Isaiah Roman

Manifest Destiny Part II: Pretext

Andrew Jackson wasn’t a Christian. Andrew Jackson was a Presbyterian. Much later in his life, after he had retired from the presidency, Andrew Jackson gave himself to Christ. However, while his entire life was molded and influenced by the Christian religion, he was unfortunately more religion than he was Christian. Because of this there are certain precepts which he held on to that aided his decision making process; precepts that, without perspective, can cause anyone to make bad and sometimes deleterious decisions.

Andrew Jackson was a staunch supporter of Christianity. He, on several occasions, was reputed to have defended those who had the nerve to stand up for the precepts of their belief with honor. He saw much virtue in the good moral standing impressed on those of the faith, yet he himself had a sense of morality that was skewed according to his own view of faith. He was a slave owner, and proud of it.

By all accounts the slaves who were owned by the Jacksons enjoyed more freedoms than many of their contemporaries. They were allowed to hunt for their own food, which means they were given weapons, tools, and facilities to prepare their kill. They were given money and and were given freedom to purchase and trade this money for whatever they wanted. They had their own houses, each divided by family, and were allowed to modify or improve those homes as they saw fit. They were trusted in the household, even to the point where – after his death – the slaves really had very little to say on the subject except that they were sure that he would be accepted into heaven. But, if his slaves attempted to escape, he dealt with them swiftly and harshly. He was still a slave owner.

In the Presbyterian denomination there is a particularly stringent adherence to the five points of Calvinism. It is this strong adherence which formed Jackson’s view of Christianity, but more importantly it influenced his beliefs on everything. Within Calvinism there is a certain expectation of immediacy. Things either are, or they are not. Furthermore, they are because they were ordained to be from before the dawn of creation. Having done an extensive study on the origins of the beliefs of Calvin and his successor Beza, I can say with certitude that both of these men were greatly influenced by casual determinism as espoused by the stoics and neo-platonic philosophers. The outworking of this view towards doctrine is the idea that God, before he began to create, looked down through time and saw who would and would not be saved, and thereby determined who’s names would and would not be written into the “Book of Life.” But, there is a nasty side effect to this thought process.

When you believe that there are those who will be blessed by God, and those who are destined to be condemned by God, you have a tendency to believe in the ascendency of one group over another. Andrew Jackson treated all persons with respect, and – in his heart – genuinely felt a sense of deep responsibility and even sadness for the people who he had effected his authority over. But, he truly believed that he was divinely granted that place of authority, because of his superiority of faith, reason, and heritage. This presents us with a complicated man who performed one of the greatest services to all mankind in the history of the United States, and who at the same time was a reflection of everything that is wrong with our nation today.

Andrew Jackson’s primary mission as the president of these United States was to maintain the union. He took an oath to defend the Constitution, and he did so even at the risk of his own life. Because of his battle with the Second National Bank, he was targeted for assassination. Fortunately for us all the attempt failed, and Jackson won his contest with the Bank. This kept us free from the corruption of a central Federal Reserve for another eighty years and propelled this nation to something no other president has ever done in the history of the nation. When Jackson left the presidency he had paid off the national debt, and the country’s accounts were in the black.

Andrew Jackson presided over the largest expansion of land and commerce up until that time, and did so while keeping South Carolina from seceding, Georgia from becoming embroiled in the creation of a new, independent nation within the national boundaries of the United States. He did all this despite the corruption of a congress which had become too long in the tooth and was convinced of it’s own sovereignty. He also instituted the spoils system, which implemented the theory of rotation of personnel in public office, believing that this would prevent the development of a corrupt bureaucracy.

Unfortunately Jackson was a big proponent of abolishing the electoral college, a flaw of reasoning that – if implemented – would have certainly destroyed the nation. He expanded the voting block from free men who owned land, to all free men. This expansion towards a more democratic state intentionally removed certain powers from the congressional representatives and placed that power in the hands of the people. Jackson was convinced that the congress was a corrupting influence and didn’t realize the very thing that drove the founding fathers to create an electoral college in the first place; Aristotle’s “The Republic.” In this work Aristotle tells us to be wary of a purely democratic society as it will soon become the “oligarchy of the indigent.” After all, if anyone would know about the evils of democracy, an Athenian certainly would.

