Peter Temin. The Jacksonian Economy. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1967
Peter Temin is an economist and economic historian who has written several books on 19th century American economics. This is one of his first books, and it has been a fairly influential one. Published in the late 1960s as a corrective to then-prevalent existing orthodoxy, which held that Andrew Jackson was primarily responsible for the Panic of 1837 due to his Bank War and Specie Circular. In the intervening decades, Temin's thesis seems to have won out and his argument accepted.
It is an economic argument, and for readers not used to the field might find the argument a little hard to keep track of. Temin's prose is straight-forward if more than a little dry, and even a novice such as myself can understand what he is saying even if much of the content is abstract and somewhat bloodless.
Temin's argument, in a nutshell, is that nothing Jackson did brought on the Panic, and that while some of his actions probably retarded the recovery, even those negative effects were limited. The real culprit was a combination of events in Britain and China. Improved wheat harvests in Britain produced a surplus of capital which was funneled to investment opportunities in the United States. At the same time, Chinese opium users were increasing their purchases from Britain, therefore diverting the flow of Mexican silver from China to the United States because it was quicker and cheaper to use American credit for purchase. Therefore, the United States saw an increase in specie, which increased the money supply, which in turn led to inflation.
A later cut in British credit was followed by a decline in the price of cotton, which brought the American economy to a halt. The chain of events continued through the 1840s, resulting in a long period of deflation and an end to the economic boom times of the 1830s. Land sales slowed, and the value of American money depreciated.
It is, admittedly, a difficult argument to keep straight if one is not used to speaking and thinking in pure economics. Still, the argument seems sound and the book is useful to have on hand when reading about the economic aspects of Jacksonian America.
Thursday, April 30, 2015
Sunday, April 26, 2015
The Jacksonian Promise
Daniel Feller. The Jacksonian Promise: America, 1815-1840. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995.
Originally published 20 years ago, Feller's book on the Jacksonian period seeks to address what he saw as a too pessimistic or gloomy interpretation of the period. The emphasis on the market revolution and the corresponding anxieties, Feller argues, ignores the tone of public and private statements of the people who lived through the era. Jacksonian America was remarkable not for its fears and uncertainties, but for its optimism and its certainties about the "promise" of the future. Jacksonian Americans were excited about the possibilities that change promised rather than primarily discomforted by it. Furthermore, this optimism was a common thread that united disparate elements in society.
The narrative begins with the "Year of Jubilee" 1826, which was prefaced by the triumphant return of the Marquis de Lafayette in 1824. Lafayette was treated to an endless parade of well-wishers and adulation, but he was also witness to a nation experiencing incredibly dynamic growth in geographic, demographic, and economic terms, as well as seeing a huge surge in infrastructure development. The America that Lafayette visited was proud of its past, but even more excited about its future.
Feller does a passable job making his case, although sometimes he seems to make it by re-framing intense disagreements as two sides of the same coin; arguing that both the American System of Henry Clay and the small-government nationalism of Andrew Jackson were really nothing more than different manifestations of the same optimistic faith in American progress. This is not an unconvincing argument in and of itself, but when Feller continues to present other disagreements (such as over the proper role of women in society, the role of benevolent institutions in social uplift, etc.) in the same interpretive framework--particularly in a text that is just over 200 pages--he invites speculation that he over-simplifies.
If his argument that the optimism of Jacksonian America was universally shared risks being a little strained, he does a very convincing job of arguing that the era was indeed marked by a wide-open atmosphere of restlessness and openness to experimentation. It should also be noted that he ties a lot of different threads together rather deftly. By bookmarking the era with the aftermath of the Panic of 1837 and the rise of the Second Party System through the election of William Henry Harrison in 1840, he effectively closes his narrative with a deft rhetorical touch. Whatever one thinks of his argument, he certainly makes it well.
This book also serves as a fairly brisk and readable introduction to the larger social, cultural, and political themes of the period. Aside from Feller's interpretation, he has written a reasonably far-ranging survey.
Originally published 20 years ago, Feller's book on the Jacksonian period seeks to address what he saw as a too pessimistic or gloomy interpretation of the period. The emphasis on the market revolution and the corresponding anxieties, Feller argues, ignores the tone of public and private statements of the people who lived through the era. Jacksonian America was remarkable not for its fears and uncertainties, but for its optimism and its certainties about the "promise" of the future. Jacksonian Americans were excited about the possibilities that change promised rather than primarily discomforted by it. Furthermore, this optimism was a common thread that united disparate elements in society.
