White Trash

by Nancy Isenberg

  39.On the defection of his friends and allies, see Burstein, The Passions of Andrew Jackson, 209–11.

  40.For “hardy sons of the West,” see “Old Hickory,” [Haverhill, MA] Gazette and Patriot, August 7, 1824. On the “Old Hickory” name for tough, fibrous wood associated with the Tennessee tree of the frontier, see Harry L. Watson, Liberty and Power: The Politics of Jacksonian America (New York: Hill & Wang, 1990; rev. ed., 2006), 77.

  41.See “Emigration to the Westward,” [Boston] Independent Chronicle, September 11, 1815; also see broadside “Unparalleled Victory” (Boston, 1815). For Jackson celebrating the British death toll, see “Address, Directed by Maj. General Jackson to Be Read at the Head of Each Corps Composing the Line Below New Orleans, January 24, 1815,” Albany Argus, February 28, 1815 (this address was widely published in many newspapers around the country). For the poem on Jackson’s bloody victory in New Orleans, see “The River Mississippi,” American Advocate and Kennebec Advertiser, March 25, 1815; Burstein, The Passions of Andrew Jackson, 125.

  42.Burstein, The Passions of Andrew Jackson, 5, 121, 138. On Daniel Webster’s 1824 account of Jefferson’s remarks on Jackson, see Kevin J. Hayes, ed., Jefferson in His Own Time: A Biographical Chronicle of His Life, Drawn from Recollections, Interviews, and Memoirs by Family, Friends, and Associates (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2012), 99.

  43.For an excerpt from Jesse Benton’s pamphlet attacking him as “Boisterous in ordinary conversation,” see “From the Georgia Constitutionalist,” [Charleston, SC] City Gazette and Commercial Daily Advertiser, October 22, 1824. For “A Backwoodsman and a Squatter,” see “Foreign Notices of American Literature,” Literary Gazette, March 3, 1821.

  44.For the “rude instinct of masculine liberty,” see a review of Achille Murat’s Essay on the Morality and Politics of the United States of North America (1832), North American Quarterly Magazine (March 1838): 103–19, esp. 107. The author Achille Murat was a close friend of Jackson ally John Coffee and had lived in Florida for several years.

  45.David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler, Old Hickory’s War: Andrew Jackson and the Quest for Empire (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2003), 87–108.

  46.Jackson was accused in the British press of exterminating the Indians and introducing savage principles into the character of the American people; his execution of the two British citizens was seen as another “atrocity.” See “From the Liverpool Courier of Aug. 18,” Commercial Advertiser, October 3, 1818; also see Isaac Holmes, An Account of the United States of America, Derived from Actual Observation, During a Residence of Four Years in That Republic (London, 1824), 83; “American Justice!! The Ferocious Yankee Gen.! Jack’s Reward for Butchering Two British Subjects!,” Tennessee State Museum Collection, Nashville; Heidler and Heidler, Old Hickory’s War, 154–57; and David S. Heidler, “The Politics of National Aggression: Congress and the First Seminole War,” Journal of the Early Republic 13, no. 4 (Winter 1993): 501–30, esp. 504–5.

  47.“White Savages,” Thomas’s Massachusetts Spy, and Worcester Gazette, September 9, 1818. For Seminoles’ distrust of violent crackers, see “From Darien Gazette,” [Windsor] Vermont Journal, June 28, 1819. For Indians only attacking “cracker houses,” see “Seminole—First Campaign. Extracts from the Journal of a Private,” New Hampshire Gazette, May 9, 1827.

  48.On Jackson’s outburst to Adams, “D—m Grotius! D—m Puffendorf! D—m Vatell! This Is Mere Matter Between Jim Monroe and Myself!,” see Ward, Andrew Jackson: Symbol for an Age, 63. On Jackson threatening to cut off the ears of some senators, see “Mr. Lacock’s Reply,” Nile’s Weekly Register, April 3, 1819.

