardly firing a shot the British
then moved in burned the White House and
the Capitol so the war had been going
very badly with Britain threatening to
further humiliate America by conquering
New Orleans the army was desperate to
find a general who could get his men to
stand and fight the general finally
chosen was incredibly tough on his men
and yet his men were fiercely loyal to
him a riddle explained by his nickname
Old Hickory Andrew Jackson became Old
Hickory when he was coming back from the
front down in Mississippi and he decided
that he would walk while the wounded row
and so he walked all the way home
and his men loved him for it it was
example of amazing spiritual leadership
and they started calling him Old Hickory
because they thought he was as tough as
a Hickory stick Old Hickory had never
had a day of formal military training in
his life and yet the Battle of New
Orleans would be depicted in song story
and art for the next 100 years
Verne Andrew Jackson and his men were
about to shock the world to even out the
odds with the British Jackson enlisted
the aid of the French pirate Jean
Lafitte Choctaw Indians and the free
blacks of New Orleans then he masked
them beside his men on a narrow stretch
of ground between a swamp and the
Mississippi River On January 8th 1815 a
huge wave that battle hardened British
troops swept down on Jackson's irregular
instead of turning and running as the
British had watched American troops do
in numerous battles before Jackson and
his men marched into the pages of
American history they really thought
that once these professionals came
watching towards these frontiersman
they'd all run and to their surprise
they not only didn't run they stood and
fired one folly after another right into
the faces of these poor oncoming British
soldiers and just mowed them down
Jackson had proved that America could
stand up to the world's greatest
military power and win the victory that
he won was almost unbelievable
the British lost hundreds of men dead on
the battlefield
Jackson's casualties in the main battle
were 8 killed and 13 wounded it was
astonishing it's still astonishing as
news of the victory spread across the
country America was swept up in a wave
of patriotism unrivaled in its history
I think the whole character of the
American people changed after the war of
1812 prior to that time you asked the
person who or what they were they would
say I'm a New Yorker I'm a Virginian I'm
from Connecticut I'm from Massachusetts
after New Orleans they said I am an
American Americans pride in the victory
was stoked by a flood of images of the
battle for a new invention aquatint
engraving enabled artists to make
multiple color copies of the same image
much faster than ever before a delighted
American public bought up thousands of
pictures of the glorious American
victory at New Orleans and at the center
of many of these new engravings was the
new American hero Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson was really one of the
first national celebrities songs were
written about him clubs were founded for
him January 8 the anniversary of the
Battle of New Orleans towns would have
Jackson dinners and banquets he was a
cultural force before he was a political
force the festivities were boisterous
for Americans had more than just the
Battle of New Orleans to celebrate after
1815 the Americans were very much free
to work out their own destiny without
interference from Europe this meant that
they were enthused and excited and I
thought they could accomplish anything
they wanted to it also lent a sense of
urgency they believed that if they
didn't get it right now they might not
get another chance that this was the
time this was the place on which a new
world was going to be created they had
to make sure that it was the right new
world this turbulent age would become
the only period in American history
known by the name of a single man the
Jacksonian era yet as the era began
Andrew Jackson was once again living on
a farm in Tennessee with no clear future
in American politics for Rachel Jackson
having Andrew home was a break from what
was in many ways a lonely life
she and Andrew had proven unable to have
children and her dream of spending her
life surrounded by a loving husband and
large family had not come true I think
that when Rachel ran off with Andrew
Jackson she thought that she was going
to get a husband who was devoted to her
and that they would have this warm
circle around the family fire every
night
with children running about very similar
to the household she had grown up in but
instead she's married a man who's got
tremendous ambition so instead of having
this quiet family home which I think was
at the heart of Rachel's desires instead
she's married to a very ambitious man
who pursues national politics becomes a
military leader and in her own words
spends less than the fourth of his
nights under his own roof as he waited
to see what Avenue for his ambition
might open next Andrew Jackson tended to
his farm and his horses and became a
wealthy man his admirers were soon
touting the political appeal of a
penniless orphan who had pulled himself
up by his own bootstraps but the real
story of how Andrew Jackson became a
wealthy man was more complicated
Frederick Douglass general Jackson has
to own that he owes his farm on the
banks of the mobile to the strong arm of
the nigra
you
you
for millions of poor white Americans
many of whom had come from Europe
seeking a better life
the ideal America was one in which they
could prosper to give them that
opportunity General Andrew Jackson had
forced the Creek Nation to see vast
amounts of land in what would become
Alabama and Mississippi to the United
States the treasured myth was that this
was a place where white Americans could
improve their luck by relying solely on
their own hard labor
the harsh reality was that it was black
Americans who were often doing much of
the labor Jackson himself founded a
plantation in northern Alabama on land
from which he had just driven the creeks
to work the land he brought in slaves
Jackson firmly believed that the slaves
were put on this earth to labor and
whites are here to rule in to govern and
to lead society and they are at the top
of the pecking order they are at the top
of the social order they are at the top
of the political order and therefore
they're the ones who rule superior
White's lead inferior blacks follow
Jackson named his biggest parcel of land
near Nashville The Hermitage at the
height of its operation well over 100
slaves at the Hermitage called Andrew
Jackson master he would have been a very
paternalistic person and he would have
made the slaves think he was their
mother and father and got all wrapped
into one but to enslave another person
another human being you can't be a good
person you have to be a pretty tough
vicious mean person to hold another
person or 140 people in slavery for all
of their lives when one of Jackson's
slaves escaped he offered a reward to
