THE PROS AND CONS OF ANDREW JACKSON’S PRESIDENCY Jackson symbolized what Americans perceived (or wished) themselves to be-­‐-­‐defiant, bold, independent. He was someone with whom they could identify. Thus, Jackson was elected in 1832 and reelected in 36 by an overwhelming majority. However, an important question remains: PRO Was the growing democracy in America voting for true leaders, or for an image? He was a strong leader who greatly expanded the powers of the presidency. CON He was arrogant and dictatorial and showed a complete disregard for constitutional restraints or the rule of law. When the Supreme Court declared that the state of Georgia had no right to expel the Cherokee Indians from their land, Jackson resolved to ignore the decision. "John Marshall has made his decision," he thundered; "now let him enforce it!" PRO Jackson's firmness during the nullification crisis prevented South Carolina from dissolving the Union and helped postpone the Civil War for 30 years. CON Though Jackson stood up to the South at a crucial moment, his attitude on the slavery issue was that of a bigoted Southerner. While each of the previous six presidents had questioned the morality of slavery, Jackson saw nothing wrong with slavery and professed that he was never troubled by the hundreds of slaves that he owned. Jackson bitterly ridiculed any talk of freeing slaves. PRO Through his speeches and actions as president, Jackson identified himself with ordinary Americans (former Democratic-­‐
Republicans) rather than with members of the wealthy and educated classes (former Federalists). CON His only concrete accomplishment on behalf of the common man was the seizure of millions of acres of Indian land. Under Jackson's orders, countless treaties were violated and the Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks, Sauks, and Cherokees were all driven from their homes. Jackson's harsh approach to the Indian problem cannot be excused. Not all men would have likely done it the same way. PRO In his successful war against the Bank of the U.S., Jackson destroyed a tradition of wealth and special privilege. CON Jackson's bank war was all form and no substance. Jackson simply withdrew funds from the U.S. Bank and redeposited them in state banks, which were even more ruthless in their attempt to exploit debtors and the poor than the Bank of the U.S. The only long-­‐range effect of the bank war was to weaken U.S. currency and bring about the Panic of 1837, one of the worst economic times in American history. Hero or American Hitler?
December 12, 2007|Carl Byker | L.A. Times
“Is he a president whose accomplishments we should celebrate or a president whose failures we should
apologize for?"
It's a question certain to spark a fierce debate. It's worth remembering that Americans have elected more than
a few presidents through the years who have been celebrated by some even as they have been deeply detested
by others.
Among the most important examples is Andrew Jackson. During Jackson's two terms, many idolized him -for he was the first man of poor, simple origins to rise to the presidency, and he then helped found the
Democratic Party to stand up for other humble men. But many other Americans intensely despised President
Jackson for his advocacy of Indian removal -- the forcing of tribes east of the Mississippi to resettle west of the
river -- and his ownership of slaves; Jackson's opponents in Congress were convinced that his vision of an
"imperial presidency" would destroy the nation the founding fathers had created.
Yet what's most interesting about Jackson is not that his contemporaries had wildly divergent opinions about
him, but that Americans have kept disagreeing about whether or not he was a good president ever since.
You might think, for example, that young people today have less than no interest in Jackson -- but you'd be
wrong. One night recently, a 11-year-old friend who knew I was making a television biography of Jackson
came racing into the house, got right my in face and screamed, "You're making a film about a very bad man!"
Her outrage had been triggered by learning, like millions of other sixth-graders taking American history, how
the Cherokees had been driven from their homes by American soldiers and forced to march west into the
wilderness so that white Americans could steal their land.
The criminal of the story, of course, was Jackson. For some students, his crimes take on added weight because
he's their first exposure -- just after they've learned about the remarkable accomplishments of the founding
fathers -- to the idea that the United States can also do evil things. Jackson scholar Dan Feller of the
University of Tennessee says many of the young people he talks to today view Jackson as almost an American
Adolf Hitler.
But try telling people in the conservative South that Jackson is the moral equivalent of Hitler and you might
just get a punch in the mouth for your trouble. In the South, "Old Hickory" (Jackson’s nickname) is still hugely
popular, not only for his triumph in the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812, but because he was the man
most responsible for adding Florida to the United States.
In fact, until the 1950s, many Northerners and liberals also revered Jackson. Arthur Schlesinger's Pulitzer
Prize-winning "The Age of Jackson," published in 1945, barely mentioned Indian removal, instead celebrating
Jackson's championing of the working class – the “everyday people”. And the ultimate accolade our country
has given Jackson -- his portrait on the $20 bill -- was engineered by perhaps the most liberal president in our
history, Franklin D. Roosevelt.
In Feller's view, what transformed Jackson's reputation among liberals in the 1950s and 1960s was that the
civil rights movement under Martin luther King, Jr. and others gave many people a new understanding of the
horrors of slavery and Indian removal. And as Feller said, "If you're talking about Hitler, you don't say, 'Well,
he built roads and put the German people to work,' because it simply doesn't matter, given the horror of the
other things he did. And that's how some people today view Jackson."
To Robert Remini, that's not fair. The most distinguished living biographer of Jackson, Remini thinks that
Americans love to blame Jackson for Indian removal so that we as a nation don't have to take responsibility
for it. Remini said: "Americans need to realize that it wasn't just Jackson who removed the Indians, it was the
American people who did it. And not only that, we've kept on doing similar things. We 'removed' Japanese
Americans during World War II, and the Congress and the Supreme Court and the vast majority of Americans
approved of it. And we, as a nation and as a people, continue to do morally questionable things today." …