Andrew
Jackson Kept the Union Together
Things
I didn’t know about President Andrew Jackson were illuminated in
watching a video by an author of a 2005 of Jackson…
Apparently
Jackson did about as well as anyone could with the problem presented
by Indian nations in the east. The author HEW. Brands provides an
hour intro to his work-one of a series in U.S. Presidents.
Jackson
had a couple of adopted Indian kids- he and his wife had no natural
children, and cared about everyone in the nation. Unfortunately the
U.S.A. had to major problems not solved by the founders; states
rights vs federal rights and slavery. President Jackson actually kept
South Carolina from seceding over the issue of nullification.
Nullification was the concept that states had a right to nullify any
federal law they did not like from existing in their own state.
Jackson said he would hang anyone that thought about seceding in
South Carolina from the highest tree he could find.
The
Indian problem was a tough one for Jackson in the environment of
nullification and slavery. He gave Indians of Georgia such as the
Cherokee the option of living by federal and state law or moving west
of the Mississippi River. No nations independent of federal law
including Indian nations could be allowed to exist in the U.S.A. if
the nation were to stay together. Jackson kept it together until Abe
Lincoln could take over the effort, yet Indian tribes suffered in
moving out west where their reservation neo-nations wouldn’t be a
problem.
Notably
President Lincoln carried out the largest mass hanging in U.S.
history during the civil war when some reservation Indians choose the
wrong time to riot and kill off the reservation.
Realistically
what could Jackson do about either slavery or nullification in the
first half of the 19th century? He didn’t yet have NPR
to coerce and oppress whomever political leaders wanted to harass
