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Was Trump Wrong About Jackson and the Civil War?


Poe Dameron
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The latest kerfuffle seems to be over Trump over this exchange in a radio interview:

TRUMP: They said my campaign is most like, my campaign and win was most like Andrew Jackson with his campaign. And I said, "When was Andrew Jackson?" It was 1828. That's a long time ago. That's Andrew Jackson. And he had a very, very mean and nasty campaign. Because they said this was the meanest and the nastiest. And unfortunately it continues.

ZITO: His wife died.
TRUMP: His wife died. They destroyed his wife and she died. And, you know, he was a swashbuckler. But when his wife died, you know, he visited her grave every day. I visited her grave actually, because I was in Tennessee.
ZITO: Oh, that's right, you were in Tennessee.
TRUMP: And it was amazing. The people of Tennessee are amazing people. Well, they love Andrew Jackson. They love Andrew Jackson in Tennessee.
ZITO: Yeah, he's a fascinating —
TRUMP: I mean, had Andrew Jackson been a little later, you wouldn't have had the Civil War. He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart, and he was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War. He said, "There's no reason for this." People don't realize, you know, the Civil War, you think about it, why?
ZITO: Yeah —
TRUMP: People don't ask that question. But why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?
Y'know, I read all that and... I really don't see what the big deal is. It seems that he's got a decent grasp of the history. He's got the dates right and has the basics of the Election of 1828 correct.
What's more, despite the guffaws that he doesn't seem to know why the Civil War happened which was clearly not what he meant, it is arguable that the Civil War could have been prevented if it weren't for a series of weak presidents leading up to it. I've often pondered myself if history would have been altered had Zachary Taylor not died early in his term. To me, he was the last president with the standing, will, background, and wiggle room to possibly alter the course towards war.
A strong president with southern ties and slave ownership in his background, willing to put his foot down in regards to southern demands for slavery's expansion and whose words of war would be taken with grave severity could well have stopped the war from ever being necessary if he existed before the battle lines solidified as the 1850s dragged on.
Well, if Taylor fits that bill, then Jackson fits it even better. We don't know how he would have reacted. It's really mostly a question of who angered him first (something like Trump really). Northern abolitionists may well have angered him and he could have welcomed the split of the nation himself. Or he could have been angered by southern threats of secession and stamped it out like he did the Nullification Crisis.
All that's arguable alternative history. But the bottom line to me is that Trump made a historically arguable case that Jackson could have altered history had he come around a few years later. Jackson was such a uniquely disruptive force within his own era that it's impossible to say anything other than that he surely would have been a disruptive force in any other era he took control within.
You can disagree with Trump's take on it all, particularly since it directly feeds into his own self-image, but it's hardly a dumb opinion with no merit.
BTW, if anyone notices Eleanor Clift make fun of Trump on this subject, do me a favor and remind her of this article.
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Could any one person prevent the Civil War, or even delay it? Maybe just executing the Anaconda Plan from the start would've shaved a couple years off, but to expect Jackson to head it off completely? Nah. He's wrong. It would be interesting to ponder what Jackson could have done if he were still around in 1860 though.

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It all depends on what you mean. Letting the South secede would have been a super easy way of avoiding it

 

Either way, war or secession would have been likely.

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I don't believe the road to the Civil War was as inevitable as has been portrayed and that there's a hint of romanticism in the notion. If the United States hadn't been run by appeasers that only managed to radicalize both sides, a change in history has to at least be considered. A populist war hero from a slave state capable of single-handedly dominating national politics and a possessing a willingness to get things done could well conceivably have altered the sociology of the whole country.

 

If you look at the 1850s, it was a pitiful march of escalating tensions each and every step along the way. Yes, the country had terrible internal divisions at the time that made the Civil War possible in the first place, but I don't think we recognize enough just how much the 1850s were a failure of leadership and destructive compromises. Erasing those missteps might have only slowed down the war, but maybe that's all that needed to be done anyway. Diffusing the immediate crisis, preventing the radicalization of the northern abolitionists with the Fugitive Slave Law, and kicking the can down the road another decade may well have been all that was needed. I don't think we give enough credit to just how important a reset can be in altering the eventual outcome. Especially considering that slavery was already on the clock for being a viable institution.

 

Weirdly enough, I think the lead up to the Civil War is more interesting than the war itself. It's certainly more instructive to modern society and the potential for a complete breakdown in dialogue and basic civility between two groups.

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Didn't Andrew Jackson die before the Civil War broke out? Like more than a decade before?

