Adjusted. Time of Abe Copyright Gary Douglas Stern Preface. An American history

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3 An American history Adjusted Time of Abe Copyright Gary Douglas Stern Preface A recent history book about Don t Know Much About, rated all U.S. Presidents. It rated John Quincy Adams as mediocre, and Andrew Jackson as a five star game changer. Aside from the subject of what modern historians, Don t know much about, it seemed a curious conclusion. Will we rate the movers of our history by the charisma and noise they generate? Or we will look at the character of the government they tried to attain on our behalf? 1

4 John Quincy Adams started serving government as a teen-age interpreter in a foreign mission, became a President, then spent his life, up to his last days, as a Congressman. His intent was moral purpose, and in the times of his life, that meant finding a way to end slavery. He did this intently, famously in the Amistad case, and humorously, as he sought to have himself removed from a Congressional committee, for the sole purpose of getting to the floor of Congress, in order to circumvent the gag rule, ignore the defense for which he was there on the floor, and then finally Attack slavery. And John Quincy did his thing continuously. He slumped at his desk in Congress at age 80, and died two days later. He was never popular. He was the son of a President, who was never popular. Andrew Jackson, was a General, who gained early acclaim (with land speculators), who mercilessly drove Native Americans, from their homes in several states, before becoming the President, who then arranged the Trail of Tears. His position on slavery was positive to the end. He was always popular. Our criteria, today, for rating people like this, would be what? My father s office was on Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C As a teenager, in summer months, I occasionally went with him to acquire a hoagiesubmarine sandwich, from a cart vendor, and sat in the Square to eat. Lafayette Square is always interesting, as it fronts the White House. In the Square is an equestrian statue of President --- probably in that moment, as the horse is rearing --- General, Jackson. The statue faces South, and it is said that the General is keeping an eye on the South. In seeing Andrew, regularly, in this manner, and having some knowledge of American history, already, as a teenager, I remained a bit ambivalent, about the fact, that he, of all Presidents, would be there. Of course, he was on the Twenty Dollar note ( for almost a century, after 1928, when Grover Cleveland was taken off). The Jackson twenty dollar note was once redeemable in gold, which fairly reflects this man s commitment to hard money, real money, specie. For us, today (with no gold redemption allowed), the old Jackson Twenty still can remind us, that Andrew was the only President to firmly 2

5 take aim at the national debt, and shoot it dead (paid off zero! in his administration s time.) Aside from such Treasury footnotes, it is, of course, refreshing to see an Underground Railway Conducturess, Harriot Tubman, now replace a slaver on the Twenty. Taking a moment of solemnity, that change on the Twenty, would seem to show progress of our American spirit. But in such a moment of solemnity, continuing back to those years, when I looked regularly at Andrew s statue, I can still only conclude, so many years later, that the appreciation of leaders in a democracy can be fickle that time changes perceptions that pigeons are not partisan. Prologue With my Dad at a Carolina convention, coming out of a public toilet, a five year old me noticed something, next to the toilet: another men s toilet entrance, with a strange sign over the door. I asked a question, and my Dad took on a look of consternation on his face, (a trait in the family DNA, I would later conclude from examinations of aunts). But he misunderstood what I was misunderstanding. I had asked why in the world, do blacks want to have a separate toilet of their own! Why couldn t they use the same one I just used. The 10 minute walk back to the auditorium stage was an education in something about my homeland, I had just not come across, in my Western Pennsylvania childhood. This section of American history deals with this subject, and the general subject, of a good nation, with good goals, something that has always been important to America (and her Era Spirit). It was a time when the continental country actually became the size it is today. It is the time when great Congressional orators arranged great Compromises, 3

6 compromise mistakes which came to naught with the loss of 600,000 youth of the nation, as many as have been lost in all foreign wars, put together. Most important, it was a time when America proved it could do the right things, at the end of the day, and that leaders could arise from the confusing shouts a democracy produces, to lead us toward those right positions. Cotton was, in this period, called King. It was 70% of all U.S. exports by the time of the Civil War, a war to be fought over this King, that is, over the slave component to the American economy, on which the King seemed to insist. In line with that, there was developed in this time, the phrase cotton to, which was supposed to mean to like, or then, to be deferent to. From the time Southerners announced that the world would always cotton to their demands because of the King, until the time long black border sections of the nation s newspapers --- announcing the deaths and casualties of young men, in the South and in the North --- became longer and longer, this period was perhaps the most tumultuous time of American history. In that course, we will see Presidents elected for cottoning to hard cider, Politicians popularly sustained by not cottoning to Central banks, and not cottoning to Federal Power, Presidents cottoning to visions of manifest destinies, Generals who did not always cotton to battle, a President slowly cottoning to emancipation and finally causes lost, because Britain, in the end, did not evidently after all, cotton to cotton. Gary Douglas Stern Malaysia

7 Chapters Chapter One Change Chapter Two Compromise Chapter Three Compromise Bad Fruit Chapter Four Chapter Five Leadership away from Compromise Free the Vision 5

