Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times [Hardcover]

H.W. Brands takes on an "American original" for the first time since his seminal, single-volume biography of Benjamin Franklin, and does a very good job with his subject. The author presents, in under 600 pages, all the most important facets of "the People's President" and his devotion which not only preserved the Union, but made democracy flourish in an uncertain, turbulent time.

Andrew Jackson was devoted to many things for many reasons, and Brands shows us why, even if at times this man of the people seems a contradiction. The writing is precise and clear, though hardly the flowing prose of McCullough or Ellis (as has been remarked); yet it is the precision, craft and careful presentation employed by Brands that make this largely successful single-volume work shine. And if some may find the prose a little dry in places, the author more than compensates by interweaving a rich background tapestry for readers in every chapter, presenting a clear, historical context for observations about Jackson's character formation, mentality, psychology, military strategy, attitudes, decisions, and political development.

With surprising efficiency and admirable attention to detail, Brands brings the life of Andrew Jackson into intense focus, particularly at crucial moments like his difficult childhood and the gradual loss of his family during the Revolutionary War (Jackson's father died shortly before his namesake son was born); the privations, tribulations, humiliation, injury, loss, and intense insecurity of the seventh president's boyhood cannot be overstated. Andrew Jackson's time in the expanding Western frontier and his rise from a local popular politician to soldier; his persecution of Native Americans in the name of national security; the War of 1812; the road to the presidency and beyond: It's all here, along with important insights into Jackson's personal life, including his abiding love for his wife, his passion for horses, his near inability to govern his passions and almost suicidal emotionalism; the tender foster parent, remorseless warrior, and every other important aspect of the psychology of a man alternately thin-skinned and thick-skinned, devoted unto death by some turns and completely lacking in self-effacement by others.

Some readers may come away appalled by Andrew Jackson, his warts especially unattractive and unappealing in hindsight, but perhaps they will nonetheless appreciate the man who was devoted to serving his country -the infant United States of America- and moreover, was willing to sacrifice everything, from his own wife to the lives of others, to secure the Union he so loved. It is a testament that such a rude, hard-drinking, tobacco-chewing, honor-obsessed madman had the fortitude and character to carry forth his convictions which, Brands shows us, preserved the Union in its darkest hours, in both war and peace: Jackson prevented the dissolution of America almost as much by pure will as political acumen, and a strange love, an abiding devotion that was indeed as tough as hickory.

Whether one comes to respect or despise "Old Hickory," one could do worse for a single-volume treatment of the man's life, and while brisk and more businesslike than "The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin," and not quite as compelling, it's arguably the finest contribution to literature on Jackson in nearly two decades, and more portable than Robert Remini's daunting three-volume definitive biography, which was recently condensed into a single volume. While Remini's one-volume distillation is a good book, Brands' work may be judged as good, if not a cut above.

For all his prominence among American presidents, Andrew Jackson has been the subject of fewer major biographies than one might assume. There is, of course, the masterful three-volume biography by Remini, which is and will remain for some time the major biography of Jackson, as well as the classic single volume by Arthur Schlesinger THE AGE OF JACKSON, a very great book even though Jackson emerges as more or less a proto 1930s New Dealer. This excellent new biography by H. W. Brands, who among his many interesting books wrote a stellar biography of Benjamin Franklin, does not supplant either of these books, but rather supplements them. While Remini's remains the for-now definitive biography of Jackson, those not willing or possessing the time to work through his three-volume work can feel easy about turning to this single-volume biography. I should note that Remini has produced a one-wolume condensation of his longer work, but I must confess an inherent bias against abridgements, even if performed by the author himself.

Of all the American presidents, Andrew Jackson lived the fullest, most colorful life. Only Teddy Roosevelt can come close for the variety of his life's experiences and even he falls far short of all that Jackson managed to do or be in his life. Jackson was a veteran of the Revolutionary War, briefly a school teacher, a lawyer, a judge, a U.S. Representative to Congress, a U.S. Senator, a circuit judge, a duelist, a gambler, a slave owner and trader, a dry goods salesman, a farmer, a landowner, a major general in the state militia, an Indian fighter, and a general in the U.S. Army, all before achieving national fame at the Battle of New Orleans. One could argue that Jackson is not as interesting as some more physically sedate but more psychologically complex presidents such as John Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln, or the two Roosevelts, but none of these others can match Jackson for the sheer pace at which he got things done.

