How did Andrew Jackson Change the U.S. Presidency?

A hero to some, and a villain to others, the seventh president of the United States was a populist firebrand who reshaped America and left a legacy that still echoes today. In this episode, Dan dives into the life and times of Andrew Jackson from his birth in a cabin on the frontier to his mission to 'drain the swamp' of Washington elites. He's remembered for defying the courts, expanding U. S. territory and for his abhorrent treatment of Native Americans during his presidency. Revered by some as a champion of the common man and reviled by others for policies that caused lasting harm, Jackson remains one of the most polarizing figures in American history. Joining Dan is Dr. Natalie Zacek, historian and lecturer in American Studies at the University of Manchester. Produced by Mariana Des Forges and James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. We'd love to hear your feedback - you can take part in our podcast survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on. You can also email the podcast directly at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• 0:00Dan Snow?

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• 2:11Dan Snow?

  Hi everyone, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. He's one of the most polarising figures in American history. To some, he's a populist champion who ripped up the rulebook to champion the common man. To others, he's a villain, a man whose policies destroyed communities, caused irreversible harm. He was certainly the famous wealthy outsider with the common touch. He swept into politics, promising to drain the swamp. He decried an election that he lost as stolen. He promised a rematch, and he won it. He stuffed the government with followers' loyalty. He believed in tariffs to build up US industry. He was great at creating enemies to pick fights with and delight his followers.

• 2:56Dan Snow?

  He ignored court rulings. He expanded the bounds of the United States of America. He was particularly keen on Florida. I am, of course, talking about the seventh president of the United States of America, Andrew Jackson, the man whose portrait was hung in the Oval Office by the incoming president Donald Trump in 2016. Jackson's life and career is just extraordinary. As a very young man, he was captured by British forces in the American Revolutionary War. He was ordered by an officer, he and his brother were ordered by an officer, to polish his boots, and they refused, and the officer slashed him with his sword, and he carried those scars with him to his grave.

• 3:39Dan Snow?

  His brother and he were kept in appalling conditions by the British. His brother died of disease shortly after their release, and Jackson carried a lifelong hatred of Britain and its empire with him. As a military commander, he would have the opportunity for revenge on the British. He defeated them in 1815 outside New Orleans, in one of the largest set-piece battles, the War of 1812, and certainly Britain's most stunning defeat. He also invaded Florida without permission. The president at the time said he was ill and wasn't paying attention. Jackson was reprimanded, although a few months later, the Spanish did end up selling Florida to the Americans. So he certainly put himself on the right side of history there. He is one of the most transformational and contested figures in US history.

• 4:22Dan Snow?

  So it felt like a good time to take a deep dive on that remarkable American president. To help me do so, I've got the very brilliant Dr Natalie Zacek back. She's a lecturer in history and American studies at the University of Manchester. It's great to have her back on the podcast. Here we are talking all about the divisive president. Enjoy.

• 5:01Dan Snow?

  Natalie, thanks so much for coming back on the podcast.

• 5:03Speaker 04

  Thanks for having me.

• 5:05Dan Snow?

  I mean, he had quite the early childhood, didn't he? Can you tell me a little bit about it? And then also give me a sense of how it's a little bit different from some of the early childhoods of the early presidents of the republic.

• 5:16Speaker 04

  Well, the first five presidents before Jackson, four of them were Virginia slave holding plantation owners. And one was John Adams, you know, the Harvard educated Boston lawyer. And not all of these people were exceptionally wealthy, but they certainly had fairly easy childhoods, whereas Jackson, according to his own mythology, but accurately, you know, was born in a log cabin on the frontier. He did have a bit of education. His mother hired, I think, a minister to teach him how to read and write, but he never really went to any school. And he was really an early teenager when the American Revolution broke out.

• 6:01Speaker 04

  His father died before he was even born, so he was raised by his mother with his older brothers. And although they were not exceptionally poor, you know, it really was quite a gritty upbringing where he did not spend his youth studying or living in a plantation house, being waited on by enslaved people. He really had to learn how to hunt and use a gun. And then by the time he's a teenager, he actually is a young soldier in the revolution. So it's a very different upbringing from any of the previous presidents, and he really makes that part of his appeal.

• 6:35Dan Snow?

  And there's that amazing story, I forget, he had, he carried a scar from an encounter with a British soldier, didn't he?