anyone who would give the man 300 lashes
300 lashes could kill a man because of
the infection from 300 lashes on his
back perhaps they would put some grease
into the wound some ointment into the
wound they may pour some whiskey on it
you know and which would make the man go
into shock but he could die from those
wounds he certainly would be healed for
a long time and that would remind all
the other slaves here's what you gonna
get if you try to run away from this
place
though a few white Americans were
starting to question the morality of
enslaving blacks the fact was that
slavery was vital to American prosperity
and men like Andrew Jackson could not
envision a world without it human
slavery was a powerhouse of the early
American economy slave grown products
were the most valuable exports that the
United States produced slave grown
cotton slave grown rice slave grown
tobacco spilled out of the plantations
of the south crowded onto boats enriched
the harbors of New York and Boston and
then fed an appetite of a hungry and
shivering world and that's where the
money came from so the people who owned
the slaves and the people who bought and
sold the produce that the slaves made
were the richest people in the country
and it was the desire to get more of
those riches that drove Americans into
the best cotton country in the world the
country that was possessed by the creek
in the Choctaw and the Cherokee and the
Chickasaw Indians the relentless demand
for Indian land on which to grow cotton
created intense conflict with Native
Americans
some of the bloodiest fighting was in
southern Georgia where white settlers
were battling Seminoles and creeks who
were staging cross-border raids from
Florida with Florida still owned by
Spain President James Monroe called up a
man he knew he could depend on to defend
America's borders but General Jackson
had even bigger plans Jackson really was
simply concerned with Indian insurgency
in Florida he was really concerned about
the growing numbers of free and escaped
blacks who were they are free and
escaped slaves who were there who were
armed and potentially dangerous and a
magnet for other slaves it's a threat to
hit to the plantation economy the
combination of an Indian slave alliance
had haunted Americans from the 18th
century onward and this was something
that concerned Jackson terribly without
orders from Washington
Jackson launched an invasion of Florida
and competent during the invasion he
captured two British men who he believed
were inciting attacks on Americans
ignoring the ruling of his own military
tribunal he had both men executed
when news of the unauthorized invasion
reached Washington the Speaker of the
House Henry Clay declared that Jackson
had the makings of an American Napoleon
he called on Congress to censure Jackson
being censured would have disgraced
Jackson but his conquest of Florida was
enormous Lee popular with most Americans
and Congress refused to censure the
great war hero
Henry Clay I fail to see how the killing
of two thousand English persons at New
Orleans qualifies a person for the
difficult and complicated duties of the
presidency
in 1824 James Monroe was retiring after
two terms as president Andrew Jackson
thought he was an excellent candidate to
be the next occupant of a white house
but he was not the only one with his eye
on the job John Quincy Adams was the son
of John Adams America's second president
he had spent much of his childhood in
Europe with his father and was now
Secretary of State his worldview was as
different from Jackson's as his
upbringing he was a politician with
imagination he imagined an America that
was much more economically developed he
imagined an America with much broader
educational opportunities for everybody
he imagined an America in which the
rights of Indians and black people and
women were actually respected Treasury
Secretary William Crawford and Speaker
of the House Henry Clay were also
candidates for president as in every
previous election the candidates did not
campaign and in some states residents
did not even get to vote for president
instead the state legislature chose that
state's members of the electoral college
in the early years of the Republic
voters were not called on to choose the
President of the United States choosing
the president was quite honestly and
quite deliberately an elitist operation
the people who were thought to be the
insiders in state government became the
presidential electors and they chose the
president based on which set of
Washington insiders they thought was the
best and the people were basically
expected to accept that decision without
plate in an election controlled by
Washington politicians the frontiersman
from Tennessee seemed certain to finish
last
when Andrew Jackson's name was first
floated about as a candidate for the
presidency all kinds of leading
politicians were aghast
they understood him to be a wild-eyed
military chieftain a hot-tempered
individual who had executed a couple of
Brits down in Florida without authority
or or apparent reason and as Jefferson
said he was the most unfit man
imaginable for the office of the
presidency to counter the view that
Jackson was unfit to be President one of
his advisors John Eaton published a
series of letters that proposed an
entirely new rationale for what was
important in a president in the
selection of a chief magistrate of this
union it is not necessary that we should
look exclusively to the mental
qualifications of a candidate it is
strength of character a perseverance and
steadiness of purpose that makes the
distinguished man what John Eaton does
in the letters of Wyoming is simply
stand on its head the conventional
understanding of the qualifications of a
president the very qualities that made a
candidate before John Quincy Adams being
the the ideal experience in courts of
Europe experience and diplomacy
experience as his father secretary in
the in various offices of government all
of this is proof of corruption proof of
insider status proof of being out of
touch with the people whereas Jackson's
complete absence of a resume becomes his
primary qualification for office
when the votes were counted in 1824 the
Washington establishment was stunned to
discover that Andrew Jackson had won
both the most popular and electoral
votes but with four men dividing up the
electoral vote Jackson did not win a
majority and the election was thrown
into the House of Representatives
Speaker of the House Henry Clay had
finished last and was out of the running
but he had enough support to play
kingmaker clay believed with all of his
heart that Andrew Jackson was unfit to
be President so he threw his support to
John Quincy Adams and with it Adams was
elected president Adams then immediately
offered clay the job of Secretary of
State outraged Jackson supporters began
railing against what they were convinced
was a corruptbargain between Washington
insiders to steal the presidency from>Andrew Jackson one newspaper which had
