March 27, 2024 • 9 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, in our 21st episode of our series with Dr. Bill McClay, author of Land of Hope, Bill tells the story of how a dueler and brawler from the frontier upended American political life and formed a new political party—the Democratic Party—by the sheer force of his will alone. We're of course talking about Andrew Jackson.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we returned to our American stories. Up next another
installment of our series about Us, the Story of America series,
with Hillsdale College professor and author of the terrific book
Land of Hope. We're talking about Professor Bill McLay. Much
like today, after America's founding, and much to the chagrin
of people like George Washington, two political parties waged war
(00:34):
against one another, the Democrat, Republican Party and the Federalist Party.
After the War of eighteen twelve, though, one of those
parties would pass into oblivion and that would set up
another political revolution. Let's get into the story. Take it away, Bill.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
It seems hard to imagine this today, but after only
five presidential elections, one of the two major parties simply vamited.
It was the Federalist Party. The Federalist Party was gone
and the Republican Party was ascended. With President James Monroe
(01:12):
running essentially unopposed in his second term in eighteen twenty.
Can you imagine anything like that today? And this made
for relatively peaceful times, and when you have when you're
running unopposed, that's a reason to call it the era
of Good Feelings, which is a phrase that probably didn't
(01:34):
apply to many old Federalists. They weren't feeling too good.
So there's a kind of settledness, a kind of predictability,
stability when it came to presidential elections. The election of
eighteen hundred had been all full of tension and a
(01:58):
sense that the world might be coming to an end,
or at least the constitutional Republic might be coming to
an end. But those days were far behind, and actually,
when you look back at it, except for John Adams,
who was of course a New England or and a Federalist,
there'd been a Virginian, not just a Jeffersonian, but a
Virginian occupying the White House. George Washington for two terms,
(02:23):
Thomas Jefferson for two terms, James Madison for two terms,
and James Monroe for two terms. Adams, by the way,
only served one term. But the country was changing and
the country was growing, and the Virginia dynasty, which overtook
(02:43):
the New England dynasty the Adams family, would itself come
to an end. In what can be charitably called a
chaotic election, there were four Republican candidates, John Quincy Adams,
William Crawford, Henry Clay, and one political outsider, Andrew Jackson,
(03:05):
one of these candidates that William Crawford withdrew from contention
due to problems with his health and in the event,
in the election, Henry Clay, a very influential figure in
the Congress. Henry Clay had the lowest vote total both
in the popular and electoral vote, but he was able
(03:28):
to use this influence to push John Quincy Adams into
the presidency, much to be preferred to the wild Man,
an unknown joker card Andrew Jackson. This was infuriating to
Jackson and his supporters. They accused and not without reason,
(03:53):
the followers of Clay and Adams, of a corrupt bargain,
essentially a stolen election. Now Adams was superbly equipped for
the job. He not only was to the manner born
as the son of a president who had served overseas
as a secretary to him, who knew many of the
(04:16):
players in world politics of the day, had been Secretary
of State under Monroe, he had been an important figure
in the formulation of American foreign policy, including the Monroe
doctrine associated with Monroe's names, but really a product of
the mind of John Quincy Adams. So he was in
(04:40):
a sense. In terms of looking at his resume, you'd say, Wow,
this is the guy. But there were real problems within
his party, and Adams was unable to pivot or adjust
to the circumstances at hand. Some thing's never changed. Don't
think that our politics to day is uniquely dirty. It's
(05:02):
really actually rather clean. Compared to the election of eighteen
twenty eight, the election of eighteen hundred other elections to come,
this campaign of eighteen twenty eight was brutal. Both sides
caricature of the other side in crude ways, in ways
that wanted a sort of character assassination. Adams's supporters portrayed
(05:26):
Jackson as a crude, ignorant, wild man from the frontier.
Adams himself used the term barbarian to describe Jackson. What
Jackson's supporters portrayed Adams as an elitist, out of touch,
corrupted by his patrician, even aristocratic origins. Jackson was a
(05:57):
man of the frontier. Part of his appeal was the
fact was he had raised himself up from very hard
scrabble beginnings in North Carolina to become the greatest American
military hero of his time. His success in the War
of eighteen twelve stayed with him. So he was a
(06:19):
patriotic favorite, appealing to the Americans who were shop owners, farmers, mechanics.
