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« Back to The Life of President Andrew Jackson, Part One main page    Transcript for: The Life of President Andrew Jackson, Part OneTHINK TANK WITH BEN WATTENBERG#1303 Andrew Jackson Pt. 1 FEED DATE: FEBRUARY 3, 2005 Robert Remini and Harry Watson Opening Billboard: Funding for this program is provided by...(Pfizer) At Pfizer, we’re spending over five billion dollars looking for the cures of the future. We have 12,000 scientists and health experts who firmly believe the only thing incurable is our passion. Pfizer, life is our life’s work. Additional funding is provided by the Bernard and Irene Schwartz Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation, and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation. Mr. Wattenberg: Hello I’m Ben Wattenberg... Most Americans only know of Andrew Jackson as the man whose face adorns this 20 Dollar bill. But during his two terms as President, from 1829 to 1837, Jackson left a distinctive stamp on issues we care about today, such as states’ rights, American foreign policy, and the role of the executive branch. His fiery political rhetoric and controversial policies continue to inspire modern politicians and debate among historians. Who was Andrew Jackson? Why is he still a controversial figure, and how did he change the Presidency? To find out, Think Tank is joined by... Robert Remini, Professor Emeritus of History and Humanities at the University of Illinois at Chicago and author of many books on President Jackson including The Life of Andrew Jackson. and... Harry Watson, Director of the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and author of Andrew Jackson vs. Henry Clay. The Topic Before the House: Andrew Jackson, Part One. This Week on Think Tank. MR. WATTENBERG: Bob Remini, Harry Watson, welcome to Think Tank. We’re going to be talking about President Andrew Jackson and this was a pretty controversial man. Mr. Watson: Still is. MR. WATTENBERG: Still is. It’s said that he was America’s first great, quote, 'self-made man'. Bob, why don’t you start? Let’s do a brief first take; Harry, you go second. Let’s just talk about his upbringing in early life. MR. REMINI: Well, it’s true. He comes from a background - he didn’t know his father; his father was dead when he was born and he lost his entire family when he was a teenager. He fought in the revolution as a boy... MR. WATTENBERG: Fought in the rev - in the American Revolution. MR. REMINI: In the American Revolution. MR. WATTENBERG: And where do we pick up from there? Let’s...and then we’ll give you a... MR. WATSON: Well, it was on the Carolina frontier between North Carolina and South Carolina and the Americans were fighting a guerilla war against the invasion of Charles Cornwallis into the south and Jackson was a sort of messenger boy, sort of attached to a guerilla unit ultimately commanded by General William Richardson Davie and he and his brother Robert were captured in a British raid on a home that they were staying in and carried off to prison, and of course there’s a famous story there where Jackson was commanded by the British officer to clean his boots and he wouldn’t do it. And so the officer drew his saber and slashed him across the face and he carried that scar his whole life. MR. WATTENBERG: Before there was a President Jackson there was a Major Jackson and a General Jackson. MR. WATSON: A General Jackson. MR. WATTENBERG: How did he prove his - his metal in the Army? MR. WATSON: Well, he started out as a Major General of the Tennessee Militia. That was an elected office at the time... MR. WATTENBERG: Right. MR. WATSON: And he was elected Major General in the Tennessee Militia and during the War of 1812 there was a simultaneous Indian War going on in what is now Alabama. The Creek Indians were fighting amongst themselves and a lot of Whites were dying in that conflict and Jackson was sent to stop the Indians. And he was brought into the United States Army as a Major General and then brought his army down there and fought the Creeks and defeated them and then when he found out that the British were attacking New Orleans, he flanked around and headed to New Orleans and defended the city from attack. MR. WATTENBERG: Bob, you make the point in your book that he was one of the few people - it was an elected job, but he was one of the few people who really took it seriously... MR. REMINI: Oh... MR. WATTENBERG: ...as a military man. I mean, he... MR. REMINI: He’s not really a military man but he had a long experience fighting the Indians. And the position that he had, which was Major General of the Tennessee - West Tennessee Militia - was a political position. You know, he - he was elected to it... MR. WATTENBERG: But... MR. REMINI: And you had to cultivate... MR. WATTENBERG: But he took it damn seriously. MR. REMINI: But they knew - they were in the presence of