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Andrew Jackson
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 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 Their First Four Years?
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: Sen. 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 Executives. Once in a great while one was even flattering.
John Adams said 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 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.
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 after ten turbulent years
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.
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?
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.
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.
Presidential candidates stayed above the battle until William Jennings Bryan stumped the nation in 1896; they’ve been in the thick of it ever since
The most confident prediction that can be made about the 1980 presidential campaign is that the nominees will invest enormous energy, time, and money in stumping the country.
“It is astonishing that the murderous practice of duelling should continue so long in vogue,” said Benjamin Franklin. Yet continue it did, often with peculiarly American variations
Few boys survive their school days without using their fists now and then. If these fights are extemporaneous affairs, fought in the immediate heat of anger, they are little more than animal reflex actions.
The revival in the nineteenth century of medieval motifs in architecture extended from villas and furniture to farmhouses and vineries
Many of the visitors who admire the classic calm of Monticello would be startled if they knew of the original intentions of Thomas Jefferson.
It was a bright day for the Republic, that afternoon of May 15, 1815, when the U.S.S. Constitution victoriously dropped anchor oil the Battery at New York.
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