• 6:40Speaker 04

  Well, he carried lots of scars. I think he actually had a bullet in his body. That was from later, that was from a duel. But, you know, he was not a big burly man. He was quite tall, but with quite a slim wiry build. He was nicknamed Old Hickory, after the hickory tree with its hardwood. So he was seen by his peers as, although he might not have been a looming burly man, you know, he was exceptionally tough, very stoic, not afraid of conflict and physical pain.

• 7:09Dan Snow?

  I suppose it's difficult to work out fact from fiction here, but would it be fair to say that that brutal war in the Carolinas, he developed a healthy contempt of not just Britain, but of aristocracy and an elite?

• 7:22Speaker 04

  Absolutely. I mean, he wasn't unusual in that. One thing that American colonists found very shocking was that in the British Army, an officer could order an enlisted man publicly whipped for some infraction. And that just seemed completely wrong. Not that someone shouldn't be punished for a misdeed, but, you know, the idea of this sort of public humiliation and of the elite classes having very different standards for the treatment of the non-elite classes, that really made people, even those who didn't see it in person, very uncomfortable. So Jackson, you know, really loathed anything that was British,

• 8:04Speaker 04

  and particularly, he didn't necessarily loathe the ordinary British man or woman, but anything that was about the aristocracy, the monarchy, and anything that said that some person was better than some other person, simply by virtue of their being born to a certain status.

• 8:21Dan Snow?

  And what's the sort of the main legacy, do you think, of the Revolutionary War for Jackson? Is it in his politics, or the fact that he finds out he's good at fighting? He wants to pursue a military career. Well, how does it shape the young man?

• 8:33Speaker 04

  I think it really makes him think that America and Americans are different. And that the promise of the revolution is that the ordinary man, who may be poor, rural, uneducated, that that man, according to him, in America is supposed to be just as good as the wealthy, educated man who is an urbanite, that he may never become wealthy or influential, but he's, as a human, he's just as good as someone with more privilege. And that that's what's supposed to be special and different about America, that you take your opportunities and you make what you can. You don't say, I'm just a lowly person and I'm never going to get anywhere.

• 9:14Dan Snow?

  Well, and speaking of which, he did, he was determined to, in the old days, we said better himself, he climbed up the ranks.

• 9:22Speaker 04

  I mean, you know, he had a little bit of help, you know, he did inherit a bit of money from an uncle, but for the most part, he did make his own luck. He showed that he was a fierce fighter, whether against the British or against Native Americans in the wars against them in the 1810s. He did accumulate land, enslaved people. He seemed to have been a decent financial manager. As I said, he was not born to wealth or privilege. He did marry, but his wife was not a person of particular privilege either. And he was very proud of the idea that anything he had, he had gotten through his own efforts.

• 10:02Dan Snow?

  He is interested in politics, isn't he, from quite an early point? Like in the 1790s, he's getting involved.

• 10:07Speaker 04

  Although, although at a fairly low level. And again, I mean, America is still a very elitist place in the 1790s. Ordinary people, those who are not wealthy or landed, aren't even voters at this point. So, you know, he is very disturbed by this idea that, of course, the average woman doesn't even come into it, but the average man, meaning the average man who is not black or Native American, doesn't necessarily get a vote. And he's very concerned that the people that are the leaders, even though he respects some of them, like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, are elites. So how is this different from Britain? If America is supposed to be the land of the common man, why is the common

• 10:48Speaker 04

  man not actually even getting to cast his vote? So he is concerned that this needs to change and he's going to be an agent of change.

• 10:58Dan Snow?

  Is this typical of the type? He seems to be fighting a lot of duels. This is a, it's pretty rough.

• 11:02Speaker 04

  He's a contentious guy. I mean, even people who really like and respect him say he had quite a temper and he did not take any insults. He couldn't just say, all right, let's move on. He seemed really not to have physical fears and he was quite willing to prove himself. You know, he thought of himself as very tough, that so many of the more elite men had had easier upbringings, but he knew how to live off the land. He was a good shot. I think he fought some, like a dozen duels. Some scholars have claimed, you know, he had this Scotch-Irish Presbyterian background and, you know, there's the idea that these people were very proud, very touchy, very concerned about their honor and that they

• 11:46Speaker 04

  had this culture of fighting and dueling and that if you have a dispute with someone, you don't just argue it out or shrug your shoulders, but you certainly aren't going to turn down a duel and you might challenge people to one yourself.

