I think many of us are still rather numb from President Biden’s decision to withdraw from the November election yesterday, still trying to process it all. “What happens next” is the big question, but it’s too much to think about just yet, at least for me it is. I have read some beautiful accolades to President Biden in the past 24 hours, and today I’d like to share just one of them with you by…
When we think of our great presidents today, we often summon the names Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, and the Roosevelts. In his book, American Lion, Jon Meacham makes a case for Andrew Jackson, one of our more transformative presidents in one of our more perilous times as a nation. He didn't have Panthera leo atrox's claws or it's villainous mane (though he did have quite a head of hair, I must say). Yet he earned his nickname by ripping out the throats of his enemies (okay, not literally, but still), and for his wild, often volatile personality.
I remembered very little about President Jackson before delving into Meahcam’s book. I had these mental brushstrokes in my head, but they were vague and incomplete, lacking in dimension. I recalled Jackson being characterized as a kind of a popular brute. And since that is what many of his opponents thought of him, I guess that makes sense. Insults stick.
Meacham’s book focuses mainly on Jackson’s presidency, but the book deals with some themes born from his early childhood to give it more of that Pulitzer-friendly pizzazz (Meacham, in fact, won the Pulitzer for this book). He grew up during the Revolutionary War, and as a young teenager, refused to shine a British officer’s boots. He paid the price with a lifelong scar. In other words, Jackson had real bravado from the beginning.
Meanwhile, Jackson never had much luck with family. And so America would become his closest kin. He never met his father, who died before he was born. His brothers were killed or died as a result of the Revolutionary War. His mother soon followed. If this is ever made into a movie, the tagline would likely be something like, The war made him in orphan, America made him a son.
Yes, that is one of the worst taglines ever. Absorb that. Yet there is some truth to such a corny sentiment. He loved the Union with the fanaticism and idolatry of progeny. He was like the New York Jets' Fire Marshall Ed, only he would never step down from his place nor would he back down from anybody [Ed. note: We promise this is the first and only time we will reference the New York Jets or Fire Marshall Ed in any of our book reviews]
And as he grew older and took part in the shaping of the country, he became more protective of it, the way a great father protects his own. Meacham fashions his biography in such terms and it’s an effective way into not only Jackson’s presidency but also his relationships with both family and friends. You see this theme of the man without a family shifting that love to his country (even his beloved wife died before he took office), protecting it and those he loved as would a father. This carries with it some considerable emotional weight in later passages.
In his day he was most renown as the great hero general of the Battle of New Orleans, a product of the War of 1812. This wave of popularity would eventually land him in the White House. And at this point Meacham’s book really takes off. The research the former Newsweek editor-in-chief (Meacham now, amongst other things, works as executive editor and executive vice president at Random House) conducts is thorough, evident and the anecdotes engaging. I can't imagine how many letters of correspondence Meacham sifted through but the result is an often intimate and highly-detailed account of Jackson's days as the leader of our country.
Meacham's prose is at once clinical and easy to read. If there is a fault, there is almost too much information. Even if much of it is entertaining, you will likely forget the more minor details two pages later. It’s nearly impossible to absorb it all at length, but it's delicious dessert for history buffs.
Not to say many of these smaller accounts do not stick. There are just so many of them. Jackson truly lived a full life. Before Lincoln, it was Jackson who preserved the Union. And it was Jackson’s Proclamation Lincoln looked to as he began maneuvering against the South. And it was Jackson who predicted the South would eventually lead the nation into Civil War. The South had threatened to secede over tariffs in Jackson’s time. A pretense. Jackson predicted that eventually they would threaten to secede over slavery.
He wouldn't live to see it, but he was right. Here is a picture of Jackson after his two terms in the White House. His best days were behind him but still, check out that head of hair...
I should be so lucky. Kind of reminds me of Christopher Walken's Max Shreck in Batman Returns. Am I right?
Okay, moving on...
Though a lawyer, Jackson was not highly educated and the elitists in Washington looked down on him. They thought he sounded like an ignorant imbecile at times because he mispronounced words in a weird backwoods way. The joke was often on them.
Still, he had interesting (being kind) theories in the way of science. And his highly controversial decision to dismantle the Second Bank of the United States remains questionable today. But, again, one underestimated him at their own peril. This cat was a snake, a lion!
Jackson was not among the elite, he was a man of the people and his popularity was confounding to his greatest rivals, even to his own Vice President, John C. Calhoun (who eventually resigned. Calhoun was a great orator but he was an idiot who sided with South Carolina during the battle for nullification. Shows you education isn't everything). Or to his other great foe, House Speaker Henry Clay. What Jackson lacked in education, he made up for in charisma and determination. He expanded the powers of the executive branch in a variety of ways, which often made him an enemy of the Senate and Congress, who felt that shift of power. It’s unfair to call him power-hungry, though his critics certainly did. He believed the capitol was corrupt (with the Bank as a driving force) and the common man underrepresented. In Jackson, they had their most popular representative. He was bigger than Eminem in 2002.
Yet, he was a brute in many ways. He killed a man in one duel and chased down - with intent to kill - a state governor whom he believed insulted his wife. He didn’t defeat his enemies, he ripped out their throats (lion imagery... here comes my Pulitzer baby!). He liked to gamble. He had a truly vicious temper. And however politically and politely he engaged with them personally during his tenure as president, he was certainly no friend to the enslaved or to the Native American. His policies concerning the removal of Native Americans eventually led to the horrors of the Trail of Tears.
The tragedy of Jackson’s life is that a man dedicated to freedom, failed to see liberty as a universal, not a particular gift. The triumph of his life is he held together a country whose experiment in liberty ultimately extended it’s protections and promises to all – belatedly, it is true, but by saving the Union, Jackson kept the possibility of progress alive, a possibility that would have died secession and separation carried the day.
This passage, like the book, not only beautifully sums up the contradictions of Jackson, but serves as a reminder at what a young country the United States of America was during his time. This republic was still very much an experiment and Europe was just waiting for us to fall on our faces. By solidifying and preserving the country, Jackson solidified and preserved our democracy, sometimes with great acts of courage, sometimes with terrible acts of inhumanity.
Despite the imperfections Meacham details in American Lion, it remains difficult to not admire Andrew Jackson as a whole and as a product of his time. There were certainly more forward-thinking types (like the man Jackson defeated in 1828, John Quincy Adams), but his 8 years in office deserve, I think, some reconsideration within the pantheon of our greatest presidents. Letters suggested that even John Quincy Adams, so bitter in defeat after 1828, seemed to gain appreciation for Jackson in later years. I probably would have been more of a JQA guy, but you get the sense that Jackson was the right man for the right time. Then again, tell that to the Seminoles, or worse, the Cherokees.
I can’t say this book is a game changer in any way, though it's very entertaining and well-written (It won the Pulitzer for heaven's sake). But if you’re interested in a thematically focused biography with a wealth of information and interesting anecdotes about one of our more fascinating presidents, or if you know someone who would be, American Lion makes for a terrific stocking stuffer. I learned more than I can ever forget from this book.
