The Reign of Andrew Jackson: A Chronicle of the Frontier in Politics

by Frederic Austin Ogg

The country came to the belief that the National Bank should not be revived. It accepted and perpetuated Van Buren’s independent treasury plan. The annexation of Texas, which Jackson strongly favored, became an accomplished fact with the approval of a majority of the people. The moderated protective tariff to which Jackson inclined was kept up until the Civil War. The removal of the Indians to reservations beyond the Mississippi fell in with the views of the public upon that subject and inaugurated an Indian policy which was closely adhered to for more than half a century. In his vindication of executive independence Jackson broke new ground, crudely enough it is true; yet, whatever the merits of his ideas at the moment, they reshaped men’s conception of the presidency and helped make that office the power that it is today. The strong stand taken against nullification clarified popular opinion upon the nature of the Union and lent new and powerful support to national vigor and dignity.

Over against these achievements must be placed the introduction of the Spoils System, which debauched the Civil Service and did the country lasting harm; yet Jackson only responded to public opinion which held “rotation in office to be the cardinal principle of democracy.” It needed a half-century of experience to convince the American people of this fallacy and to place the national Civil Service beyond the reach of spoilsmen. Even now public opinion is slow to realize that efficiency in office can be secured only by experience and relative permanence.

[BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE]

The events of the period covered in this volume are described with some fullness in all of the general American histories. Of these, two are especially noteworthy for literary quality and other elements of popular interest: Woodrow Wilson’s History of the American People, 5 vols. (1902), and John B. McMaster’s History of the People of the United States, 8 vols. (1883-1913). The Jacksonian epoch is treated in Wilson’s fourth volume and in McMaster’s fifth and sixth volumes. On similar lines, but with more emphasis on political and constitutional matters, is James Schouler’s History of the United States under the Constitution, 7 vols. (1880-1913), vols. III-IV. One seeking a scholarly view of the period, in an adequate literary setting, can hardly do better, however, than to read Frederick J. Turner’s Rise of the New West (1906) and William MacDonald’s Jacksonian Democracy (1906). These are volumes XIV and XV in The American Nation, edited by Albert B. Hart.

Biographies are numerous and in a number of instances excellent. Of lives of Jackson, upwards of a dozen have been published. The most recent and in every respect the best is John S. Bassett’s Life of Andrew Jackson, 2 vols. (1911). This work is based throughout on the sources; its literary quality is above the average and it appraises Jackson and his times in an unimpeachable spirit of fairness. Within very limited space, William G. Brown’s Andrew Jackson (1900) tells the story of Jackson admirably; and a good biography, marred only by a lack of sympathy and by occasional inaccuracy in details, is William G. Sumner’s Andrew Jackson (rev. ed., 1899). Of older biographies, the most important is James Parton’s Life of Andrew Jackson, 3 vols. (1861). This work is sketchy, full of irrelevant or unimportant matter, and uncritical; but for a half-century it was the repository from which historians and biographers chiefly drew in dealing with Jackson’s epoch. John H. Eaton’s Life of Andrew Jackson (1842) describes Jackson’s earlier career, mainly on the military side; but it never rises above the level of a campaign document.

Among biographies of Jackson’s contemporaries may be mentioned George T. Curtis, Life of Daniel Webster, 2 vols. (1870); Henry C. Lodge, Daniel Webster (1883); John B. McMaster, Daniel Webster (1902); Frederic A. Ogg, Daniel Webster (1914); Carl Schurz, Henry Clay, 2 vols. (1887); Gaillard Hunt, John C. Calhoun (1908); William M. Meigs, The Life of John Caldwell Calhoun, 2 vols. (1917); John T. Morse, John Quincy Adams (1882); Edward M. Shepard, Martin Van Buren (1888); Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Hart Benton (1888); and Theodore D. Jervey, Robert Y. Hayne and His Times (1909).

On many topics the reader will do well to go to monographs or other special works. Thus Jackson’s policy of removals from public office is presented with good perspective in Carl R. Fish, The Civil Service and the Patronage (Harvard Historical Studies, xi, 1905). The history of the bank controversy is best told in Ralph C. H. Catterall, The Second Bank of the United States (1903); and interesting chapters in the country’s financial history are presented in Edward G. Bourne, History of the Surplus Revenue of 1837 (1885), and David Kinley, The History, Organization, and Influence of the Independent Treasury of the United States (1893). On the tariff one should consult Frank W. Taussig, Tariff History of the United States (6th ed., 1914) and Edward Stanwood, American Tariff Controversies, 2 vols. (1903). Similarly illuminating studies of nullification are David F. Houston, Critical Study of Nullification in South Carolina (Harvard Historical Studies, III, 1896) and Ulrich B. Phillips, Georgia and State Rights (American Historical Association Reports, 1901, II).

Aside from newspapers, and from collections of public documents of private correspondence, which cannot be enumerated here, the source materials for the period fall into two main classes: books of autobiography and reminiscence, and the writings of travelers. Most conspicuous in the first group is Thomas H. Benton, Thirty Years’ View; or, a History of the Working of the American Government for Thirty Years, from 1820 to 1850, 2 vols. (1854). Benton was an active member of the Senate throughout the Jacksonian period, and his book gives an interesting and valuable first-hand account of the public affairs of the time. Amos Kendall’s Autobiography (1872) is, unfortunately, hardly more than a collection of papers and scattered memoranda. Nathan Sargent’s Public Men and Events, 1817-1853, 2 vols. (1875), consists of chatty sketches, with an anti-Jackson slant. Other books of contemporary reminiscence are Lyman Beecher’s Autobiography, 2 vols. (1863-65); Robert Mayo’s Political Sketches of Eight Years in Washington (1839); and S.C. Goodrich’s Recollections of a Lifetime, 2 vols. (1856). The one monumental diary is John Quincy Adams, Memoirs; Comprising Portions of his Diary from 1795 to 1848 (ed. by Charles F. Adams, 12 vols., 1874-77). All things considered, there is no more important nonofficial source for the period.

In Jackson’s day the United States was visited by an extraordinary number of Europeans who forthwith wrote books descriptive of what they had seen. Two of the most interesting—although the least flattering—of these works are Charles Dickens’s American Notes for General Circulation (1842, and many reprints) and Mrs. Frances E. Trollope’s Domestic Manners of the Americans (1832). Two very readable and generally sympathetic English accounts are Frances A. Kemble’s Journal, 1832-1833, 2 vols. (1835) and Harriet Martineau’s Society in America, 3 vols. (2d ed., 1837). The principal French work of the sort is M. Chevalier, Society, Manners, and Politics in the United States (Eng. trans. from 3d French ed., 1839). Political conditions in the country are described in Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (Eng. trans. by Reeve in 2 vols., 1862), and the economic situation is set forth in detail in James S. Buckingham, America, Historical, Statistical and Descriptive, 2 vols. (1841), and The Slave States of America, 2 vols. (1842).