• 12:02Dan Snow?

  He's a man of action. He is an adventurer, you could say. I mean, he's trying different things. He's buying and selling enslaved people. He's land speculating.

• 12:11Speaker 04

  You know, he was raising horses, breeding horses, fighting indigenous people. And he also, you know, had a strangely tender side, at least in terms of his wife.

• 12:22Dan Snow?

  So he's a man of parts, but he's, it's a portfolio career, you could say. What sets him fully on the path to, well, becoming one of the most extraordinary figures in US political history? Is it the war with Britain in 1812?

• 12:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, he's already making a name for himself, at least to people who follow these things, fighting Native Americans, particularly around Florida. But then in the War of 1812, things are looking quite bad for the Americans. Remember, this is when, you know, the White House gets burned down and Dolly Madison has to run off clutching a few important documents in the portrait of George Washington. So Jackson, you know, pretty much rounds up any man he can find who says, yeah, I don't mind fighting the British, including supposedly literal pirates, the followers of Jean Laffitte, the Pirate King. And they fight in the swamp across the river from where I'm sitting right now. And they do take on the British and they actually win.

• 13:21Dan Snow?

  And tell the audience where you're sitting right now. You're talking about the big river, right? Mississippi?

• 13:24Speaker 04

  Mississippi. So I'm sitting about a couple hundred yards from the Mississippi. And if you go upriver about a mile and cross the river, you're at Chalmette, which is a national park site as the battlefield of the Battle of New Orleans.

• 13:38Dan Snow?

  A sad place for any Brit. So the British, I mean, the War of 1812 is a hopelessly complicated story, really, that's fighting along the eastern seaboard, as you say, in the Chesapeake, the British burn Washington a raid that's fighting in the Great Lakes, but there's also fighting down in New Orleans, right at the end, in fact, in 1815.

• 13:57Speaker 04

  The Battle of New Orleans happens after a peace treaty is already signed in Europe. But of course, because of the communications of the time, people in the US don't know that this has happened because there's at least a month's lag between a thing happening and people in America learning about it. So in a sense, it was a useless battle because the end had already been decided. But it's not useless from an American perspective because it is quite a thumping victory. So the Americans are quite full of pride that we met the British in open battle. And of course, the British Army at this time is certainly the best army in the Western world. Can't speak for the non-Western world. The best trained, the best supply, the most experienced. I mean, it's a formidable foe. And here this

• 14:42Speaker 04

  sort of ragtag bunch of whatever person for the day would say, yeah, I don't mind fighting the British, but they're not a cohesive fighting force. They're pretty much any guy that Jackson can scrounge up off the tavern floor if necessary.

• 14:55Dan Snow?

  These British redcoats have fought against and beaten some of Napoleon's best marshals in Spain.

• 15:00Speaker 04

  I mean, they have a very impressive structure of command. They're very good at bringing young men in and making a soldier of him. They fought all over the world. But Jackson does, with a lot of luck and some skilled leadership, manage to defeat them. And so Americans are filled with pride that there weren't that many really open battles in the War of 1812. But this was one where the British and the American forces faced off against one another and the Americans managed to win. So if you're an American patriot, you're like, yeah, we beat them.

• 15:33Dan Snow?

  Exactly. The red-coated infantry marched in their surried ranks towards a fortified position with lots of sharpshooters behind it, and the inevitable result occurred and the British commander was killed. But it was an extraordinary victory for the Americans. As you say, a big pitched battle against this remarkable army. Did it turn Jackson into a national star?

• 15:51Speaker 04

  It really did. And, you know, Jackson, he's quite good on what we might call optics today. So he and his forces, after they patch up their wounds and get cleaned up, they marched back into New Orleans. They're welcomed as the amazing conquering heroes. And even though Jackson is a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian, he's certainly not a Catholic. Remember, at this point, New Orleans has only been American for just over 10 years after the Louisiana Purchase. So it is still very much a French city. The people that live there are overwhelmingly French or French-American. They speak French. The city itself is mostly just what they call the French Quarter today. And most people are Catholics. But he marches to the St.

