Andrew Jackson: Ideals vs. Actions as President

Introduction: The Man and the Myth

The humble and modest imagery surrounding Andrew Jackson at his inauguration is consistent with his reputation as a defender of individual rights and as a man of the people — one no different from everyday citizens. Many of Jackson's decisions in office, however, challenge this image and reputation. There is a persistent tension between his conduct and the ideals attributed to him, some of which he openly espoused. As Brinkley suggests, the symbolism was as important as, if not more important than, the actual events of his presidency.

Jackson's professed beliefs about the need to limit government interference, preserve the rights of states, and limit terms in office must be reconciled — if possible — with many of the decisions he made while in office. Events such as the Nullification Crisis, his use of the spoils system, his removal of the Indians, and his veto of the Central Bank Act all reveal the tensions between Jackson's stated beliefs and his actual conduct.

The Nullification Crisis

Andrew Jackson's response to South Carolina demonstrates his commitment to preserving the strength of the federal union, even when it brought him into conflict with his usual support for states' rights. He was willing to go to war and fight his own allies if necessary (Brands, 448). His willingness to use force in order to preserve the union was unmistakable: "I will meet all things with deliberate firmness and forbearance, but woe to those nullifiers who shed the first blood" (Meacham, 44).

The nullification crisis was about more than simply tariffs — it was a foreshadowing of the positions that would precipitate the American Civil War (Meacham, 44). The underlying question was the extent to which the federal government could dictate the internal affairs of the states. Jackson's answer was, in effect, that any act by the states that threatened the union was reprehensible and should be dealt with through politics or force (Meacham, 45).

In retrospect, Jackson's strong response to South Carolina may very well have given America a decades-long reprieve from bloodshed and cemented the supremacy of the union over individual state interests (Meacham, 45). Part of his legacy comes from this response to the nullifiers: an unequivocal declaration that the union is more important than any single state's objections.

The Spoils System

President Jackson and his followers embraced the idea, inherited from the Revolutionary War era, that a government used to protect or further the interests of private citizens was a corrupt government (Brands, 415). Throughout his campaign against the Adams administration, Jackson railed against government corruption. He then brought the spoils system to a national scale. In 1829 he declared that corruption in government could be alleviated through a rotational system for appointing members to civil service positions (Brands, 416). This system was used largely to appoint members of his own party to federal civil service positions (Brands, 416–17). Though Jackson argued that officials should be replaced regularly, very few new appointments actually took place, and he largely preserved the status quo rather than transforming it.

In response to media criticism about appointing his own allies to office, Jackson maintained that he made appointments only "with a view to the public good" (Brands, 417). His need to defend these appointments reflects a pattern that has continued in American politics ever since. In the end, his decision to keep most incumbents in place while rewarding his party loyalists may have been influenced by a convenient shift in how "corruption" was defined — after all, the Jacksonians were now the ones in office. After every presidential election, influential positions tend to be given to those most responsible for the victory as a form of political gratitude, and Jackson's presidency was no exception.

Jackson's determination to remove the Indians and spearhead what is now called American expansionism was rooted in the symbolism through which he viewed himself and his country (Burstein, 235). Jackson believed that the American quest westward was divinely supported. This belief contributed to his mythology: in his view, Americans were a special people whose acts in their own self-interest were sanctioned by providence. Based on these convictions, Jackson firmly believed that the only path to peace — despite Georgia's blatant attempts to dispossess the Cherokee of their lands — required that the Indians be moved westward (Brands, 488).