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do you make your move to the

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UK? Hello, my

0:36

name is David Runtzman and this is Past,

0:39

Present, Future. Today it's

0:41

episode two in our new series

0:43

about the ideas behind American presidential

0:45

elections. We've reached 1828 and

0:49

what is perhaps the first genuinely

0:52

populist election in American political

0:54

history. An election that

0:56

changed everything. Past,

0:59

Present, Future is brought to you in partnership

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subscribe at a special rate

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just go to lrb.me slash

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ppf. That's lrb.me

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slash ppf.

1:22

We ended the last episode, Gary, with

1:24

you saying that the big change that's

1:27

coming, not the only one, but one

1:29

of the biggest is the relatively rapid

1:31

expansion of the franchise. So we're going to

1:33

be moving from 1800 to the election. We're

1:35

talking about 1828 from a

1:37

narrowly constructed franchise to something much,

1:40

much more involving

1:42

the people and the numbers are

1:44

stark here. So roughly 75,000 people voted in 1800. In

1:48

the 1828 election, we're close to 1.2 million, just under 1.2

1:50

million. So

1:53

this is a huge increase and the really

1:56

big increase is from 1824. So

1:58

in 1824, The

2:00

franchise had grown to 350,000 roughly,

2:02

but that's a massive advance in

2:05

four years in the space of

2:07

one electoral cycle to more

2:09

than a million people voting. And it

2:11

changed the character of American politics, and the symbol of this

2:13

change is the person who won in 1828, Andrew Jackson. Well,

2:18

it signifies the arrival on the

2:20

historical stage of the

2:22

people, still sharply restricted white

2:26

men, but one of the big differences

2:28

is that property qualifications are

2:30

in the process of being eliminated

2:32

in every state. So it becomes

2:34

a universal white manhood suffrage for

2:36

the franchise, which it had not

2:39

been until that time. And

2:41

that meant a lot more people were eligible to

2:43

vote. I think we

2:46

have to say one more word

2:48

about 1824, because there was a

2:50

sense that the people's choice in

2:52

1824, which was Andrew Jackson, had

2:54

been denied the presidency because he

2:56

had gotten the most electoral votes

2:58

in 1824, but he did not have a

3:01

majority. He had a plurality, so it

3:03

went back to the House of Representatives. And

3:06

his opponent, John Quincy Adams, cut a deal

3:08

with Henry Clay from Kentucky.

3:10

Henry Clay agreed to tell his

3:12

people to transfer his votes to

3:15

Adams, making Adams the

3:17

person with the majority in the electoral college.

3:20

So the country was facing the situation

3:22

where the person who had

3:25

gotten the most votes, Jackson

3:28

had been stripped of the presidency. Now,

3:30

it was called the corrupt bargain.

3:32

It was called vile. We

3:35

would recognize it as not something that extreme

3:37

by parliamentary standards today, two

3:40

parties coming together to form a coalition, a governing

3:43

majority. But for then to

3:45

deny Jackson what was his

3:47

due was seen as a crime. And

3:49

this helped

3:51

mobilize the support for Jackson and the

3:54

dramatic growth in numbers of people voting

3:56

from 1824 to 1828. And

4:00

the significance is magnified by

4:03

the circumstances of who he was and how

4:05

different he was from any other president. The

4:08

presidents up until that point had all

4:10

been from either the Virginia gentry

4:12

or the Boston

4:15

elite. And Alfred

4:17

John Quincy Adams was the son of John

4:20

Adams. They are dynasties. They are handing things

4:22

back and forth to each other. Jackson

4:25

came from nothing, orphaned at a young

4:28

age, born in Carolina, South Carolina, but

4:30

ends up in Tennessee. He works

4:33

his way up by his own

4:35

smarts, instincts, abilities into

4:37

a position of prominence. He's

4:39

no longer a poor man in the 1820s.

4:42

He's part of the Tennessee gentry. He

4:44

has his own plantation called

4:47

the Hermitage. He has slaves.

4:49

He is a major figure in the state.

4:51

He has been a general. He's been a

4:53

senator. So he is himself

4:55

part of the elite, but never

4:58

quite sees himself in that way.

5:00

He's the first president from the

5:02

trans-Apalatian west. Tennessee was

5:04

the west of America in

5:07

the 1820s and the first person to

5:09

break out of the dynastic

5:12

realm of the Eastern seaboard. And

5:15

he also has

5:18

a connection to the people that

5:22

no other presidential president

5:24

had had and arguably no presidential candidate

5:27

had had, with the possible exception of

5:29

Aaron Burr. Once

5:31

again, he had the popular touch. He

5:33

was a tremendously popular general with his men.

5:36

He expressed a comfort and devotion to

5:39

them that none of the Eastern presidents

5:42

had expressed. And so he was seen,

5:44

despite his wealth and prestige in the 1820s,

5:48

as being a genuine man of the people. And

5:50

one expression of this is how

5:53

he orchestrates not

5:55

his arrival in Washington, but after his

5:57

inaugural address, who he welcomes

5:59

in. to the White House. There's

6:02

a marvelous quote I'd like to

6:04

read from a

6:06

political scientist writing in 1900.

6:08

His name is Mosse Ostrogorsky.

6:12

And this is how Ostrogorsky

6:15

talks about Jackson inviting

6:18

the frontiersmen into the White

6:20

House to join in the

6:22

celebration of his inauguration. These

6:26

are Ostrogorsky's words from 1900. The

6:30

crowd broke into the White House, filled all the

6:32

rooms in its winkling, pell-mell

6:35

with the high dignitaries of the Republic and

6:37

the members of the Corps at Diplomatique. In

6:40

the great reception hall, men of the lower orders,

6:43

standing with their muddy boots on the

6:45

damask covered chairs, were a

6:47

sort of living image of the taking possession

6:49

of power by the new master.