endorsed Jackson declared expired at
Washington on the 9th of February 1825
the virtue liberty and independence of
the United States caused by poison
administered by the assassin hand of
John Quincy Adams the usurper and Henry
Clay
what they were absolutely convinced of
was that the popular will had been
thwarted the election had been stolen
Washington insiders had cooked up the
whole thing and they had to make sure it
didn't happen again
by 1828 when Andrew Jackson ran against
John Quincy Adams a second time the
Jacksonians were ready to launch the
first true political campaign in
American history their strategy was
driven by the fact that most states had
finally given the vote to all white
males to inspire those men to get out
and vote for the first time in their
lives Jackson's campaign took advantage
of the latest media revolution
lithography to flood America with
lithographs of the hero of the Battle of
New Orleans if you're going to elect the
president by appealing to the people as
a whole you change the ground rules
completely because you have to win the
popular vote down there at the
grassroots at the militia grants in the
taverns in the fairs in the streets all
across the country so somehow you have
to be able to reach those people you've
got to fire them up
the Jacksonians plan was to rally
average Americans around a new idea that
they should choose the President of the
United States so they organized all
kinds of popular demonstrations rallies
conventions assemblies of people who
would get together and hurrah for
Jackson they would pass some set of
resolutions and then they would all have
a barbecue and they all have a drink and
they would start to cheer and pretty
soon you get the sense that everybody in
this precinct is for Jackson and they'd
send a results of that to the newspaper
and try to publicize it as much as they
could and this was the kind of tactic
that didn't require finagling behind
closed doors it could take place in the
boondocks it could happen in rural
Tennessee rural Alabama rural New York
and this kind of stirring up popular
vote and giving the people the notion
that they should choose the president
and not the caucus members in Washington
that revolutionized American politics
the people have not been willing to give
up the choice of president ever since
the revolutionary new style of
campaigning soon made Jackson into the
heavy favorite but then his opponents
discovered the skeleton inside Andrew
and Rachel's closet
the man behind the mischief was a
confidant of henry clay's who edited a
Cincinnati newspaper he uncovered and
printed the court record of Rachel
Jackson's divorce proceedings which
revealed that Rachel had lived with
Andrew while she was married to another
man
the story of Rachel's adultery was soon
on the front pages of newspapers across
the country
Jackson is called the Western Bluebeard
Rachel is the American Jezebel and it
said the touch of a profligate woman
like Rachel is going to pollute anyone
how can someone like this be put in the
White House and over the women in
Washington society Jackson blamed Henry
Clay for the attacks on Rachel and he
would later say that it was one of the
great regrets of his life that he did
not shoot clay instead Jackson's
campaign fired back with the charge that
while Adams was US envoy to Russia he
had procured an American whore for the
Russians on this and other stories they
told about Adams were lies whereas the
story that the Adams people were telling
about Jackson was true but taken
together they all made the campaign of
1828 quite possibly the dirtiest
campaign in all American history
the viciousness of the campaign would
have consequences no one could have
foreseen rachel was now 57 and had
become deeply religious she found it
impossible to accept that people across
America were now publicly calling her a
whore and worse just because she had
fallen in love with Andrew Jackson so
many years ago to a friend she wrote who
has been so cruelly tried as I have our
enemies have dipped their arrows in
wormwood and gall and sped them at me
Almighty God was there ever anything to
equal it to think that 30 years have
passed
I've come to see Rachel Jackson's life
as the plot of a Grand Opera you have a
young woman who makes a mistake in her
first marriage and then chooses to
escape that with a very courageous
protector but by doing that she's made
perhaps the biggest mistake of her life
because this whole story of Rachel as a
fallen woman explodes on the scene again
and becomes the moral wedge issue of the
1820 campaigns
when the election of 1828 was over and
the votes were counted Andrew Jackson
the war hero who had dramatically
expanded America was elected president
in a landslide in January of 1829 he
boarded a steam boat to begin his
journey from Nashville to Washington DC
had many stops along the way the
townsfolk planned joyous celebrations to
honor the first man of humble origins to
become president but Andrew Jackson
declined every single invitation he
received for he was too bowed down with
grief just after the election Rachel
Jackson had died of a heart attack
Jackson was devastated by Rachel's death
from that day forward he carried her
miniature and would speak to Rachel
every night before his he went to sleep
whether he was at the Hermitage or in
Washington and when he was home at the
Hermitage each evening he would go and
visit Rachel's grave and yet Rachel's
death was seen by some as a political
godsend for Jackson everyone around
Jackson knows rachel is going to be a
problem in the White House because the
women in Washington will not accept her
socially and Rachel choosing shall we
say to die at that moment freeze him to
focus on all the challenges he'll have
in the White House in many ways she's
like Madame Butterfly who realizes that
it's only through her death that she'll
be able to give her lover what he needs
but that was not how Andrew Jackson saw
it in his eyes his enemies had made an
unforgivable attack on his wife
they blame John Quincy Adams for not
putting a stop to it and he blamed Henry
Clay for initiating Jackson actually
believed that they killed her and so as
far as he was concerned they were her
murderers over the next eight years
Jackson's anger at his enemies would
combine with his passionate personality
and strong convictions to produce one of
the most turbulent presidencies America
has ever experienced Daniel Webster when
General Jackson comes he will bring a
breeze with him which way it will blow I
cannot tell
on March 4th 1829 thousands of farmers
and tradesmen who had never been to
Washington DC before poured into the
White House they had come to celebrate
the inauguration of the first president
whose life story they could identify
Andrew Jackson his whole family is wiped
out in the revolution he's an orphan
he's angry but he decides to make
something of himself and he becomes the
president of the United States
it's an extraordinary career it's what
America we like to think is all about to