The narrative begins with the "Year of Jubilee" 1826, which was prefaced by the triumphant return of the Marquis de Lafayette in 1824. Lafayette was treated to an endless parade of well-wishers and adulation, but he was also witness to a nation experiencing incredibly dynamic growth in geographic, demographic, and economic terms, as well as seeing a huge surge in infrastructure development. The America that Lafayette visited was proud of its past, but even more excited about its future.
Feller does a passable job making his case, although sometimes he seems to make it by re-framing intense disagreements as two sides of the same coin; arguing that both the American System of Henry Clay and the small-government nationalism of Andrew Jackson were really nothing more than different manifestations of the same optimistic faith in American progress. This is not an unconvincing argument in and of itself, but when Feller continues to present other disagreements (such as over the proper role of women in society, the role of benevolent institutions in social uplift, etc.) in the same interpretive framework--particularly in a text that is just over 200 pages--he invites speculation that he over-simplifies.
If his argument that the optimism of Jacksonian America was universally shared risks being a little strained, he does a very convincing job of arguing that the era was indeed marked by a wide-open atmosphere of restlessness and openness to experimentation. It should also be noted that he ties a lot of different threads together rather deftly. By bookmarking the era with the aftermath of the Panic of 1837 and the rise of the Second Party System through the election of William Henry Harrison in 1840, he effectively closes his narrative with a deft rhetorical touch. Whatever one thinks of his argument, he certainly makes it well.
This book also serves as a fairly brisk and readable introduction to the larger social, cultural, and political themes of the period. Aside from Feller's interpretation, he has written a reasonably far-ranging survey.
Friday, April 17, 2015
Moralists and Modernizers
Steven Mintz. Moralists and Modernizers: America's Pre-Civil War Reformers. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995.
Published twenty years ago, this brief volume is still an excellent introduction to the topic of pre-Civil War reform both religious and secular. Chapter 1, "The Specter of Social Breakdown", briefly sketches the context of economic, social, and political insecurity and turmoil within which these different, often overlapping, reform impulses and movements arose. From there, Mintz devotes four chapters to generally thematic considerations of the topic. In general, Chapters 2 and 3 consider religion and religious movements such as Millenialism and the centrality of liberal Protestantism and evangelicalism to many reform efforts, while Chapters 4 and 5 look at secular movements such as poorhouses, asylums for the mentally ill, penitentiaries, and common schools.
Mintz places his interpretation midway between two poles--early interpretators of Antebellum reformers who praised them for their humanity and credited them with many lasting improvements in American society, versus later revisionists who focused on the middle-class biases and coercive aspects of the era. Mintz argues that both schools of thought have merit but that neither can be considered definitive. More concretely, he argues that the legacy of those reformers needs to be redeemed from the generally condemnation that revisionist historians applied to them. Their motives were more complex and varied--and often more sincerely altruistic--than the revisionists were generally willing to allow.
All of the discussions are necessarily brief, and are intended for the general reader and the student. It is an excellent introduction to the topic, which closes with an Epilogue tying Antebellum reform to the larger American liberal tradition.
Published twenty years ago, this brief volume is still an excellent introduction to the topic of pre-Civil War reform both religious and secular. Chapter 1, "The Specter of Social Breakdown", briefly sketches the context of economic, social, and political insecurity and turmoil within which these different, often overlapping, reform impulses and movements arose. From there, Mintz devotes four chapters to generally thematic considerations of the topic. In general, Chapters 2 and 3 consider religion and religious movements such as Millenialism and the centrality of liberal Protestantism and evangelicalism to many reform efforts, while Chapters 4 and 5 look at secular movements such as poorhouses, asylums for the mentally ill, penitentiaries, and common schools.
Mintz places his interpretation midway between two poles--early interpretators of Antebellum reformers who praised them for their humanity and credited them with many lasting improvements in American society, versus later revisionists who focused on the middle-class biases and coercive aspects of the era. Mintz argues that both schools of thought have merit but that neither can be considered definitive. More concretely, he argues that the legacy of those reformers needs to be redeemed from the generally condemnation that revisionist historians applied to them. Their motives were more complex and varied--and often more sincerely altruistic--than the revisionists were generally willing to allow.