6:52

When refreshments were handed round, a

6:55

tremendous scramble ensued. Crockery

6:57

cups and glasses were smashed to

6:59

pieces. Rough hands intercepted

7:01

all the ices, so

7:03

much so that nothing was left for

7:06

the ladies. The fury

7:08

with which the people flung itself on

7:10

the refreshments was destined very

7:12

soon to become highly

7:16

symbolic. This

7:18

is a story of a new kind of man

7:21

with a new kind of constituency

7:24

taking possession of the reins of power

7:26

in Washington, D.C. New

7:28

kind of man, new kind of supporters. I

7:30

take the reference at the end of that to be

7:33

also the beginnings of what was known as the spoil

7:35

system. These people came with Jackson

7:37

to Washington and he was going to reward

7:39

them, including the beginnings of the idea that

7:41

a new president cleans out the

7:44

people who are established in town

7:46

and puts his own people in

7:48

positions of power and indeed rewards

7:50

them with jobs. So that's coming.

7:52

But another word that is sometimes associated

7:54

with this sea change in American

7:57

politics is this is the beginning of a form

7:59

of politics. populism. Now

8:02

that word has come to mean a lot of

8:04

different things and we're going to talk in future

8:06

episodes about more specific meanings of it that have

8:08

been populist parties in America. And we're

8:10

going to take that story up to the present day.

8:12

So again, there's always a danger with these words that

8:15

you apply them in ways that are

8:17

anachronistic. Nonetheless, a

8:20

lot of what you described does sound

8:22

like a form of populist politics, that

8:25

connection with the people, the outsider status,

8:27

the idea that this man was coming

8:29

in to undo an established set of

8:31

relationships and the reaction against 1824. So

8:34

he was the defeated candidate in

8:37

1824 and part of the fuel of populism

8:39

can be the sense that an election has

8:42

been stolen, right? It's been taken

8:44

away from you. You might say in a parliamentary

8:46

system, sure, you get coalitions, but this is not

8:48

a parliamentary system. And the corrupt

8:51

bargain was a

8:54

conspiracy on some accounts. It was

8:56

a deal. It was an exchange of

8:58

jobs by two men to keep

9:01

the man of the people out. It's

9:04

quite populist, isn't it? Yes,

9:06

it is. Although we have to be careful how we

9:08

use that term. And I

9:11

would say in the US populism has

9:13

both a positive and negative

9:15

connotation, whereas in European politics,

9:18

it's pretty much all negative in the sense

9:20

that yes, someone

9:22

is posing as a champion of

9:24

the people, but they are likely to be fraudulent

9:28

in some ways. Or if they're not

9:30

fraudulent, if they're genuine, they do

9:32

not respect necessarily the root of law or

9:36

impediments to

9:38

the ability of the leader to express

9:40

directly through his own person,

9:44

the will of the people. So populism

9:46

in the European context is

9:48

often associated with skepticism

9:51

about constitutions, rule of law. It's all

9:53

a conspiracy anyway, so I'm just going

9:56

to put my loyalists

9:58

and my people in charge of the... judiciary in

10:00

charge of the civil service, I'm going to

10:02

weaponize every aspect

10:04

of government. And there are elements

10:06

of this in Jackson. He

10:09

tilts against and then ultimately takes down

10:12

the Bank of the United States, which

10:15

had been existing since

10:17

the 1790s, seeing it

10:19

as an instrument of elite power.

10:21

He's very suspicious of the elites

10:23

that he's tilting against on the

10:25

Eastern seaboard. He wants to bring

10:27

a new spirit and a

10:30

new openness and a new transparency to government.

10:32

And he also is so

10:34

angry about conspiracy in high places

10:37

that he's unabashed about putting his supporters

10:39

in positions of

10:41

patronage and rewarding them for

10:44

their loyalty. So he

10:46

is accused of implementing the spoils

10:48

system and the using

10:50

the word spoils is itself a giveaway. It's

10:53

connoted by the opponents of this system. That's

10:56

something onto word is being done here.

10:58

And it's not appropriate for

11:00

the proper functioning of government.

11:03

So in these ways, Jackson is

11:05

a populist in terms that we can

11:07

understand him. But he is

11:10

also fiercely committed to

11:12

the Constitution and

11:14

its enforcement. He's

11:17

fiercely committed to the rule

11:19

of law. He's fiercely committed

11:21

to the territorial integrity of

11:23

the United States. He does

11:26

not hesitate to unleash his fury

11:29

on his opponents, but

11:32

he's a constitutionalist and

11:35

a believer in the American system of government. And

11:38

his coming to power is not expressive

11:40

of a desire to push all

11:43

that aside, but to make the

11:45

Constitution work more perfectly

11:47

and as it was meant

11:49

to. And so he

11:52

accompanies his rise

11:55

to power with an

11:57

emphasis on the law and

11:59

the Constitution. execution and its execution as

12:02

he understands it. He's committed to

12:04

the territorial integrity, but

12:06

also the territorial expansion of the United

12:09

States. And as you say, he's, by

12:12

the geography of the time, a westerner as

12:14

much as he is a southerner. Nonetheless, if

12:17

you look at the electoral map, so he

12:19

wins a pretty resounding victory. He's a popular

12:21

populist, which they aren't all. And

12:24

the division is pretty clear. The

12:26

Northeast is still its own thing, and it's

12:28

still the land of the Adamses, as

12:30

it were. He's the

12:32

candidate of the South and the West. How

12:36

much of this is still he is the candidate

12:38

of the South? And how much of that vision

12:40

that he has for America, so yes, respecting the

12:43

rule of law, yes, respecting the

12:45

constitution, a vision of a

12:47

strong, growing, prosperous

12:50

nation, how much of it is also

12:52

a racial vision of America?

12:54

It's very much a racial vision of America.

12:57

He's an enslaver. And

13:00

he also oversees the

13:02

ethnic cleansing of indigenous populations

13:04

from the eastern states across the

13:08

trail of tears into a territory

13:10

that's got to be considered Indian

13:12

country and ultimately will

13:14

become known as the state of

13:16

Oklahoma. He built a

13:19

reputation as being a savage and

13:21

ruthless Indian fighter.