Jackson's working-class supporters their
presence at the inauguration celebration
was proof that America was entering a
far more democratic age and that was
precisely what were the Washington elite
prominent socialite Margaret Bayard
Smith described how the inauguration
party turned into a right what a scene
we did witness the majesty of the people
disappeared and a rabble a mob was
scrambling fighting romping cut glass
and China to the amount of several
thousand dollars was broken in the
struggle to get the punch
ladies fainted men were to be seen with
bloody noses and such a scene of
confusion took place as is impossible to
describe those who got in could not get
out by the door again but had to
scramble out of windows the president
after having then nearly pressed to
death and almost suffocated by the
people in their eagerness to shake hands
with Old Hickory had to retreat through
the back way
the riot deeply alarmed the Washington
establishment as men like Henry Clay saw
it Jackson's motley supporters had
demonstrated why the founding fathers
had not trusted the masses to choose the
president
now clay and his allies worried that
Jackson a man famous for his dictatorial
disposition would use the support of
this same mindless mob to turn himself
into America's first imperial president
it's hard for us to imagine how much
that generation worried that a republic
could so easily be taken over by a
strong man by a military chieftain by an
emperor napoleon of course had just
recently done that in France Henry Clay
was convinced that King Andrew was the
farthest thing from the deliberative
statesman that a republic required that
he was in fact a dangerous egomaniacal
potential emperor president Jackson's
plans would only stoke Clay's fears for
over the next eight years he would
attempt to do nothing less than reinvent
the presidency Jackson as president was
not unlike Jackson as a general he was
the leader he thought of himself as a
leader he would he understood the
separation of powers under the
Constitution but nevertheless he thought
that the President had a very particular
role as the man who had been elected by
all of the people to lead government in
a way that no previous president could
have even thought of that alone execute
Jackson's first assault on the
Washington establishment was to fire
dozens of federal employees including 13
district attorneys charging that they
were either incompetent or corrupt or
both most of these high-level government
bureaucrats were regarded as untouchable
some of them had been there since George
Washington's day
Jackson within a few weeks fired a
number of them he removed more
government officials than all of his
predecessors put together
but while the president claimed pure
motives for the firings his opponents
took one look at the replacements
Jackson hired and proclaimed it the work
of the devil
some of these people were personally
unsavory some of them had scandals and
their backgrounds and as his opponents
and even Jackson's some of Jackson's own
supporters thought he was undercutting
the competency and efficiency of
government by naked ly rewarding people
for no virtue other than being willing
to say and do anything to get him
elected and so he was turning the United
States government into his own personal
political machine
but just as Andrew Jackson was starting
to look invincible the Washington elite
snared his administration in a sex
scandal
Jackson's friend and Secretary of War
John Eaton had long been friendly with a
woman named Peggy O'Neil Peggy was
married to an officer in the Navy but it
was whispered among the ladies of
Washington that she was not entirely
faithful in 1829 news arrived that
Peggy's husband had died on board a Navy
ship instead of going into mourning
Peggy
almost immediately married John Eaton
and that was when the rumor began racing
through the capital that the naval
officer had committed suicide after
finding out that the Secretary of War
was having an affair with Peggy to the
ladies of Washington it was proof that
Jackson's depraved rabble who is going
to sully the cabinet just as it had
defiled the White House
the problem with Peggy Eaton part
courtesan part common tart is she had a
scandalous sexual past and whenever you
see women and sex in this period you
know it's about fear and there was a lot
of fear in Washington and anxiety about
the coming of democracy the ladies of
Washington maybe couldn't do much about
that but they could do something about
Margaret Eaton and they decided to close
their doors to her it was a decision
with stunning political consequences in
the capital's early years the social
gatherings hosted by politicians wives
were a key venue for Washington's movers
and shakers to discuss politics and form
alliances but now prominent Washington
wives including those of Jackson's other
cabinet secretaries began demanding that
their husbands boycott all gatherings to
which Peggy Eaton was invited suddenly
it became almost impossible to conduct
politics in Washington supposedly
because of a single scarlet woman if you
read the press you would imagine that
Margaret Eaton was some Cleopatra or
Madame pompadour they called Peggy Eaton
the doom of the Republic and they
imputed all kinds of power to her that
she really didn't have but what was
behind it was not so much fact as this
terrible anxiety and fear about this man
who could abuse power and somehow Peggy
Eaton symbolized that fear the simplest
way for the president to get Washington
functioning again was to tell John Eaton
to accept Peggy's social isolation
but for Jackson the attacks on Peggy
were painfully reminiscent of the
mudslinging against Rachel the
president's wounds from the loss of his
wife were still raw each night he read
from her prayer book and then went to
sleep thinking about her and the more he
thought about Rachel the more determined
he became to stop the same thing from
happening to Peggy and so for two years
the president spent more of his time
defending Peggy Eaton than on any other
matter for us today the Eaton affair can
only be compared to Monica Lewinsky but
actually it was even more serious
because in the end of course President
Clinton did not lose his office but as a
result of not Margaret Eaton herself but
what she symbolized the cabinet broke up
which was the first time this had ever
happened in United States history and
the last to put an end to the scandal
John Eaton and the other members of
Jackson's cabinet resigned enabling the
president to replace them with men not
caught up in the feud
the press lampooned the cabinet
secretaries as rats fleeing Jackson's
sinking ship
Andrew Jackson disunion by armed force
is treason are you ready to incur its
guilt
if the eatin affair had an air of
melodrama it was also a sign that
tragedy was waiting in the wings vice
president John C Calhoun whose wife had
battled Jackson over Peggy Eaton was
simultaneously involved in another
crises one that threatened to bring the
nation to Civil War John C Calhoun from