  49.F. P. Prucha, “Andrew Jackson’s Indian Policy: A Reassessment,” Journal of American History 56, no. 3 (December 1969): 527–39, esp. 529; Waldo S. Putnam, Memoirs of Andrew Jackson; Major General in the Army of the United States and Commander in Chief of the Division of the South (Hartford, CT, 1818), 310. John Eaton, one of his most devoted allies and the author of his biography, admitted that Jackson had an irritable and hasty temper, which brought him into many disputes. This point was considered well known in the aftermath of the Seminole War. See “The Life of Andrew Jackson,” Western Review and Miscellaneous Magazine (September 1819): 87–91, esp. 87. For his “fiery and impetuous” temper and his disregard for “legal construction,” see “General Andrew Jackson,” National Register, August 5, 1820; and for his lack of civility, see “The Presidency,” Eastern Argus, October 7, 1823. For Clay’s insult of “military chieftain,” see his letter published in the Daily National Intelligencer, February 12, 1825. Jackson’s defenders claimed he had a duty to protect the life of every frontier settler, and that his policy was premised on protecting future emigrations; violence was the only way to deal with the savage foe. See “Defense of Andrew Jackson: Strictures on Mr. Lacock’s Report on the Seminole War,” Niles Weekly Register, March 13, 1819.

  50.On Indian removal, see Michael Morris, “Georgia and the Conversation over Indian Removal,” Georgia Historical Quarterly 91, no. 4 (Winter 2007): 403–23, esp. 405, 419. Jackson denied that Indians had any right of domain and rejected Indian claims to “tracts of country on which they have neither dwelt or made improvements”; see Prucha, “Andrew Jackson’s Indian Policy: A Reassessment,” 532. On squatters in Alabama, see Van Atta, Securing the West, 186–87; and Rohrbough, The Land Office Business, 163.

  51.On the Dickinson duel, see Burstein, The Passions of Andrew Jackson, 56–57; “Col. Benton and Col. Jackson,” Daily National Journal, June 30, 1828. For the 1824 account of Jackson’s duel with Dickinson, see “Traits in the Character of General Jackson,” Missouri Republican, September 13, 1824.

  52.Some Account of Some of the Bloody Deeds of Gen. Andrew Jackson (broadside, Franklin, TN, 1818); also see “Reminiscences; or an Extract from a Catalogue of General Jackson’s ‘Juvenile Indiscretions,’ from the Age of 23 to 60,” Newburyport Herald, July 1, 1828.

  53.See Andrew Jackson to John Coffee, June 18, 1824, in Correspondence of Andrew Jackson, ed. John Spencer Bassett, 6 vols. (Washington, DC, 1926–34), 3:225–26; and Matthew Warshauer, “Andrew Jackson as ‘Military Chieftain’ in the 1824 and 1828 Presidential Elections: The Ramifications of Martial Law on American Republicanism,” Tennessee Historical Quarterly 57, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 1998): 4–23.

  54.See “The Presidency” and “General Jackson,” Louisville Public Advertiser, January 14, 1824, and October 22, 1822.

  55.See “Sketch of a Debate: Seminole War,” City of Washington Gazette, February 5, 1819.

  56.See “The Beau and the Cracker,” Columbian Museum and Savannah Advertiser, October 7, 1796; and To a Woodman’s Hut (New York, 1812). The plot may be older, for it shares certain similarities with “A Dialogue Between a Noble Lord, and a Poor Woodman” (1770); Joseph Doddridge’s story was printed in his Logan. The Last of the Race of Schikellemus, Chief of the Cayuga Nation (1823), as cited in Cecil D. Eby, “Dandy Versus Squatter: An Earlier Round,” Southern Literary Review 20, no. 2 (Fall 1987): 33–36, esp. 34.

  57.A popular anecdote circulated during the 1824 campaign that described a humorous encounter between the general and a “pert Macaroni” (dandy) in Philadelphia. See “Anecdote of General Jackson,” Raleigh Register, and North Carolina State Gazette, February 13, 1824.