13:23

He had a vision of

13:25

territorial expansion that sometimes

13:28

when he was a general put him

13:30

at odds with the civilian leadership of

13:32

the United States. And

13:34

at times, especially in Florida, undertook

13:38

campaigns without clear authorization from

13:40

Washington DC so that he

13:42

could do what he felt he needed to do to clear

13:46

America, both of its internal enemies

13:48

and also to fight the external

13:51

enemies. His reputation soars

13:54

when he beats the British in the Battle of New

13:56

Orleans in 1815. So

13:58

he's a warlord.

14:00

and he is committed to

14:03

elements of the Jeffersonian vision,

14:06

which means once

14:09

territorial integrity has been

14:12

accomplished, once America has been cleared

14:15

of its internal enemies and

14:17

fortified against its external enemies,

14:20

then the continent should be open

14:22

for settlement of

14:25

independent yeoman farmers, settlers

14:28

marching across the country for

14:31

their homesteads, pushing

14:34

whatever indigenous peoples occupied those lands

14:37

out of the way, taking

14:39

slavery with them. There

14:42

is, before he comes into power,

14:44

and here is an example where he respects

14:46

the rule of law. There is a

14:49

piece of legislation passed in 1820 called

14:52

the Missouri Compromise, which has

14:54

to do with, for the

14:56

Louisiana Purchase, vast

14:59

territory out of which multiple

15:01

states are in the process of being carved. The Missouri

15:04

Compromise, which is a very important part of the Missouri

15:06

Compromise, is a very important part of the Missouri Compromise.

15:13

It is a horizontal latitudinal

15:15

marker at the 36th

15:17

degree of longitude, 3630 to

15:19

be precise, and any

15:22

territory north of that is

15:24

to be comprised of free states, with

15:26

the exception of Missouri. Anything

15:29

south of that will be slave states.

15:32

The Missouri Compromise is a carefully crafted compromise to

15:34

make sure that for each slave

15:37

state entering the union, there would

15:39

be a free state admitted, so

15:41

it retains the balance

15:43

between north and south. And

15:46

when he becomes president of the United States, he

15:48

does not try and overturn the Missouri Compromise, which

15:50

some of his successors are going to try to

15:52

do. For that, that's

15:54

an example of law being settled, him

15:57

accepting that, and him enforcing

15:59

that. as president and chief

16:01

executive of the United States. The

16:04

election itself, unlike 1800, it's not

16:06

complicated in the sense that the

16:09

popular vote translates into an electoral college

16:11

victory. He gets the thing

16:13

that the reaction against 1824 seemed

16:15

to demand, which is there's no

16:17

corrupt bargain going on here, the

16:20

people to do decide.

16:23

He's broken away from the Democratic Republican

16:25

Party, so it is now his party.

16:28

And again, maybe as a signal of the

16:30

populist element here before his party became the

16:32

Democratic Party, it was the Jacksonian Party. It

16:35

was named after him. It's really his creation.

16:37

It's the party of the South and of

16:39

the West, but of other things too. The

16:42

complexity in this election, I don't think is

16:45

electoral mechanics. It's one of the issues

16:47

on which the election was fought. And

16:50

it's a hard one to reconstruct because it was

16:52

so important at the time. It was so heated

16:54

passions, as we will see, ran so

16:56

high on this question. But

16:58

the word is really off-putting. It's about tariffs.

17:02

It's about economic protectionism and the question of

17:04

whether you could put tariffs on

17:07

imports to make them expensive. If

17:09

you could protect homegrown goods, interfere

17:12

in the market, essentially, against

17:14

a free trade vision, which would say

17:17

that you would sell goods and import

17:19

export goods without

17:21

federal government interference. And

17:23

part of the complexity in understanding

17:25

it, certainly, if you

17:28

come from outside the United States, if you think

17:30

about British history of this period, which was also

17:32

torn up by the

17:34

tariff question, a tariff question. So in Finnish politics,

17:36

it's a bit later it comes to a head

17:38

in the 1840s, the corn laws. But

17:42

in the British case, the corn laws, the

17:44

imposition of effectively

17:46

a tariff on imported grain

17:48

to keep the price of homegrown

17:51

grain up, to support The

17:53

people who owned the land on which that

17:55

grain was produced. It was an establishment conservative

17:57

idea. The tariff was there to protect the...

18:00

Kind of agrarian vision of

18:02

Britain and it was passionately

18:04

opposed by the people in

18:06

the city's the people in

18:08

the north, Birmingham, Manchester, the

18:10

manufacturers, the industrialists he wanted

18:12

to. Reduce the prices grain

18:14

and then have a free market system

18:16

so that they could trade because they

18:18

were the outward looking ones in the

18:20

Defenders. The coon will law seemed like

18:22

the. Introverted, Insular agrarian

18:24

it's in the United States, it's

18:27

the other way round and that

18:29

the champions of the terrorists of

18:32

interfering in the market artificially keeping

18:34

prices steaks where the industrialists, the

18:36

people in the north they wanted

18:39

protection against cheap. Imported

18:41

goods politically from industrial revolution Britain.

18:43

The people he wants to get

18:45

rid of. Terrorists who wants to.

18:47

they free trade system were from

18:49

the South. It was the Slave

18:51

States. And so there is this

18:53

puzzle looking at it from the

18:55

outside. It. Just sort of

18:57

else. A doesn't feel right because it's

19:00

true, but it's just hard to square,

19:02

which is that in this story. The

19:05

South, the part of the country that

19:07

Jackson represented was passionately opposed to the

19:09

terrorists systems. They were the free traders

19:11

because they were trading cotton with Europe

19:13

and day with the ones who are

19:15

outward looking. In a sense, they were

19:17

the ones who wants to be plugged

19:20

in to the global economy. And it

19:22

was the protos industrialists of the North,

19:24

the wealthy financial elites of the North.