about 1830 on was obsessed for the
remainder of his life with one
fundamental problem and that was the
problem of protecting slavery in a
nation where slaveholders were becoming
a minority
how could slavery be perpetuated in the
face of an indifferent or even hostile
north the crisis was triggered not by
slavery but taxes Congress eager to
protect northern factories had passed a
law which imposed a high tax on the
cheap imported cloth used by southern
plantation owners to clothe their slaves
determined to eliminate the tax and
protect slavery
Calhoun began promoting nullification
under which every state had the right to
disregard within its borders any law it
considered unconstitutional
nullification appealed to Calhoun and
other South Carolinians because it was a
way of asserting states rights and
clearly that was a fundamental threat to
the entire idea of a federal system and
it went straight to the heart of the
fundamental American question of who was
sovereign was the federal government
sovereign was the state or the state's
sovereign where the people stopped these
were all incredibly complicated
questions that consumed the Jackson
White House and Jackson's Washington
nullification sphere cysts supporters
were congressmen from South Carolina its
bitterest opponents were northern
congressmen who were convinced it would
lead to the breakup of the Union and
then there were those whose positions
were unknown including President Andrew
Jackson
on April 13th 1830 all three factions
were represented at a dinner in
Washington DC in honor of Thomas
Jefferson's birthday John C Calhoun and
the nullifiers had been plotting for
months to use the event to convert those
sitting on the fence to their cause and
in their eyes Jackson a fellow slave
owner was a natural ally Andrew Jackson
had his own plans for the dinner and as
he arrived he felt the same thrill he
had always felt before a battle as the
evening began the nullifiers endeavored
to build support by making toast after
toast to the importance of states rights
then suddenly President Jackson raised
his glass looking Jhansi Calhoun
straight in the eye
he made his toast our federal union it
must be preserved those seven words sent
shockwaves through Washington for all
now knew where Andrew Jackson stood he
would not tear apart the nation he had
helped build
for vice-president calhoun jackson's
opposition to nullification was
intolerable
the two men soon stopped speaking then
in november of 1832 the state of south
carolina formally nullified the tax and
added that if the federal government
challenged its right to do so South
Carolina would withdraw from the Union
it's hard for us to understand how
serious nullification was it nearly led
to Civil War people troops in South
Carolina were marching Jackson himself
wanted to lead the federal army into
South Carolina they were fortifying
forts in Charleston Harbor this was very
close to an all-out civil war and it was
Andrew Jackson's duty to stop that
instead of reacting in anger as he had
so often before Jackson issued a
presidential proclamation in which he
appealed to the people of South Carolina
seduced as you have been my fellow
countrymen by ambitious deluded and
designing men I call upon you in the
language of truth and with the feelings
of a father to retrace your steps say we
too are citizens of America Carolina is
one of these proud States her best blood
has cemented this happy Union and then
add if you can without horror and
remorse this happy Union we will
dissolve this picture of peace and
prosperity
we will deface these fertile fields we
will deluge with blood disunion by armed
force his treason are you ready to incur
its guilt and that's when he said the
union is perpetual it is not a union of
states it is a union of people and once
you're in that union you can't get out
and I as the chief executive have sworn
to enforce the laws both those ideas are
adopted by Abraham Lincoln in his
inaugural the whole thing is set up by
Jackson
with both sides preparing for civil war
the most skilled negotiator in Congress
Henry Clay succeeded in winning passage
of a compromise bill that dramatically
lowered the tariffs Jackson signed it
South Carolina
agreed to abide by it and war was
averted or Andrew Jackson the story of
nullification contained a dire warning
if Americans kept arguing about slavery
a civil war was inevitable and so the
president began appealing to northerners
to stop agitating against slavery but
that was not what the abolition movement
had in mind in 1835 the New York
abolitionists lewis and author Tappin
realized that the steam-powered printing
press made something brand-new in
American politics possible a mass
mailing and so they sent pamphlets to
thousands of influential people in the
south such as ministers to try and
convince them to speak out against
slavery the first batch of pamphlets
arrived in Charleston South Carolina
but the postmaster never delivered them
to the addresses instead they were taken
to the town square and burned
Jackson and Jacksonians paranoia about
slavery as is seen in this whole
incident about abolitionist literature
being sent into the South like all
paranoia has some foundation in reality
their fear is that the word would get
out of the slave population and within
sight slaves to revolt and this is a
concern that they all have in this
period particularly as you get into the
early 1830s in the wake of the the nat
turner rebellion anytime rebellions have
taken place slaveholders have become
increasingly paranoid and there and the
instinct is to squash their articulation
of these sorts of expressions as quickly
as is possible
tampering with the mail was a serious
federal crime but President Jackson
tacitly encouraged postmasters to
destroy the pamphlets and he demanded
that Congress outlaw mailing them saying
they were incendiary
the tappan Flyers provide an interest in
insight into what we could say is the
Jacksonians view of democracy because of
all things the ability to petition the
ability to get word out about your
position is a fundamental tenant of all
democratic societies so in that sense
then Jackson and his people are
attempting to squash a clear democratic
voice in this period Elias Boudinot the
Cherokee Nation what sort of hope have
we from a president who has an
inclination to disregard laws and
treaties we have nothing to expect from
such a president
like Thomas Jefferson Andrew Jackson
fervently believed that it was small
self-employed farmers who had made
America great and he believed that the
key to keeping it great was to continue
expanding West so that each new
generation could have farms of their own
in Jefferson's vision the frontier was
the place that each generation would
replicate the ideal Republican community
the problem of course is that the native
people are already living out there and
with one eye americans managed to not
notice them but with the other eye they
couldn't fail to notice them because as