 

Yeah, I've seen that reaction a lot around the internet. Typical reaction of the left. A smug declaration of their own intellectual superiority that makes them look bad for not being able to follow a fairly basic line of thought like "had Andrew Jackson been a little later".

 

Or perhaps you're "poking the bear" and ruining a thoughtful discussion about history for your own jollies? Probably the latter.

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TRUMP: People don't ask that question. But why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?

 

That, honestly, is the more troubling statement. I don't know if it's mere ignorance that makes someone believe that nobody ever questions the reasons for the Civil War or if it's arrogance that he believes he's the only one smart enough to do so, but it bothers me to have a president that fills either of those options.

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Ugh. 1845 was when he died. Maybe we can blame Truman for the Vietnam war?

 

And by thoughtful discussion do you mean rehashing Civil War arguments? Thousands of papers are written about this very subject every year. Of course the people of Tennessee love Andrew Jackson - I bet Florida loves him too considering he was their first governor. The only reason this is newsworthy is because our Gifter President made another faux faux concerning basic history.

 

While is presumptuous to say one man may have avoided the Civil War if we wanted to really look at history and the divide that happened in the nation it started a long time before and still simmers today. There are Texas and California groups that believe those states should leave the union. I think the only valid comparison to be made is that we maybe living in the most divisive time just as it was before the Civil War. I can point to your calling me a liberal just because I asked if the Jackson died more than a decade before the Civil War broke out. How is asking for clarification of a fact so far a liberal reaction, Poe?

 

I don't have time to give you a high school paper typed out in single space lines about this stuff. Overreacting on the internet is nothing new. But really I am not trying to poo poo any type of argument or discussion. I just think its more of that same type of narcissistic behavior our own president displays to say Jackson would have been the guy to end the Civil War. Conflation of facts to build his own self up is what Trump does.

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Anyone who has read more than three threads here knows the general political leanings of everyone here.

 

Poe - what do you think would have lead to the end of slavery without the war?

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TRUMP: People don't ask that question. But why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?

 

That, honestly, is the more troubling statement. I don't know if it's mere ignorance that makes someone believe that nobody ever questions the reasons for the Civil War or if it's arrogance that he believes he's the only one smart enough to do so, but it bothers me to have a president that fills either of those options.

Well, the news networks have found an unending supply of historians that appear to have closed their minds off to the possibility and taken it all as an article of faith that nothing could have stopped it. Though, I strongly suspect the blind certainty has more to do with Trump than it does with their scholarly pursuits.

 

Another little reminder that expertise isn't worth as much as you'd think once politics get involve.

 

 

 

Poe - what do you think would have lead to the end of slavery without the war?

 

Slavery was already rapidly disappearing in the Americas by the beginning of the Civil War. By 1890, it was extinct and international cooperation was happening to scale it back even further. You get leadership that merely hits the pause button on escalating tensions and kick the can down the road a couple decades and the whole world is in a different place.

 

I'm not sure how long slavery would have lasted if the Confederacy had won the Civil War. Even if it did manage to survive into the 20th century, I doubt that it would be for long.

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Reposting the original quote:

 

Slavery was already rapidly disappearing in the Americas by the beginning of the Civil War. By 1890, it was extinct

 

I was talking about slavery in the western hemisphere. Brazil was the last country in the Americas to finally abolish slavery after a generation of small steps in 1888.

 

While possible the American Civil War was partially responsible for it, the abolition of slavery had been quickly spreading even before the Civil War happened. In the 1850s alone, while the United States was on its path towards war, Argentina, Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador, and New Grenada (Panama and Colombia) all abolished slavery leaving Brazil as the only major holdout left on the whole South American continent.

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I'd just like to point out how great it is that we after able to have a real intelligent conversation about this.

 

Compare it to Salon

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I'm convinced that the Civil War could have been avoided and that slavery would have been eventually abolished if there hadn't been so much bad blood between the north and south stemming from the aftermath of the Revolutionary War. The south felt that the north had welched on the initial agreement that states would be allowed to fully govern themselves, which led to John Calhoun types fanning the flames. Of course the north did their part by demanding taxes that the south didn't feel they should have to pay, taxes many in the south believed they could only afford to pay with the help of slave labor. Like all things the conflict ultimately came down to money.

 

It would've taken much cooler heads and a lot of compromise, but I think it could've been avoided. I certainly think it would've taken a lot more than Andrew Jackson, regardless of when he was president.

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  • 5 months later...

