American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House

The Corrupt Bargain refers to the outcome of the 1824 US presidential election. When none of the candidates—Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, William H. Crawford, and Henry Clay—secured a majority of electoral votes, the decision was thrown to the House of Representatives. Speaker of the House Henry Clay used his influence to support John Quincy Adams, who subsequently won the presidency. Soon after, Adams appointed Clay as his secretary of state, a position seen as a stepping stone to the presidency. Jackson and his supporters decried this arrangement as a “Corrupt Bargain,” accusing Adams and Clay of collusion and undermining the democratic process. The Corrupt Bargain therefore embodies some of the tensions surrounding democracy in the early 19th century, when there was still some resistance to the notion of letting the “common man” decide the course of the country.

The Hermitage was Jackson’s plantation home, located near Nashville, Tennessee. Originally a modest farmhouse, Jackson expanded it into a grand mansion, reflecting his rising political stature. The Hermitage served as Jackson’s residence before, during, and after his presidency. It was here that he hosted numerous political meetings and entertained influential figures. The estate also included extensive farmland worked by more than 150 enslaved people. As Jackson often expressed a desire to return to the Hermitage during periods of political strife, it functions in American Lion partly as a symbol of his origins and fundamental character. However, the fact that it was staffed by enslaved workers also serves as a reminder of the contradictions of Jackson’s character (and, indeed, of American democracy in general).

The Indian Removal Act, signed into law by President Andrew Jackson on May 28, 1830, authorized the forced relocation of Indigenous tribes living east of the Mississippi River to lands west of the river. The act aimed to open up lands for white settlement and agriculture. Under this legislation, tens of thousands of Indigenous Americans, including the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole tribes, were uprooted from their ancestral homes and subjected to arduous journeys to designated Indigenous Territory, primarily present-day Oklahoma. This mass displacement, often carried out under harsh and brutal conditions, led to suffering and death among the tribes, most notoriously exemplified by the Cherokee’s “Trail of Tears,” where thousands perished during the forced march. Meacham contextualizes Jackson’s support of the Indian Removal Act in terms of broader US imperialism and racism but also in terms of his personal character, as the paternalism of Jackson’s stance toward Indigenous Americans reflected his broader self-assurance and tenacity. It therefore functions in part as one of several examples of the Impact of Personal Character on Public Duty.

The Kitchen Cabinet refers to the informal group of advisors who were influential during Andrew Jackson’s presidency. Unlike the official Cabinet, this group consisted of trusted friends and political supporters who provided Jackson with counsel outside the formal channels of government. Key figures in the Kitchen Cabinet included Martin Van Buren, Francis Preston Blair, and Amos Kendall. This inner circle played a key role in shaping Jackson’s policies and decisions, often bypassing the more established and traditional advisory structures. The existence of the Kitchen Cabinet underscored Jackson’s preference for loyalty and personal trust over formal governmental procedures (thus highlighting the Intersection of Private Lives and Public Roles) and contributed to the perception of his administration as being populist and unorthodox.

Nullification was a theory positing that states had the right to invalidate any federal law they deemed unconstitutional. This led to the Nullification Crisis, in which South Carolina attempted to nullify the federal tariffs of 1828 and 1832. Jackson viewed nullification as a direct threat to the Union and believed it undermined the Constitution and federal authority. He responded with a strong stance against it, including the passage of the Force Bill, which authorized the use of military force to enforce federal laws. This was one of the key episodes in Jackson’s Expansion of Executive Power.

The Seminole Wars were a series of conflicts in Florida between the United States and the Seminole tribe. The First Seminole War (1817-1818) began under Andrew Jackson’s command, with US forces invading Spanish Florida to combat Seminole resistance and capturing enslaved people who had escaped. The Second Seminole War (1835-1842), the longest and most expensive of the Indigenous conflicts, occurred during Jackson’s presidency, following his Indian Removal Act. Led by Osceola, the Seminoles fiercely resisted displacement, resulting in enormous casualties and extensive military campaigns. Like the Trail of Tears, the Seminole Wars reveal the darker side of Jacksonian democracy.