  58.For the Crockett-like response to coffin handbills, see John Tailaferro, Account of Some of the Bloody Deeds of GENERAL JACKSON, Being a Supplement to the “Coffin Handbill” (broadside, Northern Neck, VA, 1828). On Jackson as “homebred,” see “General Jackson,” Maryland Gazette and the State Register, January 22, 1824. On Jackson being from a common family, see “Jackson’s Literature,” United States’ Telegraph, March 8, 1828. For other articles focusing on his commonness and lack of education, see “The Presidency,” [Portland, ME] Eastern Argus, October 7, 1823; “Something Extraordinary,” Raleigh Register, and North Carolin
a State Gazette, August 6, 1824; and “General Jackson,” National Advocate, March 10, 1824.

  59.For a cracker supporter of Jackson, see New Orleans Argus, August 21, 1828 (this piece came from the Darien Gazette in Georgia and was widely reprinted in New Hampshire, Connecticut, and New York newspapers); and “The Backwoods Alive with Old Hickory,” Louisville Public Advertiser, February 27, 1828.

  60.See “Jackson Toasts,” Newburyport Herald, June 22, 1828; and “Humorous Sketch,” Norwich Courier, April 1, 1829; “Barney Blinn” (from the Augusta Georgia Chronicle), New London Gazette, December 19, 1827. For a song titled “Ode to General Jackson,” in which he cut the British with his saber, “knock’d off all their legs,” but retained the eternal devotion of his supporters even if he was “shot through the head,” see Charles Mathews, The London Mathews; Containing an Account of the Celebrated Comedian’s Journey to America . . . (Philadelphia, 1824), 33–34. For a satire of a typical Jackson man having no trouble with the fact that Jackson was a “blundering, half-taught, ignoramus,” see “The Subjoined Communication,” New-England Galaxy and United States Literary Advertiser, November, 7, 1828.

  61.“Mr. Jefferson’s Opinion of Gen. Jackson—Settled,” Indiana Journal, January 3, 1828.

  62.For the happy-marriage defense of Rachel Jackson, see New Hampshire Patriot & State Gazette, April 23, 1827. The accidental bigamy defense was published widely in newspapers; for example, see [Portland, ME] Eastern Argus, May 8, 1827. For exposing the fallacy of the accidental bigamy story, see Burstein, The Passions of Andrew Jackson, 28–33, 227–28, 241–48; and Ann Toplovich, “Marriage, Mayhem, and Presidential Politics: The Robards-Jackson Backcountry Scandal,” Ohio Valley History 5 (Winter 2005): 3–22.

  63.For Jackson robbing another man of his wife, see “From Harrisburgh, Pa.,” New Orleans Argus, May 17, 1828; and Charles Hammond, “The Character of Andrew Jackson,” in Truth’s Advocate and Monthly Anti-Jackson Advocate (Cincinnati, 1828), 216.

  64.See Basch, “Marriage, Morals, and Politics in the Election of 1828,” 903; Charles Hammond, “View of General Jackson’s Domestic Relations,” Truth’s Advocate and Monthly Anti-Jackson Advocate, 5; “Dana vs. Mrs. Jackson,” Richmond Enquirer, May 4, 1827; and “Dana vs. Mrs. Jackson,” New Hampshire Patriot & State Gazette, May 21, 1827. On Dana, see James D. Daniels, “Amos Kendall: Kentucky Journalist, 1815–1829,” Filson Historical Quarterly (1978): 46–65, esp. 55–56. And for Rachel’s log cabin immorality, see “Mrs. Jackson,” Richmond Enquirer, May 4, 1827. Jackson himself was attacked as a mulatto, when a rumor was spread that his mother was a British camp follower who had shacked up with a black man. The story focused on Jackson’s questionable pedigree, what “stock or race” Jackson had sprung from. See “Rank Villainy and Obscenity,” Charleston [SC] Mercury, August 22, 1828.

