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Post by Kevin Young on Jan 11, 2010 14:01:38 GMT -5
Ok-got up to the point where Jackson has just taken office and the author has outlined what the big issues while be(stopped where he introduced Eaton's wife). Strikes me that as I always have thought, that politics remain the same, and that everytime there is a milestone break in electing a president, people think the country is going hell and a handbasket.
Meacham really ties the underlying theme of nullification as being the fear of abolitionism.
I also liked the gentle reminder abou how South Carolina took care of "domestic terrorism" (my use of the phrase) by putting free black sailors into jail when they made port. The government says that is illegal and the state says we don't care. South Carolina saying that homeland security is paramount to all laws, all treaties, all constitutions.
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Post by Jim Boylston on Jan 11, 2010 15:21:35 GMT -5
I was surprised to see that quote from Jackson providing evidence that he believed that as well. I found the whole section on the nullification crisis riveting. In some ways, it mirrors the "who'll blink first" tension of the Cuban missile crisis. Jim
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Post by TRK on Jan 11, 2010 16:00:08 GMT -5
I also liked the gentle reminder abou how South Carolina took care of "domestic terrorism" (my use of the phrase) by putting free black sailors into jail when they made port. The government says that is illegal and the state says we don't care. South Carolina saying that homeland security is paramount to all laws, all treaties, all constitutions. Good observation, Kevin.
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Post by Allen Wiener on Jan 11, 2010 18:34:20 GMT -5
The nullification section is the strongest and most rivetting in the book. I've reached the end (Jackson is going to die in the next few pages) and I have many impressions that haven't all quite jelled. Jackson was, in many ways, inconsistent and even hypocritical, but one theme that runs through the book is his primary allegiance to the preservation of the union. In many cases, he weighed policy decisions by evaluating what would be most likely to keep the union together. He could not tolerate South Carolina adopting nullification, which would have placed the states in a primary position, leaving each state to do as it wished and rendering the union meaningless. On the other hand, he was a states' rights advocate himself and thought the states should be left as free from central government control as possible. He was typical of many people of his place and time in his racist, pro-slavery views and his attitudes toward Indians. However, as Meacham points out, there were many in the United States at that time who disagreed with those views, although he says that, even in the north, there was no particularly strong abolition movement at the time. Crockett was not the only one who disagreed with him on Indian removal, yet I think Meacham is partly right in labeling many emotional opposition speeches in Congress as pure politics. In the Indian removal case, Jackson may actually have convinced himself that he was acting in the best long-term interests of the Indians as well as the whites, but the policy smacks far more of greed for Indian land and Jackson's unwillingness to start another fight over states' rights, this time with Georgia.
There is also an interesting quote from Jackson on the Alamo later in the book and a few pages on the Texas Revolution. Jackson favored annexation of Texas, just as he wanted possession of Florida years earlier, as a guarantee of national security by acquiring lands that would form a buffer against foreign invasion. He had a low opinion of Mexico and the Spanish and thought they'd be easy to bribe, but that approach backfired. But Jackson remained mercurial here too and refused to respond to Austin's appeal for overt U.S. help.
I'll be interested in how others sum this guy up when you've finished the book. I'm going to review Sean Wilentz's short bio of Jackson for comparison while Meacham's book is still fresh in my mind.
Allen
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Post by Allen Wiener on Jan 11, 2010 18:39:03 GMT -5
I also liked the gentle reminder abou how South Carolina took care of "domestic terrorism" (my use of the phrase) by putting free black sailors into jail when they made port. The government says that is illegal and the state says we don't care. South Carolina saying that homeland security is paramount to all laws, all treaties, all constitutions. Good observation, Kevin. I got the feeling that the actual state of the republic was uncertain at the time, which may be why Jackson saw a need to be careful to maintain states' rights while holding the union together and reserving for the central government those powers appropriate to it -- which Jackson tended to generalize as doing whatever it took to protect the country, both from foreign powers and from itself. Some of Calhoun's speeches re: states' rights seem almost laughable today, but they weren't back then and Jackson knew it and had to be careful in how he treated the states. There was more broad fear of too much federal power than there was support for the nullifiers or secessionists. Jackson was also clever in marshaling public opinion behind him; he played heavily on his reputation and popularity as a leader and war hero in doing that. As long as he could keep public opinion behind him, he usually got his way. Allen
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Post by Kevin Young on Jan 12, 2010 10:25:01 GMT -5
Apparently, Rev. Ezra Stiles Ely was the Jerry Farwell of the Jacksonian period.