Kelly just got into his own little controversy from people who don't know history when he said the Civil War was caused by a lack of an ability to compromise. The left seriously needs to read up on the 1850s and the polarization/radicalization that led up to the Civil War. It was a textbook case of the bonds of civility falling apart as two sides saw everything through their own prism.

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What would be an acceptable compromise to avoid the Civil War? Would the Union have accepted freeing only some slaves? Would the South have felt safe and secure in their status if slavery were not allowed in any future states?

 

Is compromise really always possible?

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I imagine any number of compromises could have unspooled slavery in a less painful manner. It's not like the concept is impossible. Every other country on the planet that ended slavery managed to do it through a multitude of means far less bloody than the American way.

 

Going to war led to as many American soldiers dying as in all the other conflicts this country has fought in put together, the absolute devastation of the South that did not spare the civilian population, and the creation of resentment that still echoes 150 years later and led to 100 more years of a legalized system of deep racial injustice, terrorism, and hate.

 

To say there was a better way to handle their differences is an understatement. The question isn't whether their were alternative means for avoiding conflict that would have ended slavery sooner or later? There most definitely were. It's what about that moment in our national discourse broke down so completely that the above not only happened, but feels "inevitable" even to modern eyes? To which Kelly found a part of the answer.

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Counterfactual histories are fun to consider, but it's not a matter of "answering" anything. We may as well debate whether the Revolutionary War or the First World War could've been avoided via compromise by the belligerents. Maybe we could've paid off King George for our independence? What if the royals of Europe had had a family meeting to hash out all the international tensions that had been building for decades? Those conflicts are equally as interesting to ponder, though they require larger departures from the actual historical situations at the outset of conflict. They're more fun to discuss than purely philosophical matters, but no more productive; they're never going to be "answered", not even by almighty Marine generals. History could've unfolded in any number of ways, but some ways are just far more probable.

 

Or is it that the Civil War specifically is some kind of object lesson in reminding us to compromise nowadays? What exactly are we supposed to be compromising on? What is the (fill in the blank) party willing to compromise on? What are you willing to compromise on to fix the problems the US is dealing with? When does compromise start becoming betrayal of principals? An answer to that might be more helpful than any offering from Mr. Kelly on the solution to avoiding the Civil War 150 years too late.

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That's not a good example. Many attempts were made to prevent the American Revolution from becoming full-blown rebellion stretching past the beginning of bloodshed at Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill. Arguably, the patriots erred in attempting reconciliation instead of preparing for war. Up until King George declared the colonies in rebellion, there was still hope, and even then the decision to raise and army and declare independence was still controversial. And it's not like the English populace had bloodlust.

 

There was no such divide leading up to the Civil War. The two sides had been talking past each other and committing atrocities to local applause for a decade. Whether it be the lionizing of John Brown's murders and terrorism in the North or Preston Brooks caning of a Senator within the Capitol building in the South. The two sides had ceased to converse reasonably on any level. The cooler heads in the North were little more than Southern appeasers that made things worse by pushing popular sovereignty leading to Bleeding Kansas and enacting a stronger Fugitive Slave Law which made the North feel complicit in slavery. The Supreme Court did its part to radicalize things by declaring the matter beyond public debate, stopping what little room there was for talking resolving the matter. Little if any compromise could be found in the South at all.

 

While it was quite possible to stop the American Revolution at all number of points in history, that was a case of a number of historical oddities adding up to a conflict. The Civil War resulted from a complete breakdown that had incidents we can point to as key moments, but was all a part of the deeper disease of a hardened radicalized populace on both sides.

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You did not answer any of my questions. I was not actually seeking to compare wars and alternative histories. I was asking about the nature of compromise, and whether it is really always possible.

 

For instance, if you say the Earth is flat, and I say the Earth is spherical, do we have to compromise? A compromise like that would be a betrayal of facts.

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Comments:

You know, I'm starting to wonder if we should refer to the Trump Administration as the Jacksonist's. Kelly's statement was interesting. I am curious to see what the books on the Trump year(s) state about the opinions of what leadership should do while in power.

 

Recently I read a paper that proposed we do away with the two party system since we are seeing a narrower and narrower margin of win in elections and more people kind of gravitating towards a particular set of 8 groups of party ideas. Look how widely popular Bernie was and the 17 GOP candidates. Our system of government is unique in it is bicameral but what if that was to change and we would become more like France or England? This is going towards the example of Flat Earthers and normal science loving spherical earthers that were mentioned above. What type of compromise can you come to when it's so divided?

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