8 Chapter One Change They had all been used to doing their things a little differently than they would be, in the era that was just arriving. John Quincy Adams, now President of the United States, 1825 to 1829, in this transitional time, was the son of another President, John Adams. And all Presidents of the U. S., to date, were from either the state of Virginia, or from the John Adams family! That was American democracy. Things worked that way. In fact all Presidents through John Quincy Adams, were Secretaries of States to the President that came before them. The Constitution said nothing about all this, but it was over a third of a century since George Washington took office as the first President, and this was the way things were done in America. As in all situations like this in history, no one guessed it would, in a short period of time, change and never be the same again. John Quincy Adams had beaten a popular fellow, General Andrew Jackson, in the Presidential race, and Andrew, very angry, vowed to beat John Quincy, in the next election. And Andrew started campaigning for that election before John Quincy even took office. One something different for the future, in this case, was that Andrew decided to make Presidential politics a continual, never-ending event. It was a small change, which would, in fact, hold into the twenty-first century. 6

9 But what we most remember about Andrew Jackson, for his country s politics, was that elections would no longer go to a succession of people, who came from the grooming and preferences of previous Presidents. There would now be a popular element, loud and proud, with sponsored wagons of booze (we will come later to that particular booze technical term, coined in politics these times), and in-your-face, with blatant irrelevant icons of hickory canes, miniature log cabins, and logs to be split. Of course the whole new way of politics would be as often manipulated by political party deals, just like the old system was manipulated by esteemed patriarchs. As far as the old system went, John Quincy Adams fit the plan well. He was indeed prepared for his rise to office. His father John had insisted he study history to learn the perfidy of man in power. He joined his father in the Netherlands, watching John Adams Sr. negotiate funding from the Dutch for the new nation, and then in Paris for the peace treaty with the British. Then his father had sent him to Russia with his diplomat, Francis Dana, as Mr. Dana did not speak French, the international language of the Russian court, and young John Quincy did. So a teen, in that case, interpreted the U. S. policy to the Czar of Russia. Then, finally, John Quincy went to Harvard, and later read law, as law was commonly learned on the job, in a law office, not in university. The irrepressible Abigail, wife of John Adams, and the first forwardthrusting American woman in U.S. politics, who was most likely the mainstay advisor to father John s wins in national politics, was in Quincy s case, Mother. Mother threw out John Quincy s first love. The young disappointed couple vowed on that event, not to marry until they each found a partner of the exact qualities that they loved so much in each other. John Quincy s young writings in the Publica, are said by some to formulate the policies, which would become the conservative Federalist thinking (which would then, someday, become the Whig Party, then someday the Republican Party thinking). In any case, John Quincy s father read the Publica writings, and decided the son could lead the way in conservative politics, which took shape in response to Jefferson s 7

10 philosophy, right in the very early Republic years, despite the efforts of President Washington to avoid the creation of a political society that had two factions, two political parties. But young John Quincy had decided against politics, perhaps from seeing that his father was little appreciated in his own political career. John Quincy wanted to be an author, and suspected his father was actually behind the political invitations, and a Minister appointment to the Netherlands, to direct Quincy toward politics. John Quincy s life, before and long after his Presidency, is a sincere story of the way everyone was, and thought they would continue to be, Englishmen-Americans close to their custom and tradition, and proud of those customs and traditions as the American Way. A great change would come in the years of the 1820 s that would lead to a capitalism Americans would define, a morality Americans would define, and a bloodbath made possible by youthful enthusiasm for wars defined by issues, that would carry forward (perhaps as far forward, into the twentyfirst century.) John Quincy s entire life would involve itself in the future history, that the courses of his father John, and Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, little anticipated, and, in fact, would probably little admire. * * * Some phrases, which son Quincy would write to father, and future President, John Adams, who would follow George Washington in the presidency, actually ended up in Washington s farewell address at the end of Washington s term. So, it seems like a team of people --- quite comfortable with each other, unthreatened by each other --- were running the Republic. Jefferson was a little out of step, but not by that much, as he would actually help along the formation of the consensus of this particular third of a century startup of the United States. 8