a leader; a man that they could trust; a man that they could follow. MR. WATTENBERG: Now, what year are we talking about... MR. WATSON: 1814 that - no, excuse me, ’13 when he marched against the Creeks and then he started marching down to New Orleans before that and was sent back. That was the... MR. WATTENBERG: Now was the War of 1812, of which this is a part, is it correct to consider that as part of the American Revolutionary War, really? As sort of the tail end of it, or is that... MR. REMINI: Well, it’s said it’s the second war for independence. And it really is, I think. MR. WATTENBERG: That’s when the Brits burned down the White House. MR. REMINI: That’s when the Brits burned the White House. And the Capitol and all other public buildings except the post office. MR. WATTENBERG: Alright. MR. WATSON: The issues in that war had more to do with whether the British would in effect subject the Americans to a kind of neocolonialism, not - not... MR. WATTENBERG: Straight ownership. MR. WATSON: Yes, not straight ownership anymore. It was just indirect domination and the Americans said they didn’t want to stand for that. MR. WATTENBERG: Where does the name 'Old Hickory' come from? MR. WATSON: Well it comes from that first march down the Mississippi to New Orleans in 1812, I believe, when he got about halfway down with the militia force and the army decided they didn’t want him going down there after all and they - they told him to disband his army and go home and he refused; that is, he refused to disband the army in the middle of the wilderness. Instead he kept them together as a unit and - and marched home and that’s when they called him Old Hickory, because he was so tough. Hickory’s such a tough wood, you see. MR. WATTENBERG: He was controversial both as a general and later as a President. He jailed a federal judge and his invasion of Florida, it’s said, was unauthorized. Is that correct that he did that more or less on his own? MR. REMINI: It is and it isn’t. He was authorized to go down to defeat the Seminole Indians who had been crossing the border into the United States and attacking American frontier settlement - settlers. And when he went down he realized that Florida’s something - the administration had wanted it from ever since they got Louisiana. And he said to the president, 'give me the authority and I - in sixty days I’ll give you Florida and then go on down and take Cuba, too.' Well, he never really got the authority but he did seize Florida and as a result John Quincy Adams, who was the Secretary of State, got Spain to recognize that this province was not in their interest; it was only going to cause them embarrassment. MR. WATTENBERG: Florida? MR. REMINI: Florida. Might as well sell it to us so they did. So he won Florida. MR. WATTENBERG: And there are those who’d make the case today that we got problems in Florida right now. Particularly in the year 2000. MR. WATSON: Different kinds. MR. REMINI: The problem is, you see, they felt he doesn’t take orders. For example, the army that went down to New Orleans the first time, he was ordered to disband them. It made no sense to leave these men in the wilderness so he paid no attention, you see. That the only law he listens to is his own. To some extent that’s true. He knew what he thought was right and that’s what he did. MR. WATSON: He was not authorized to invade Florida. That was - that was a foreign invasion. That was - that was crossing an international boundary and while the Spanish would have tolerated his going a few miles into Florida to chase Indians in hot pursuit, in effect, they certainly didn’t feel good about his going into Pensacola and locking the... jail and... MR. WATTENBERG: Let’s talk for a moment about some other aspects of Andrew Jackson. It has been said that he was ignorant of history, of science, of mathematics and perhaps most important for a member of the bar, ignorant of the law. You buy that, Harry? MR. WATSON: He certainly had almost no formal education. He... MR. WATTENBERG: You could become a lawyer then without first having... MR. WATSON: You could become a lawyer by working in a lawyer’s office and reading lawyer’s books in your spare time, going before the local court and passing an oral exam that satisfied the local judges that you were qualified to appear before them and go from there. And that’s basically the - the formal education that Andrew Jackson had. Science and math - yes, I expect he was not well-informed on those subjects. Like most of his countryman, he probably didn’t care much about them. History he did try to learn, particularly policy issues that mattered to him like banking and finance... MR. WATTENBERG: And yet he obviously had what today we would call 'street smarts'? MR. WATSON: Yes, absolutely. MR. WATTENBERG: I mean, to a - to a high degree. MR. WATSON: Oh, sure. MR. REMINI: His first biographer, James Parton, when