The Stubborn Mythology of Andrew Jackson

Abstract

The Stubborn Mythology of Andrew Jackson Mark R. Cheathem (bio) John M. Belohlavek. Andrew Jackson: Principle and Prejudice. New York: Routledge, 2016. xi + 151 pp. Notes, bibliography, and index. $43.95. Bradley J. Birzer. In Defense of Andrew Jackson. Washington, D.C.: Regnery History, 2018. xiv + 209 pp. Appendix, notes, and index. $29.99. Alfred A. Cave. Sharp Knife: Andrew Jackson and the American Indians. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Praeger, 2017. xviii + 241 pp. Notes and index. $58.00. David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler. The Rise of Andrew Jackson: Myth, Manipulation, and the Making of Modern Politics. New York: Basic Books, 2018. ix + 433 pp. Notes and index. $32.00. Many people say that Donald Trump has reinvigorated interest in Andrew Jackson, but the scholarly turn toward Old Hickory began earlier this century. Biographies by Hendrik Booraem, Andrew Burstein, and Jon Meacham and Jacksonian-era studies by Daniel Walker Howe and Sean Wilentz marked the beginning of this revival.1 More recently, works by Sean Patrick Adams, Mark Cheathem, Steve Inskeep, and Jason Opal have continued the trend of reexamining Jackson.2 This new scholarship represents a more critical take on the seventh president, one that considers more fully the ways in which Jackson failed to live up to the democratic promise associated with his politics. Since 2016, four new studies of Jackson have appeared. Three of them reflect this trend of critical interpretation, while one trafficks in hagiography. In Defense of Andrew Jackson provides Bradley Birzer's interpretation of Andrew Jackson in light of the criticism levied against Old Hickory by "New Left historians of the 1960s through today" (pp. xiii, 43). Defending Jackson is a difficult task today, but it is made more challenging when an author flouts accepted professional standards of evidence, interpretation, and accuracy, as is the case here. In terms of evidence, Birzer misrepresents or distorts parts of Jackson's life. Examples of this deficiency are several. Presenting Jackson as "utterly alone" and without family at the age of fourteen fails to recognize that he had [End Page 342] extended family in South Carolina who had cared for him, his mother, and his two brothers since Jackson's birth and who continued to look out for him until he permanently left the Waxhaws region of his childhood (p. 24). Birzer also relies uncritically on hearsay evidence contained in a nineteenth-century Jackson biography to contend that Andrew and Rachel Jackson were married by a Roman Catholic priest who also annulled Rachel's first marriage (p. 28).3 Birzer goes on to argue that "every time Jackson stood for election, the press debated" the Jackson marriage and that Rachel had a heart attack as a result of learning about the media smears against her in the 1828 campaign (pp. 28, 29, 101). Neither of these claims is substantiated by contemporary evidence.4 Birzer also exaggerates Jackson's dueling, claiming that "no one knows exactly how many Jackson fought, but they were frequent" (p. 34). In fact, the historical evidence reveals that he fought three duels—against Waightstill Avery, Charles Dickinson, and John Sevier, although one could argue that the latter altercation never fully developed into an actual duel. None of these duels was the 1813 brawl with the Benton brothers, as Birzer claims (p. 35). Birzer's interpretation of Jackson's life is also flawed. He insists that Jackson was "self-reliant" and "self-made," which ignores the assistance that his various kinship networks provided him throughout his life (pp. 8, 18).5 Birzer also argues that "most students of history tend to think of Jackson as a southerner" (p. 41). That will surprise those acquainted with Jacksonian historiography, since most biographies and studies of his era call him, as Birzer does, a westerner and a frontiersman.6 Birzer tells readers that neither Jackson nor his eventual wife Rachel knew that she had not been granted a divorce from her first husband when she and Jackson began a relationship; scholarly consensus today is that they knew exactly what they were doing.7 The rich historiography of Early Republic politics is also noticeably absent from his description of the era's political party development.8 In...