11 John Quincy met his wife, Louisa, daughter of the American Consul to the Netherlands, in his father s assignment there. His father becoming President, John Quincy ended up sent to Berlin, with duties for his country to the German court. Immediately on arriving at this stage of his learning process as a part of the ruling group of his new nation, John Quincy was put through one lesson that was a little startling to him. The gate guards at Berlin thought his officially sealed papers of introduction were some sort of scam. They had never heard of a country called The United States, and would not even let him enter the city, until they checked. The guards finally did let him in, and he served, for America and his Presidential father, to a new Prussian King Frederick Wilhelm III, and a German royal family that talked ghost stories every night. The German Emperor had traffic stopped on the street of their quarters, on the month of the birth of son George Washington Adams to Louisa Adams. Returning to Washington D. C., John Quincy took up chess with Secretary of State Madison, who would become President after Jefferson, who had beaten John Quincy s father to take office, as America s third President. Quincy now pressed his claim with Congress for a summed up $61.30 unpaid, in his expenses in service to the German Prussian court. Eventually elected to the Senate from Massachusetts, John Quincy served as a Federalist, but supported Democratic-Republican President Jefferson s Louisiana Purchase and Jefferson s Embargo Act. Probably a sign, that the old ways were going to change, John Quincy then quit the Federalist Party, and joined the Democratic-Republican Party of Jefferson. Not trusted by the Democratic-Republicans at this time, and losing his Federalist Senate seat, he became a Harvard professor, and proceeded to shock Harvard as much as his old Federalist friends, by giving his opening lecture, in English, not Latin. Harvard was horrified. Signals were going up. America was changing. Mother Abigail was angry at John Quincy for going to Democratic- Republican caucuses, but John Quincy then ended up Minister to Russia, for the new Democratic-Republican Party President Madison. For a young man 9

12 who wanted to avoid politics as a career, something was changing for John Quincy. Back in his old teen home Russia again, as Minister this time, John Quincy was in touch with the Czar directly. Always amazed at the Russian love of the cold, as all events were held outdoors in the snow, Czar Alexander I, who shared John Quincy s interest in exercise, recommended winter walks without underwear to strengthen the constitution. (Russian love of the cold would finally serve them well, in defending the homeland, 140 years after John was observing the phenomenon, in the 1940 s. But in his time frame, John Quincy observed a striking Russian home-grown variance in the matter of defense of the homeland. In the face of Napoleon s attack on Russia of 1812, Russian nobles fulfilled their patriotic duty to their country, by ordering their serfs to St Petersburg, to be trained to defend the homeland.) In the settlement with Britain, in America s own war of defending the homeland, in this same time, the War of 1812, President Madison sent John Quincy to Ghent to handle the settlement negotiations. Here John Quincy met a young Senator Clay from Kentucky, a personality John Quincy would cross paths with continually. Clay disturbed his sleep with all night card parties, down the hall. Then, John Quincy became Minister to Britain until the next Virginian President, Monroe, made him Secretary of State. Henry Clay actually wanted that particular position, from Monroe, for himself. As Secretary of State, John Quincy was now assigned by President Monroe, to negotiate U.S. fishing rights off the coast of Newfoundland with the British, then negotiate the new territorial areas of the U.S. in Spanish Florida, after General Andrew Jackson had raided much of north Florida. One part of what became the Adams Onis Treaty, was the Spanish nullification of two very large land grants made after There was a mistake. The Treaty actually put the null date at 1818, not And the mistake was found by none other than Henry Clay, the man who thought he should be Secretary of State. John Quincy had to rush to New York City, get the French Consul, in the middle of the night, to agree to help on the 10

13 project with Spain, before the Consul left New York in the morning. The Consul did that favor, and the date was changed back to * * * America, over that time, had bought its way into a Louisiana Purchase of territory that doubled the country s size, then had gotten through a largely defensive War of 1812 with the British, and finally had passed some commercial milestones, which we will come to shortly. It was an America of Presidents picking successor Presidents, which doesn t sound right, but there was prosperity, and there was pride. President Monroe s Secretary of State John Quincy Adams was now asked to submit a system of weights and standards to Congress for the new land, an exercise which had stumped Thomas Jefferson, in his efforts, two decades earlier. It is of course, a moment of pride when any new country elects its own standards for all in the fairness of weights and measures. (John Quincy pushed the French metrics system; but that did not go over any better than Jefferson s earlier more unique suggestions. Some will be surprised to hear, that the matter is not totally settled, in the twenty-first century, yet.) But clouds on the horizon started to appear, into this pleasant scene for a nation in its youth, trying to come up with a standard of measures, in the late Monroe Presidency, with the Florida expansion which Adams as Secretary of State was asked to negotiate, and to which Andrew Jackson, as General, had campaigned. It was not so much that America was pushing a European empire out of Florida, but that that European empire had given to the Native Americans there, more respect and concern for their welfare, than the arriving Americans ever would. General Andrew Jackson in leading the charge (and killing two British citizens along the way, a problem that his President Monroe had to deal with), had already been driving Native Americans out of the way, in his march east to Florida, from New Orleans. 11

