Getting right with Jackson

Andrew Burstein's new book The Passions of Andrew Jackson is getting a lot of play recently, and I want to say a few things because I think it is off target. I also do not want to duplicate what has been said already by Donald Cole in his review, that Jackson was more savvy, controlled, and reasonable than Burstein allows, all of which I agree with.

Since Burstein attacks Jackson as a passionate, irrational rogue, the inference is that party he inspired was similarly motivated; as opposed to the Whigs, who in their unhappiness with Jackson it is inferred were cool clear thinkers. But remember that there was a difference between Jackson and the Jacksonians. Sure, AJ gave the Jacksonian Democrats their nickname and was the party's inspirational figure for a generation, much like FDR was in the twentieth century (albiet the party was mighty changed by 1930 -- this was not Jackson's party anymore, Arthur Schleisinger be damned). But while Jackson was often passionate, loud, forceful, and maybe too often a law unto himself, Jacksonians were usually reasonable, methodical, and wedded to the law. In fact, Whig and later Republican critics labelled the Dems "legalistic" for their strict loyalty to the letter of the law, even if they thought the law was wrong. While Jackson was often criticized for his battle against the Bank in the 1830s and his vetoes of internal improvements, moves seen my many Whigs as anti-social and anti-institutional, Jacksonian Democrats were champion institution builders at the state level -- Democratic states were studded with new state houses, courts, insane asylums, new town governments, etc. For the JackDems, it was not what government did, but what government did it.

So, while I agree with Cole that Jackson was not the raging force Burstein paints him to be, I also think the Jacksonian Democrats were not the raging force they are inferred to be. In fact, if passion and culture (not ideas) are your leadership barometers, and you buy Burstein's case (and the Whig case) that Jackson was a maniac, I should think your hero would be someone like James Buchanan -- a controlled, cautious, rigidly legalistic, intelligent country gentleman. It certainly would not be William Seward, Charles Sumner, or one of the loose-tempered abolitionists. Ah, but now we see -- is Burstein's book a backdoor celebration of Abe Lincoln, the quiet bumpkin from Illinois, who managed to combine a frontier upbringing with a calm demeanor?