19:26

He wanted protection. They wanted to be

19:28

protected from the global economy to grow

19:30

internally. And part of the reason the

19:32

South hated this is it made goods.

19:35

Imported from the North More

19:37

expensive. and this question

19:39

becomes absolutely toxic in the jacksonian error

19:41

and in the end it splits the

19:43

south the first who i think we

19:45

need to distract have to why did

19:48

it matter so much why was this

19:50

such a heated question and it turns

19:52

on a piece of legislation from eighteen

19:54

twenty eight just before jackson becomes present

19:56

which puts in place a system a

19:59

terrorist the south absolutely hated. Why

20:01

did they hate it so much? They

20:03

call it the tariff of abominations. It's

20:06

hard to make tariff history interesting,

20:08

but it's absolutely essential. And I

20:11

think you've described

20:14

the stakes. Britain is the

20:16

workshop of the world. It's where

20:18

the Industrial Revolution has advanced the

20:20

furthest. Although it still has the corn laws,

20:22

but nonetheless, it hasn't stopped the

20:25

industrialists from absolutely exploding. History

20:28

is exploding. The architects of the Industrial

20:30

Revolution are looking forward to a regime

20:32

of free trade. There's

20:35

a conviction in Britain that Britain can

20:37

produce goods more cheaply than anywhere else

20:39

in the world and turn out better

20:41

goods. And so the entire world becomes

20:43

their market. And of course, under those

20:45

circumstances, they want a

20:47

free trade regime. America

20:49

is the upstart. Its Industrial Revolution is

20:51

20 to 30 years behind Britain.

20:55

There are promising beginnings. The Hamiltonian vision

20:57

is alive and well in American

21:00

cities, but there's an understanding that

21:02

in a fully free market, there's

21:05

no way American industries can compete

21:08

against British industries. And the

21:10

only way in which they can succeed is

21:13

through a regime of protectionism. And

21:15

protectionism requires tariffs on imports,

21:18

especially of manufactured goods. So

21:21

as to give the fledgling American industries an

21:24

opportunity to grow

21:26

and thrive, sell their goods on

21:28

what is becoming a vast internal

21:30

market. And because the British sense

21:34

the potential of the American market, they

21:37

are intent on getting into it. And

21:39

the Americans in Jackson with his expansionary

21:41

vision of what America could be also

21:44

begins to understand the expanse of

21:46

this internal market. And so it

21:48

becomes absolutely essential to protect this

21:50

internal American market for

21:53

American goods. And that is what

21:55

commits the North. With

21:57

a few exceptions of certain sectors

21:59

of financial community who are also outward

22:01

facing to line up

22:04

so heavily behind this tariff of

22:06

abominations. The South has very

22:08

little industry, very little industry

22:10

developing there. The

22:13

regime of slavery has entrenched

22:16

the cotton as

22:19

the central industry of the South. What

22:22

is the first big industry of the

22:25

Industrial Revolution? It's the spinning

22:27

and weaving of cloth and this is what

22:29

the industrial might of the

22:32

North of England is built on, the

22:34

mills of Lancashire, Manchester

22:37

and the environs. And

22:40

the South understands that there is

22:42

now a global market for their

22:44

product. And they can

22:46

produce their product cheaper than anywhere else in the world

22:48

because they have the one advantage.

22:50

It's a terrible advantage, which is that

22:53

labor isn't just cheap, it is enslaved.

22:56

And so they want to preserve that, what

23:00

economists will call in bloodless

23:02

terms, a comparative advantage in global markets.

23:04

And they have a worry that if

23:07

the tariffs are too high and

23:10

there are retaliatory tariffs on cotton

23:13

coming into Britain, that alternative sources

23:16

of cotton will begin to appear

23:18

for Britain with its expanding global

23:20

empire, most notably India

23:23

and Egypt, that there will be

23:25

alternative sources and that the

23:28

lifeblood which has infused the

23:30

Southern economy with all kinds of dynamism

23:33

will be cut off. And so

23:35

the interests of the South are

23:37

dramatically opposed to the interests of

23:40

the North. And this

23:42

gets expressed in this ferocious tariff

23:45

battle that's fought out in the United States

23:47

between 1828 and 1832. And

23:54

it puts Jackson in interesting and complicated

23:56

position because he is a man of

23:58

the South. And

24:01

what's he got to do if the South

24:03

begins to say, if you

24:05

don't remove this

24:07

tariff law, this tariff of abominations,

24:10

we may nullify the law, which we have the right to

24:12

do, they claim.

24:15

And that puts the question of secession on

24:18

the agenda in what is still

24:20

a very young and fragile republic.

24:23

We will get into that in a

24:25

moment, but let me just underscore your

24:27

point, the degree to which the South

24:29

is developing a

24:31

global orientation, understanding that it's the

24:33

welfare of its economy,

24:36

the welfare of its social structure, the

24:39

workability of its slave system, is

24:42

dependent on the continued expansion of

24:44

its global

24:46

orientation, and they see tariffs as putting

24:48

huge barriers in the way. It should

24:51

also add, because there are beginning to

24:53

be restrictions on where

24:55

the South can expand, territorially

24:58

within the continental United States, that

25:00

southerners are beginning to dream of

25:02

overseas colonies or colonies in parts

25:04

of Latin America that will become

25:07

slave societies into which the South

25:10

will expand. So it's important to understand

25:12

the South not as an anachronism, something

25:14

that, in terms of how they see

25:16

themselves, not as something on

25:18

the wrong side of history, where

25:21

of course slavery is going to disappear. But

25:24

the Industrial Revolution having injected

25:26

tremendous vigor into this economy,

25:28

giving it not just global interests,

25:31

but global aspirations. Before

25:33

we get into how this plays out, and it

25:35

does become in part a personal battle between Jackson

25:38

and his vice president, John Calhoun. There's

25:41

another thing that fascinates me about this. We

25:44

will talk about these elections on the whole because they

25:46

are as two-party contests, and this is the evolution of

25:48

a new party system. So

25:50

the opposed party to the Democratic

25:53

Party are going to become known as the Whigs, and

25:55

they will eventually evolve into what we have come to

25:57

know as the Republican Party. So this is happening. way

26:00

off from that. In this period

26:02

of transition, there are other parties that are being created and

26:04

trying to establish a foothold.