14 The Spanish apparent concern for the Native Americans, in creating missions to raise crops and cattle, was a problem for those Americans of Jackson s area of the U.S., where the slave had been reduced from the colonial status of an indentured servant with a rough contract, to a serf, with no rights. Education had been banned in the South for slaves, in the early years of the new nation. Now, in the new Florida, the Spanish idea of educating Native Americans and giving them agricultural rights, rights that they naturally had had in the past thousands years on the land of North America, was thought of as a threat. * * * The year, 1820, in which John Quincy tried to get his study s ideas for weights and measures accepted, turned out to be the year of the first of many Congress Compromises of the brotherhood-of-man issue, that would eventually lead to all the brother-spilled blood, of this section of history. That particular Compromise of 1820, was the Missouri Compromise that took the increasing concern of some Americans --- mostly thought of to be from the North, although it is now apparent that most of the citizens of the South never had any real use for slavery --- and brought that concern to the institution of slavery. The British Empire, with its vast plantations for sugar and other products in the Caribbean area, had found slavery of no economic merit in 1807, and had done the moral thing, and abolished it over a period of years. No great Corporatism interests attacked Parliament in that decision, because the British understood that slavery was not necessary for plantation efforts, while its presence in the economy of a nation was immoral. In the North of the U.S., states, individually began abolishing slavery about the same time, in the early 1800 s, and organizations grew in the U.S. North, particularly in the Adams state of Massachusetts, calling for the complete Abolition of this institution. In fact, Pennsylvania Quakers had been doing this for a hundred years, but the change in status of the average 12

15 slave in the laws of the South, and the increased visits to the South, by Northerners, in the prosperity times of President Monroe, had brought a new awareness, and a new determination about continuing with slavery, in America. The Missouri Compromise was the result of the discussion that came from the dissatisfaction with slavery by some this time around. Missouri had 60,000 citizens and wanted statehood. Slavery, by the Compromise, would now be allowed in the new states, formed from the new Louisiana Territory, whenever the state happened to be below the line of Above that line, no slavery, according to the Missouri Compromise. The South as it stood on the maps, was below. They had about half the states, so half the Senate vote, with two Senators per state. So, with the Compromise, no one was going to abolish slavery. The Compromise, in all that, was supposed to be that Missouri became a state with slavery, and Maine without, and that the new territories in the West, would become free states north of 36 30, with the exception of Missouri (which is partly north of that line), but would become slave states, if they were below the Missouri-Compromise line. Missouri had originally been told that they could only come in as a free state. Most of the Louisiana Purchase, in spite of having the southern location name of Louisiana attached to it, is in the Middle North West, eastward of modern Idaho and Colorado. That was the American West, in these particular times, when Oregon was British, and California, Spanish. So the new nation first considered suggestions for its weights and measures regime, from a person who would be a political fighter against slavery up to his last breath, in the year 1820, the year in which the nation also first dealt in its Congress with the reality of being a slave nation. (Adam s suggestion for weights and measures was rejected. The country kept on with British ounces and pounds, etc.) Free African Americans in the South, in that 1820 year, often had a right to vote. But now that right was removed, in this very 1820 s decade, by Southern states. 13

16 A national calm that had prevailed after the 1812 war times, was passing away. Times were arriving of particular emotion, great oration, and enormous mistakes in reasonable morality. * * * The first great election time of this period, came in John Quincy threw a festive ball for war hero Andrew Jackson, who wanted to be President for the Democratic-Republicans, and John Quincy possibly threw the ball, for his own effort at the Presidency, not really for Andrew Jackson s effort. It was at this time, that John Quincy discovered that one Jonathan Russell of his state of Massachusetts, had tried to alter documents involving the settlement John Quincy had done for the U.S. at Ghent at the end of the War of The attempted alternation would have made it look like John was trying to give away navigation rights on the Mississippi, which would be damaging to interests in the West, who needed the Mississippi River rights for transportation. It was surmised that Mr. Russell was going to that bother, as a favor to no other than Henry Clay, Senator from the West. So it would seem that, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, and John Quincy Adams were all thinking about the Presidency. The man who originally never wanted to be a politician, then did something, that for some strange reason, insists to this day, to follow the lead of Andrew Jackson s claim, as being unfair politics. John Quincy offered the Secretary of State position to none other than nagging competitor Henry Clay, to get him to stop competing for Adams bid for the Presidency. In fact, Jackson had tried to team with another, William Crawford of Georgia, to do exactly the same thing. But Jackson did not pull it off. John Quincy Adams did, and became President ( ). Adams offered the War Department to Jackson and the Treasury to Crawford. Both declined. Jackson went off to introduce, in rage, eternal campaigning into American politics custom, vowing to start 14

17 immediately, on John Quincy s Inauguration, to, himself, become the next President. And Andrew did pull that one off. Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Marshall, at the John Quincy Adams Inauguration ceremony, went out of his way, to demonstrate that actually he really liked democracy. Much had been said, by this time over the years, on that subject concerning the Chief Justice. In his Inaugural speech, John Quincy spoke of roads and infrastructure to be encouraged, for the benefit of the unborn millions of future Americans. Strangely enough, that would be a controversial policy and remain an unpopular thought throughout this whole period. In fact, that pro-infrastructure stance would be given a name (by the man who would always oppose Adams, Henry Clay): The American System. Clay came from the Far West, which was Kentucky, up against the Mississippi River, and he and these particular ideas, would soon become the basis of a new party, the Whigs. The newly arriving citizens, who moved into the West, could soon raise surplus crops, and make profits, only if there was a way to get things to market in the populated East. And it would always also be useful, to get goods you needed to buy, efficiently from the East. It was natural that this infrastructure idea for the Federal Government to see roads, navigation improvements to rivers, canals, built, would have some support in the West. When John Quincy took office, there were no railroads, but the Erie Canal would soon open in New York State. President John Quincy Adams pro-infrastructure stance, was one in which the East, and Quincy s North East, was generally not interested. It was ambitious, for this President, coming from the Virginia-and- Massachusetts dynasty of four decades of American political rule, so to speak, to champion a subject, in which the new, very thinly populated West, was interested. John Quincy also proposed, with risk and foresight, that patent regulation would be important to America, something that also did not seem of significance to most people, in Quincy s time. Finally, President Adams was ridiculed by all for proposing that the nation needed national 15

