The Life of Andrew Jackson by Robert V. Remini

Andrew Jackson, the eighth President of the United States, effectively changed the role of the American Presidency and forever affected the balance of power between the presidency and congress.  This interesting and readable biography is an abridgement of Remini’s three volume National Book Award winner.  It details Jackson’s rise from childhood poverty to becoming the Hero of the Battle of New Orleans and a figure of enormous popularity, popularity sufficient to challenge for and win the Presidency. 

A man of his times, Jackson is often remembered as the person responsible for the removal of American Indians to territories west of the Mississippi and as a slave holding plantation owner from Tennessee.  He is also known as a figure with an ungovernable temper, who, as a young man, engaged is several duels, the scars of which he painfully carried throughout the rest of his long life.  According to Remini, Jackson deserves the criticism, but also should receive credit for his saving the Union by putting down the nullification movement centered in South Carolina, eliminating the national debt, and “providing the American people with one of the most honest and least corrupt administrations in the early history of this nation.” (331)  He was also responsible for adding large amounts of territory to the United States and for the defeat and dismemberment of the Second Bank of the United States, thereby spreading the banking function more widely and desperately hurting American credit abroad. 

Perhaps it is as a people’s President that Old Hickory should best be remembered.  Remini pictures him as a severe, proud, audacious man who maintained a people’s touch throughout his life.  One commentator describes an incident in a country road house where Jackson sat quietly a chatted with ordinary people as equals.  During his administration the White House remained open to anyone who wanted to seek an audience with the President.  Because of his vast popularity among common people, Jackson was able to defeat the efforts of Henry Clay, John Calhoun, and Daniel Webster.  By today’s standards, Jackson’s ownership of slaves and treatment of Indians can only be seen as terrible injustices.  Descriptions of his personal behavior, however, suggest a keen sense of national purpose unburdened by racist motives for the choices he made. 

In many ways, Jackson’s long life (1767 – 1845) represents the transition from colonial America to modern political life.  Much of the groundwork for the Civil War was laid during his administration, but Jackson’s emphasis on saving the Union at all costs influenced Abraham Lincoln as his own political star began to rise.  Jackson’s excoriation of the east coast aristocrats, best represented by John Quincy Adams, and his emphasis on trusting the People to arrive at correct solutions to the nation’s problems laid the groundwork for the development of modern America.

Remini does not neglect to show Jackson’s weaknesses and personal faults, but on balance he pictures a man of keen intellect, thoughtful understanding of the nation’s needs, and ruthless political intelligence that puts Andrew Jackson among the highest rankings of American presidents.  The book is readable and Jackson the man as well as Jackson the figure of history emerges whole cloth.