March's Program Chair Larry Pack always brings us interesting programs. In recent year's he has invited history professors from Western Kentucky University to talk about US Presidents. This month we are scheduled for Dr. Robert Haynes on Andrew Jackson (today), next week Dr. Glen LaFantasie on Lincoln, followed by Dr. David Lee on Harry S. Truman, and on the 25th Dr. Andrew McMichael on Thomas Jefferson.
Dr. Pack introduced Dr. Haynes and mentioned that he is transferring his membership from the A.M. club to the Noon Club so will be with us from now on. Bob is no stranger to our club and has held our members in rapt attention talking on previous occasions about other presidents. He speaks with no notes and brings out historical perspectives that would be difficult or impossible to ascertain from a biography.
Bob appears to be in his early 80's and I presume has retired first from a Texas University and now from Western. He speaks without notes and doesn't falter in his presentation. In case you weren't present I took notes. Here are some of the things I wrote down. Jackson was our seventh president and the last one to be directly associated with the American Revolution. He was born in one of the Carolina's but which one is in dispute. He ultimately ended up in Nashboro, TN now known as Opryland. He married well into the wealthy Donnelson family although he had to wrest Rachel from another man. He married her first in Mississippi but learned that she was not properly divorced so married her a second time four years later. This fact would become a political liablity later.
With the backing of a powerful Tennessee politician of the time (I didn't write down who it was) he started his rise in Tennessee politics. His earliest grandest claim to fame was the Battle of New Orleans which culminated the second war of independence against Britain and better known as the War of 1812. Dr. Haynes says it was the use of artillery that won the battle and not so much the much admired Kentucky Long Rifflemen. By 1824 Tennessee politicians entered Jackson in a crowded field for US President. Their aim was not so much to get him elected as to promote their own security and power in State Politics. To their amazement Jackson was popular throughout the land and ended up with the plurality of the votes but not the majority. The US House selected John Quincy Adams who in collusion with Henry Clay of Kentucky (another candidate) pulled off the upset. Clay was made Secretary of State and Jackson was ticked off by the shenanigans.
Jackson almost immediately started running for president in the new Democratic party organized by Martin Van Buren. In 1828 Jackson became president without a real agenda. He was obsessed with the public debt (over the war) and by 1835 was able to announce that the country was out of debt. He subscribed to a prevailing theory of Indian Removal to move all Eastern Tribes west of the Mississippi. This was done obstensibly so they could preserve their culture and not be assimilated. Dr. Haynes says much of the stigma came from performing this with private contractors whose peripheral (if not main) goal was to profit from selling Indian land. Nevertheless, Jackson's name is forever linked infamously to the Trail of Tears. [My own g-g-g-g grandmother was a N.C. Cherokee named Nancy. She is the grand dam of nearly every Embry you meet in this part of the country.]
Jackson was upset with the National Bank. It was ten times bigger than the U.S. Government and when policical foes introduced a bill behind his back to extend its charter 15 years, Jackson vetoed the bill. He then instucted his Secretary of the Treasury not to deposit US funds into it. That treasurer refused saying it was against the law so Jackson replaced him with a Treasurer that would. Ultimately Jackson's actions were partly to blame for the Panic of 1837.
Finally he took a stern stand against Nullification. It was a protest by the State of South Carolina to act in its own best interest to ignore federal tariffs that made purchasing items needed to raise cotton, etc. expensive to buy while they had to sell on an open international market. Jackson saw himself to be the tribune of the people not the Congress and elevated the presidency to a more powerful position. He became a bitter enemy of John C. Calhoun regarding the States ability to pick and choose which federal laws to obey. Ultimately there was a Compromise of 1833 which prevented an immediate call for secession. As a matter of fact Dr. Haynes noted that of the original Jackson people who were around by 1860 and the advent of the Civil War (or as I was taught the War Between the States) seemed to stand united against the advocates of states rights and their ability to secede. This included among other notables Sam Houston.
In summary Bob concluded that an evaluation of Jackson's presidency would have to be mixed. He governed on impulse not principle and on personalities. Once you became his enemy you were an enemy for life. Thank you Dr. Bob for such a great program.