18 astronomical observatories. That was absolutely ridiculous, thought this nation, one hundred and fifty years before its first moon shot. John Quincy s ideas for infrastructure leadership from the Federal government were mocked in Congress, and in the press. The enthusiasm of George Washington with his crop experiments, Franklin with his electrical experiments and the Gulf Stream studies, Jefferson with his plow and agriculture improvements, had established a great tradition of science connected with Presidential leadership. John Quincy was trying to continue with that, and with the benefits a nation could gather from such a preference for leadership in invention and science, but the new turn in priorities in America, would not hear him. Quincy got up early daily as President, to read six chapters of the Bible, three in Greek. Over the Presidential years, with the White House gardener, he learned the names of every plant on the grounds. This was a profile in intensity of way the Founding Fathers had lived. But it was now a time, when Congress actually jeered this President s infrastructure proposals, and the newspapers had great amusement over his interest in Americans looking into astronomy. Of course, there always is the other side to the tax-for-infrastructure argument. One French immigrant to the Mississippi Valley expressed that: Diable, Monsieur, another improvement! Last year they assess me for one grand public improvement. A road to go somewhere En Bien, will they assess me for one other grand improvement they take away my land to make room for the improvement I wish myself gone where everything was going backwards * * * Nevertheless on behalf of science, President Quincy saw that one Mr. Smithson, of British nobility (illegitimate) wanted to donate a science museum to the United States. John Quincy fought off Congressmen efforts to siphon off the bequest to America, and got the Smithsonian Institute 16

19 built. And for infrastructure, he turned the shovel on the groundbreaking for the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, (and after his presidential years, rode the first stretch of the Washington Baltimore railroad.) The Erie Canal, opening in his term, was in fact, funded by New York State, not the Federal government. Of course, John Quincy would be one of those supporting the Bank of the U.S. license, in the coming Bank Battle of the Jackson years. All infrastructure was still a relative thing, in the times of the John Quincy Adams presidency. The nation s capital had no street lights. There were cows, sheep, horses, on the White House lawn, and the White House had no running water, or any plumbing at all. The wilds began two blocks from the White House, in this still relatively new city, that George Washington and Jefferson had planned. John Quincy was a rugged enough New England man for that environment. As president, he would take morning walks for two hours around the capital building. In fact, John Quincy would generally walk wherever he could, coming back from church one Sunday to see himself locked out of the White House, by a porter, who left with the only key, thinking the President was inside. John Quincy also swam the Potomac River, nude for 70 minutes regularly, finding himself as leader of the nation, somewhat embarrassed one time, when the follow-boat with all his clothes, overturned, leading to the need for some improvisation, when he got to the shore. (He would keep up those walks and Potomac swimming into his seventies, for this man who never wanted to be a politician, would serve his whole life in Washington politics, and more or less, die in the House of Representatives.) The White House was truly the home of the Republic, more so than the incomplete Congress building. That is in part, because, the ground floor and part of the first floor of the White House were officially public. People would just walk in, asking for jobs or grants. A man asked the President for money to get back to their mutual state, Massachusetts. A lady said the landlord would take her furniture the next day, for her not paying the rent. One visitor mentioned during the hours, when the President received walkins, that he was a dentist. President Quincy asked for a tooth removal. The 17

20 dentist obliged on the spot. Washington D.C., itself, had no dentist. The visitor did not charge the President. * * * The man who lost to the old political ways of doing things, which had been in place since George Washington, Andrew Jackson, angry the day of John Quincy s Inauguration, worked over the idea that the election was stolen from him. That was true through John Quincy s successful deal with Henry Clay for Clay s supporters, whereas Andrew Jackson s parallel deal for Crawford s supporters, had not succeeded. Andrew pumped that short story into a theme, that the election had really been stolen from the American people. It turned out to be good politicking, as politics would go, from here on. Jackson won the next election in 1928, in part because Jackson was not alone, in feeling that the people were not represented by the system that was in place, since George Washington. States in the 1820 s were dropping the property requirement for voting. It would make a difference. The Jacksonian Democratic Party idea, which supported that, actually went right back to another member of the Adams family, itself, Samuel Adams, who had put forth before the Revolution, the revolutionary idea, that rights even had to extend to non-property people: People without Doors. In the time of the John Quincy Adams administration, it came to be that there was only one functioning political party: the Democratic- Republicans After all, this particular Adams, son of a Federalist President, whose mother had scolded him for going to Democratic-Republican talks, had won as a Democratic-Republican. Jackson had spent Quincy s administration time, as a Senator from Tennessee, becoming the power within John Quincy s own adopted Democratic-Republican party, pushing on with the theme that the people should rule, through Andrew s future Presidency. 18

