Robert V. Remini - The Life of Andrew Jackson

The Life of Andrew Jackson

Robert V. Remini

For My Granddaughter, Grace Marie

Contents

In 1977 the first volume of my biography of Andrew Jackson appeared in print, followed in 1981 and 1984 by the second and then the concluding volumes. When I first undertook this project I had intended to write a complete life in one volume. But it did not work out that way. One volume grew to a second and a third, and I might have gone on to produce a fourth had my editor at Harper & Row, Hugh Van Dusen, not intervened in the nick of time.

Then, at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association in December 1984 I was conversing with Aida D. Donald, executive editor of the Harvard University Press, when she broached the idea of condensing my three-volume biography into a single volume. She said that the idea had originated with her husband, David Herbert Donald, who felt that such a book would serve the needs of both students of history and the general public. I confess the idea had not occurred to me before, and later that day when I talked with David he dispelled whatever doubts I may have had.

Jackson is one of those unusual figures in history who seem to get multi-volume biographies written about them, such as my own and those of James Parton, Marquis James, and James Bassett, or he is reduced to narratives of less than two hundred pagesIve written one of these, also, I must confesswhich are used almost exclusively in survey courses in American history taught in colleges and universities. Something in-between, something of more normal size for a major historical figure, some-thing around four hundred pages or so for a biography of Jackson is almost unknown. And it was David Donalds contention that such a book was needed for an audience of both students and the general public who cannot or will not plow through two and three hefty volumes and yet cannot get enough information or analysis of men and events in the briefer studies.

By the time our conversation ended I was totally convinced. But I was not certain that Harper & Row would go along with the scheme since they had already invested a great deal in issuing a three-volume study. Fortunately, Hugh Van Dusen liked the idea very much and probably saw more value in it than I did. In any event he approved the venture and I set to work in the mistaken notion that a single volume could easily and quickly be extracted from the three-volume behemoth. I soon learned otherwise. Shrinking 1,609 pagesthe total number of the three volumesto the present 400 pages proved not simply difficult but traumatic and agonizing. Jackson had such a long, full and exciting life that he defies (and resents) abbreviation of any kind. More difficult than that was applying the surgical knife to my own prose and restating with totally new words the events and ideas that I had once felt were as exact and proper as I could make them when they were first produced in the original volumes. But once I made the initial incision and survived the awful pain, the task grew less difficult and wrenching, particularly when I found several opportunities to rethink more carefully what I had originally set down. Also, the results of recent research could be added; and the insights of mono-graphs published in the last several years could be introduced to enrich the text. Finally, some of my rhetorical flourishes needed excision.

In this new work, then, I have not abandoned or seriously modified the major themes developed in my three-volume biography but I have tried to strengthen the arguments and clarify the language that provide support. The notes have been reduced substantially to provide space but I have made a special effort to retain all the citations that are essential for the books principal arguments. The bibliography, too, has been cut drastically and I would refer the reader to volume III of my larger work for a more complete discussion of both primary and secondary sources.

In making this biography possible I am deeply grateful to Hugh Van Dusen, David and Aida Donald, and, as always, the Ladies Hermitage Association in Tennessee and the University of Illinois at Chicago who have handsomely supported my research for many years.

July 1987

Wilmette, Illinois

R OBERT V. R EMINI