This article is part of a series about U.S. history. Cross-reference to chapters 6 and 7 of A Patriot’s History of the United States and chapters 7 and 8 of A People’s History of the United States.
Having established a semblance of respectability abroad, the United States embarked on a transformative period of economic prosperity and territorial expansion. President James Monroe, Madison’s successor, felt confident enough of American geopolitical heft to turn down Britain’s invitation to issue a joint resolution to preempt any European actions to restore former Spanish colonies like Mexico to their ousted overlords—instead, Monroe issued a unilateral declaration that was met with acclaim in Congress and mixed feelings in Europe. In a sense, what became known as the Monroe Doctrine was a microcosm of two great themes of Jacksonian politics (named for the seventh president and hero of New Orleans): more confident foreign policy, and a more energetic executive: ironic, given the sheer moderation of Monroe.
To my delight (but not my surprise given the relevant events), this period of American history gives ample ground for disagreements between our authors, particularly around Jackson’s policies of Indian removal in the 1830s and the Mexican-American War in the 1840s. Also to my delight, our authors find some common ground on at least one of these issues. Before we dive headlong into this, however, we need to set the table for Jacksonian politics.
Planting the Seeds of Old Hickory
The early 19th century was a time of tremendous growth in America. People’s cites figures that imply a population growth rate above 3% between 1790 and 1830—a rate far exceeding any developed nation today and more closely resembling that of Nigeria. Public works projects like roads and canals (the Erie Canal being the most famous), as well as efforts by entrepreneurs like Cornelius Vanderbilt, moved the American economic engine forward. Many states began either reducing or eliminating the property requirements tied to voting rights—an expansion of the franchise inconsistent with People’s claim that only 2 million out of 13 million Americans voted in the 1832 election. Patriot’s cites the heavy subsidies given to postal services and other public goods, one effect of which was that people read more newspapers and fewer books: “This democratization of the news produced a population of people who thought they knew a great deal about current events, but who lacked the theoretical foundation in history, philosophy, or politics to properly ground their opinions.” Such a claim surely resonates with many today.
Following the slow, natural death of the Federalist party, America was briefly a de facto one-party state. In 1824, Martin Van Buren (eventually the eighth president) founded the Democratic Party and, with it, much of the modern two-party system. To Patriot’s, Van Buren’s vision was built around “getting out the vote”, seeking to maximize voter turnout. Party loyalty would be ensured through a “spoils system” in which a party in power would fill government offices with loyal partisans. This concept of course wasn’t new, but Van Buren made it the operating strategy for his party, ultimately incentivizing elected leaders, regardless of party, to “promise more jobs than their opponents, proportionately expanding the scope and power of the federal government.”
This was ironic given that Van Buren’s Democratic Party platform called for a “docile chief executive” and a government that would avoid addressing the issue of slavery. Following the Missouri Compromise in 1820, slavery was evolving into the key domestic issue of the age, the lens which would shape views on any subsequent event. Van Buren himself thought slavery should be limited, but he also sought to avoid federal interference on the issue. As Patriot’s put it, “the last thing Van Buren and the Democrats wanted was a large, powerful central government that could fall into the hands of an anti-slave party, but the process they created to stifle debate on slavery ensured just that.” Thus, the president would have to be a “Northern man of Southern principles.” The instability of this system became evident in 1860, when just the “wrong” man, Abraham Lincoln, was elected president.
Man of the People?
Andrew Jackson’s presidency is cited by many historians as a triumph of democracy and the “common man”. Jackson did have strong popular support due to the political ineptitude of his predecessor, John Quincy Adams. Old Hickory swept into office, fueled by Van Buren’s political organization. A common image in history courses is the Jackson White House being overrun by all manner of frontier folk, who trashed the place at his first inauguration in 1828. However, the general brought a bellicose and vindictive personality into the White House, and these combined with his larger-than-life image to make him a forceful chief executive.
Since his days as a general, Jackson displayed few qualms over double-crossing the Indians. In 1819, he led an expedition into Spanish Florida in pursuit of Seminole raiders, an act which ultimately resulted in the treaty ceding Florida to the United States. As president, he did little to check the continued westward movement of American settlers.
Indeed, People’s insists that Jackson’s era was defined by bad faith toward the Indians—Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws—who inhabited what was at the time the American southwest (Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia). The Cherokee in particular had taken significant steps to adopt Western ways of life and forms of government, but it was never enough for them to receive recognition of their sovereign rights. Patriot’s and People’s both cite the ruling in Worchester v. Georgia that forbade the state of Georgia to violate Cherokee lands that were protected by treaty with the federal government—and both point to Jackson’s refusal to enforce this ruling.