soon as you got there you were in
conflict with them and that creates the
the fundamental tension that becomes the
story of Indian Removal in 1830 Jackson
won approval force of an Indian Removal
Act that appropriated half a million
dollars so that Native Americans living
east of the Mississippi could be removed
to land west of the Mississippi in
support of the Act Jackson said what
good man would prefer a country covered
with forests and ranged by a few
thousand savages to our extensive
republic studded with cities towns and
prosperous farms
occupied by more than twelve million
happy people and filled with all the
blessings of liberty civilization and
religion but Native American tribes such
as the Cherokee had an entirely
different view than white men of how to
relate to the land the Cherokee way is
to share is to be harmonious they really
were a spiritual people they had a way
of life that would perhaps put most
Christians to shame they exercised that
way of life daily every morning the
whole village would go to the water for
a blessing and at this going to water
ritual this old man sung this song
hee-yaw Connie hit a her you you Connie
he walkie Akane he WA saucy Akane
he or neither see Akane he unnie hey ho
ah candy so when I sang that song it
would have been the same sound that you
would have heard in the 1700s so that
was all disturbed because of the contact
with the whites
soon after the creation of the United
States many in the Cherokee tribe
decided that their one hope of saving
their land was to take Thomas
Jefferson's advice and embrace the white
man's way of life the Cherokees in fact
took exactly the advice that Jefferson
offered they settled down they put on
European clothing to developed an
alphabet they learned to read and write
they set up town meetings and a mayor
and city council on all those things and
they still had to go because the problem
was they were sitting in Georgia and
Georgia was to be ours not to Hertz they
could not coexist with Georgia preparing
to expel the Cherokee to Christian
missionaries brought a case to the
Supreme Court that challenged Georgia's
jurisdiction over the Cherokee Nation
the Supreme Court ruled in the Cherokees
favor but Andrew Jackson declared the
decision of the Supreme Court has fell
stillborn
Jackson encouraged Georgia to ignore the
verdict on the grounds that the Cherokee
were not really a nation a writer to the
Cherokee newspaper of the Phoenix
remembering that warriors from the
Cherokee Nation had played a key role in
the Battle of Horseshoe Bend that had
launched Jackson on his road to fame at
this request asked of General Jackson
when the thunders of his cannon were
heard in the southern forest and he will
say they are a nation
these unfortunate people who flocked to
the standard of the brave commander at
Horseshoe and nobly fought are now
repaid with ingratitude and oppression
solely on the basis of the color of
their skin
thousands of Cherokee families were
evicted from their homes by American
soldiers and forced onto what became
known as the Trail of Tears one of the
Christian missionaries who traveled with
them wrote I have no language to express
the emotions which render our hearts to
witness this season of cruel oppression
in Georgia multitudes were not allowed
to take anything with them but the
clothes they had on well furnished
houses were left to pray to plunderers
who like hungry wolves follow the
progress of the captors and rifle the
houses and strip the helpless for what
crime then was this whole nation doomed
to this almost unheard-of suffering the
period of Indian Removal really is a
black mark on American history America
which started out as a shining city on a
hill sinks to the bottom of darkest
depths in Indian Removal Andrew Jackson
and other Americans willing to do what
it took to separate Indians from their
land if it meant ignoring treaties if it
meant ignoring principles of
international law if it meant ignoring
common decency and a sense of justice
than it was done
with smallpox and cholera rampant on the
Trail of Tears more than two thousand
Cherokees died Andrew Jackson had tried
to convince Native Americans that he was
their great white father but the
Cherokee now had a different name for
him they call him Jack Cena and other
Jerky's people here and we say that
would laugh Jackson the devil Jack Cena
he's devil iced Andrew Jackson unless
you become more watchful you will find
that the most important powers of
government have passed into the hands of
the corporations
when it came to Indian Removal and
slavery President Jackson's view is
mirrored those of many other Americans
but there was one issue where he was
truly a visionary in his concern for how
average Americans would fare as the
economy became ever more industrialized
the world we know was taking shape in
those years and the questions that were
so urgent then are continued to be
urgent it was the nature of capitalism
it was how people were going to make
their livings and there's nothing
scarier nothing more fundamental to
people than how they're going to feed
themselves and clothe their families and
make their way in the world for
centuries learning a craft such as
shoemaking had enabled workers to make a
decent living but across the country
artisans like shoemakers were suddenly
losing their jobs to factories all of a
sudden it's a job that can be done by a
child by a woman by an unskilled man for
pennies but think what happens to the
shoemaker the shoemaker who has spent
all of his life learning the skills of
making a whole shoe
his skills have become worthless and as
a result he feels worthless and if you
look at how much money he's got in his
pocket he may be worthless that way also
he's he's broke
in the early years of Andrew Jackson's
presidency these working-class Americans
created a new way of giving voice to
their concerns the minstrel show on the
surface it was simply an expression of
racism and proof of how little white
Americans really knew about black
Americans but the hidden secret of the
minstrel show was that it was not just
about how whites saw blacks but also
about how they saw themselves of course
you're putting on that mask to make fun
of african-americans but by virtue of
putting on that mask
you've also enabled yourself to speak of
yourself the songs of the theater at the
time revealed that the audience is
feeling squeezed by a new America it's
being squeezed by an America that seems
to be coming more and more for the rich
instead of the common people so we can
look to the stage and we can find a
place in American society where that
working-class could express in a
powerful and gripping way what it felts
about what this world was doing to them
out there
for a working-class white America
putting on the mask of a slave was a way
of saying I feel like a slave the
minstrels also talked about the man they
hoped would free them they sang their
some who at our party rail call us the
ragtag and bobtail but we have some
within our pale who we are sure will