He was the term it was he was at the time,
the workers, working class people, artisans. They were the people
who turned out in force and enthusiastically to carry Jackson
(06:41):
over the top. And so Andrew Jackson would win in
eighteen twenty eight, and by the sheer force of his personality,
he created a new political party, the Democratic Republican Party,
And of course this would eventually become shortened to the
Democratic Party, and it was it was the beginning of
(07:01):
today's Democratic Party, which has existed continuously since Jackson's time.
It's had periods, low periods, very low periods, especially after
the Civil War, but it's existed since Jackson's time. So
Jackson's election was a bit of a revolution, although it
(07:22):
was a revolution that picked up on and brought together
elements that were already in place, the talents and energies
of an expanding nation and the greater and greater expansion
of the franchise, the sense of growing sense of America
as a nation dedicated to equality only in certain limited ways,
(07:45):
from our perspective, but relative to the rest of the world,
relative to the previous American history, a definite expansion of
the scope of the average ordinary man.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
It was the age of.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
The common man, so politicians needed to learn how to
connect with the average man. You didn't do it by
writing learned treatises. You needed to do it by appealing
to popular taste, popular sensibility. Racists began to look as
much like entertainment and carnival barking unless the high minded
(08:23):
discourse about issues and policies alone that you might have
found the Federalists engaged in, and even found at the
time of the ratification of the Constitution the debates over
the ratification of the Constitution very high level discourse then,
but not so much in the political campaigning after Jackson's election.
(08:46):
He taught the country a lesson. He taught Adams a
lesson the hard way, that to be high minded and
snobbish was not going to work with this growing, expanding
and diverse electorate, often highly imperfectly educated electorate in America.
(09:07):
That was the reality of the thing. It's a reality
that's still with us. Mass democracy requires a discourse, a language,
a mode of expression that can reach people where they
are instead of telling them, well, if you want to
know what's going on, you got to raise yourself to
my level. You've got to go to college, you got
(09:27):
to get a degree. You got to learn how to
talk like I do. No, you got to learn how
to talk like they do.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
And there's always a terrific job on the storytelling by
Professor Bill McLay, he teaches at Hillsdale College, The Story
of Us on our American Stories,
And we returned to our American stories. Up next another
installment of our series about Us, the Story of America series,
with Hillsdale College professor and author of the terrific book
Land of Hope. We're talking about Professor Bill McLay. Much
like today, after America's founding, and much to the chagrin
of people like George Washington, two political parties waged war
(00:34):
against one another, the Democrat, Republican Party and the Federalist Party.
After the War of eighteen twelve, though, one of those
parties would pass into oblivion and that would set up
another political revolution. Let's get into the story. Take it away, Bill.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
It seems hard to imagine this today, but after only
five presidential elections, one of the two major parties simply vamited.
It was the Federalist Party. The Federalist Party was gone
and the Republican Party was ascended. With President James Monroe
(01:12):
running essentially unopposed in his second term in eighteen twenty.
Can you imagine anything like that today? And this made
for relatively peaceful times, and when you have when you're
running unopposed, that's a reason to call it the era
of Good Feelings, which is a phrase that probably didn't
(01:34):
apply to many old Federalists. They weren't feeling too good.