21 It worked. President Andrew had an easy victory, ending John Quincy s hopes for a second term, and acquiring two terms for himself ( ). Andrew Jackson had very much been a part of the Revolutionary War, and he did that as a child. In South Carolina, in an incident where British troops bayoneted surrendered Americans, the young teenager Jackson, helped the wounded. He demanded be treated as prisoner of war by British troops, and ducked a swing of the sword which succeeded in leaving a mark on his head and a hand, for the rest of his life. His brother had received wounds, and Andrew watched him die, on a forced march. His mother went to tend wounded in the Charleston area, and was never seen again, her clothes returned to Andrew. Andrew tried --- all his life, and one more time as President --- to find her grave. The troublesome teenhood label seems to fit this young man in his family, and, for this life-time warrior, the teen troubles all came from a war. Andrew found his way to North Carolina, to read law, and moved on to Tennessee. The changes he saw he could use for his ascendancy, came from the fact that so many from the East had moved West. And new immigrants to the country, all knew when they got off the boat, that if they wanted land, it would be in the West. Of course, West meant Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, in this east-of-the-mississippi times of the whole nation. So people with different ideas and priorities, had come to the new West territories and taken up their voting rights. Jackson, in Nashville, Tennessee, before it became a state, practiced law, became known for gambling and drinking, and took a bullet in a gunfight argument about a horse race, which he would have lodged in him, the rest of his life. (The other man died.) Jackson met Aaron Burr and listened to his story, and then wrote President Jefferson, in his suspicions about Burr s intentions. And he got into one gunfight with the brother of another Western politician the age would remember, Thomas Hart Benton, who would become a Senator from 19

22 Missouri. Jackson married wife Rachel, who would be the love of his life, but who would herself, face tragedy in politics. Andrew was sent to deal with a massacre of Americans by Creek Native Americans, trying to protect their lands and families, and carried out his own massacre of women and children, in response, having his troops mutilate the bodies of the dead for souvenirs. His Creek Wars would eventually deliver 23 million acres to Georgia and Alabama speculators. When treaties would grant residual land to the Native American, Jackson would encourage people to go in and squat on that land, as well. Andrew was then sent to New Orleans for the battle in 1815, of the War of 1812, a battle that would make him a national figure for courage and smart battle. He had assembled the 2000 volunteers himself. Finally having a place for his leadership abilities, Andrew became General Jackson. (As we saw, the famous Battle of New Orleans was actually fought after the peace treaty had been signed in Ghent, by John Quincy Adams, Minister from President Monroe, but Andrew and the British forces had no way to know that.) President Monroe then sent this new capable general against the Seminole Native Americans, who, in the departure of the Spanish from more and more of Florida, were fighting for their turf. Andrew, after the New Orleans battle, was now famous enough to run for President against John Quincy, but not organized enough. Losing, Andrew spent four years correcting that with the friendship of land speculation interests in the South and West, some quite close or related, interests that his generalship had well served. He became a Senator from Tennessee, and ended up sitting on the same Congressional Committee as Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, whose brother he had gun battled against once, in Nashville. In the Presidential election, there were mean accusations from both sides. Jackson was called a Jackass by one, and the label got used for the whole Democratic-Republican Party because Andrew kind of liked it. Even though Jackson thought the label stimulating, the Donkey would not become official for the Democrats for another generation. 20

23 Jackson had established himself as a politician who honestly sought voting rights. When he had been appointed Governor of Florida, after his military campaigns, Jackson had quickly insisted on his theme, that all Americans should be able to vote, without the ownership-of-property requirements, in place in most states, since the Republic began. So, when Andrew won the Presidency against John Quincy Adams, and his Inauguration day came, Jackson invited America to the White House. The destruction was widely criticized, the White House staff finally moving the alcohol tables on to the lawn to get the people out of the building, President Jackson, himself, escaping through a back window, to go to a near-by pub. Both sides used the press more actively than in any previous election to attack. Attacks had been the order of the day, since Jefferson, but party activity, to give impressions to the public, became more active this time. Jackson had been known as a General, as Old Hickory, so hickory wood canes appeared wherever his supporters held rallies. The creation of politicking images like hickory canes, would now become part of the common election process. * * * Andrew Jackson is given credit for changing much in the American politicking process. When you think about the Jackson election events through to the White House party, in comparison with the process of elections and Presidents beforehand, George Washington to John Quincy Adams, everything had become different, almost instantly. Campaign slurs, in the nasty statements in the fight for the White House with John Quincy, included the claim that President John Quincy had bought a pool table for the White House with government funds. This was disproved. One slur, true, but only technically true, was that Jackson s wife, Rachel, was an adulteress, since her previous marriage was not legally annulled, at the time when she started up with Andrew. Apparently because candidates, themselves, did not campaign, Rachel did not know of 21

