Jackson – American History to 1877

March 31, 2014

Jackson: Bankers, Abolitionists, and Unions

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Wilentz goes through the second half of Jackson’s presidency in chapter 13, taking the reader through first the drama of the Bank War, then through the growing abolitionist movement, and then through the Union movement taking place in urban centers, such as New York and Boston. Even before coming to the last section of Wilentz’s chapter, I found a peculiar amount of contradictions in Jackson’s stances, as well as how various groups alligned themselves politically.

Jackson first closes down the BUS by redistributing the dungs from the national bank to loyal state banks. Wilentz explains that Jackson’s motives were that the national bank was tied with northern industries, and did not support or fund frontier expansions. This fits with Jackson’s earlier moves, as Grey mentions in his post, around Georgia’s state power to deal with the Cherokees as they saw fit.

However, it is interesting that many people who backed Jackson initially saw this Bank War as Jackson’s lust for power. While he may have said that he did not want a powerful federal government, he also was able — as only one man — to bypass Congress in issues related to the Bank. Additionally, Jackson redistributed the funds to only a few states — showing a sort of favoritism in politics that he seemed vehemently against. This is an interesting contradiction.

Another contradiction I found was Wilentz’s reason for why Jackson did not become involved in some of the abolitionist issues that arose over censoring mail and abolitionist literature distribution. Some Southern states wanted to prohibit this literature from circulating. While Congress said this was unconstitutional, there was no enforcement in the states themselves. This was an issue of state rights over federal rights, so one might assume that Jackson might blindly favor state rights, allowing for the censorship of abolitionist literature. However, he was against this. Wilentz reasons that “though Jackson disapproved, he did not want to stir up more trouble” by calling states out in the unenforced laws. Wilentz seems to be, once again, painting a favorable picture of Jackson. Jackson had no problem stirring up trouble by redirecting funds from the National Bank, and speaking his mind on other issues, even when it directly threw him up against Congress. I don’t think it is fair for Wilentz to therefore reason this.

I see many similarities between the abolitionist movement and unionists that Wilentz does not interestingly spell out more clearly. This era seemed marked by many “for the people” movements, both for the workers (unions) and for slave laborers. While Wilentz discusses “a new humane model of equality, [and] freedom” in terms of abolitionist movements through the religious lens, I think this can be an interesting parallel to the unionizing and Workies in the Northeast.

March 24, 2014

The Transformation of American Politics

The Wilentz reading describes the change American politics went through. One major change was how much the people’s perception of the president’s integrity can affects his patronage. Wilentz first demonstrates this through the 1824 election in which Henry Clay appeared to have committed a wrong doing, forever smearing how the people perceived Adams, especially during the 1828 election (256). The emphasis on presidential integrity is further seen during Jacksons’ 1827 campaign period. Here, as Rebecca and Ella describe, the campaign became more focused on slander then politics (306). This development, although not entirely new, was partially due to the Second Great Awakening, in which scholars placed more emphasis and interest on Christianity (266). As Charlotte mentioned, religion was seen as a moral guide to politics. This factor on top of rising new political parties that represented the more common man headed a rapid transformation of politics not entirely understood by Adams and Clay, leading to Jackson’s presidential victory.

Furthermore, in spite of the emphasis on presidential integrity, I believe the greatest political development during this period was the new importance of the people’s interest. Jackson was said to be the common people’s president. In fact he, more than any other 19^th century president, won the presidency through a large marginal popular vote. His popular victory demonstrated the rising involvement of non-elites. In addition to this, all white males gained suffrage. One could further say that the stress on presidential integrity was likely due to the rising interest of the people in politics and their ability to express their interest. This growing public attentiveness is what will change American politics to what it is today and create a uniquely American government.

March 24, 2014

Religion: A Historic Aside to Jackson, Natives, & Slaves

Quick aside: There’s a great scene in Season 2 Episode 8 of House of Cards where Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) is meeting with a group of American Indian Tribal Leaders. When they enter the room they notice an Andrew Jackson portrait on the wall and ask “If he’ll be joining us in the conversation.” Frank says surely not, this is a terrible oversight, takes it down, and then when the Tribe’s representatives leave he puts it back up and spends a considerable amount of time ensuring it’s not crooked. Read into that as you may.

Alright, now the real post.

Jackson held presidency in a time of great change. Another religious awakening was changing the social landscape and greatly increasing the number of American church attendees. There was somewhat of a moral uprising with Presbygationals insisting in the participation in secular leadership for upholding moral principles. Southern Evangelicals were pushing to convert enslaved people and began to enthusiastically press against slavery in some circumstances. Others were proselytizing to native populations and were able to, in their minds, “assimilate” many of the people into farming, christian communities. All this is fine and well, but in the end none of it mattered. Politics, not religion, remained the dominant force of the time even with what seems like an overwhelming majority of citizens to consider themselves Christian and the dominant theory of the time relating to moral theology, Slavery still held strongly rooted in the south and Indians remained exactly the opposite.

Jackson’s view and belief in state’s rights and the precedent set before him allowed southern states like Georgia not only to continually support the institution of slavery unhindered but also to begin annexing land held by natives in the name of states’ rights. Georgia, being the prime example, begain eagerly removing the Cherokee people and were prepared to stand up to National military force to do so. However, when the national forces were pulled back, it condoned the action of annexing and moving native lands farther and farther west. This continued until Jackson’s pro-removal policies were put into place slowly and surely, using vaguely worded laws in order to legitimately dissolve Cherokee Governments and hasten removal if necessary. This is directly related to Michael Dunbar’s post on Jackson’s supposed moralism. While it was somewhat a staple of his presidency and certainly of the religious times of the nation, I agree that it is an inherent oversight to gloss over the tragic and inherent racism that constituted a large part of his presidency and even legacy, as the House of Cards illusion can certainly suggest.

While there was a rise in moralist teachings of the church, ultimately these are powerless in politics. Whether this speaks to a depressing reading of the human condition or rather to the cold, Machiavellian politics of the time is unclear. However, in this circumstance, the popular religious teachings of the day could not change the harrowing times of the Jacksonian era for Natives and even Slaves.