never fail to vote for General Jackson
for Andrew Jackson the central question
of his presidency was what he could do
to prevent these average Americans from
being exploited by the rich and powerful
the answer Jackson hit upon was to
destroy an institution that he thought
was giving the wealthy an unfair
advantage it's real title was the second
bank of the United States but Jackson's
supporters called it the monster Bank
Andrew Jackson dislikes all banks and he
said at one point but he particularly
disliked the Bank of the United States
as established by Congress after the war
of 1812 the reason was simple it had too
much power outside of any kind of public
accountability the bank was an enormous
economic institution they could really
control credit and therefore control
American economy itself for Jackson that
meant that the American economy was
being run by people who are not elected
that these unelected bankers had their
hands on the levers of power and could
control people's lives their destinies
and indeed control the political system
itself
to Jackson one of the monster banks
worst sins was that it was funding new
style businesses that were beginning to
wrap their chemicals around both the
economy and the government these new
businesses were called corporations the
problem with corporations as far as
Jackson was concerned was they had no
body to be kicked or sold to be damned
they were faceless anonymous machines
that were motivated only by making
profit for their shareholders and as a
result they could grow much much larger
than the average consumer the average
worker the average citizen but Jackson's
opponents thought corporations would
help America become more prosperous and
they thought his plan to blow up the
bank verged on insanity board was the
bank that guaranteed that the paper
dollars in Americans wallets were worth
something
Jackson took a kind of fundamentalist
view of money and credit gold and silver
dollars were real money paper was in
some sense fake those who were perhaps
more astute economists than Jackson
thought that this position was just
short of Neanderthal the United States
had been built on credit as Henry Clay
said in the Senate we have always been a
paper money people we won the revolution
on paper money
clay and his allies in Congress decided
to put some heat on Old Hickory near the
end of Jackson's first term they passed
a bill extending the bank's charter clay
calculated that the president would have
no choice but to sign the bill because a
veto would be seen by the American
public as so irresponsible it would cost
Jackson re-election but clay had made a
fundamental miscalculation about the
character of Andrew Jackson a character
that was exemplified by an event that
took place in the midst of the battle
over the bank at the President's request
a navy surgeon was brought to the White
House to operate on a painful shoulder
the problem was a simple one there was a
bullet in it 20 years before during the
War of 1812
Major General Jackson became embroiled
in a feud between one of his officers
and a prominent Nashville family instead
of mediating the dispute as might have
been expected of a man of his stature
General Jackson took part in a
full-scale gun battle during it he was
shot at point-blank range and almost
died
this saga defined the character of
Andrew Jackson he could not pass up a
fight and when he fought he was willing
to risk everything of the bank he
declared the bank is trying to kill me
but I will kill it on July 10th 1832
Jackson vetoed the bill reauthorizing
the bank the president's address in
defense of the veto was perhaps the most
important of his life for he had to
explain to the American people not with
bombast
but with words from his heart why he so
fervently opposed the bank it is to be
regretted that the rich and powerful too
often bend the acts of government to
their selfish purposes when the laws
undertake to make the rich richer and
the potent more powerful the humble
members of society the farmers the
mechanics and laborers who have neither
the time nor the means of securing like
favors to themselves have a right to
complain of the injustice of their
government we can at least take a stand
against any prostitution of our
government to the advancement of the few
at the expense of the many
to help rally support for Jackson's
re-election campaign in 1832 the
president and his closest advisor Martin
Van Buren came up with one of the
boldest strokes in American political
history they founded the Democratic
Party Jackson thought of the democracy
as it was called wasn't called the
Democratic Party was called the
democracy thought of it as the
association of the vast majority of
Americans the majority that should
govern to make sure that they would
govern there are all sorts of ways in
which ordinary people can participate
Jackson thinks that's important because
the ordinary people have to associate
more because they don't have the
resources that the rich and the
well-born do for years
Jackson's opponents had lampooned his
frontier roots by portraying him as a
jackass to their shock the Jacksonians
began embracing the symbol well the
donkey has assembled a Democratic Party
started out as a satire as an attack on
the rubbish sort of Beverly Hillbillies
nature of the Jackson's Democratic Party
but interesting people like Henry Clay
and others didn't quite understand that
in urban settings the donkey may have
been a figure of fun but for people in
rural America which was most of America
at the time the donkey was essential to
daily life and it was someone you could
rely on and Jackson and the Democrats
were presenting themselves as people you
could rely on a second party quickly
arose to oppose the Democrats called the
National Republicans they chose
Jackson's fiercest rival Henry Clay to
run against him for president
Henry Clay and Andrew Jackson hated each
other clay saw himself as a great
American Statesman and couldn't quite
understand how this rube from the
Carolina back country who'd never gone
to school who'd never read a book in
Clay's view could possibly be so
powerful and have such a hold over the
people thereby ensuring that Clay
himself would never do that because he
didn't appreciate I think Jackson's
gifts of both charisma and the power of
his personality during the election
campaign Jackson and his advisers again
demonstrated complete mastery of the
media tools available to them this man
was sitting for his portrait again and
again and again Jackson had a sense that
I want the American people to know me
and to know what I look like and I think
that's says something about his
political sense he's a first in many
ways and he's the first president that I
know who had a desire to use the media
to communicate with the American people
on Election Day voters flocked to the
polls in record numbers and thanks to
Jackson's reputation as a military hero
and his continuing expansion of America
they gave Old Hickory a landslide
