Two Things I Cannot Do Without

I recently finished the book American Lion by Jon Meacham, a biography of Andrew Jackson that is focused on his years in the White House. At one point in his second term in office, Jackson was enduring a bout of poor health, which was a recurring issue in his life. He was encouraging the doctor to be straight with him, to tell him clearly what action he needed to take. He was a strong willed man and he considered himself fully able to do whatever was necessary. He did put one limit on the doctor, however. He told the doctor that there were 2 things he could not do without: coffee and tobacco!

I laughed out loud when I read that, though I am sure the doctor did not! In my case I would say the two things are coffee and chocolate! That little vignette gives a key insight into the man in a few words, though. He was in many ways the quintessential American, a self-made man. He had been orphaned during the Revolution and had made his way in the world through sheer willpower and force of personality. He was both stubborn and self-reliant to a fault, which resulted in a great many fights and duels along the way. The fact that he survived long enough to be President is a marvel in itself.

Like many 'self-made' men, he came to see his view as the only right view. You were either for him or against him. If you were against him, he could be severe and haughty; if you were in his inner circle, no one was more loyal and caring than Jackson to you. As a result, his life was an ongoing battle. He was not a man convinced by reason and argument; once he decided, he doggedly pursued his goal no matter if he was shown to be incorrect. As a result, he accomplished a lot, though some of those things were right and some were wrong.

I began the book with a low opinion of Jackson. He had forced the eastern American Indians onto the Trail of Tears for no good reason, destroyed the national bank creating economic problems for the country for several generations, and defended slavery. I leave the book with a much greater appreciation for his humanity and his contributions to the Union in fighting off the early attempts of South Carolina to secede, and in his being the first President to use the veto to confront and lead a belligerent Congress. His legacy is mixed. In reading the book, though, it also became clear that bitter and extremely partisan politics is nothing new in our country. The battles that went on in his time and continued through the Civil War appear even worse than today. And the violence we recently saw in Tucson is also nothing new: Jackson was nearly assassinated himself, but the gunman's pistol's both failed to fire.

He strikes me as quintessentially American in another way. He would have viewed himself as a Christian throughout his life, and his beloved Rachel encouraged him to follow the Lord with her dying words as he entered his first term in office. Yet after he left office and retired he appears to have had a conversion experience. Apparently a sermon that used his own life as an example of Providence got his attention, forcing him to see that he was not as much in control as he thought. Shortly after that he did what he had never done before: joined a local congregation and stood before them to make a profession faith, leaning on his cane as he did so. As he neared death he apparently made special effort to talk about Christ to his household, telling them his conversation on this topic was for them. I have to wonder, had this happened earlier in his life, if there may have been a few more things that he could have done without.