• 16:32Speaker 04

  Louis Cathedral, which is the center of the French Quarter. The area around it is now called Jackson Square and has been for almost since then. There's a big statue of Jackson on a rearing horse. And he goes into the cathedral, and he kneels before the altar, and he places his sword upon it, as a French leader of the era would have done. You know, even though he is not a Catholic and he is not a Frenchman, and then he and his senior commanders sit through a mass, celebrating the victory. Again, they're not Catholics, but he knows this is how a French hero would behave. So he's quite good at basically taking his victory lap, but also doing it in a way that the local French Catholic population feels is appropriate.

• 17:17Dan Snow?

  Wow. And how quickly does he try and turn this into political office, seeking political office?

• 17:24Speaker 04

  Um, not immediately, but um, you know, he, he is, I mean, he's getting a bit older. Um, he is married now.

• 17:31Dan Snow?

  Actually, sorry, I should say not immediately because he basically kind of illegally invades Florida, doesn't he?

• 17:36Speaker 04

  So he. I mean, you know, he now rightly thinks of himself as a very skilled military commander, and that's kind of where his skill set lies. But, you know, he is also getting a little older by this point. He's getting into his 50s and 60s. I think his wife is like, honey, you could stay home a little bit, maybe. And so he does start thinking about what else do I want to do? And if I really, you know, I can do important things on the battlefield, but I could do important things elsewhere. So by 1824, he gets it in his mind that he is going to run for the presidency of the United States. And he is going to do it as the representative of this newly forming Democratic Party,

• 18:17Speaker 04

  which is organized around the idea that the common man should be represented in American politics, not only by loosening voting restrictions so that men who are not wealthy or elite can vote. If a Democratic leader wins, the Democratic leader will be always asking about any policy, how will the common man benefit from this? Not what about the planters? What about the lawyers? What about the merchants?

• 18:45Dan Snow?

  And am I just being a cynic? Because when I hear politicians saying, what about the common man? I think, okay, well, that's your shtick. I mean, do you think, did he mean that?

• 18:52Speaker 04

  I think he was very sincere about that. He didn't have to get involved in politics. He was now quite a prosperous man. His plantation was doing well. He really loved his wife and liked being home to spend time around her. He was a national hero for his military career. He was enjoying breeding and racing his horses at the Hermitage, his plantation in Tennessee. So he could have just had a fairly pleasant, you know, late middle age, hung around the house. I think he really did feel that even though he had seized his opportunities at this point, you know, he is a wealthy, influential, respected man, that we're now getting up to 50 years after the outbreak of the American Revolution.

• 19:35Speaker 04

  And that while the United States might not have some of the extremes of poverty and disempowerment that you find in Britain and Europe at this time. That still the common man is not getting the greatest deal. And the presidents before him are all Virginia slaveholding planters or Harvard-educated New England lawyers. They're not representative of ordinary people. I mean, he likes power, he likes being praised, but I think he actually was pretty sincere about this.

• 20:04Dan Snow?

  He runs just for the nomination, then in the presidential election. He runs against people who are seen as political insiders, doesn't he? I mean, did he establish this tradition in US history? Or has this been there from the beginning, which is this idea of this famous outsider who's nationally recognized either through usually war, but it could be business, could be appearing on TV shows, but a very famous outsider who is going to go in there and mix it up and show those insiders what the hell's going on. This is the beginning of that great trend in US history.

• 20:32Speaker 04

  Absolutely, it starts with this. So, I mean, George Washington, the most loved and respected man in America, the Virginia planter, the leader of the Continental Army, John Adams, you know, a very important leader in the Continental Congress, member of the Sons of Liberty, then Thomas Jefferson, another Virginia planter, the author of the Declaration of Independence, James Madison, Virginia planter, the man who was essential to the writing of the Constitution, then James Monroe, also a Virginian planter and part of this generation with Madison and Jefferson. And then, you know, the man who eventually does defeat him in 1824, John Quincy Adams,

• 21:13Speaker 04

  a diplomat, a Harvard graduate, but the son of former President John Adams. So we're even getting at this dynastic idea, you know, you have Adams I and Adams II. So this is the first time that someone is saying, hey, I'm not one of these, you know, effete Easterners, I'm not one of these privileged people, my father died before I was born and he was not a man of any wealth or power, I'm coming in. And, you know, there are these people, whether they're presidents or very powerful senators like Henry Clay, and they run things, they're the insiders, I'm going to drain the swamp, as it were.

• 21:49Dan Snow?

  You're listening to Dan Snopes History, talking all about Andrew Jackson, the president, more coming up.

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• 23:36Dan Snow?

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• 24:56Dan Snow?

