Summary: Liberals loudly condemned Trump’s remarks about Andrew Jackson and the Civil War. They should have thought instead of talked. We can learn much from looking at our long struggle with slavery, obscured as it is by centuries of myth-making. Trump was correct. The role of Andrew Jackson provides a useful perspective on this, with lessons for us today.
“To spend our time …scolding {our ancestors} for not having the exquisite social consciences we have acquired over the last 40 years is nothing but a form of self-congratulation – the characteristic mode of liberal thinking in our time.”
— James Bowman in “Ken Burns’s War“ in The New Criterion, 30 November 2007.
An interview of President Trump
by Salena Zito of the Washington Examiner.
Trump made three statements about the Civil War in this interview. The Left went berserk. Journalists, professors, political columnists — screaming ignorant, false, wrong! In fact, Trump’s statements had an element of truth in them. The questions he raise are important and usually ignored.
“He {Jackson} was really angry that he saw with regard to the Civil War, he said ‘There’s no reason for this.’“
Of course that Trump did not mean this in a literal sense, as his following words show (Jackson died in 1845). But Jackson understood that the political crises of his time were driven by those who sought to break the Union (see his statements shown below).
We cannot know which side Jackson would have taken in the Civil War (he owned slaves and opposed the abolitionist movement). But Jackson had a deep love for the Union and hatred of those who would rip it apart. Unlike many in the antebellum South, his loyalty was to the Union — not to his region (Tennessee joined the Confederacy). This was clearly seen during the Nullification Crisis of 1832-1837, a trial run for the Civil War.
“Tell them from me that they can talk and write resolutions and print threats to their hearts’ consent. But if a single drop of blood shall be shed there in opposition to the laws of the United States, I will hang the first man of them I can lay my hand upon the first tree I can reach.”
— Message from Jackson to the people of South Carolina, July 1832. Versions vary.
South Carolina Senator Robert Hayne expressed doubt that Jackson would really hang anyone. Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benson replied, “When Jackson begins to talk about hanging, they can begin to look for ropes.” With this incentive, a compromise was found.
“To say that any State may at pleasure secede from the Union, is to say that the United States are not a nation because it would be a solecism to contend that any part of a nation might dissolve its connection with the other parts, to their injury or ruin, without committing any offense. Secession, like any other revolutionary act, may be morally justified by the extremity of oppression; but to call it a constitutional right, is confounding the meaning of terms…”
— “President Jackson’s Proclamation against the Nullification Ordinance of South Carolina“, 11 December 1832.
“Heman’s gallows ought to be the fate of all such ambitious men who would involve their country in civil wars”
— Letter to Andrew I. Crawford regarding the Nullification Crisis, 1 May 1833.
Jackson foresaw what was to come in a letter to Reverend A.J. Crawford on 1 May 1833: “the tariff was only a pretext, and disunion and southern confederacy the real object. The next pretext will be the negro, or slavery question.” That does not suggest someone willing to destroy the Union over slavery, but is an insufficient basis to draw strong conclusions either way.
“Had Andrew Jackson been a little bit later you wouldn’t have had the Civil War.“
By Lincoln’s time the war was probably unavoidable. What about the presidents before Lincoln? Trump said “a little bit earlier” than 1865, not what if Jackson had been president in 1860. The last probable opportunity to avoid the war came 20 years after Jackson — during the time of President James Buchanan (1857-1861). But Buchanan’s actions (and inactions) made it both inevitable and severe.
Buchanan did little to prevent the War during his term. He acted ineffectually after South Carolina seceded on 20 December 1860 (followed by 6 others during his term). He allowed his Secretary of War, John B. Floyd, to distribute Union army equipment from the St. Louis arsenal to future Confederate States. He did little to reinforce Fort Sumter after that battle began on 12 April 1861, nor did he act when the future Confederate states seized forts, arsenals, lighthouses, mints, post offices, and ships.
Perhaps strong action during 1857-1861 might have prevented the war, or mitigated it. We can only guess about such things. Everyone gets their own opinion. For more about this, see American faux history: could we have avoided the Civil War?