victory but what Andrew Jackson read
into the victory was that he now had a
mandate to destroy the Bank of the
United States and so the president
ordered the government's money removed
from the bank but even some in his own
cabinet thought such a step was illegal
and Jackson had to replace two Treasury
secretaries before finding a third who
would obey Him nothing like this would
happen again until Richard Nixon during
the Watergate crisis had to go through
three attorneys general to find one who
would fire Archibald Cox a special
prosecutor on the floor of the US Senate
Henry Clay asserted that nothing less
than the future of American democracy
was at stake
we are in the midst of a revolution
hitherto bloodless but rapidly tending
toward the concentration of all power in
the hands of one man
for the only time in American history
the Senate centered the president people
throughout the nation began calling it
the bank war it was a war in which
reason and economics were the casualties
and the chief combatants were Jackson
and the president of the Bank Nicholas
Biddle the confrontation between Andrew
Jackson in the Bank of the United States
escalated you might almost say beyond
the bounds of sanity from the point of
view of Nicholas Biddle president of the
Bank of the United States this maniac
president was going to destroy the
American economy and both sides got so
wrapped up in it that they did reckless
things Nicholas Biddle in an effort to
procure recharter actually triggered
what was called a panic in those days
the stock market crash and a brief
depression not realizing that in doing
this he was proving every point Jackson
made about the reckless power on that
the bank of the United States held over
ordinary Americans lives
finally in 1836 the bank's charter
expired and its doors were closed and
Andrew Jackson once again emerged from a
battle victorious an historian has
written that every once in a while in
American history it becomes necessary to
save American capitalism
from the capitalists that left to their
own devices they will so accrete power
that they will end up ruining the
economy well Jackson in some ways saw
that was the beginning of that process
as American capitalism was just
beginning to develop he saw that to keep
the system going in a democratic fashion
as he saw it it was necessary that
accountability had to be there in the
system in a way that it did not seem to
be as of 1832
Jaxon's battles during his second term
in office were not just political one
afternoon as the president was leaving
the capital a mentally ill man who
believed that Jackson had killed his
father approached him
the explosion of the pistols
percussion-cap convinced bystanders that
the president had been shot but the
gunpowder inside the pistol failed to
ignite the assailant then drew a second
pistol and fired point-blank into the
president's chest miraculously the
powder inside the second gun also failed
to ignite as a result Andrew Jackson
survived the first assassination attempt
ever against an American president
then in the presidential election of
1836 Jackson's hand-picked successor
Martin Van Buren rode old hickories
coattails to victory
on March 4th 1837 Andrew Jackson's
tumultuous presidency came to an end
in a sign of the remarkable changes that
had taken place during his years in
office he left Washington not in a
carriage pulled by horses as he had
arrived eight years before but on a
train car pulled by a steam-powered
locomotive
to a reporter Jackson said after eight
years as president I have only two
regrets that I have not shot Henry Clay
or hanged
John C Calhoun
the legacy Andrew Jackson left behind
him was a complicated one but if there
was one key feature that would allow
future generations to make sense of it
all it was the way in which Jackson's
fight for the rights of the average
white man pointed the way for others
take rights of their own
jacksonian democracy had no room in it
for black people it was not willing to
free the slaves
it had utter contempt for the political
aspirations of women and everybody knows
it was utterly violent and remorseless
to the Indians but look how the victims
of jacksonian democracy defended
themselves they didn't go out and become
monarchists instead what they did was to
take the principles of jacksonian
democracy and demand that they be
applied to them too
when you look at the feminists they used
the Declaration of Independence to
demand the right to vote when you look
at the abolitionists they said the
demand for human equality is good for
the slaves as well when the Indians
wanted to defend themselves against
white encroachment the Cherokees created
a written constitution and a democratic
government of their own so that the
abolitionists the feminists the Indians
all responded to this aggressive
jacksonian democracy not by becoming
monarchists but by saying we have to
have some too
Jackson spent the remaining years of his
life at his beloved Hermitage though
others would one day see a connection
between his quest for opportunity for
white man and the ideal of opportunity
for all Andrew Jackson himself never did
he continued to own dozens of slaves
never worrying that they toiled from
sunrise to midnight with no hope of a
better life or giving any thought to
what their opinion was of him sometimes
when they had a funeral for a fellow
slave like at the Hermitage they would
say one day your head must bow as low as
ours as they sang this funeral march to
the grave one day your head must bow as
low as ours when they sang that song
they're looking at Andrew Jackson the
master as they march along
the whites thing that they're just
singing a great melodious song but it
had a deep meaning and what it meant is
one day you must die - one thing that
makes all men equal is death all men
must die equally one day your head must
bow as low as house on June 8th 1845
Andrew Jackson died America's seventh
President was laid to rest beside his
beloved wife Rachel in the garden at the
Hermitage
14 years later Jackson's first
biographer James Parton visited the
grave the historian had already spent
many months reading what hundreds of
Jackson's contemporaries had to say
about him but the writer still found it
nearly impossible to sum up old hickory
if anyone at the end of a year even had
asked what I had discovered respecting
General Jackson I might have answered
thus
Andrew Jackson I am given to understand
was a patriot and a traitor he was one
of the greatest generals and wholly
ignorant of the art of war
a stickler for discipline he never
hesitated to disobey his superior the
first of Statesmen he never devised or
framed a measure he was the most candid
of men and was capable of the
profoundest dissimulation he was a
democratic autocrat an urbane Savage
an atrocious saint
discover more about Andrew Jackson
explore the history of the imperial
presidency and watch debates about
Indian Removal slavery and other
controversies from the Jacksonian era at
pbs.org
and
you
