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Old Hickory: The Life of our 7th President, Part One

THINK TANK WITH BEN WATTENBERG
#1320 Andrew Jackson Pt. 1
FEED DATE: JULY 14, 2005
Robert Remini and Harry Watson

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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.

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