26:07

One of the parties that's created in

26:09

the north, and it's actually quite powerful

26:11

in this period and has pretty powerful

26:13

allies, is what's known as the anti-Masonic

26:15

party. It's literally a conspiracy theory party.

26:17

They could have called themselves, if they

26:19

had the term, the conspiracy theory party.

26:21

They believed that there was a Freemasonry

26:24

plot to subvert America. The

26:27

Freemasons stood for France, so we're still

26:29

going back to some of that. The

26:32

Freemasons were implicated in the French Revolution.

26:35

They stood for foreign ideas coming

26:37

to the United States, but also

26:39

secret cabals, that the Freemasons were

26:41

obviously a secret society, and they

26:43

were pulling strings behind the scenes.

26:45

It's proper paranoid-style politics. It

26:47

was a powerful movement, the anti-Masonic movement.

26:49

It had some very powerful allies, including

26:52

John Quincy Adams. It

26:54

was nativist. One word for this is, as

26:57

the south was looking internationally, how

26:59

can we survive? We can only

27:02

survive by plugging ourselves into a

27:04

global economic system, a free trade

27:06

system, because we got this one great

27:08

advantage, slave labor. Also,

27:11

maybe expansion overseas, imperial expansion, which is

27:13

what the other powers were doing. The

27:16

north was looking inward, holding on to

27:18

what it's got, suspicious of foreigners. That

27:21

strand, which goes against the

27:23

idea that the south is the insular

27:26

part and the north is the

27:28

expansive part, which you might have

27:30

if you just thought about slave

27:32

versus free. Free sounds expansive. Slave

27:34

sounds like you pulled up the

27:36

drawbridge. The north

27:38

was where the nativism was. The south

27:40

was where the expansive vision was. Northern

27:43

nativism was really strong. Jackson is

27:46

against this. Jackson is the man of the south

27:48

and the west, the expander,

27:50

including the military expander. His

27:53

opponents in the north, in

27:55

a sense, they were the ones pulling up the drawbridge.

27:58

That vision of America is so... something that we now

28:01

protect. We're the ones who were born here,

28:03

and these foreign ideas are coming in

28:05

and subverting it. That

28:07

runs through the Whig

28:10

Party through to the Republican Party. You

28:13

might even say all the way through to

28:15

the Republican Party today. Yes,

28:17

very much so. And the

28:21

heart of the nativist party and the

28:23

heart of the anti-Masonic party is

28:25

in the North, not the South. And

28:28

it fits with a kind of protectionist mindset.

28:31

If you got to protect against free trade,

28:34

you protect against ideas, and you also

28:36

may want to protect against the free

28:38

movement of people. Now

28:41

complicating the picture is that the

28:43

North is beginning to fill

28:46

up with

28:48

foreign peoples, especially the Irish.

28:50

Irish immigration had been part of the United

28:53

States from the beginning,

28:56

sometimes what's called Scots-Irish, and that would

28:58

have been Jackson's ethnic

29:01

identity. So Scots-Irish are Protestants who moved

29:03

from Scotland to Ireland and then came

29:05

to the U.S. But

29:07

by the 1830s, the numbers of Irish

29:11

immigrants, Catholic immigrants, are increasing.

29:13

And the entry

29:15

of Catholicism on

29:18

a mass basis into the United States is making

29:20

a lot of people nervous,

29:23

because they sense and

29:25

they accuse the Irish of being devoted to

29:27

an autocrat, the Pope, that

29:30

is not going to respect democratic

29:33

practice in the United States. So the North

29:37

is the site of the most

29:39

intense nativist activity,

29:42

and it's also the place where immigrants are

29:45

beginning to populate the

29:47

region because of there's demand

29:49

for their labor in the United States.

29:52

And of course, the economic logic here

29:54

is that the North is importing cheap

29:56

immigrant labor. The South at this point

29:58

can't import slave labor. because we're coming

30:00

to the end of slavery and certainly

30:03

the end of the slave trade. But the

30:05

South is built on enslaved labor. The

30:07

North is going to have to be

30:09

built on immigrant labor. So nativism is

30:11

a reaction against the economic logic of

30:14

the North, which is this

30:16

is the engine of its

30:18

future prosperity. And again, that logic is not

30:21

unfamiliar today. Adam Lutz racist

30:24

and anti-Catholic sentiment is obviously

30:26

very strong in the South, but in this

30:28

period, it's being felt most intensely in the

30:31

North, not

30:33

anti-racist logic, but animosity

30:35

toward Catholics and whether

30:37

the American Republic can continue

30:39

to be the American Republic if the

30:42

North suddenly fills up with people

30:45

who are slaves to the Pope, which is how

30:47

Catholics were seen at the time. So in

30:49

that context, it makes sense

30:52

that the nativist parties are appearing and

30:54

have their greatest support in

30:56

the North rather than in the

30:58

South. It should also be said, as we

31:01

talk about the emergence of a second party system,

31:04

it makes it sound like the contours of

31:06

this party system were set

31:08

and regular. But

31:10

for the people in the 1820s, they didn't really

31:13

know what the future of party politics was going

31:15

to hold. They knew that they were experimenting with

31:17

new parties, parties taking on new roles,

31:21

new tasks. And so if

31:23

you're living in the 1820s, what would make

31:25

you think that the Democratic Party, Jackson's Party is

31:27

the wave of the future or that the Whigs

31:29

would be the wave of the future? Perhaps

31:32

your single issue party, the anti-Masonic

31:34

party, or perhaps a

31:36

party against drink, which is going to become prominent

31:38

later on, is going to become

31:40

a prominent party. In other words, people are

31:43

living in a world where which

31:45

parties will come to dominate American

31:47

politics is as yet unclear.

