The Age of Jackson and the Art of American Power, 1815-1848.
Crawford, Aaron Scott
The Age of Jackson and the Art of American Power, 1815-1848. By
William Nester. Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2013. 362 pp.
Andrew Jackson continues to loom over interpretations of American
history between the War of 1812 and the Mexican War. In the latest
volume of his study of American power, The Age of Jackson and the Art of
Power, William Nester argues that Jackson "dominated his age for
many reasons but ultimately because he had mastered the art of
power." Defining the art of power as "getting what he wanted,
getting others to do what they would otherwise not do, preventing others
from doing what they would otherwise do, and taking from others what
they would otherwise keep," Nester argues that Jackson married
essential elements of Jeffersonian and Hamiltonian ideas of power to
create "Jacksonism," which transformed American power through
"the assertion of overwhelming, brute force," which, in
Nester's view, ultimately damaged the United States (p. 2).
Nester structures much of his examination of American power around
Jackson's life and personality. Jackson's "twisted
psyche," "unresolved pathologies," and
"volcanic" personality are transferred onto the
postrevolutionary generation and its approach to exercising power (pp.
117, 129,3). Despite Jackson's limited role in the coming of the
War of 1812, Nester believes his hunger for conflict explains how the
nation entered the war. "For Jackson, war for vengeance, honor, and
character filled an existential void for the entire nation" (p.
29)- The eager, young generation of Americans pushed President James
Madison into war while still clinging to the Republican philosophy of
limited government. The prosecution of the war under this political
ideology created a disaster, and proved "a devastating failure of
both the Jeffersonian and Jacksonian versions of the art of power"
(p. 90). Jackson's overwhelming victories against Indians in the
South and the British at New Orleans allowed Americans to reimagine a
failed war as a victory for their honor and injected hubris into
Jeffersonianism. In the postwar era, Jackson dominated American public
life and brought his militant personality to bear on American public
discourse, where "enemies faced either complete annihilation or
capitulation" (p. 90).
Nester portrays Jackson as a demagogue who manipulated others to
follow him into irrational political battles. The electorate's
concerns over important issues such as the national debt, government
corruption, and the unregulated power of the Second Bank of the United
States are widely dismissed throughout the book. For instance, Nester
argues that Jackson's effort to kill the Bank "was as driven
by psychology as by ideology" (p. 116). The author's disdain
for Jackson often leads him to misread evidence or misinterpret events.
For example, Nester argues that Richard Lawrence attempted to kill the
president in 1835 because he "blamed Jackson's policies for
rendering himself and others unemployed and destitute" and
"hoped to liberate all those suffering from {Jackson's}
tyranny" (p. 138). This interpretation is not supported by the
evidence. A delusional Lawrence believed that Jackson was preventing him
from claiming his place as the rightful heir to the throne of Great
Britain, which led a court to declare him insane.
Nester offers a fairer assessment of Jacksonian foreign policy,
recognizing Jackson's more restrained approach to international
affairs. Nowhere is this clearer than on the issue of Texas. Jackson
certainly believed that Texas rightly belonged to the United States but
recognized that the United States could only acquire it under conditions
of international law. To do otherwise would spark war with Mexico. It
was left to James K. Polk, Jackson's most effective successor, to
formulate a foreign policy agenda that secured Texas annexation, won a
war with Mexico,
and settled the Oregon boundary issue with Great Britain. Nester
convincingly argues that no one "unambiguously advanced American
national interests such as Polk" (p. 300). The complete U.S.
victory over Mexico, which secured the addition of California and
Mexico, stood in clear contrast to the nation's failure in the War
of 1812. Polk had become the embodiment of Jacksonism and finished the
transformation that his mentor had begun.
In the end, The Age of Jackson and the Art of American Power offers
nothing new or revelatory about Jackson or his age. Instead, it is
diminished by the author's presentism, which leads him to make
specious connections and judgments. Nester insists that Jacksonism was
the inspiration for "the Far Right of America's political
spectrum, most recently the neoconservatism and Tea Party
movements" (p. 308). Nester seems driven by his effort to connect
Jackson and his age with the decisions of George W. Bush and his era.
Those looking for a balanced, nuanced take on the Age of Jackson will be
better suited by searching elsewhere.
--Aaron Scott Crawford
Southern Methodist University
