The Reign of Andrew Jackson Part 8

No one knew better than the ex-President himself that his course was almost run. He was seventy years of age and seldom free from pain for an hour. He considered himself, moreover, a poor man--mainly, it appears, because he went back to Tennessee owing ten thousand dollars and with only ninety dollars in his pockets. He was, however, only "land poor," for his plantation of twenty-six hundred acres was rich and valuable, and he had a hundred and forty slaves--"servants" he always called them--besides large numbers of horses and cattle. A year or two of thrifty supervision brought his lands and herds back to liberal yields; his debts were soon paid off; and notwithstanding heavy outlays for his adopted son, whose investments invariably turned out badly, he was soon able to put aside all anxiety over pecuniary matters.

Established again in his old home, surrounded by congenial relatives and friends, respected by neighbors without regard to politics, and visited from time to time by notable foreigners and Americans, Jackson found much of satisfaction in his declining years. For a time he fully lived up to the promise made to Benton and Blair that he would keep clear of politics. His interest in the fortunes of his party, however, was not diminished by his retirement from public life. He corresponded freely with Van Buren, whose policies he in most respects approved; and as the campaign of 1840 approached the "old war-horse began once more to sniff the battle from afar." Admitting to his friends that the situation looked "a little dubious," he exerted himself powerfully to bring about the reelection of the New Yorker. He wrote a letter belittling the military qualities of the Whig candidate, thereby probably doing the Democratic cause more harm than good; and finally, to avert the humiliation of a Whig victory in Tennessee, he "took the stump" and denounced the enemy up and down through all western Tennessee and southern Kentucky. But "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" was too much for him; the Whig candidates carried both Tennessee and Kentucky and won the nation-wide contest by 234 to 60 electoral votes.

The old warrior took the defeat--_his_ defeat, he always regarded it--philosophically, and at once began to lay plans for a recovery of Democratic supremacy in 1844. For another quadrennium his hand was on the party throttle. When men speculated as to whether Van Buren, General Ca.s.s, General Butler, or Senator Benton would be the standard bearer in 1844, they always asked what Jackson's edict on the subject would be; and the final selection of James K. Polk, while not fully dictated by the ex-President, was the result of a compromise in which his advice played a prominent part. Though past seventy-seven and hardly able to sign his name, Jackson threw himself into the campaign and undoubtedly contributed to the election of his fellow-Tenneseean.

His satisfaction with the outcome and with the annexation of Texas which quickly followed found expression in a barbecue attended by all the Democrats of the neighborhood and by some of note from a distance.

"We have restored the Government to sound principles," declared the host in a brief, faltering speech from the Hermitage portico, "and extended the area of our inst.i.tutions to the Rio Grande. Now for Oregon and Fifty-four-forty."

Oregon--although not to fifty-four forty--was soon to be duly made American soil. But Jackson did not live to witness the event. Early in 1845 his health began to fail rapidly and on the very day of Polk's inauguration he was at the point of death. Rallying, he struggled manfully for three months against the combined effects of consumption, dropsy, and dysentery. But on Sunday, the 8th of June, the end came.

In accordance with a pledge which he had given his wife years before, he had become a communicant of the Presbyterian church; and his last words to the friends about his bedside were messages of Christian cheer. After two days the body was laid to rest in the Hermitage garden, beside the grave of the companion whose loss he had never ceased to mourn with all the feeling of which his great nature was capable. The authorities at the national capital ordered public honors to be paid to the ex-President, and gatherings in all parts of the country listened with much show of feeling to appropriate eulogies.

"General Jackson," said Daniel Webster to Thurlow Weed in 1837, "is an honest and upright man. He does what he thinks is right, and does it with all his might. He has a violent temper, which leads him often to hasty conclusions. It also causes him to view as personal to himself the public acts of other men. For this reason there is great difference between Jackson angry and Jackson in good humor. When he is calm, his judgment is good; when angry, it is usually bad.... His patriotism is no more to be questioned than that of Was.h.i.+ngton. He is the greatest General we have and, except Was.h.i.+ngton, the greatest we ever had."

To this characterization of Andrew Jackson by his greatest American contemporary it is impossible to make noteworthy addition. His was a character of striking contradictions. His personal virtues were honesty, bravery, open-heartedness, chivalry toward women, hospitality, steadfastness. His personal faults were irascibility, egotism, stubbornness, vindictiveness, and intolerance of the opinions of others. He was not a statesman; yet some of the highest qualities of statesmans.h.i.+p were in him. He had a perception of the public will which has rarely been surpa.s.sed; and in most, if not all, of the great issues of his time he had a grasp of the right end of the question.

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 const.i.tutional matters, is James Schouler's _History of the United States under the Const.i.tution_, 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. Ba.s.sett'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 s.p.a.ce, 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 doc.u.ment.

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, in, 1896) and Ulrich B. Phillips, _Georgia and State Rights_ (American Historical a.s.sociation Reports, 1901, II).

Aside from newspapers, and from collections of public doc.u.ments of private correspondence, which cannot be enumerated here, the source materials for the period fall into two main cla.s.ses: 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 Was.h.i.+ngton_ (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 d.i.c.kens'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 princ.i.p.al 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).

NOTES

[1: Ba.s.sett, _The Life of Andrew Jackson_, vol. I, p. 123.]

[2: Brown, _Andrew Jackson_, pp. 75-76.]

[3: Buell, _History of Andrew Jackson_, vol. n, pp. 94-95.]

[4: Buell, _History of Andrew Jackson_, vol. II, p. 97.]

[5: Turner, _Rise of the New West_, p. 188.]

[6: Turner, _Rise of the New West_, p. 268.]

[7: Parton, _Life of Andrew Jackson_, vol. III, p. 168.]

[8: Brown, _Andrew Jackson_, p. 127.]

[9: Osborn _vs._ Bank of the United States.]

[10: MacDonald, _Jacksonian Democracy_, p. 98.]

[11: Turner, _The Rise of the New West_, p. 325.]

[12: MacDonald. Jacksonian Democracy, p. 239.]

[13: See _The Old Northwest_, by Frederic Austin Ogg (in _The Chronicles of America_).]