  And then, I guess you always want politicians lucky. And he loses, he kind of loses the election, but in a way that puts him onto a great footing for winning the next one. Tell me about the corrupt bargain. Tell me about the election of '24.

• 25:10Speaker 04

  I mean, people say, oh, politics is horrible now. I'm like, it's been that way for a long time. I mean, he and Adams really hate each other. He thinks of Adams as this boy born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Daddy was the president. He's very educated, speaks many languages, was an American ambassador in Europe. This intellectual who's never probably have a gun in his entire life. And Adams thinks, you know, who is this guy? Yeah, he's rich now and he has nice clothes. And yes, he was a military hero, but you know, he's this roughneck. He can't really spell. He never went to a school. I mean, he can read and write. And he's far from a stupid man, but he's no intellectual.

• 25:52Speaker 04

  And, you know, he really is this kind of demagogic person who has no respect for tradition, no deference to better educated, more experienced politicians. So they loathe each other as people, as well as political rivals. And it's a dirty election with a lot of proxies spreading slander against one another. And in the end, there's a tie in the Electoral College vote. So the election is thrown into Congress. And Henry Clay, who was actually kind of the number three guy, throws his support to John Quincy Adams. And as a thank you, so John Quincy Adams does get to become president. One of his first acts is he makes Henry Clay Secretary of State,

• 26:36Speaker 04

  which is what Henry Clay wanted if he couldn't win a presidency. And Jackson and his supporters called this the corrupt bargain.

• 26:43Dan Snow?

  And if your thing has been, I'm going to run against these swampy Washington-based effete Easterners. And if you've just lost the election like that, you couldn't ask for a better example of that.

• 26:54Speaker 04

  And Clay isn't an effete Easterner. Clay is from Kentucky. Clay himself, you know, in some ways, he was actually quite like Jackson. He's kind of self-made. He loves the racetrack. He likes to get drunk and bet on horses. You know, he's not the Harvard intellectual, but still, he is Mr. Insider in politics. You know, he's been a very influential senator for decades. He's a Washington fixer. So Jackson says to his supporters, look, this is exactly what I was talking about. He is Mr. Nose in the Air, John Quincy Adams. And why is he president? Did he really win the election? No, he just made a corrupt bargain with his and daddy's friend, Henry Clay. And now Henry Clay gets to really the second most powerful position in the American government.

• 27:39Speaker 04

  And isn't this just how these people look after one another? And shut you, the common man, out.

• 27:46Dan Snow?

  And so he loses the election, but he wins the war because he crushes it in 1828, doesn't he?

• 27:51Speaker 04

  Absolutely. So it's a rematch. It's Adams versus Jackson. Adams was in some ways not the most effective president. I mean, he's a very intelligent man, very experienced man in diplomacy. Like his father, I would say he doesn't have the best personal skills. He's a brilliant man and a great diplomat. He doesn't work that well in Washington. Meanwhile, when the minute the 1824 election ends, Jackson and his supporters are on the warpath, saying, just wait until 1828. The next day, they're already planning for the next election as a rematch. And Jackson overwhelms Adams in 1828. And he very much says, I have been given a mandate by the American people.

• 28:31Dan Snow?

  So the drain the swamp guy is furious about losing the election. He and his supporters plan for the rematch from day one, and he wins a crushing victory in that rematch. Okay, and then he reshapes America. Good stuff. Excellent. Tell me, how does, right from the beginning, how does Jackson, President Jackson, reshape the American republic?

• 28:51Speaker 04

  Well, he pretty much breaks with precedent in every way. He uses, I mean, the Constitution does give the president veto power over legislation passed by Congress. But Jackson uses the veto more times in his two terms than all six previous presidents put together. The veto is not just for legislation that he thinks is unconstitutional. It's, I don't like it. Eh, not going to happen. He brings in what becomes known as the spoils system. Up to this point, the idea is that the civil service in Washington is apolitical, that people are appointed based on their skills and if they can do a good job. Presidents can come and go, but somebody might have the same position

• 29:37Speaker 04

  for decades if they're seen as competent. But Jackson makes this a test of loyalty. So if he doesn't like you, even if you're actually pretty good at your job and you seem an honest person, he's like, nope, my guy's coming in, you're going out. He doesn't pick people that are incompetent, but he's really evaluating them. Are they my loyalists? He fights with Congress a lot. He still sees Congress as not really representing the common man. And he is to be the champion of the common man against interference by the swamp dwellers of Congress.

