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Andrew Jackson
Two hundred years ago, the conflict in which the U.S. seized the Deep South from its Native inhabitants was a turning point in American history, but it is largely forgotten today.
Editor’s Note: One of the most respected historians of the Civil War and America’s westward expansion, Peter Cozzens has written 17 books and recently published the third volume of his trilogy about the Indian wars in the United States.
Was he the era’s greatest Democrat or its elected autocrat? A hero or a scoundrel? Balancing Andrew Jackson’s legacy is a problematic exercise, complicated by his many contradictions.
Thomas Sully'
The censure of Andrew Jackson for replacing his Secretary of Treasury raised the question of a president's authority to control the actions of his cabinet members.
Jackson had deep flaws, but he left a lasting legacy, strengthening the executive office and striving to represent as many Americans as possible.
David S.
When the Palmetto State threatened to nullify federal statutes at will, President Jackson met it with tough rhetoric and a threat of force -- and postponed the Civil War for three decades.
War was at hand. Upstairs in his White House study over the long winter of 1832-33, President Andrew Jackson stood strong against a distant state that posed, he believed, an all too imminent threat to the Union.
In Florida during the 1830s, a young Indian warrior led a bold and bloody campaign against the government's plan to relocate his people west of the Mississippi River.
Born Billy Powel in
Strict codes of conduct marked the relationships of early American politicians, often leading to duels, brawls, and other—sometimes fatal—violence.
James K. Polk appears doomed to remain one of our least-appreciated presidents, despite Robert W. Merry’s valiant attempt to drag him from the shadows in A Country of Vast Designs.
Why have our presidents almost always stumbled after the first four years?
ANDREW JACKSON GOT IN BIG TROUBLE WHEN HE WAS IN BUSH, JR.'S FIX.
It has been with us since Plymouth Colony. But that’s not why it’s an American institution.
On September evening in 1918, while unpacking an overseas bag for her husband, who had returned from a fact-finding tour of war-torn Europe with double pneumonia, Eleanor Roosevelt came upon a cache of love letters from her social secretary, Lucy Mercer.
How bad is it when presidents get really sore?
The rumor first began to spread around Washington last year: Senator John McCain had a skeleton in his closet. Was it something to do with his past as a war hero in Vietnam? His voting record in the Senate?
With his usual furious vigor, Andrew Jackson posed a question that continues to trouble us to this day.
The alarm bells are ringing for Social Security again. That’s not exactly news; predictions of the exhaustion of its trust fund have been made before.
And how it grew, and grew, and grew…
The federal government was still in the process of establishing itself in 1792 and did not have a good year financially. Total income was only $3,670,000, or 88 cents per capita. Outlays were $5,080,000. The budget deficit therefore amounted to fully 38 percent of revenues.
A historian of American portraits tells how he determines whether a picture is authentic and why that authenticity matters.
More than any other features, our faces are what mark us as unique individuals. Superficially our faces are who we are. Together with names they identify us with the lives we have lived; they are our perpetual calling cards.
They’ve all had things to say about their fellow chief executives. Once in a great while, one was even flattering.
John Adams said that Thomas Jefferson’s mind was “eaten to a honeycomb with ambition, yet weak, confused, uninformed, and ignorant.” Ulysses S.
An extraordinary new historical novel begins with the great political scandal of the 1970s, then visits the great political scandal of the 1820s.
The two-party system, undreamt of by the founders of the republic, has been one of its basic shaping forces ever since their time.
A year ago, we were in the midst of a presidential campaign most memorable for charges by both sides that the opponent was not hard enough, tough enough, masculine enough. That he was, in fact, a sissy. Both sides also admitted that this sort of rhetoric was deplorable. But it’s been going on since the beginning of the republic.
Just before George Bush announced his running mate in 1988, a one-liner going the rounds was that he should choose Jeane Kirkpatrick to add some machismo to the ticket.
The battle over John Tower’s nomination as Secretary of Defense earlier this year goes down as one of those struggles that whirled trivial and profound issues in the blender of journalism and produced a somewhat mystifying concoction.
You Asked for It
When American Heritage suggested last year that I put together the article that became “101 Things Every College Graduate Should Know about American History,” I accepted the assignment eagerly.
The framers of the Constitution were proud of what they had done but might be astonished that their words still carry so much weight. A distinguished scholar tells us how the great charter has survived and flourished.
On the 150th anniversary of Texan independence, we trace the fierce negotiations that brought the republic into the union.
From the moment he entered the White House in March 1829, Andrew Jackson of Tennessee turned a cold and calculating eye on Texas.
Banking as we’ve known it for centuries is dead, and we don’t really know the consequences of what is taking its place. A historical overview.
For the last several years congressional committees and presidential task forces have been nattering back and forth about what should be done to change the legal order that establishes and specifically empowers and regulates the nation’s banks.
The early years of our republic produced dozens of great leaders. A historian explains how men like Adams and Jefferson were selected for public office, and tells why the machinery that raised them became obsolete.
THERE IS NO clear consensus on what constitutes greatness, nor are there any objective criteria for measuring it—but when we look at holders of high public offices and at the current field of candidates, we know it is missing.
One man measures his life-span against the length of recorded history and finds tidings of comfort and hope
At the risk of being sneered at as a NeoVictorian, I hereby admit to a nineteenth-century belief that, allowing for daily relapses Land hourly alarms, the world of man is improving.
Conjectural or speculative history can be a silly game, as in “What if the Roman legions had machine guns?” But this historian argues that to enlarge our knowledge and understanding it sometimes makes very good sense to ask …
What if any of the pre-Civil War Presidents had gone mad?
What if Andrew Johnson had been successfully impeached?
What if William McKinley had not been assassinated?
Declaring himself a “thorough democrat” George Caleb Bingham portrayed the American voter with an artist’s eye—and a seasoned politicians savvy
Between 1847 and 1855 George Caleb Bingham completed a half dozen or so canvases that are among the most unusual and interesting documents in the history of American painting.
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