  65.For the washerwoman reference and the snide comment on her “healthy tanned complexion,” see Lynn Hudson Parsons, The Birth of Modern Politics: Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams and the Election of 1828 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 189; for her pronunciation, see “British Scandal,” Salem Gazette, April 15, 1828; for her favorite song, “Possum Up a Gum Tree,” see “Mrs. Jackson,” New Bedford [MA] Mercury, December 5, 1828; and for attacks hastening her death, see “Mrs. Jackson,” [Portland, ME] Eastern Argus Semi-Weekly, February 24, 1829.

  66.See “The Game of Brag,” Richmond Enquirer, February 29, 1840. For the talkative country politician, see George Watterston, Wanderer in Washington (Washington, DC, 1827), 3. For Jackson as the “Knight of New Orleans,” see “Toasts at a Celebration in Florida,” Orange County Patriot, or the Spirit of Seventy-Six, March 14, 1815. For Jackson as the savior of his country, see John Eaton, Letters of Wyoming to the People of the United States, on the Presidential Election, and in Favor of Andrew Jackson (Philadelphia, 1824), 12. And for Jackson as the “Matchless hero! Incomparable man! . . . The records of chivalry, the pages of history do not furnish a more exalted character than that!,” see William P. Van Ness, A Concise Narrative of General Jackson’s First Invasion of Florida, and of His Immortal Defense of New-Orleans; with Remarks. By Aristides (Albany, NY, 1827), 29–30. Also see “Mr. J. W. Overton’s Address,” Carthage Gazette, June 9, 1815. In 1824, supporters of Adams claimed they were not “part of the boisterous boasting part of the population,” but by 1832 they too were bragging about their candidate; see “Presidential,” Middlesex Gazette, June 23, 1824; for Henry Clay and his Party as braggarts, see “Henry Clay,” Richmond Enquirer, August 21, 1832; for the term “electioneering rag,” see “To the Editor of the Globe,” Richmond Enquirer, August 31, 1832; for the “game of brag” used by newspapers to defend Clay’s strength in the election, see “Put Up Your Cash!,” Rhode Island Republican, October 2, 1832; on bragging and elections, see “From the National Intelligencer,” The Connecticut Courant, May 25, 1835; for a poem mocking the failure of the Whig Party’s bragging, see “The Whigs Lament, After the Election in ’35,” New Hampshire Patriot & State Gazette, June 1, 1835; on Whigs and the game of brag, see “General Harrison,” Richmond Enquirer, July 29, 1836; and “Pennsylvania,” Richmond Enquirer, September 27, 1836. After visiting the United States, Englishwoman Francis Trollope wrote, “Every American is a braggadocio. He is always boasting.” See “Leaves from Mrs. Trollope’s Journal,” Connecticut Mirror, September 1, 1832.

  67.See “A Challenge. The Walnut Cracker, vs. the Knight of the Red Rag,” Pendleton Messenger, August 2, 1820; this story was originally published in a Tennessee paper and reprinted here in a Pendleton, South Carolina, newspaper. This was a duel to be waged over an infringement of the boundary lines between the states. In issuing his challenge, Walnut Cracker, “instead of a glove,” sends him the heads of several men he had bitten off.

  68.John R. Van Atta, “‘A Lawless Rabble’: Henry Clay and the Cultural Politics of Squatters’ Rights, 1832–1841,” Journal of the Early Republic 28, no. 3 (Fall 2008): 337–78; and for Clay’s remarks taken from his 1838 speech in the Senate, also see “The Squatter in the White House,” Mississippian, September 6, 1844; Rohrbough, The Land Office Business, 162–63, 169–75, 235–36. For a favorable portrait of squatters and the preemption debate, which was originally published in the New York Post, see “The Squatters,” Mississippian, March 24, 1837, and “The Squatters,” Wisconsin Territorial Gazette and Burlington Advertiser, July 10, 1837.