Brands does a great job at highlighting the more interesting aspects of Jackson's life. Given the amazing variety of his life's experiences, this is perhaps not that great of an achievement. He does in addition a fine job of bringing Jackson the person into focus, with his almost savage pride and propensity to take offense. "Thin-skinned" does not seem to describe Jackson as well as "no-skinned" might. Other political figures in American history fought duels, but none with such aggression. He was the only president to have killed a man in a duel. Jackson emerges as a vibrant, fascinating, and compelling character, if not someone you especially like. Brands is also good at placing Jackson in his time, which was the point in the nation's history when the Federalists and the Republicans (the Federalists later fragmented and the remnants became the Republican party while the Republicans later called themselves during the Jacksonian period Democrats) were contending over whether the new nation would be a representative republic in which the elite in the nation would provide the major voice in selecting the nation's leaders and determining its policies or whether a popular democracy rooted in the people would. The great advocate of popular democracy was, of course, Thomas Jefferson, but as Brands points out, he was himself very much an aristocrat. Jackson not only shared Jefferson's passion for a popular democracy but was also very much a man of the people and one of the most important aspects of his presidency was that he was the first president to derive from the people with the support of the people, instead of an aristocrat nominated through caucuses among political leaders. The placing of the presidency in the hands of the people was one of Jackson's greatest achievements.

Nearly as important as the promotion of what came to be known as Jacksonian Democracy was Jackson's expansion of the powers of the presidency. This is the weakest part of the book. Under Jackson the presidency acquired powers completely beyond anything seen before. Brands doesn't ignore this fact, but he doesn't stress it explicitly as much as he could or should have. Although he writes extensively on the banking issue, he doesn't draw out all of the implications that this would have for the presidency. Indeed, Jackson is unquestionably one of the two or three most important presidents in defining the powers of the executive branch.

One of the things that fascinates anyone who reads much about Jackson is his strong states' rights stance on nearly every issue on the one hand coupled with his his passionate embrace of the union. For instance, if Jackson had been president in late 1860 instead of James Buchanan, he would unquestionably have invaded South Carolina in the early days of their secession and crushed the rebellion despite the probability that he would have sided with the South on every issue except the right to secede. Brands makes no more sense of this than any other biographer, but he does a superb job of making the reader feel how passionately Jackson felt about national unity. In the Nullification Crisis he made it crystal clear that he regarded nullification or secession as an impossibility and would use the military against South Carolina if it attempted to undertake either. Brands does not explain why Jackson felt so passionately on this issue, but he makes clear his passion on the issue.

There are two other things I like about Brands's biography. One is that it is hard to detect any signs of partisanship. Sometimes--though not as often as the detectors of "bias" would have it--biographers write a biography with an axe to grind. If Brands has an axe, he has hidden it well. Also, while not ignoring Jackson's faults, he takes the justifiable stance that while many of his positions would be lamentable today, they were often standard at the time. For instance, Jackson's views on both Native Americans and slavery were not especially enlightened (though he armed freed blacks in the defense of New Orleans, a step that few Southerners in the Civil War were willing to undertake), and his role in the relocation of Native Americans is lamentable and not mitigated by the undeniable fact that their relocation was probably inevitable. At the same time, Brands does not try to excuse Jackson's many moral faults, his intense temper, his misplaced pride, his irascibility, his aggressiveness. He was under no circumstances a great moral exemplar.

In short, this is a very good single volume biography of one of our most important and interesting presidents. In presidential scholars' polls Jackson is frequently rated as a "Near Great" president and inhabits that rung of presidential greatness just below Washington, Lincoln, and FDR and beside other "Near Great" presidents such as Jefferson and Teddy Roosevelt. By any standard Jackson remains one of the most important presidents for anyone interested in American history to know something about. Furthermore, since Jackson's military and public career extended from the American Revolution until just short of mid-19th century, to study Jackson is literally to study the history of the republic's first half decade.

Andrew Jackson led a colorful and complex life in his 78 years. He was a military genius, plantation owner, Indian fighter, a racist toward non-whites, controversial loser of the 1824 and easy winner of the 1828 & 1832 Presidential elections, orphan, scarred by the British and married to a married woman, his true love. Mr. Brands tells his story of a man of contradictions in 600+ pages.

Mr. Brands writes a dense, just the facts approach in his biography of this populist President from the West who campaigned against the elitist Northeast. The true climax of his Presidency was his delaying the onset of the Civil War with his staring down his own Vice-President and the South with a genuine military show of force during the secession crisis.

Mr. Brands has written the best one volume biography of the seventh President, surpasssing Robert Remini's own 400+ page condensation ("The Life of Andrew Jackson"--1988) of his classic trilogy on Andrew Jackson. However, given that Jackson was at the center of American history for over 60 years, the reader is referred to Mr. Remini's three volume definitive biography of 1,600 pages (1977, 1981, 1984) for a fuller, richer picture of this fascinating President. In deciding which to read, it depends on how much time and how much interest the reader has in Andrew Jackson.