Book Review: Andrew Jackson and His Times
Earlier this week I finished reading H. W. Brands' well-written biography entitled Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times. I know I've complained about the book's length (560 pages) but that's because I have trouble finding time to read, not because it's boring. Quite the contrary, Brands is a wonderful writer. He not only sets out all pertinent information, both about Jackson and his contemporaries, but his analysis is skillful. He explains the what and the why, tries to get into Jackson's head and tell us what he must have been thinking and is convincing in doing so because of how well researched this book is. He does not put Jackson on a pedestal, nor is this book a condemnation of Old Hickory. For those things Jackson deserves praise, Brands gives him due credit. For those things that Jackson deserves to be criticized, Brands does so as well. Both praise and criticism are fair, objective and factor in the mores of the times. Although I didn't always appreciate this as I was working my way through the book, I enjoyed reading this book and find it to be an excellent example of professionalism by a historian. Brands deserves top marks for his research, for his understanding of the events and issues in Jackson's life, for his ability to clearly explain and analyze them and for his wonderful summary of Jackson's life.
A wonderful example of how Brands can see and explain the big picture is found in the last chapter where he compares and contrasts Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams. He writes (at pages 553-4):
"For twenty years Jackson and Adams had bracketed American opinion regarding the most important political development of their era, the emergence of democracy. And at the end of that time they remained as divided over its meaning as they had been at the start. Adams believed that ordinary Americans weren't fit to govern themselves, that left to their own ignorance they would choose military heroes and demagogues who told them what they wanted to hear while leading them where they had no business going. The choice of Jackson for president was an early sign of the collapse of the republic, their seizure of Texas the most recent. More evidence doubtless would follow, culminating in a conflict that set one section against the other and utterly undid the handiwork of the founders. Wherever George Washington's deistic soul resided these days, it must be weeping for his country.
"Jackson believed just the opposite. Democracy wasn't a perversion of the republican promise, but it's perfection, or at least a large step towards perfection. The point of republicanism was to make government responsible to the people who lived under its laws. Whatever diminished responsibility was monarchy or aristocracy, and if the American Revolution had been about anything, it was about throwing off those twin incubi of despotism. Democracy made mistakes; Jackson didn't deny this. But its mistakes were the honest and correctable mistakes of human misjudgement, not the interested entrenched mistakes of selfish elites. Did the people know what was best for them? Not always. But they knew better than anyone else knew for them. God alone was perfect and He ruled in heaven. But the people ruled, if imperfectly.
"The question of Jackson's day - as of every day since - was, who was right? Adams or Jackson? In 1845 it was difficult to tell."
This debate continues to this day, not just regarding Jackson and Adams, but of populism and elitism in politics. Brands frames the issue brilliantly.
As Shakespeare said (in The Tempest) "what's past is prologue." The more things change, the more they stay the same.
A wonderful example of how Brands can see and explain the big picture is found in the last chapter where he compares and contrasts Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams. He writes (at pages 553-4):
"For twenty years Jackson and Adams had bracketed American opinion regarding the most important political development of their era, the emergence of democracy. And at the end of that time they remained as divided over its meaning as they had been at the start. Adams believed that ordinary Americans weren't fit to govern themselves, that left to their own ignorance they would choose military heroes and demagogues who told them what they wanted to hear while leading them where they had no business going. The choice of Jackson for president was an early sign of the collapse of the republic, their seizure of Texas the most recent. More evidence doubtless would follow, culminating in a conflict that set one section against the other and utterly undid the handiwork of the founders. Wherever George Washington's deistic soul resided these days, it must be weeping for his country.
"Jackson believed just the opposite. Democracy wasn't a perversion of the republican promise, but it's perfection, or at least a large step towards perfection. The point of republicanism was to make government responsible to the people who lived under its laws. Whatever diminished responsibility was monarchy or aristocracy, and if the American Revolution had been about anything, it was about throwing off those twin incubi of despotism. Democracy made mistakes; Jackson didn't deny this. But its mistakes were the honest and correctable mistakes of human misjudgement, not the interested entrenched mistakes of selfish elites. Did the people know what was best for them? Not always. But they knew better than anyone else knew for them. God alone was perfect and He ruled in heaven. But the people ruled, if imperfectly.
"The question of Jackson's day - as of every day since - was, who was right? Adams or Jackson? In 1845 it was difficult to tell."
This debate continues to this day, not just regarding Jackson and Adams, but of populism and elitism in politics. Brands frames the issue brilliantly.
As Shakespeare said (in The Tempest) "what's past is prologue." The more things change, the more they stay the same.