• 30:09Dan Snow?

  And there is that description, isn't there, when Jackson takes over the White House? And there's all these kind of backwoodsmen in the White House itself. Carpets get all dirty and this is seen as the

• 30:18Speaker 04

  He has the big inauguration party and you would think it would be for the senior civil servants, the diplomats, the elite of Washington. That's what it would have been under Adams and his predecessors, but he basically says, "Come on in, I have booze and food." And there are people who are somewhat unrefined and yeah, they do get mud all over the carpets. It's a big mess. Onlookers are just, "Who are these people in the White House? What kind of troglodytes are they?" But Jackson says, "These are the American people. These are the voters. They have as much right to be here as someone who is rich and educated." So he really starts as he needs to go on.

• 30:56Dan Snow?

  What does he actually do beyond gestures? What does he do for those normal, everyday people in the republic?

• 31:05Speaker 04

  Well, that's a good question because some of the things that he cares the most about are actually not incredibly relevant, particularly to rural people. I mean, he's not what you would call an anti-capitalist. He isn't really a redistributor of funds. And he continues to be a very wealthy slaveholding planter. You know, he is not going to give up his estate, his racehorses, his slaves, et cetera. I mean, a lot of it is what could be called gesture politics, by which I don't mean that it's not significant, but he's very good at framing certain kinds of people as enemies. So one person he really hates is Nicholas Biddle, who is the head of the Bank of the United States, kind of the equivalent of the Federal Reserve.

• 31:51Speaker 04

  And Nicholas Biddle is a Philadelphian. The Biddles even by the 1830s are an old Philadelphia family. Biddle, again, highly educated, a very elegant man. And Jackson decides that Biddle is, again, one of these people who doesn't care about ordinary people, that just helps wealthy people like him. And that the financial system is really keeping the common man down, keeping him from gaining economic power. So he eventually breaks the power of the Bank of the United States and takes the federal funds. And distributes it to a number of smaller banks throughout the United States, which his opponents call his pet banks, again, you know, run by his loyalists.

• 32:35Speaker 04

  So was the average backwoodsman really helped by this? Probably really not. I mean, backwoods people often really weren't in the cash economy. They were trading or making things for themselves, but they liked the idea of abasing Nicholas Biddle, who they probably never heard of until Andrew Jackson made him, you know, an object of hatred. But they liked the idea of, yeah, he's this snooty guy, old money, and we don't like him. So to see him humbled was important, even if it wasn't actually going to make your day to day life much better. And of course, he really, even though he is a southern slaveholding planter, in many ways, he doesn't like most southern slaveholding planters.

• 33:16Speaker 04

  So he really picks probably the biggest fight of his presidency over tariffs. Because at this time, the people that are doing best in the global economy are southern planters, especially cotton planters. Everybody wants cotton, and it's these southern planters who are producing epic amounts of it. And so they want free trade because they have a product that people in Britain and Europe desperately want. Some of the richest people in America at this time are southern cotton planters. So they don't want any tariffs. They say, well, we're doing great. We sell our stuff to Britain. Britain wants it. They'll take every bit of cotton we can send them. We're happy. But Jackson wants to start putting tariffs on things, you know, particularly to stimulate

• 34:01Speaker 04

  American industry. So if you're a factory owner, you would like a tariff. If you're a planter, you wouldn't. And in particular, in South Carolina, which is really, you know, the heart of the southern plantocracy, and with some of the most fiery politicians, including Jackson's vice president, John C. Calhoun, they hate what they called a tariff of abominations. And they say, we're being sacrificed on the altar of northern industry. They're the losers. We're the guys that are important globally, but we're being held back by these tariffs. And so, you know, there was real groundswell of rebellion. Calhoun ends up quitting as vice president so he can basically be the political leader of the cotton planters.