Jackson became a judge, said he didn’t know much law but that his decisions were always right. That may be an exaggeration but apparently the people at that time felt that he was a good judge. MR. WATTENBERG: Andrew Jackson was one of a very handful of candidates in American history who lose the electoral college. This would have been in 1825. MR. REMINI: Or ’24. MR. WATSON: ’24. MR. WATTENBERG: In 1824. MR. REMINI: The House has its election in 1825. MR. WATTENBERG: Did he win the popular vote that year? MR. REMINI: Yes. MR. WATTENBERG: And yet lost the presidency? MR. REMINI: Yes. MR. WATSON: He got the most popular votes, but he did not get a majority of the popular votes. MR. WATTENBERG: So this would have been Florida, 2000... MR. WATSON: Yes. MR. WATTENBERG: ...in effect? MR. REMINI: But he believed that he had won and it was only through a corrupt bargain between John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay that the presidency was denied him. MR. WATTENBERG: Alright. Now, you said the magic words, Harry. This is what you’ve written at length about. Who were Jackson’s major political enemies and why? MR. WATSON: Alright. Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams, certainly to start with. Also John C. Calhoun and Daniel Webster were always all deeply opposed to Jackson at one time or another. And they were opposed of course for the usual combination of personal and - and policy reasons. Adams and... MR. WATTENBERG: This is after he’s elected President in what year? MR. WATSON: He is finally elected President in 1828... MR. WATTENBERG: He loses once... MR. WATSON: Takes office in ’29. MR. WATTENBERG: He loses once and then he wins twice. MR. WATSON: That’s correct. MR. WATTENBERG: Right. MR. WATSON: Yes. MR. WATTENBERG: Okay. MR. WATSON: Adams and Clay had run against Jackson in 1824 and of course Adams ran again against Jackson in ’28, winning in ’24; losing in ’28. And especially in ’28... MR. WATTENBERG: And these were the big-time players in the senate. MR. WATSON: Oh, yes. Oh, definitely. MR. WATTENBERG: I mean this was not some... MR. WATSON: There were the... no, these were not some freshwater squirts; they were - they were very important statesmen in their own right. And Adams of course was the son... MR. WATTENBERG: And they all wanted to be president... MR. WATSON: They all wanted to be president... MR. WATTENBERG: As they still do today. I mean, not the same guys, but... MR. WATSON: Yes, exactly. But between Clay and Jackson there was intense, bitter, personal animosity. They hated each other. MR. WATTENBERG: And was this personal or on issues or mixtures? MR. WATSON: Both. Both. And it started out more than anything as personal but it - as they got to know each other more they understood how much they hated their policy positions, too. MR. WATTENBERG: Now after he becomes president, or after he’s elected president on his second attempt, a great issue surfaces about his wife, Rachel, and about the issue of alleged adultery. Could you... MR. WATSON: That was actually in the campaign. MR. WATTENBERG: The second... MR. WATSON: Yes. In the second campaign when some of Adam’s newspapers supporters, particularly Charles Hammond of Cincinnati accused Jackson of marrying a bigamist and marrying a woman who was not divorced from her husband and that if we elect Andrew Jackson we’re going to be enthroning immorality in the White House. MR. WATTENBERG: Now, who was the bigamist? Him or Rachel? MR. WATSON: It was alleged that - well, the truth was that Rachel was married to somebody else first and a divorce was instituted against her but the divorce was not final when she and Andrew Jackson began living together as man and wife. MR. WATTENBERG: So it was not much of a scandal by contemporary standards? MR. WATSON: Today nobody would think much about it. It would be a matter of paperwork that hadn’t been stamped. And that’s pretty much the way it was treated in Nashville, but it was not treated that way in the national press. MR. WATTENBERG: She dies before the inauguration, is that right? MR. REMINI: She dies right after he’s elected. MR. WATTENBERG: And he regards this that she died of a broken heart. MR. REMINI: They murdered her. It was his position that they actually threw their vicious... MR. WATTENBERG: They meaning Clay and the others, that they... MR. REMINI: Right. And Adams, too. The irony with John Quincy Adams is that as Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams was the only one who defended Jackson’s invasion of Florida and the seizure of Florida. And everyone else in the cabinet, including John C. Calhoun, who was there, wanted Jackson punished or censured and his action repudiated. And Clay convinced the President, Monroe, not to do it. MR. WATSON: Adams. MR. REMINI: Excuse me. Adams. MR. WATTENBERG: I never would have caught it. MR. REMINI: And he... MR. WATTENBERG: And he was in fact censured by the U.S. Senate, is that right? MR. WATSON: Much later for something else. MR. WATTENBERG: Oh, much later for something else. And then that’s rescinded on the - at the end of his presidency? MR. WATSON: Yes. MR. REMINI: Thanks to Thomas Hart Benton who is now his ally. MR. WATSON: ...which side? MR. REMINI: But anyway, you see, then when he is defeated in the election of 1825, because that’s the House election, the relationship with Adams, John Quincy Adams, changes, you see. MR. WATTENBERG: Alright. Jackson, as president, really wants to get rid of the Bank of the United States. MR. REMINI: Not in the beginning. MR. WATTENBERG: Not in the beginning. MR. REMINI: No. He wanted it reformed. MR. WATTENBERG: Because he said it, quotes, 'corrupt'. MR. WATSON: Um hm. MR. WATTENBERG: By - by modern standards, was it corrupt or was it... MR. REMINI: Yes. MR. WATTENBERG: Yes. Do you agree with that? MR. WATSON: I think so. I wouldn’t sort of regard it as outrageously criminal but it crossed lines. There were things that - certainly there were people in the bank - the thing that Jackson immediately identified as corrupt about the bank was that various branch offices of the bank were contributing money to his political opponents, so he thought that was outrageous. But more than that... MR. REMINI: And then helping with legislation. MR. WATSON: Right. Yes. MR. REMINI: That would favor the bank. MR. WATSON: Right. More than that, the bank was a - at least a semi-private institution with a primary fiduciary responsibility to its own stockholders and yet it was making enormously important public policy decisions. MR. WATTENBERG: Now the other big issue that one runs across that I don’t fully understand because it’s - I guess what historians call 'presentism', is you look at something through the eyes of today - but that he is anti-nullification which is the doctrine that a state can act on its own and which ultimately causes the Civil War. I mean, twenty, thirty... MR. WATSON: It has a lot to do with it. MR. WATTENBERG: ...twenty, thirty years... MR. REMINI: No, it’s more than that. It’s to nullify a federal law and it cannot operate in the state. MR. WATTENBERG: And yet Jackson is proslavery? MR. REMINI: Yes. MR. WATSON: Absolutely. MR. WATTENBERG: So is there an inherent contradiction? MR. REMINI: Well, it depends on how you interpret it. But the whole idea of a state acting against the federal government and getting away with it, and even seceding if necessary - I mean that’s what’s lodged in the whole question, I think - is something he would not accept. MR. WATTENBERG: But... MR. REMINI: And in fact said, 'you cannot secede from the union.' MR. WATTENBERG: Right, his famous toast is the... MR. WATSON: 'Our federal union - The union, it must be preserved'. MR. REMINI: Right. MR. WATTENBERG: 'The union, it must be preserved'. And yet, a couple decades later along comes... MR. REMINI: Abraham Lincoln. MR. WATTENBERG: Well, South Carolina seceding by nullifying a state law and so it seems that Jackson’s working or the ghost of Jackson is working both sides of the street. MR. WATSON: It certainly seems that from a modern perspective. And if Jackson had been alive in 1861 who knows what he would have thought faced with those sets - that set of issues. But... MR. WATTENBERG: He had - he had personal slaves. MR. WATSON: Oh, yes. Quite a few of them. MR. WATTENBERG: That he does not... MR. WATSON: About a hundred and fifty. MR. WATTENBERG: That he’s... MR. REMINI: No, no, no, no. One hundred. MR. WATSON: One hundred? I’m sorry. MR. WATTENBERG: That he does not free upon his death? MR. REMINI: No. MR. WATTENBERG: Unlike Washington. MR. WATSON: No. As a matter of fact I think it probably would have been illegal for him to do it in Tennessee, but he wasn’t inclined to do it, either, so that was... No, he believed in slavery; he thought it was a good institution and he had no problems with it. MR. REMINI: And you might point out that Abraham Lincoln uses Jackson’s argument to say to South Carolina 'you can’t secede and my job as President of the United States is to enforce the law.' MR. WATTENBERG: He was occasionally involved in challenges involving duels and it’s said that he had... MR. REMINI: It was an occupation in the south. MR. WATSON: [CHUCKLING] MR. WATTENBERG: Excuse me. MR. REMINI: It was an occupation in the south. I forget who it was who said that it was a good morning’s exercise. {LAUGHTER] MR. WATTENBERG: Dueling was. MR. REMINI: Dueling was. MR. WATTENBERG: Did Andrew Jackson ever actually kill a man in a duel? MR. REMINI: Yes, he did. MR. WATSON: He did. MR. REMINI: Man by the name of Charles Dickenson, who... MR. WATTENBERG: So... MR. REMINI: They got into an argument over a race... MR. WATTENBERG: A what? MR. REMIN: A betting in a race - a horse race. MR. WATTENBERG: He had a - he had a pretty wild