31:49

And even though we can, from the vantage point

31:51

of today, see that, of course, the

31:53

Democrats and the Whigs were going to form a second party

31:56

system. In the 1820s and early 1830s, they don't yet have

32:00

the confidence that this so-called party

32:02

system is in fact a system that's got to last

32:04

from election to election and that encourages the

32:07

people as they get involved in suffrage not

32:09

only to vote but to say

32:11

I want a political party that's going to express

32:14

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UK. As you

32:52

say in this ferment and it was chaos a

32:54

lot of it Jackson is in

32:56

a really interesting and complicated position. He wins

32:58

in 1828 as the candidate of the South

33:02

and the West but mainly the South are

33:04

very opposed to the abominable

33:07

tariff system and they want to reject it

33:09

and it's been foisted on them by Congress

33:11

they feel. They want a president who will

33:13

stand up to it and eventually

33:15

it takes four years but

33:17

Jackson his administration arrives at a compromise which

33:20

is a new tariff arrangement in 1832 and

33:22

through this period

33:24

Jackson president his vice president

33:26

John Calhoun from South Carolina

33:29

who is probably the most

33:31

vocal spokesman for the anti-tariff

33:33

faction. He really does think

33:35

it threatens the whole survival of the United States.

33:38

South Carolina cannot live in a system where

33:40

these tariffs are imposed by the federal government

33:43

and he asserts that through

33:45

the language of the ideas of

33:47

state rights. So it's the

33:49

right of South Carolina to decide how it's going

33:51

to be oriented in any

33:54

economic system both the

33:56

American economic system and a global economic system. It

33:58

cannot have this imposed from the outside. side.

34:00

He's vice president, Jackson

34:03

is president. Jackson

34:06

and his administration come up with a

34:08

new compromise in 1832, which strikes off

34:10

some of these tariffs, but allows some

34:12

of them to stay. He and Calhoun

34:14

break over this, and

34:17

Calhoun will not let it stand. The compromise

34:19

of anything is worse. He can't bear it.

34:21

The previous one felt like it had been

34:23

foisted on them by the old party system,

34:25

but here's the new party system producing something

34:27

which is almost as bad. Sometimes the thing

34:29

that's almost as bad is the thing that

34:31

triggers the most extreme reaction. He

34:33

more or less starts to say that

34:35

if this continues, South Carolina will

34:37

have to secede from the Union.

34:39

The language of secession is

34:41

everywhere in 1832. Jackson, who

34:46

didn't get elected by any stretch of

34:48

the imagination on a secessionary ticket, but

34:50

he did get elected on an anti-tariff

34:52

ticket, is president, and

34:55

he has to decide what to do. What

34:58

he does is really striking. Calhoun

35:00

has claimed for South Carolina

35:02

and every Southern state, every

35:04

state in the Union to

35:06

nullify laws that they don't like, the

35:09

nullification crisis, and claims that the

35:11

United States was formed out

35:14

of states that made a compact with each

35:16

other, with the

35:18

understanding that the compact would continue

35:20

to serve the

35:22

interests of particular states, and if a

35:24

state reached the point where they

35:26

felt that was no longer the case, then

35:29

they had the right to nullify a law.

35:32

Now, he doesn't immediately say this is

35:35

secession, but the logic is clear, and this

35:37

is the logic that Jackson

35:40

grasps immediately, and it

35:43

enrages him. The idea

35:45

that he is president of the United States,

35:48

he's a native son of South Carolinas, even though he

35:50

had not been there for decades,

35:52

he still feels an affinity and an

35:55

attachment to it, and

35:57

he says, under no circumstances. Will

36:01

I allow the government

36:03

of South Carolina or the people of

36:05

South Carolina to secede

36:08

from this union? They

36:11

do not have the right to do so. And

36:14

they do not have the right to decide which

36:16

laws apply to them. They do not have the

36:18

right, once Congress has decided and approved the law,

36:20

and if the Supreme Court has deemed this law

36:23

to be constitutional, they have no

36:25

right to nullify that law, to abrogate it,

36:27

to pretend it doesn't exist. That

36:29

is a right that they simply do not

36:32

have. And he sits down

36:34

to draft what he will

36:36

call his nullification proclamation,

36:39

thousands of words that

36:42

he writes in a frenzy and very

36:44

passionate and in part

36:46

eloquent prose in which the power

36:49

of this man, and we might

36:51

even say the savagery that lies

36:53

just below the surface, comes

36:56

through. And he, if

36:58

you read this text, and

37:01

if you read it, you will not

37:04

just feel its power, but you will

37:06

come to the conclusion that Jackson's conclusion

37:08

is unmistakable. If you persist

37:10

in this, South Carolinians,

37:12

even though I have affection for South Carolina,

37:14

even though I'm a man of the South

37:17

and West, even though I support states' rights,

37:19

if you persist in this, I

37:22

will war on you and I

37:25

will destroy you. I will destroy you.

37:28

This is the message that comes through

37:30

in the Nullification Proclamation of 1832. Should

37:34

I read an excerpt? Go for it. The

37:37

anger and the conviction and

37:40

the threat embodied in

37:42

these words. Declare

37:45

that you will never take the field unless

37:47

the star-spangled banner of your country shall float

37:49

over you, that you will

37:52

not be stigmatized when dead and dishonored and

37:54

scorned while you live, as

37:56

the authors of the first attack on the

37:58

Constitution of your country. It's

38:01

destroyers of the Constitution.

