Yesterday, President Donald Trump was doing an interview with the Washington Examiner's Salena Zito as part of an edition of 'Main Street Meets Beltway,' which is scheduled to air on SiriusXM radio. Trump's comments on Andrew Jackson and the Civil War during the interview yesterday blew up the internet. However, who else could make 'Civil War' and World War III' trending in just over the 100th day of his presidency?
Peace-loving leftist hippy Donald Trump, on the Civil War. pic.twitter.com/7VZRqf2G3V
— Jackson Beeblebrox (@The_Phaneron) May 2, 2017
Andrew Jackson: America's swashbuckling President
First off, let's unpack President Donald Trump's comments on American's 7th President, Andrew Jackson.
I want to address the use of 'swashbuckler' first, as the Merriam-Webster definition of one is 'a swaggering or daring soldier or adventurer.' While Jackson was a soldier, a Google search on if he had swag produced no results, besides the context of the way Trump used the word making no sense.
On to the important question, could Jackson have stopped the Civil War? The simple answer is no, since he died in 1845, while the war started in 1861. Maybe his ghost could have tried to do something to stop it? There is also no historical evidence that Jackson said, "there is no reason for this" on the potential subject of a Civil War.
Jackson was a soldier and a general who fought for his country in the American Revolution, the War of 1812 and the First Seminole War.
He also stopped South Carolina succession during the Nullification Crisis over the federal Tariffs of 1828 and 1832. When South Carolina nullified both tariffs, disobeying federal law, Jackson sent warships to Charleston and threatened to hang any man who supported nullification or succession.
Jackson served in Congress for the state of Tennessee and lived in the state since he first arrived there in 1788, His plantation 'The Hermitage' was also in the state, where he owned around 150 slaves by the time of his death.
I could speculate on how Jackson would have picked between the country he served and his 'home' state and slaves. However, I see no point in debating how alternate history could have happened in relation to Andrew Jackson stopping the Civil War or how negotiations would have gone down.
Why the Civil War?
As President Donald Trump said about the Civil War, "Why could that one not have been worked out?" There are numerous examples leading up to the war of both sides trying to work that one out.
The 3/5's compromise in 1787, the Missouri Compromise in 1820 and the Compromise of 1850 were three of the major pieces of legislation to try to prevent conflict between the North and South. However, once abolitionist Abraham Lincoln got elected in 1860, any attempt to stop a Civil War ended.
That leads to the main point of the Civil War, slavery. All the other factors that one could point to in the Civil War tie into slavery, making in the all-encompassing issue that caused the Civil War. The debate over new states in the Union being free or slave states and trying to keep a balance between the two. The economic different between the agricultural South, relying on slave labor and the industrialized North, which was using machines.
Southern leaders did not want their lifestyle to decline by losing slaves and having to pay workers. Northern abolitionists saw slavery as immoral and a human rights issue.
Even state rights, one of the largest contention points leading to the Civil War, is tied to slavery. The issue of how much sovereignty an individual state had in terms of its rights, property, tariffs, laws, etc., all came back to the issue of slavery in some way. It is so intertwined into the founding of America, its society and how the Southern economy operated that it is impossible to separate from any other issue leading up to the Civil War.