side to him as a young man. Jackson did. MR. REMINI: And it was said of course that this Dickenson had said things about Jackson’s wife. Jackson was very sensitive about the - what was said regarding his marriage with Rachael Jackson. MR. WATTENBERG: And never looked at another woman while he - was just crestfallen. MR. REMINI: Even though she was dead you know, for the last twenty years of his life. He remained devoted to her. Anyway, he killed this man and Dickenson put a bullet right in his chest, which remained in his body for the rest of his life. It caused him to hemorrhage periodically. He thought he had tuberculosis and he would be prostate. The last I think six weeks of his presidency he never left his bedroom. MR. WATTENBERG: And it’s said that his rage was - his personal rage was something ferocious and yet there are other people who say a lot of that was feigned... MR. WATSON: Um hm. MR. WATTENBERG: ... and it was a way to make a point. MR. WATSON: Yes. MR. WATTENBERG: Where do you come out, Harry? MR. WATSON: Well, the last time Bob and I talked about this I think I came out by saying that Jackson had a well-deserved reputation for losing his temper; that - and a - or a widespread image of somebody who could become enraged. And he never outgrew that, but he could also draw on that reputation to fake anger when he needed to. So he... MR. REMINI: He could and he did fake it. MR. WATSON: Yes. Right. MR. REMINI: And it was so... MR. WATTENBERG: As President. MR. WATSON: But that’s not the same thing as saying he always faked it. MR. WATTENBERG: What do you guys... MR. REMINI: To intimidate them. MR. WATTENBERG: What do you guys disagree about, by the way? I mean here he’s - he’s president... MR. REMINI: You’re going to have to find... MR. WATTENBERG: He’s president for eight years and my great research staff says you guys come out in different places on a lot of issues. MR. WATSON: You want to try that one? MR. REMINI: No. No. It’ll come out; we still have time. MR. WATTENBERG: No, I know - oh, I know we have time. MR. WATSON: I’ll tell you where I - I think it comes out and that is that I’m much less - I’m more - I’m more worried about Jackson’s legacy for the future. That is, I don’t necessarily admire all the things that he did. I think he created some precedence that were dangerous and that concerned me. Whereas I think it’s fair to say that Bob evaluates his conduct and feels better about it. MR. REMINI: Well, I would admit that all presidents and the individual does things that are a mistake and when they’re presidents of course they can be monumental. MR. WATTENBERG: Well, of course today his - today his treatment of the Indians would be regarded as something terrible but I mean that’s just presentism argument, but at that time... MR. REMINI: That’s what the American people wanted. MR. WATSON: There I will disagree with you, because the Indian Removal Act passed by a handful of votes. MR. WATTENBERG: That’s what it was called? The Indian Removal... MR. WATSON: Yes, Indian Removal Act. MR. REMINI: But it did pass. MR. WATSON: It passed, but I don’t think you can say that the American people were all in favor of it when a large proportion of Congress was against it. MR. REMINI: Now, my position would be northerners who didn’t know an Indian by that time at all, never had seen one, were not threatened by them - would - would be much more humanitarian in their regard. But the people in the south, especially those on the frontier, were frightened half to death and they are the ones who would insist upon the removal and wanted it done. MR. WATSON: But if I could add something - in our own minds at least, we have to keep reminding ourselves that when Jackson spoke for the people, it was only part of the people. He in his own mind thought he spoke for the people, but he didn’t speak for all of them. Because Jackson himself thought of himself as the embodiment of the American people but he liked - he conveniently left out all the people who voted against him. And he also left out the people who couldn’t vote at all. MR. REMINI: Well, that’s true of a lot of people. MR. WATSON: Oh, sure. MR. WATTENBERG: Okay. Harry Watson, Bob Remini, thank you very much for joining us on Think Tank. And thank you. Please remember to join us for part two of our discussion on President Andrew Jackson in a future episode. And please remember to send us your comments via e-mail. We think it’s what makes our program better. For Think Tank, I’m Ben Wattenberg. Announcer: We at Think Tank depend on your views to make our show better. Please send your questions and comments to New River Media, 4455 Connecticut Ave NW, Suite C-100, Washington, DC 20008 or email us at thinktank@pbs.org. To learn more about Think Tank, visit PBS online at pbs.org and please let us know where you watch Think Tank. 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