Jackson went after congress with the same sort of zeal that he went after the British at New Orleans. He was a military man and, as a military man, found that eliminating opposition was the best policy. Failing that, crippling the enemy’s ability to fight, thereby causing them to waste away on their own would do the job just as well. Because the congress held such divergent views, and many of those views conflicted with his own, he felt that they should be reined in. Truthfully some of his ideas about the wrong nature of congress were correct, some of his ideas were not. This antagonism towards political opponents was never more present than in his most disastrous policy; Indian relocation.

Just as the French had used the Iroquois in the early seventeen hundreds, the Spanish were using the Seminoles in the eighteen hundreds. Additionally many runaway slaves stayed with the Seminoles and fought against the Americans, further adding to the agitation of the union. Where foreign influence wasn’t the cause of contention, the Indians either didn’t want to conform to the societal norms established by the union, or the white men found cause to covet the lands of the Indians. Jackson decided that the best way to deal with the issue was to eliminate the problem.

He wasn’t about to remove the “superior” white men from the lands in question. His sense of moral, cultural, and physical superiority would never of allowed him to submit to such a thought. So, he instituted the Indian relocation policy. The policy of Indian relocation did much to solidify the union, but it did so at the expense of the natives. During Jackson’s presidency the Indians moved under negotiated, voluntary relocations. The federal government paid the Indians who wanted to leave for their land, and sold them parcels of land further west at sub-market pricing. It was thought at that time that the country would not grow past the Mississippi River boundary. Lands West of the Mississippi would therefore belong to the Indians from that time forward. Not all of the natives moved, and many of those who did move came back, which in turn made them criminals, having taken the money, moved under treaty (becoming foreign nationals) and then reentering the country under false pretenses.

Jackson’s policies escalated as they were carried on after his presidency and those policies had disastrous results. 7000 Cherokee died on the Trail of Tears, an event that has repercussions in this nation yet today. The native Indians were continually pushed westward using the same precedence established by the Jacksonian political machine, their lands, their rights and their lives trampled on by a continually worsening polity. This wasn’t the only establishment of policy that would have continual, and dire consequences.

Jackson managed to keep the union together during some very difficult times, but he kept the peace by playing both sides of the slavery issue. At times he feigned outrage over the abolitionists’ efforts to end slavery to keep his standing with the southern states, while “failing to enforce” certain laws which would have hindered the abolitionists’ efforts. His efforts kept the union peaceful, but fomented divisions that worsened through the political machinations of those who were emboldened to “game the system” in order to keep their profits and possessions.

Andrew Jackson did many of the right things, saving this nation from even worse circumstances, but those circumstances came back in a much bigger way in the generations to come. Andrew jackson was operating under the pretext of Manifest Destiny, without understanding the author of our manifest destiny and without a clear understanding of what those words really mean. The word pretext means literally “a reason given in justification of a course of action that is not the real reason.” Jackson used God and the Bible and divine providence to support what he considered to be a righteous course of action, but the real reasons for his actions were a sense of duty towards an ideal of a nation as he thought it should be.

Andrew Jackson’s predicament is no different than where we find ourselves today. There are those who are in power who claim divine authority for their actions. Rest assured, they are as much Christian as Jackson. They do not have a clear and present understanding of grace, but they are convinced of their sincerity. Fortunately Andrew Jackson, after his retirement from the presidency, found his way to salvation through Jesus, the Christ. His life, and the lives of his family and slaves, changed from that point forward. When he died he wrote:

My dear children, do not grieve for me; it is true, I am going to leave you; I am well aware of my situation. I have suffered much bodily pain, but my sufferings are as nothing compared with that which our blessed Redeemer endured upon the accursed Cross, that all might be saved who put their trust in Him… God will take care of you for me. I am my God’s. I belong to Him. I go but a short time before you, and… I hope and trust to meet you all in Heaven, both white and black.

The problem with Andrew Jackson is in that place where aberrations in the understanding of Christian doctrine and social structures meet. Every political system is based upon a philosophy of thought. Every philosophy is based upon certain precepts. Every precept is based upon a sense of understanding; a perceived grasp of certain aspects of reality. When the foundations of one’s understanding are flawed, what flows from those flaws are misconceptions, bad ideals, and even worse policies. Andrew Jackson is a lesson in our understanding that even the smallest of differences in our understanding of reality and reality itself can be disastrous.