• 34:45Speaker 04

  And the South Carolina legislature passes an act of nullification, which basically is, we're going to ignore your law because we think it's bad. And Jackson says, you don't have the power. You can't nullify congressionally passed legislation approved by the president. So there's a big war of words and what looks like it could actually be a shooting war between federal forces and the militia of South Carolina. Of course, that never comes to pass. The South Carolinians aren't suicidal. They realize that they're not going to win a war against the American forces. But they protest to the last. Jackson does get Congress to pass what is known as the Force Act, which basically says

• 35:28Speaker 04

  that he has the right to call up the American army to crush this rebellion if need be, to have Americans go fight other Americans. Doesn't come to that, but you know, it's a real show of strength by Jackson saying, you don't have the right to do this. And if you try, I'm sending my army to put you down. And of course, the rebellion never comes to, you know, actual shooting. But of course, 30 years later, the situation is very different. So you could say that in some ways, that the outbreak of the American Civil War is really the nullification crisis writ large.

• 36:05Dan Snow?

  This is Dan's No History Hits. Don't go away. We've got Andrew Jackson after this.

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• 37:33Dan Snow?

  He is happy to fight certain other Americans. Tell me about his relations with the indigenous people.

• 37:38Speaker 04

  What he's most remembered for is the so-called relocation of the five civilized tribes, particularly the Cherokee. So they were the Cherokee, the Choctaw, the Chickasaw, the Seminole, and the Creeks. And they live on land in the American Southeast in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi. And this is prime cotton land. So on the one hand, Jackson doesn't like these arrogant southern cotton planters, but he also sees that they are very important to the nation. So there's all this great land, perfect for cotton, and these Native Americans are just sitting on it, not really doing much with it, according to him. So he says, "You guys have to move. Don't worry, we'll give you some other land, but you can't stay here because you're in

• 38:23Speaker 04

  the way of economic progress." Understandably, the five tribes are not happy about this. They take their case to the Supreme Court, but they lose. And they are forcibly relocated with the help of the American military away from Georgia and Florida. And they moved across the Mississippi. So now, you know, most Cherokees, for example, live in places like Oklahoma. So they have to walk hundreds of miles, men, women, children, elderly people. And sometimes this is at the point of a gun. And they do get land, but it's land, and not only is it far away, but it's not the lush semi-tropical land that they've lived on for centuries. It's kind of barren.

• 39:07Speaker 04

  So many people literally die on what becomes known as the Trail of Tears. People die of exposure, or hunger, or just despair. Some of the soldiers who were sent to accompany relocated Native Americans said that they felt that they were had become monsters, that what they were doing was so wrong that they were forcing old men and little children along this trail of despair. So you can see why Native Americans to this day loathe Andrew Jackson. But Jackson was sort of weird in that he said the Native Americans are not part of the story of American progress. So they need to go somewhere where basically no white people live, where they're not going to bother anybody. But he also had a weird

• 39:51Speaker 04

  sentimentalization of Native Americans. Part of his thing about the common man was even though the Native American man was a savage, he was un-Christian and uncivilized, but he was also kind of a real man. He didn't need money and material things. He was stoic. He could walk in the winter in his loincloth. He could live off what he found in the forest or by hunting. So actually, he did have kind of a primitive, but admirable masculinity. And so Jackson says, I am your great white father. You are my red children. So because I'm your father, I have the right to tell you what to do. But I'm not telling you, at least according to him as the conqueror, I am telling you as your father, I am making

• 40:35Speaker 04

  decisions that you may not like, but just as a father can tell his son, you have to do this. It's for your own good, even if you don't like it. This is what I'm doing for you. So it's quite a paradoxical attitude.

• 40:46Dan Snow?

  Just how important is Jackson in the story of the American Republic?

• 40:51Speaker 04

  I think he's very important. I mean, he really upends American politics as it was practiced from the beginning of the presidency up to the first six presidents. He really changes the relationship that the American president as the individual has, both to the rest of the federal government and to the American people. Before that, I mean, obviously, you had to appeal to the voters. But Jackson is the one, you know, that actually starts, or he doesn't personally, but the people who worked for him start basically making banners and lapel pins. You identify, so I'm a Jackson man. If you ask someone, well, why do you think that George Washington is so great? Why should he be America's president?

• 41:36Speaker 04

  You know, he's the father of our country, you know, he fought, we won the war against the British, and he's this honorable Virginia gentleman, and he's the perfect blend of a tough-seasoned general, but also a genteel kind of aristocratic man at home in a drawing room, and I just have so much respect for him. Do you think you're just like George Washington? Oh, no. George Washington isn't like me or most other people. You know, if I met him, I'm sure he would be respectful and kind to me because he's a good man, but he's up there and I'm down here, and that's okay. I look up to him because I'm not like him. He is special and better. But Jackson said, I am just like you.