Jackson's views on church/state seperation are most interesting.
And how does a person like Kentucky Congressman and Vice-President Richard Johnson survive, all things considered?
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Post by Allen Wiener on Jan 12, 2010 12:37:39 GMT -5
Agreed - Jackson's views on the separation were quite firm and carried forward from Jefferson. He had quite a late-life religious conversion, but didn't change his views on church and state.
Re: Johnson of KY., I could start posing the same question about many of our current office-holders, but we don't want to start THAT again!
Allen
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Post by Kevin Young on Jan 12, 2010 15:13:40 GMT -5
Agreed - Jackson's views on the separation were quite firm and carried forward from Jefferson. He had quite a late-life religious conversion, but didn't change his views on church and state. Re: Johnson of KY., I could start posing the same question about many of our current office-holders, but we don't want to start THAT again! Allen Agreed!
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Post by sloanrodgers on Jan 15, 2010 0:13:58 GMT -5
I don't like Andy Jackson enough to buy this particular book, but I did find Jon Meacham's article on Jackson in the recent U. S. News and World Report, Special Report, Secrets of America's Best Generals very well-written. The short piece deals mostly with Jackson's lopsided victory at the Battle of New Orleans, which has obvious parallels with Houston's win at San Jacinto. It's interesting that there's so many biographical coincidences in the lives of Old Hickory and his protege. There's also short military biographies on Generals Washington, Patton, MacArthur, etc. that are worth reading.
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Post by Jim Boylston on Jan 15, 2010 0:57:52 GMT -5
Haven't seen that one, RR, sounds interesting. Meacham doesn't cover Jackson's early life in American Lion.
I'm not a fan of Jackson either, and AL hasn't changed my mind about him, but I don't think that was Meacham's intent. The author does a good job of explaining Jackson's thought processes without making a lot of excuses for some of his more regrettable actions. I find that I have a better understanding of Jackson, but don't necessarily sympathize with him.
American Lion explains why Jackson's presidency was so important, and how it affected the evolution of the office. For good and bad.
I'm wrapping up the book tonight and hope to continue our discussion here.
Jim
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Post by Allen Wiener on Jan 15, 2010 11:45:30 GMT -5
I finished the book and, in general, agree with Jim. My local history book club actually discussed this book the other night and some of the takes were interesting. Nearly everyone was put off by the amount of space devoted to the Eaton affair. Although Meacham did show its relevance to political issues, it seemed to bog the book down. One person (accurately, I think) pointed out that Meacham made a big point of the fact that he'd gotten access to a collection of Donelson letters that no one had seen before, which probably drove him to make the most of them. Everyone agreed that the Nullification issue was the high point of the book and also Jackson's finest hour as president.
I don't particularly like Jackson either and the book did not change my mind about him, but it did give me greater insight into his character, what may have made him tick, but still reinforced his image as an uncompromising, arrogant leader, who did not tolerate opposition views or people who expressed them. Jackson really did have a "you're either with me or against me" attitude and was ALWAYS convinced that he was right and knew, better than anyone else, what was best for the country. He professed to be a champion of the common man, but did not always "game out" his decisions to figure out how they might impact the average citizen. The Bank War did horrible damage to the economy and the small farmers and businesses. The impact of his Indian Removal policy was horrendous and inhuman, and he seemed oblivious to it.