24 this, until she happened across one western news article. Shocked and depressed, she died before Inauguration day, and Andrew went to the White House, a widower. Andrew s thoughts on being President, were that he would have an opportunity to stop wastage, stop corruption, and stop Federal power altogether. The Adams administration had been accused of corrupt practices. But since the spoils system, that had in fact been in place for a long time, got coined and discussed in the Jackson presidential years, Jackson accomplished little here. (One member of Jackson s New York Democratic machine, called the Regency, put together by Jackson s Secretary of State, Martin van Buren and colleagues just before this time period, said, To the victor, belong the spoils. People thought that catchy, and used the term, for a long time to come, in American politics.) A spoils system of course, means the election winning party appoints all the government officials, every single time, a new party wins, or one faction of a party wins, and that practice of course, does little to limit corruption. In fact, the Jacksonian Democratic Party made corruption kind of official. Andrew himself said, Money is power, and in that, government, which pays all the public officers of the states, will all political power be concentrated. Jackson, himself, did not follow the practice strictly, but his mainstays in the Jackson Democratic Party in New York, would fire all 6000 government positions, and rehire, with their own followers. That spoils system would remain red, white, and blue democracy, up until the late 1800 s, when one President, Garfield, got assassinated over its intricacies --- one guy did not get the job he wanted --- and everyone in both parties, started talking about putting the spoils system into the past. Jackson s party appointed-head of the New York Customs office, actually left the country with $1 million, during this time, setting a record for this period for corruption. But Jackson s theory was macro. Overlooking what his partnership with land speculators had done to the system in Tennessee and Georgia, (and had done to thousands of Native 22

25 American families, trying to hold on to their lands), Jackson thought that the Federal government, with all its infrastructure expenditure, would just create waste. This put him against his fellow Westerner, Henry Clay of Kentucky, and Henry s American System to get roads, canals, and now railroads built to the West. Andrew s opposition also firmed up alliances in the Whig party, formed out of the old Federalist Party, which insisted that tariffs to support industry and infrastructure, was the way forward. Jackson vetoed a major national road system plan (that would have benefited Clay s Kentucky), and vetoed all canal and road plans. Then, he did something, with the income to the Federal government from the land sales in the West. He paid off the national debt, an act for which he should be remembered. His commitment to his macroeconomics was sincere: Small Federal government; No debt. It is a thought sparsely discussed much in history books until the second decade of the twentyfirst century. * * * A part of that macro-economic philosophy, a passionate part, was Andrew s march against the Bank of the United States. There had been a first Bank of the United States, which Alexander Hamilton had championed. It had come to being in the George Washington administration, and had a charter that expired in Other banks often complained about the control a national bank exerted, and those banks told their Congressmen, that it was not necessary to have a Central bank, but in the financial situation that resulted from the War of 1812, the Monroe administration saw the charter of another Central bank, the second Bank of the United States, in Its charter would expire in 1837, within the Andrew Jackson administration. Again, the duty of the Bank of the United States (number 2) was, on behalf of the Treasury, to give some regulation to other banks, in order to 23

26 stabilize the U.S. currency. But again (like Bank number 1), this Central bank was a private bank, owned by wealthy people, and it of course had competition issues with other banks, and some power to create unfairness, in that competition. It was, in spite of the fledgling nature of the U.S. economy, one of the largest financial institutions in the world, in its time. But the second Central bank then failed to have any influence on the boom and subsequent crash of land prices in the new South and new West, allowing a prolonged Panic from 1817 into the 1820 s. But then, Philadelphian Nicholas Biddle was appointed by President Monroe in 1823, and the Bank of the United States prospered, and seemed to contribute to stability. President Andrew Jackson was focused on this Central bank, as one more Federal control instrument of the old ways of doing things (from the East). As Senator from Tennessee, he had attacked the bank s charter continually, calling for Congress hearings, which in the end did nothing to discredit the bank, although the corruption of the era, was evident enough in some of its dealings. Then Andrew became President, and refused the renewal of the charter, insisting that the local banks should control the economy. It was and is a good thought (for his time, and other times), but in fighting those who wanted to renew the charter, he removed Federal funds from the Central bank, and placed them in what became called his pet banks. The feeling of freedom these banks now thought they had, resulted in practices, that would soon create a fresh panic, called the Panic of 1837, at the end of Jackson s administration. That Panic had the result of insuring that his hand-picked New Yorker, Martin Van Buren, would not last more than one term as President. The national banks had both been tasked with limiting the amount of notes and paper money. All regional banks, far from this source of control in the years before the telegraph, always wanted to circumvent this limiting factor, in order that they could do more business. The situation is much the same as the one, that the Federal Reserve, a 1933 successor to these banks, faces in the twenty-first century, as the discussion of the pro s and con s 24

