The Legacy of Andrew Jackson

The book under analysis is The Legacy of Andrew Jackson Essays on Democracy, Indian Removal, and Slavery by Robert V. Remini. Remini devotes his book to the discussion of Jackson’s role in three important areas in American history: democracy, Indian removal, and slavery. Each essay is devoted to certain period.

Major hypothesis of the author are described in his three essays. The first essay depicts democratic evolution of the nation outside its dedication to the republicanism ideology and shows the role of Jackson played in this transition, since Jackson’s contribution to the democracy development is huge, although not many historians give him an adequate credit for his role in its development.  In the second essay Remini argues that Jackson’s legacy concerning Indian removal was not the evil, as many historians suppose. Instead of thinking that Jackson was led by greed and evil intentions, Remini thinks that Jackson considered removal of Indians as one of the ways to preserve the indigenous population. Thus, Remini thinks, it was not the incentive but rather the implementation of the removal policy, which has resulted in the Trail of Tears, that Jackson did not intend to achieve. In the third essay Remini argues that Jackson legacy about slavery was also unsure. Arguing that discussions over slavery would disturb the Union, the supporters of Jackson sought to resolve the issue, trying to exclude this argument from the public debates and attempting to state that this issue was included in the Constitution. Remini also assures that Jackson did not manage to see the explosive nature of the slavery question, since not all politicians found slavery as important as Jackson did.

One of the strong points of the book is the use of the evidence from history and citations from the historic books of other scholars to provide comparison of his viewpoints with those of other researchers. For example, to compare Jackson’s views on slavery, Remini provides arguments of other politicians such as John Quincy Adams and John C. Cahhoun as evidence.

The structure of the book is logical and three essays are logically introduced and titles within the book for the readers not to lose the flow of thoughts. Therefore, each hypothesis of the author is easy to follow and further explanations with supporting facts are easy to find in the book. In addition, one of the advantages is that Remini expresses his opinion and supports it with the arguments. The sources he uses are informative and properly support the major hypothesis and assumptions of the author. They make the author’s opinion appropriate and worth discussing, because he changes the view of Jackson’s politics and demonstrates his in a positive light, unlike other historians, who connected the slavery issue and shift to democracy as negative aspects, shuttering peaceful existence of American society.  

Taking into account that Remini supported his arguments by the facts, taken from the works of other researchers, it will be easy to find the books on similar topics and compare the hypothesis of other scholars with that of Remini. The latter provided three hypothesis in his book, so there is enough amount of arguments for further considerations. Moreover, three hypotheses are valuable and facts, provided to support them, are numerous that helps understand Remini’s viewpoint clearly.

I can recommend this book for reading to the students, who study history and the period of formation of American democracy in particular. Compared to other readings, such as Remini’s another work The Election of Andrew Jackson, the book under analysis provides more detailed depiction of the three important periods of Jackson’s Presidency.

Works Cited

Remini, Robert. The legacy of Andrew Jackson : essays on democracy, Indian removal, and slavery. Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, c1988