Something that I haven't seen discussed is a kind of philosophical conflict Jackson faced. On the one hand, he and his presidency are noted for an opening of the political system to a far greater number of voters and put them in greater control of who got elected. Jackson claimed he wanted to eliminate the domination of the political system from elites and those with advantages of wealth or birth, and empower the citizens. The founders did NOT want that kind of a system, contrary to what many people think. They believed that the better educated, wealthier, land-owning elites should run the country and knew what was best for all. However, although Jackson disagreed with that view and is credited with opening the system, he also believed (like the founders) that the mass populace cannot always be trusted to make decisions because they are too subject to "passions" that are aroused over contentious issues. People are prone to lose patience and reason and shoot from the hip, based on anger, fear or other "passions." Jackson thus found himself in between those two views.
Meacham does not appear to be an apologist for Jackson; I've seen him on "Book TV," where he was critical of Jackson as a person, but also did a good job of placing Jackson and his administration in proper context. I thought Sean Wilentz was more of an apologist in his short bio of AJ in the Presidential Bio series. Above all (for me), Meacham's book showed just how dangerous a time the Jackson years really were.
Robert Remini, however, remains the preeminent Jackson scholar and author. Re: the Battle of New Orleans, he published a book on that event alone not too long ago. His 3-volume Jackson bio is still the standard, but you really only need to read the one-volume version of that, unless you are a Jackson fanatic. Remini's book on Jackson's Indian policy ("Andrew Jackson's Indian Wars") is the best I've ever seen on that; highly recommended.
Allen
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Post by Jim Boylston on Jan 15, 2010 12:33:18 GMT -5
I also find it a bit ironic that Jackson, while marketing himself as a champion of the common man, was largely responsible for the growth and influence of the modern two-party system. For all his arguments about the Bank and about the elitists wielding too much political power, partisanship has done just as much damage by providing these interests an organized method of advancing their causes. Once the parties gained strength, the interests of the common man took a backseat to partisan interests. Talk about a Pandora's box... Jim
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Post by TRK on Jan 15, 2010 13:20:17 GMT -5
I'm wrapping up the book tonight and hope to continue our discussion here. Ha, I'm about five pages farther than I was this time last week.
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Post by Kevin Young on Jan 15, 2010 15:47:05 GMT -5
I'm wrapping up the book tonight and hope to continue our discussion here. Ha, I'm about five pages farther than I was this time last week. I am getting to the end: they repeated the 2008 PBS Documentary on Jackson last night so it was kind of fun to watch. I don't particularly like Jackson either, but I never let that stop me from reading a book on a person or subject, particularly one was was so involved in US policy and politics during the period of the Texas Revolution. I think it is very important to look at events in as much context as possible, so I enjoyed the indepth refresher course that the book offered. Yes, the Eaton affair is very drawn out, but apparently to all involved it was a very important event! I found the authors suggestion that Calhoun did not mind the scandal because getting rid of the Secretary of War and Jackson friend would be important down the road if Nullication went to the wire. As to the Sam Houston/Jackson deal, Paul Wellman wrote a novel called Magnificent Destiny about both men. One of the things we try not to do is judge 19th Century people by our modern standards. Jackson was a reflection of his time, but even then it is still nearly impossible to take his Indian Removal.
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Post by Allen Wiener on Jan 15, 2010 17:50:35 GMT -5
Kevin - I think it's particularly true that there was very strong sentiment in the Indians' favor at that time, so Jackson's view of Removal was not the only one. It certainly dominated thinking in the South, where the Indians lived, and where there was both racial prejudice against them and a very powerful lust for their land, particularly after gold was discovered there. I also think that many reasonable people disagreed with Jackson about the Bank. It certainly could have been reformed and placed under government oversight, rather than just killing it outright and causing an enormous national depression. Regarding slavery, Jackson was clearly supported by the vast majority of Southerners, but apparently there wasn't a whole lot of enthusiasm for abolition elsewhere either. I think there was a fear of raising the slavery issue, even in the North, because it was certain to bring on a crisis much worse than nullification did. And, speaking Nullification, that really was Jackson at his best.
While I don't like Jackson, I have an appreciation for the condition of the Republic at that time and the serious divisions between regions. It was not easy to keep the country together and Jackson made that is top and overriding priority.
Allen
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