I FINALLY finished this lengthy tome on Andrew Jackson. His life was fascinating, to say the least, but I sadly found little in this president to admire.
To be sure, Jackson's childhood hardly suggested the path that would lead anyone to the presidency of the United States. He lost all of his family to death at an early age and had to fend for himself. His childhood was beyond difficult and it is to his credit that he became the successful man that he did.
My biggest problem with Jackson was his love of killing people - be it in a dual or war. He was never happier than when at war - and he was at war often - against the Indians, the British, the Spanish, and the Mexicans. He was plagued with a life-time of debilitating illnesses, often confined to bed for days on end, but he would mysteriously always be able to rouse himself whenever it appeared he would be called on to lead men into war. He wasn't beyond provoking war to get what he wanted - which is exactly what he did when he decided, as a general, that Florida should be taken from the Spanish and made a part of the United States. His treatment of the Indians was abhorrent and he was responsible for the deaths of thousands of Indians, not just through war, but also through forced relocation, especially during what became known as the "Trail of Tears" when the Cherokees were forced to relocate west of the Mississippi.
Jackson also advocated for the continuation of slavery and held a number of slaves himself throughout his lifetime. He alternated between between paternalistic and abusive of them.
He was singularly devoted to his wife, who died right after he was elected president. In one of the great ironies in life, he and his wife actually adopted and lovingly raised two young Indian boys. Rachel's death clouded the rest of his life as he felt responsible for it because she never wanted him to be president. He barely pulled himself together enough to get through his inauguration.
Jackson is often referred to as the "first president of the people," or by terms similar. This was not through his own doing for Jackson never actually wanted to be, or campaigned to be, president. His friends and supporters did it for him and he felt it was his duty to respond to the call of the people. Before Jackson's election, America's presidents were chosen behind closed doors and it was basically a given who the president would be. The voting was merely a formality. So in that sense Jackson was the first president of the people because it was the first election in which the people really had a genuine say in who would lead them.
Jackson's guiding political philosophy was his belief in democracy. His belief that people knew what was best for themselves and were capable of making informed choices. This was exactly opposite the belief of his arch rival, John Quincy Adams, who was a staunch proponent of republicanism and felt the people incapable of knowing what was best for themselves. Brands says at the end of his book that Jackson believed "[d]emocracy wasn't a perversion of the republican promise but its perfection, or at least a large step toward perfection."
Jackson's strongest desire for his country, one he held to until his dying day, was that at all costs the Union should be preserved - that if it fell apart then foreign countries would seize its pieces and it would never be whole again. During his presidency, his passion nearly led him to war against South Carolina when it threatened to nullify a tariff and secede from the Union. This passion led him to fight (politically) for the annexation of Texas, the ousting of the Indian population, and to support slavery (believing the South's economy would collapse without it and knowing the South would secede if the abolitionists got into power). It was on his deathbed that he won his last political battle when he learned that Congress had voted to annex Texas and make it part of the Union.
Brands' book focuses mostly on Jackson's early life and his years as a general. Others have criticized the work for not focusing more on his presidency, but other books have been written on that portion of his life and I hope to read one of them in the not-too-distant future. I think the book did well at exploring the times he lived in and how he fit into and then helped change those times.
It is easy to set here in 2009 and judge a man who was quick to war and who defended slavery. One can argue times were different and notions of civil rights and equal rights were not developed at all in that era. But even understanding that the thinking of that era was different and less evolved than it is now, just doesn't excuse, for me, Jackson's principals, his inability to find value in all men, regardless of race or heritage, and his love of fighting and killing. I can appreciate the things he accomplished in light of his disadvantaged childhood, and I subscribe in many respects to his view of democracy. But his insatiable need for war and death left me cold.