• 42:16Speaker 04

  Yes, I have more money and power, but I represent you, Mr. Ordinary Backwoodsman, Mr. Slumdweller. And I think that's very important. So it was the way he conducted politics, but also just the way he thought about politics and what should the American president be doing and who should his actual constituents be?

• 42:36Dan Snow?

  And speaking of constituents, does he extend the franchise to more of those people?

• 42:40Speaker 04

  Well, it's not really up to him. And by the time he gets in, I mean, one isn't that he can get in is pretty much by this point, white American men have the vote. So the property qualifications are being stripped away. If you are a native born white man, you should be able to vote. But I think he's the first person to really reach out to these people and see them not just as, you know, the great unwashed. These are the people that are going to want to vote for me and the ones I'm going to want to represent. You know, John Quincy Adams was not looking to go tell the immigrant slum dweller or the illiterate man in the Kentucky cabin to vote for him.

• 43:25Dan Snow?

  It's that dangerous thing about history. It feels both very familiar, but also if to remind ourselves, it is different. So he does in some ways feel like a populist, someone who's expert in riling up those low propensity voters, those low education voters, good at picking enemies that enrage people and drive them to vote. But actually, there's more going on with him, it sounds like.

• 43:48Speaker 04

  I think he's an incredibly complicated man. I think in some ways, he was really quite unknowable. I mean, it fascinates me about him is that, I mean, he was so savage, you know, in fighting, both as a soldier, but in all these duels, he had a terrible temper. People were afraid of him. But he also had this other side. He loved one woman. He was absolutely devoted to his wife. She was ill. He personally cared for her. And after she died, he basically never looked at another woman. I mean, he didn't visit sex workers. He didn't have a mistress. He did not prey on the enslaved women. He basically lost all interest in love and sex. Basically, his heart was in the grave with her. So he did have this side that was a little bit different.

• 44:34Speaker 04

  I suspect maybe only his wife ever really saw it.

• 44:37Dan Snow?

  And was there an air to Jacksonian democratic politics? Or was he able to start a kind of a movement in American politics? Or did his own charisma, his own story make him impossible to repeat, replace?

• 44:51Speaker 04

  I would say both are true. I mean, on the one hand, he really is a one off. He is an outsized personality and he, you know, takes advantage of that. So he doesn't have an obvious air, but the forces he unleashed for good or ill in American politics long outlive him. And even though I would say that Abraham Lincoln was a very different man, you know, in terms of his temperament. But he also played on the idea of, well, you know, I'm a backwoodsman. I grew up in a log cabin on the frontier. I never had any formal education. I mean, he didn't have the military background and he was a much more reserved public persona.

• 45:33Speaker 04

  And he wasn't so into riling people up to get votes. But Hess party, you know, the Republican party, you know, starts off as the free soilers and their slogan is free soil, free labor, free men. So even though Jackson is the Democrat, you know, in some ways has called for America to be the land where the common man has good opportunities. Jackson, of course, was not anti-slavery and he owned many enslaved people himself. And he did not see that there was anything wrong with owning slaves. He thought that African Americans were an enslavable group of the American population. So he's very different from Lincoln in that.

• 46:14Speaker 04

  But they both felt that too much power concentrated in the hands of slaveholding planters. Regardless of whether you were pro or anti-slavery, it was innately bad because that crossed out opportunities for poor white men. I don't actually know what Lincoln thought about Jackson. But in some ways, you could say that Lincoln was his heir, even though they didn't know one another. And I don't think they would have particularly liked one another if they had. But this idea that American exceptionalism is you can be born poor, you can even be an immigrant. But if you're willing to work hard and obey the law, no one's going to just give you some money. But you should have good opportunities.

• 46:56Speaker 04

  And the government should be run not to help the people that are already rich, but to help those, but again, of course, those white men who haven't had many opportunities. And that if you're passing a policy, you just think, well, how does Joe Average benefit from this? So the whole concept of Joe Average is important, not just because there are a lot of them and they have a lot of votes, but Joe Average should be at the heart of American policy. That really is Jackson's legacy, I think.

• 47:27Dan Snow?

  Well, thank you so much, Natalie. That was a tour de force. Thanks so much for coming back on the podcast. I loved it. I mean, have you back on again? I'm afraid talking about these huge chunky figures from American past.

• 47:35Speaker 04

  Happy to do it.

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• 48:34Dan Snow?

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