So there's a kind of settledness, a kind of predictability,
stability when it came to presidential elections. The election of
eighteen hundred had been all full of tension and a
(01:58):
sense that the world might be coming to an end,
or at least the constitutional Republic might be coming to
an end. But those days were far behind, and actually,
when you look back at it, except for John Adams,
who was of course a New England or and a Federalist,
there'd been a Virginian, not just a Jeffersonian, but a
Virginian occupying the White House. George Washington for two terms,
(02:23):
Thomas Jefferson for two terms, James Madison for two terms,
and James Monroe for two terms. Adams, by the way,
only served one term. But the country was changing and
the country was growing, and the Virginia dynasty, which overtook
(02:43):
the New England dynasty the Adams family, would itself come
to an end. In what can be charitably called a
chaotic election, there were four Republican candidates, John Quincy Adams,
William Crawford, Henry Clay, and one political outsider, Andrew Jackson,
(03:05):
one of these candidates that William Crawford withdrew from contention
due to problems with his health and in the event,
in the election, Henry Clay, a very influential figure in
the Congress. Henry Clay had the lowest vote total both
in the popular and electoral vote, but he was able
(03:28):
to use this influence to push John Quincy Adams into
the presidency, much to be preferred to the wild Man,
an unknown joker card Andrew Jackson. This was infuriating to
Jackson and his supporters. They accused and not without reason,
(03:53):
the followers of Clay and Adams, of a corrupt bargain,
essentially a stolen election. Now Adams was superbly equipped for
the job. He not only was to the manner born
as the son of a president who had served overseas
as a secretary to him, who knew many of the
(04:16):
players in world politics of the day, had been Secretary
of State under Monroe, he had been an important figure
in the formulation of American foreign policy, including the Monroe
doctrine associated with Monroe's names, but really a product of
the mind of John Quincy Adams. So he was in
(04:40):
a sense. In terms of looking at his resume, you'd say, Wow,
this is the guy. But there were real problems within
his party, and Adams was unable to pivot or adjust
to the circumstances at hand. Some thing's never changed. Don't
think that our politics to day is uniquely dirty. It's
(05:02):
really actually rather clean. Compared to the election of eighteen
twenty eight, the election of eighteen hundred other elections to come,
this campaign of eighteen twenty eight was brutal. Both sides
caricature of the other side in crude ways, in ways
that wanted a sort of character assassination. Adams's supporters portrayed
(05:26):
Jackson as a crude, ignorant, wild man from the frontier.
Adams himself used the term barbarian to describe Jackson. What
Jackson's supporters portrayed Adams as an elitist, out of touch,
corrupted by his patrician, even aristocratic origins. Jackson was a
(05:57):
man of the frontier. Part of his appeal was the
fact was he had raised himself up from very hard
scrabble beginnings in North Carolina to become the greatest American
military hero of his time. His success in the War
of eighteen twelve stayed with him. So he was a
(06:19):
patriotic favorite, appealing to the Americans who were shop owners, farmers, mechanics.
He was the term it was he was at the time,
the workers, working class people, artisans. They were the people
who turned out in force and enthusiastically to carry Jackson
(06:41):
over the top. And so Andrew Jackson would win in
eighteen twenty eight, and by the sheer force of his personality,
he created a new political party, the Democratic Republican Party,
And of course this would eventually become shortened to the
Democratic Party, and it was it was the beginning of
(07:01):
today's Democratic Party, which has existed continuously since Jackson's time.
It's had periods, low periods, very low periods, especially after
the Civil War, but it's existed since Jackson's time. So
Jackson's election was a bit of a revolution, although it
(07:22):
was a revolution that picked up on and brought together
elements that were already in place, the talents and energies
of an expanding nation and the greater and greater expansion
of the franchise, the sense of growing sense of America
as a nation dedicated to equality only in certain limited ways,
(07:45):
from our perspective, but relative to the rest of the world,
relative to the previous American history, a definite expansion of
the scope of the average ordinary man.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
It was the age of.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
The common man, so politicians needed to learn how to
connect with the average man. You didn't do it by
writing learned treatises. You needed to do it by appealing
to popular taste, popular sensibility. Racists began to look as
much like entertainment and carnival barking unless the high minded
(08:23):
discourse about issues and policies alone that you might have
found the Federalists engaged in, and even found at the
time of the ratification of the Constitution the debates over
the ratification of the Constitution very high level discourse then,
but not so much in the political campaigning after Jackson's election.
(08:46):
He taught the country a lesson. He taught Adams a
lesson the hard way, that to be high minded and
snobbish was not going to work with this growing, expanding
and diverse electorate, often highly imperfectly educated electorate in America.
(09:07):
That was the reality of the thing. It's a reality
that's still with us. Mass democracy requires a discourse, a language,
a mode of expression that can reach people where they
are instead of telling them, well, if you want to
know what's going on, you got to raise yourself to
my level. You've got to go to college, you got
(09:27):
to get a degree. You got to learn how to
talk like I do. No, you got to learn how
to talk like they do.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
And there's always a terrific job on the storytelling by
Professor Bill McLay, he teaches at Hillsdale College, The Story
of Us on our American Stories,
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