  69.Michael E. Welsh, “Legislating a Homestead Bill: Thomas Hart Benton and the Second Seminole War,” Florida Historical Quarterly 27, no. 1 (October 1978): 157–72, esp. 158–59; Van Atta, Securing the West, 181, 226–28.

  70.See “Public Exhibition. Mammoth Hog, Corn Cracker. ‘Kentucky Against the World,’” [New Orleans] Daily Picayune, June 3, 1840; Gustav Kobbe, “Presidential Campaign Songs,” The Cosmopolitan (October 1888), 529–35, esp. 531; and Robert Gray Gunderson, The Log-Cabin Campaign (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1957), 1, 8, 75–77, 102–3, 110–15. In a fake campaign biography of Martin Van Buren, supposedly written by Davy Crockett, Van Buren is mercilessly mocked as a strange hermaphroditic breed; see David Crockett, [Augustin Smith Clayton] The Life of Martin Van Buren (Philadelphia, 1835), 27–28, 79–81; and J. D. Wade, “The Authorship of David Crockett’s ‘Autobiography,’” Georgia Historical Quarterly 6, no. 3 (September 1922): 265–68.

  71.John S. Robb, “The Standing Candidate; His Excuse for Being a Bachelor,” in Streaks of Squatter Life, or Far West Scenes (Philadelphia, 1847), 91–100. Robb’s story also appeared in newspapers; see “The Standing Candidate,” Cleveland Herald, March 19, 1847, and “Old Sugar! The Standing Candidate,” Arkansas State Democrat, June 4, 1847. For another story of the generous squatter (like the older backwoodsman story) opening his home to the traveler (and disabusing readers that squatters might be violent men), see “Sketches of Missouri,” [Hartford, CT] New-England Weekly Review, January 22, 1842.

  72.See Daniel Dupre, “Bar
becues and Pledges: Electioneering and the Rise of Democratic Politics in Antebellum Alabama,” Journal of Southern History 60, no. 3 (August 1994): 479–512, esp. 484, 490, 496–97. For the fear of squatters making violent threats against rival bidders, see “Land Sales,” New Hampshire Sentinel, August 13, 1835.

  73.Alexander Keyssar, The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States (New York: Basic Books, 2000), 26, 50–52; Marc W. Kruman, “The Second Party System and the Transformation of Revolutionary Republicanism,” Journal of the Early Republic 12, no. 4 (Winter 1992): 509–37, esp. 517; Robert J. Steinfeld, “Property and Suffrage in the Early Republic,” Stanford Law Review 41 (January 1989): 335–76, esp. 335, 363, 375; Thomas E. Jeffrey, “Beyond ‘Free Suffrage’: North Carolina Parties and the Convention Movement of the 1850s,” North Carolina Historical Review 62, no. 4 (October 1985): 387–419, esp. 415–16; Fletcher M. Green, “Democracy in the Old South,” Journal of Southern History 12, no. 1 (February 1946): 3–23.

  74.For Jackson drafting restrictions, see “An Impartial and True History of the Life and Service of Major General Andrew Jackson,” New Orleans Argus, February 8, 1828. On Florida, see Herbert J. Doherty Jr., “Andrew Jackson on Manhood Suffrage: 1822,” Tennessee Historical Quarterly 15, no. 1 (March 1956): 57–60, esp. 60. Harold Syrett put it best: “Jackson did not once espouse a policy that was designed to aid the majority or to weaken the control of the minority over government”; see Harold C. Syrett, Andrew Jackson, His Contribution to the American Tradition (New York, 1953), 22. Liberia’s universal suffrage lasted nine years, before new restrictions were imposed in 1848. The United States was not the first country to grant women the right to vote either; that honor went to New Zealand in 1893. Suffrage restrictions targeting blacks, women, and the poor continued until the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and even now the United States disenfranchises the poor. See Adam Przeworski, “Conquered or Granted? A History of Suffrage Extensions,” British Journal of Political Science 39, no. 2 (April 2009): 291–321, esp. 291, 295–96, 314.