Our authors appear to agree that Jackson’s treatment of the Indians was neither fair nor proper, and both imply that American actions rested on a principle of “might makes right”, but People’s goes further, placing the blame not on the enterprising frontier settlers, but on the system of greed and wealthy interests that compelled the migration in the first place. Citing author Dale Van Every, People’s insists that the forces of removal “came from industrialization and commerce, the growth of populations, of railroads and cities, the rise in value of land, and the greed of businessmen.”
Jackson’s attitude toward such greedy businessmen is often made much of in his supposed “war” against the Bank of the United States. However, Patriot’s saw Jackson’s beef with the Bank as more about the patronage power of the bank’s president, rather than the principle of a national bank. He requested an aide to draft a plan for a successor bank even as he contemplated dismantling the existing one. Upon winning a second term in office in 1832, Jackson unilaterally ordered all federal deposits to be withdrawn from the Bank of the U.S. and placed in banks headed by Jackson’s supporters. He had to nominate three Treasury secretaries to the post before finding one willing to executive the order—the man who ultimately did was Roger B. Taney, who would be rewarded for his political loyalty with a Supreme Court seat and would become infamous for his opinion in the Dred Scott case.
Secession Moves South
The concept of state secession wasn’t new. New England states had considered it during the War of 1812. Yet the issue arose again in response to a high tariff bill that had passed during John Quincy Adams’ presidency. The tariff was a major source of federal income, as was the proceeds from land sales in the south. The tariff policy provided protection for northern manufacturing, while the land sales opened space for new slave states as provided by the Southwest Ordinance.
The continuing debate over slavery ensured that the country’s economic policy would be caught in the crossfire. South Carolinian John C. Calhoun, a strong opponent of the tariff, fostered ideas of “nullification”: that a state could unilaterally reject and refuse to enforce a federal law. This was de facto secession, made extra ironic that Calhoun was serving as vice president at the time. When the South Carolina legislature sanctioned a group of delegates that nullified the tariff and authorized the legislature to resist federal efforts to enforce the law, Calhoun cast his lot with his state, resigning from office.
With the help of the “Great Compromiser” Henry Clay, Jackson was able to affect a resolution that pulled South Carolina back from the brink while lowering the tariff rates. Yet Jackson made no effort to address the central question of slavery that brought about the crisis in the first place.
Jacksonian Fallout & Tyler’s Precedent
Just as Jacksonian politics required an uneasy Democrat coalition intent on avoiding the issue of slavery, Jackson’s government spawned an opposition party that was equally divided on the issue. Some leaders of the new Whig party supported slavery (like John C. Calhoun) while John Quincy Adams and Daniel Webster detested it. The only thing they could agree on was a dislike of Andrew Jackson.
The Whigs failed to stem the tide following two terms under Jackson, and the Democrats’ architect, Marin Van Buren, won the presidency in 1836. It was up to Van Buren to bear much negative political fallout from Jacksonian policies. Per Patriot’s, Jackson’s “frenzied attacks on the BUS [Bank of the United States]…contributed to the general erosion of confidence in the national economy.” A fall in commodity prices forced farmers into bankruptcy, creditors into collection, and the Panic of 1837 set in. Ironically, much of the economic damage was due to the new political party system. States like Alabama and Arkansas had formed banks specifically to loan to the Democrat party. Ironically, the crisis would cause Van Buren to urge “a system founded on private interest, enterprise, and competition, without the aid of legislative grants or regulations by law.” It is difficult to reconcile such a view with the party apparatus that Van Buren had engineered, and Patriot’s does not mince words in questioning his motives:
It was no accident that Van Buren spent four years dodging the most important issue of the day, slavery; but then, was that not the purpose of the Democratic Party—to circumvent all discussions of the Peculiar Institution?
The political scene was ripe for the Whigs to triumph, which they did, electing William Henry Harrison, who died of pneumonia after a month in office. He thus set a record, to my knowledge, of shortest-tenured executive in a stable constitutional government (one which Liz Truss of the U.K. came close to breaking in 2022, but missed by two weeks).
Harrison’s death brought no small consternation. The Constitution provided that if a president died or became incapable of duty, “the same shall devolve on the Vice President.” But Patriot’s points out that this left room for interpretation. Was the vice president, John Tyler, a placeholder until a special presidential election could be called? Or was he entitled to assume full presidential status until the end of the presidential term in 1845? Tyler “boldly assumed” the latter, setting a precedent that remains in place today. Tyler also pursued a strict moderate course between the Democrats and Whigs, which irritated his own party and likely sealed his fate in 1844.