38:03

You cannot be. You may disturb

38:06

its peace. You may interrupt

38:08

the course of its prosperity. You

38:10

may cloud its reputation for stability, but

38:13

its tranquility will be restored. Its

38:16

prosperity will return, and the

38:19

stain upon its national character will

38:21

be transferred and remain

38:23

an internal plot on

38:25

the memory of those who caused

38:27

the disorder. So

38:30

I will kill you, and I will also

38:32

make sure you get the blame. Yes. These

38:35

are uncompromising words. I

38:38

will attack you. I will destroy you. You

38:41

will forever carry an eternal

38:44

blot. What's so striking

38:46

about this, and it does go back to

38:48

something that I raised in the last episode,

38:51

it's the man of the South who

38:54

is threatening to destroy South Carolina, or

38:56

at least the men of South Carolina

38:58

who take to the field against his

39:00

army. He will assemble an army to

39:02

kill them, and

39:05

it quite quickly diffuses the crisis in

39:07

the sense that they do very quickly

39:09

after that, reach a compromise that all sides

39:12

can abide by. It

39:14

feels like it does somewhat depend on the

39:16

fact that there's a

39:19

sort of cliched version of this that comes

39:21

out in various different forms, that you have

39:23

to have been on one side to turn

39:25

against that side. Sometimes it's

39:27

the Nixon in China thing. Only Nixon could

39:29

open up China. Only the opponent of a

39:31

certain kind of thing can then plausibly be

39:33

the champion of it. Here

39:35

is Jackson who got elected with

39:38

Calhoun to oppose what the

39:40

federal government was trying to do to the

39:42

South, talking this ferocious language

39:45

in defense of the constitution he's

39:47

sworn to uphold, and

39:49

it works. I mean, it

39:51

succeeds. I don't know whether he cowed them

39:53

into submission or whether simply they

39:55

realized that the stakes were too high. And

39:58

it's very hard to imagine A

40:01

proclamation like that issued by,

40:03

I mean, it wouldn't have been issued by

40:05

John Quincy Adams, but you know what I mean, issued

40:07

by a man of the north doing

40:09

anything other than inflaming the situation. Does

40:11

it have to come from inside the

40:14

world that it is threatening to destroy

40:16

to work? More plausible as well,

40:18

actually, maybe, not just because he's a military man.

40:21

And the fact that this is coming from a man of

40:23

the south rather than the Adams family

40:26

of New England, John Quincy

40:28

Adams himself issued very eloquent

40:30

statements about freedom

40:34

for African Americans in some

40:36

court cases. But

40:40

his eloquence on this matter would

40:43

not have carried the same weight, and he

40:45

could not have spoken with this kind of authority.

40:49

It's partly that Jackson is a man of the south. It's

40:52

partly because he's the most celebrated military commander in

40:56

the United States, and everyone knows about his record

40:58

of military victory

41:00

and the savagery and

41:03

the uncompromising character of his warfare

41:06

upon those who he took to

41:08

be his opponents. So

41:10

the Southerners understand this language

41:14

coming from a Southerner, and I

41:16

think it did scare them and it did intimidate them.

41:20

And it brought a short-term resolution to this

41:23

problem and a compromise on the tariff,

41:25

which worked for a certain amount of

41:27

time. But

41:30

one wonders what was really going on

41:32

in the internal reaches of Jackson's mind,

41:34

because both Calhoun and Jackson knew as

41:37

men of the south that

41:39

the issue here wasn't just about

41:42

the tariff. It was about

41:44

slavery. The

41:47

tariff was so important because it

41:50

opened the world to American cotton, on

41:53

which the plantation slave

41:56

system of the south depended for its

41:58

health and welfare. Jackson

42:00

knew this, and

42:03

he had to know at some level that there

42:06

would be an instance in the future where

42:10

the law that a southern state might try and

42:12

nullify would not

42:14

have to do with the tariff, but

42:16

would have to do with the law related

42:19

to the slave system of

42:22

the South. What would he

42:24

have done? He

42:28

must be thinking, what will I do if I'm

42:31

confronted with the

42:34

law that threatens existentially

42:37

the slave system? This

42:39

is what Calhoun has in mind, and

42:42

out of this moment he's got to continue to

42:44

develop theory of nullification, and

42:46

also he's then going to embellish it

42:49

into a theory of what he calls

42:51

the concurrent majority. The

42:54

concurrent majority is a theory of government that says

42:56

in order for a law to be valid in

42:58

the United States, it must not simply have the

43:00

support of both houses of Congress.

43:03

It must have the support of both

43:05

houses of every state legislature,

43:08

giving every state legislature kind of

43:11

a veto over national

43:14

legislation. He

43:16

is worried, Calhoun is worried about the

43:19

north outdistancing the

43:21

south. He sees an industrial

43:24

dynamism in the north, that

43:27

is going to increase its wealth, its

43:29

sway, its influence. So

43:31

he's not thinking simply about the tariff,

43:33

he's thinking about the future of the

43:36

slave system when it comes to hold a

43:38

shrunken part in the American Republic,

43:41

and he sees no alternative but to

43:43

establish in law and

43:46

constitutionalism a justification for the

43:48

south opting out.

43:50

This is part of his project, and this is

43:53

a project he's got to continue to develop, and

43:55

those states adduce the seed from the Union in 1860 after

43:58

the election of Abraham Lincoln. are

44:00

going to draw on Calhoun. What

44:03

is Jackson thinking about

44:05

this matter in this moment? We

44:07

don't know, but given

44:10

how keenly he

44:12

understood this, not

44:14

just as a constitutional matter, but as a matter for

44:16

the South and as a man for the South, how

44:19

did he safeguard his

44:21

own fears for

44:25

future threats to the South, which will come

44:27

over slavery rather than the tariff? The tariff

44:29

he could handle, slavery

44:31

he could not, but this is a

44:33

moment where he is empowering the federal

44:35

government to act against the Southern state.