“People don’t realize, you know, the Civil War, if you think about it, why? People don’t ask that question, but why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?“
This is a serious question, which Americans should ponder. So, of course, Trump was loudly mocked for it. After all, Americans are exceptional. If we fought a long bloody war over slavery, then it must have been unavoidable. But not only did countries free their slaves (and serfs) before America, but did so peacefully (or as an integral part of their wars of liberation). We could have done so too, but we were exceptionally stupid. Rather than casting stones at the dead, realistic comparisons of our history to that of other people might deflate our egos — and make us a better and more effective people.
“He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart.“
Here liberals show us the core of their rage at Jackson. He fails to measure up to their levels of moral wonderfulness, defended only by the feeble excuse that he was born 250 years ago. It’s fun to watch liberals flutter across the intertubes, virtue signaling, like fireflies.
What about Jackson’s racism? Wasn’t he especially evil? Unfortunately not. Racism is a sin baked into our national soul at the Founding. Wilson was a racist. FDR expelled hundreds of thousands of Mexicans from America (including American citizens). And even today overt racism has become trendy.
What about Jackson’s wars on on Native Americans (e.g., forcible removal on the Trail of Tears)? That was just the warm-up for America’s 19th century history of stealing their land, with frequent bouts of genocidal violence.
But we do not get to feel superior to our ancestors. We stand on their shoulders. Any moral superiority we have vs. them results less from our awesomeness than their work — slow hard-won progress over many generations. Rather than pointlessly making moral scorecards of the dead. let’s work so that our descendents have a better world than ours.
Update: Trump did not say that the Civil War was not about slavery
A favorite tactic of the Left is to lie about an opponent’s statements, then give a rebuttal to their lie. It generates cheers by their flock. It discredits them with anyone else paying attention. Such tactics are why they have lost so much political influence during the past two generations.
Conclusions
Self-righteous virtue-signaling is fun but a waste of time. Instead let’s evaluate Jackson as a man of his time and see what he did for us. It is a long list. To mention just a few, President Jackson deferred the civil war for a generation. He struck a blow against America’s rapacious bankers (which we’ve been unable to do). He paid off the national debt (the only president ever to do so). He improved America’s relationships with other nations, leading to a large rise in exports. It’s one of the more impressive records of any president, warts and all.
We should look at the horrific aspects of his era as evidence of the progress we have made — and as an antidote to the pernicious myth of American exceptionalism. Unlike the flaws of the dead, our hubris has ill effects and is something we can change.
“I ask students who their heroes are. There is usually silence, and most frequently nothing follows. Why should anyone have heroes?”
— Allan Bloom in Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students
(1987).
For More Information
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. For more about this see all posts about populism, about Reforming America: steps to new politics, and especially these…
- American faux history: could we have avoided the Civil War?
- What the press won’t tell you about Trump and populism.
- Speaking of Lincoln: How many generals would Lincoln have fired to win in Iraq & Afghanistan?
For more about the origin of populism…
…see “Andrew Jackson’s Shifting Legacy” by Daniel Feller (Prof History at U Tenn) at the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. He is also the author of The Jacksonian Promise: America, 1815 to 1840
“In Jacksonian Promise historian Daniel Feller offers a fresh look at the United States in the tumultuous Age of Jackson. Viewing the era through the eyes of people who lived in it, Feller’s account captures the optimism and energy that filled America after the War of 1812. His emphasis on Americans’ confidence in the future and faith in improvement challenges historians who depict the Jacksonian temperament in terms of anxiety and foreboding.
“Jacksonian Promise opens with the Jubilee anniversary of Independence in 1826, when Americans celebrated their national birthright of liberty and opportunity. Blessed with abundant resources and what they held to be the best government on earth, citizens believed they could accomplish nearly anything. They felt it in their power to remake themselves, their country, and the world.
“Feller traces the influence of this enterprising spirit across a broad range of Jacksonian activity. Experiment and innovation flourished as Americans built canals and factories, founded unions and utopias, staged religious revivals and moral crusades, and campaigned to eradicate social ills and to purify law and politics. Yet despite their common source, competing programs of progress soon clashed with each other. As citizens organized to pursue their hopes for America’s future, divisions arose among that pointed ultimately toward civil war.”