27 and efficacy of the system, to actually stabilize an economy, goes on. Whether Jackson was right or wrong, is actually not clearer today, than in the 1830 s, and the fact that private interests control all these Central banking exercises remains controversial, in much the same terms, in which Andrew phrased them. Jackson s Whig Party opponent, who believed in infrastructure projects, Henry Clay, had accepted a $6000 retainer from the Bank of the United States. And Nicholas Biddle, in charge since the Monroe administration, claimed that taking the reserves into an uncontrolled bank environment would lead to a bubble, as too many loans would be given, without the specie (gold and silver) requirement imposed by a Central bank. The Central bank s demand for specie payment from the local banks would give a hard money theme, to prevent too much paper from being created locally to create too many loans, and therefore, could prevent a bubble, say in property prices, Biddle avowed. That control balance seemed to be in effect under Biddle s National Bank administration, to an extent, but favoritism created much room for just criticism. Then Nicholas Biddle had his own quirks, when it came time to fight President Jackson, a President whom Biddle had supported and had voted for. Philadelphia based Biddle, who President Monroe had appointed to head the second Bank of the United States, and who did create stabilizing methods, did nothing for his side of the argument with President Jackson: When did a vast money monopoly over regard the law of any great interest, if it stood in the way. It will then violate its charter: its own power will secure its immunity. That may be correct, Nick, but the quote has never helped future Central bank enthusiasts much. Biddle went on with private banks to try to corner the cotton market, and went bankrupt. Jackson asserted, in the midst of the argument, that the Central bank, the Bank of the U.S. was unreliable, and that in fact there was no specie, that is no gold or silver, in its vaults. To counter him, in defense of the Bank, Henry Clay of Kentucky and Daniel Webster of Massachusetts organized Congressional committees to inspect the vaults. President 25

28 Jackson then had the Daughters of the American Revolution, the traditional patriotic ladies organization, inspect the vaults yearly, an action that, like paying off the national debt, in these years, was little noted again ( until the second decade of the twenty-first century). * * * The Secession talk that would someday lead to war, began in Jackson s years, and Andrew took a General s solution to it. Firmly a believer in the Union of the states, he did not take kindly to his Vice President, John C Calhoun of South Carolina, coming up with a political philosophy of Nullification. John C., six foot two inches in height, the unusual stature we see in Washington and Jefferson, married a South Carolina plantation owner s daughter, went to Yale, and became a Congressman from South Carolina. Secretary of War under President Monroe, he became Vice President to John Quincy Adams, and also to Andrew Jackson. (And he may have done something else in his earlier private life, which we will come to, in the last chapter.) That personal history sounds of sophistication, but John C. actually grew up poor on the frontier, his father sporting a hat with musket ball holes in it, from the Revolutionary War. He was a self-made Westerner of the times. Calhoun agreed with Adams (and Clay) on public works expenditures by the Federal government, something Jackson of course abhorred, but John C. agreed with Jackson on Western and Southern interests against tariffs to support Eastern manufacturing. But when Calhoun developed the idea that the Constitution supported minorities (his group in the South) against majorities, and could thus Nullify any Federal law that did not suit a state, he broke with Jackson. John C. put his particular minorities rights campaign this way, If it is to be conceded, as it must be, by everyone who is at least conversant with our institutions, that the sovereign powers delegated are divided between the General and State Governments, that the latter hold their portion by the same tenure as the former. 26

29 Jackson was against Federal power to spend, not against Federal power to rule, and was generally against the power of Congress. He saw himself as elected a President of the average person to actually fight Congress and its corrupt spending bills, as a Champion of the people. (These folks all read Roman history: and this is an early pleb concept, or later Emperor Augustus concept, against the powerful Senate). John Quincy noted that Jackson on one day, vetoed four expenditure bills from Congress, whereas all Presidents before vetoed that many in a whole term. Jackson told foreign governments to stop addressing the President and Congress of the United States, and start addressing only the President of the United States. Jackson, who the newspapers would dog with the title King Andrew, for his claim that the Presidency was the tool of democracy against the Congress, would of course not accept Calhoun s Nullification theory, limit on Presidential power. John C Calhoun resigned as Jackson s Vice President. He actually called for the arrest of President Jackson, for exceeding authority of the President s Executive branch of government. Jackson called up troops to invade South Carolina, sending General Winfield Scott to Fort Moultrie by Charleston! (This fort would come again to the history of this period.) It was a South-South contention. It was a ghost of a future year. But it was the 1830 s, and everyone re-thought their positions. Calhoun got a reduction in tariffs for his interests, and put aside his Nullification brainchild. * * * Aside from the argument about the intention of the Constitution for the law of the land and the rights of states in regards to the law of the land, the government of the United States had signed treaties into law with Native American groups since George Washington. Andrew Jackson took the stand on that issue, to ignore every law signed in the past. 27