All of the discussions are necessarily brief, and are intended for the general reader and the student. It is an excellent introduction to the topic, which closes with an Epilogue tying Antebellum reform to the larger American liberal tradition.
Thursday, April 9, 2015
Andrew Jackson and his Indian Wars
Robert V. Remini. Andrew Jackson and his Indian Wars. New York: Penguin Books, 2001.
Remini, a preeminent Jackson scholar, chose to devote his final book on Andrew Jackson to the most contentious aspect of his entire public career--his important role in the removal of Indian nations from the United States east of the Mississippi River.
Remini recounted the story with narrative flair and an impressive command of the facts, but what is most striking about this book is the rather startling argument at its core--as summarized in the closing sentence, Remini claims that for all his racism, and for all his responsibility for the great suffering and mortality inflicting on Indians in the process of removal, the end result was that "[h]e saved the Five Civilized Nations from probable extinction."
Remini wass neither ignorant nor dismissive of contemporary attitudes towards Jackson and his role in the dispossession of the southern and (old) western Indian nations. Nor does he deny that Jackson held values and viewpoints which are heinous by contemporary standards, However, he argues that Jackson's racism was hardly unique to him (an inarguable claim, really) and that his oft-stated concern for his "red children", while condescending, was genuine. He really believed--with good reason--that white incursions into Indian land would doom the nations of the old Southwest, and that their removal to "vacant" (of whites) land further west as their only chance of survival.
Remini also established that while land hunger drove white settlement, it was not Jackson's primary concern. Rather, he was obsessed with national security. His original interest in removal stemmed from a belief that Indian occupation of the American frontier was a fatal weakness in American defense and sovereignty. Given the role that British and Spanish authorities played in encouraging and supplying Indian military ventures and raids against American settlers, this was hardly an unrealistic viewpoint.
Remini did not flinch from illustrating the horrors of Jackson's policies as they were carried out (he had a blind spot as to the consequences of policies he sincerely believed in), nor did he try and absolve either Jackson or the American people of their guilt. But he does ask the reader to set aside contemporary mores and retrospective judgment. Look at the situation as it was at the time. Jackson was not a monster. He was merely a human being, and like all of us he was a prisoner of the circumstances and mentalities of his age. In the end, this book demands a little humility from the reader.
Remini, a preeminent Jackson scholar, chose to devote his final book on Andrew Jackson to the most contentious aspect of his entire public career--his important role in the removal of Indian nations from the United States east of the Mississippi River.
Remini recounted the story with narrative flair and an impressive command of the facts, but what is most striking about this book is the rather startling argument at its core--as summarized in the closing sentence, Remini claims that for all his racism, and for all his responsibility for the great suffering and mortality inflicting on Indians in the process of removal, the end result was that "[h]e saved the Five Civilized Nations from probable extinction."
Remini wass neither ignorant nor dismissive of contemporary attitudes towards Jackson and his role in the dispossession of the southern and (old) western Indian nations. Nor does he deny that Jackson held values and viewpoints which are heinous by contemporary standards, However, he argues that Jackson's racism was hardly unique to him (an inarguable claim, really) and that his oft-stated concern for his "red children", while condescending, was genuine. He really believed--with good reason--that white incursions into Indian land would doom the nations of the old Southwest, and that their removal to "vacant" (of whites) land further west as their only chance of survival.
Remini also established that while land hunger drove white settlement, it was not Jackson's primary concern. Rather, he was obsessed with national security. His original interest in removal stemmed from a belief that Indian occupation of the American frontier was a fatal weakness in American defense and sovereignty. Given the role that British and Spanish authorities played in encouraging and supplying Indian military ventures and raids against American settlers, this was hardly an unrealistic viewpoint.
Remini did not flinch from illustrating the horrors of Jackson's policies as they were carried out (he had a blind spot as to the consequences of policies he sincerely believed in), nor did he try and absolve either Jackson or the American people of their guilt. But he does ask the reader to set aside contemporary mores and retrospective judgment. Look at the situation as it was at the time. Jackson was not a monster. He was merely a human being, and like all of us he was a prisoner of the circumstances and mentalities of his age. In the end, this book demands a little humility from the reader.
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