From Sea to Shining Sea
Following Mexican independence in the 1820s, the new government determined that the Texas region (then part of Mexico) ought to be settled. Patriot’s claims that American settlers were offered land grants to move there, given that few Mexican citizens were interested. The Americans came, but brought their ideas with them—Protestantism, the English language, and slavery. By 1830 the Mexicans seemed to realize their mistake, and they banned further American settlement in Mexico and tried to enforce their law against slavery. This was enough for Texas to assert its independence. Following a defeat at the Alamo, the Texan rebels defeated the Mexican generalissimo and extracted a recognition “on paper” of Texas as an independent republic. Likely knowing this recognition wouldn’t be honored, the Texans appealed to join the United States.
President James K. Polk, a Tennessee Democrat, had campaigned heavily on the annexation not only of Texas, but the Oregon territory which was then in dispute with Britain. In a party system full of internal contradictions, this clarity of purpose was enough for him to soundly defeat the Whig candidate, Henry Clay. Texas was admitted into the Union in 1845, prompting Mexico to break diplomatic relations with the U.S. In response, Polk ordered troops south to the Rio Grande, which Americans claimed was the Texas-Mexico border (Mexicans claimed the boundary lay at the Nueces River further north).
People’s cites the writings of U.S. Army Colonel Ethan Allen Hitchcock, who obeyed orders in Mexico despite serious misgivings about the war. He wrote: “I have said from the first that the United States are the aggressors,” and insisted that American posturing was designed to goad Mexico into firing the first shots—which they eventually did. Zinn further insisted that the war was “a war of the American elite against the Mexican elite,” whereas half of General Zachary Taylor’s army consisted of recent immigrations, predominantly Irish and Germans. Inducements of land grants following discharge failed to generate the recruits Congress sought, to the point that Zinn cites reports of “men forced to be volunteers, impressed for service.”
This echoes much of what a typical high-school course will include regarding domestic opposition to the war. Writer Henry David Thoreau was jailed for refusing to pay a tax, and he wrote: “Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.” People’s also cites a great deal of newspaper coverage at the time, much of which took an ardent stance in favor of the war. Yet Zinn questions this: “Were the newspapers reporting a feeling in the public, or creating a feeling in the public?” This is certainly a fair question regarding media coverage of all types, on all issues, at all times.
It’s common for many today to view the Mexican-American War as an unequal contest, a cruel instance of a great power imposing its will upon a weaker nation. But Patriot’s insists that was not the view at the time. While some American editors expressed great confidence, the Mexicans did not back down from the war—they had taken the first step toward the brink by ending diplomatic relations. European observers, who remained neutral, agreed with the Mexican strategists and expected Mexican troops to march into Washington, D.C. within six weeks. Thus the outcome, though decisively in America’s favor, was no foregone conclusion.
At the Treaty of Guadelupe-Hidalgo, Mexico ceded Texas and the rest of “New Mexico” to the Americans. The Americans paid $15 million to Mexico, or $1 trillion in today’s terms when adjusted for proportion of the federal budget. This payment led the Whig Intelligencer to claim “We take nothing by conquest…Thank God,” a line that People’s cites with appropriate irony and derision.
Meanwhile, in the northwest, the British and Americans couldn’t agree on the Oregon territorial boundary. Americans claimed a boundary at the Fraser River in modern British Columbia, while the British claimed a Columbia River boundary that would have left most of modern-day Washington state as part of Canada. A bellicose American slogan, “Fifty-four forty or fight” (referring to the latitude of the American boundary claim), urged the British to compromise, settling in between on the 49th parallel, and granting the strategic Puget Sound region to the United States. The speed with which the British were willing to compromise—both in principle and in spirit—said much about the change in trans-Atlantic power dynamics since the War of 1812.
The Fly in the Ointment
Thus the American republic stretched entirely across the American continent, with the borders of the contiguous states nearly identical to those today (except for a southern piece of Arizona that would be acquired later through the Gadsden Purchase).
However, the spirit of triumph would not be allowed to last. Before the war had ended, a rookie representative from Pennsylvania, David Wilmot, made a motion in the House that no slavery be allowed in any of the conquered (or “purchased”) territories. This flew in the face of the House rule that required all direct discussions of slavery to be referred to a standing committee, which was tasked with preventing debate at all costs. Wilmot’s party foul flew in the face of this suppression of the issue, and while it did not pass, it questioned the willingness of some anti-slavery forces in the north to continue abiding by the Missouri Compromise line between slave and free states. Thus America’s greatest foreign policy adventure to date set the stage for its most severe domestic crisis.
In our next post, we’ll cover the rumblings that brought about the American Civil War.