44:38

That lays down a precedent that

44:41

had to be troubling to him. As

44:43

you say, with hindsight, we can see this evolved

44:45

into a relatively stable party system

44:48

that lasted for a generation. And yet we also

44:50

know what was to come in 1860, which is

44:52

the subject of the next

44:54

episode. And so with

44:56

hindsight, it looks like the seeds of the destruction

44:58

of this system were laid at the beginning. And

45:01

the seeds of the destruction of this system were

45:04

actually the split in the Democratic Party. That's what

45:06

broke it apart, as we'll see in the next

45:08

episode. Jackson and

45:10

Calhoun, running mates

45:12

in 1828, come to represent these

45:17

two poles of Southern opinion, not on

45:19

the slavery question, but on the tariff

45:21

question. But as you've just described

45:24

it, it feels like it cannot hold. Something

45:27

will come not just to break apart the

45:29

Union potentially, but to break apart the South.

45:32

And it is the breaking part of the South

45:34

that actually triggers the crisis because the

45:37

Democratic Party can't win presidential elections

45:39

unless it's united. That's the one

45:41

absolute sine qua non of Southern

45:43

politics. The North will win unless

45:45

the Southern part of the United

45:47

States holds together as

45:50

one, electorally, politically. You

45:53

can see here, can't you, the beginnings of

45:55

the end? Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed.

45:59

One of the very tables here and

46:01

one of the wildcards had

46:03

to do with westward expansion

46:05

or overseas expansion of the slave

46:08

system. I

46:10

think you could still think

46:12

in 1830, 1832 that the future of the

46:18

South would be vigorous

46:20

either because the principles of the Missouri

46:22

Compromise of 1820 would be overturned

46:25

and slavery would be able

46:27

to expand into the western states or

46:31

that the kingdom of

46:33

cotton and the kingdom of slavery would

46:35

be able to expand southward into the

46:38

Caribbean, into Mexico, maybe into the

46:40

northern reaches of Latin America. So

46:44

it did not settle the question. I

46:46

think you could still think there is

46:48

a future here and the

46:50

South can find its

46:52

way. But it was

46:55

going to depend on the disposition

46:58

of new states coming into

47:00

the Union or on the

47:03

ability of the South to expand beyond

47:05

the continental borders of

47:07

the United States. And so it's

47:09

going to make the

47:12

issue of westward expansion and the

47:14

disposition of states in those territories

47:18

absolutely indispensable and

47:21

vital to securing a

47:23

future for the American South. So

47:26

there was still hope. Calhoun is

47:28

preparing for Armageddon,

47:31

but the South in 1832 is also

47:33

a thriving economic system and the

47:37

emergence of the Industrial Revolution

47:39

and the beginnings of global

47:41

capitalism have given this system

47:45

of enslavement a new

47:47

lease on life. So it's possible

47:49

to think not just of doomsday,

47:51

but of a

47:54

long life for

47:57

something that for white Southerners was not

48:00

simply an economy, a

48:02

political economy, but a way of life that

48:04

they treasure deeply. The thing we

48:06

haven't talked about, we've focused here very much

48:08

on the South because Jackson represents what

48:11

is an internal struggle that's being played out on

48:13

the national stage. There

48:16

is growing sentiment in the North,

48:19

abolitionist sentiment, which is splitting Northern

48:21

politics are one of the challenges here. If you've got to

48:23

hold the South together, you've got to hold the North together

48:25

to win these elections. Two-party

48:27

systems really put place a huge

48:30

premium on finding a position

48:32

that can ally various different groups within

48:34

your broader constituency. In the North, there

48:37

are big divisions. Are we moving towards

48:39

abolitionism? Are we moving towards a firm

48:42

line on the Missouri Compromise? But

48:45

nonetheless, just as in the South,

48:48

there was a sense of Armageddon alongside

48:50

a feeling that this thing could last.

48:52

There was a growing feeling in the

48:54

North that this abominable system, never

48:57

mind the tariff of abominations, the

48:59

abomination, the moral political abomination

49:01

of slavery, could

49:04

not be allowed to last. That the

49:06

Southern system of slavery is

49:09

prospering in this new global system, intensifies

49:13

anger and fear in the North. It

49:16

was possible to think 30 years earlier that

49:19

this was a system of yesteryear that

49:22

it would wither away. And

49:24

the new lease on life that it has been given compels

49:28

people in the North to

49:30

disabuse themselves of that notion. And

49:33

they begin to think we can't simply wait for the

49:36

day when slavery will

49:38

die of its own accord, washed

49:41

up on

49:43

some distant beach somewhere where it will cease

49:46

to matter. We must

49:48

fight to end it. And

49:50

as they see Southerners gathering

49:54

force for territorial expansion, they

49:58

see a threat to a new world. different

50:00

kind of expansion which the North

50:02

wants. This is the positive

50:04

side of the Jeffersonian dream which

50:07

attracts Northerners as well as Southerners, the

50:10

sense that a family will have

50:12

its own piece of land and

50:15

that it'll be worked by free

50:17

rather than slave

50:19

labor. This is

50:21

a dream that intensifies in the North

50:25

and makes the Northerners

50:27

intent on making sure that

50:30

a free labor regime will

50:33

thrive in the West. And

50:35

it makes them much more aware of the

50:37

threat of slave expansion in the West. And

50:41

then there are the abolitionists who

50:43

say forget about Western expansion, that's

50:45

not our most pressing issue. This

50:47

system of slavery is an abomination

50:52

and it has to end. All

50:54

men are created equal. This

50:57

is America. That's not its destiny.

51:00

We will not tolerate it. So

51:03

as the South is

51:05

gearing up for a long

51:07

future, antagonism

51:09

to the South precisely because of

51:11

its vigor is

51:14

intensifying in the North. The

51:22

next episode in this series is going to take us forward

51:24

to 1860, the election that comes

51:27

just before the Civil War and

51:30

the election that sees the arrival on the

51:32

American stage, on the world

51:34

stage of the man that many people still

51:36

think is the greatest of all American presidents,

51:39

Abraham Lincoln. How did

51:41

he win and why does it matter

51:43

so much? fortnight

52:00

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