Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George W. Bush (22 page)

The two causes -- democratization and expanding the Presidency -- were linked, though they need not have been. Democracy was on the rise before Jackson reached office, and by the election of 1824, all but three states had granted the franchise to all white adult males. Many states directly elected their governors, judges, and other officials, and though large segments of the population, such as women and minorities, could not vote, the United States had achieved a high level of democracy for its time.

The Presidency, by contrast, had declined sharply. Beginning with James Madison in 1808, the Republican members of Congress selected their party's presidential nominee. When the Federalists disappeared after the War of 1812, "King Caucus" effectively selected the nation's President -- the very result the Framers wanted to avoid. Cabinet agencies and their secretaries felt the pull of competing allegiances with the emergence of congressional committees. Cabinet members began to pursue their own agendas, in cooperation with Congress, and Presidents began to see themselves more as prime ministers holding together a coalition.

Presidential weakness was evident in the two great challenges of this "Era of Good Feelings." The central issue of the early Republic, the struggle for dominance between Britain and France, ended with the War of 1812. The other great antebellum issue was slavery. Jackson's victory at New Orleans guaranteed that American expansion would continue without interference from Great Britain, but the added territory called upon the national government to decide whether to permit slavery in the new territories. North and South proceeded to play a delicate balancing game over the admission of new states. Monroe played no significant role in setting a national agenda on the slavery question, and instead, congressional leaders took the initiative. Their 1820 Missouri Compromise prohibited slavery in all of the Louisiana Purchase north of the southern border of Missouri, except Missouri itself. The Great Triumvirate of Clay, Calhoun, and Daniel Webster exercised commanding leadership over the Jeffersonians. Presidents like Madison, Monroe, and Adams, who owed their nominations to the congressional caucus, had little leverage to influence the slavery debate.

As presidential power came into doubt, so too did the authority of the national government. Signs of regional separatism had first begun to emerge during Jefferson's embargo and Madison's War. Although the disappearance of the Federalists led to a single dominant political party, regional divisions emerged over tariff levels and "internal improvements," such as roads and canals. The South, for example, exported raw materials and agricultural products and imported finished goods; high tariffs appeared to benefit Northern manufacturers while raising the South's costs. Internal improvements, which included the Erie Canal and interstate roads, created a different set of regional alliances between Westerners who favored expansion and Eastern states that benefited from increasing links to the West. Slavery exacerbated these centrifugal forces, as did democratization, which broke down social and political hierarchies.

Jackson swam against the tide of decentralization and a weak executive. He reinvigorated the Presidency and is generally considered by historians to have been one of the nation's most powerful Chief Executives. He advanced a new vision of the President as the direct representative of the people, and put theory to practice -- interpreting the Constitution and enforcing the law independently, wielding the veto power for policy as well as constitutional reasons, and reestablishing control over the executive branch. In the first of two great political conflicts of his time, the Bank War, Jackson vetoed a law that the Supreme Court and Congress both thought constitutional, removed federal deposits from the Bank of the United States, and fired cabinet secretaries who would not carry out his orders. In the second, the Nullification Crisis, Jackson interpreted the Constitution and the meaning of the Union on behalf of the people, and made clear his authority to carry out federal law against resisting states. Although he was a staunch defender of limited government, Jackson confronted head-on the forces of disunion. His achievement would be to restore and expand the Presidency within a permanent Union. His leadership would spark resistance so strong that it would coalesce into a new political party, the Whigs, devoted to opposing concentrated executive power.

THE INVASION OF FLORIDA

An ENDURING IMAGE of Andrew Jackson is the cartoon of "King Andrew the First," as his critics called him, sitting on a throne after his veto of the Bank,
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but his war against the Bank produced more than caricatures. Both his critics and supporters understood that Jackson was exercising the powers of the Presidency in unprecedented ways, triggering congressional investigations, legislative proposals to rein in the executive -- even censure by the Senate. Jackson, however, persevered and eventually prevailed. He similarly turned presidential powers to new directions when he overcame South Carolina's threats to nullify federal tariff laws. Throughout, Jackson's belief that he represented the will of the majority infused his conduct of the Presidency. He re-energized the office by wedding its constitutional powers to a theory of the executive as the focal point for national majority rule, a role that was at best implicit in the constitutional text.

Jackson's attitude was clear even before he became President. As a general, Jackson was not above interpreting his orders loosely, nor did he think he had to wait on congressional approval before taking offensive military action. In the wake of the War of 1812, Jackson concluded that the Spanish had to be expelled from the Southwest to make way for American expansion.
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The first step in his strategy was to eliminate any possibility of an Indian buffer zone between the United States and Spain. After initial setbacks, Jackson defeated several Creek Indian tribes that had allied with the British during the War -- in these battles, Jackson won the nickname "Old Hickory." During the peace, Jackson refused to follow the provisions of the Treaty of Ghent that restored the tribes to the status quo and removed them from the area of the Louisiana Purchase to lands on the Western frontier. In about 16 months, Jackson acquired about one-third of Tennessee, three-fourths of Florida and Alabama, one-fifth of Georgia and Mississippi, and about one-tenth of Kentucky and North Carolina. Jackson made no secret of his desire to drive the Spanish out of Florida, Texas, and even Mexico.
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The Treaty of Ghent and several U.S.-British treaties after the war formalized an implicit understanding between the mother country and her former colonies. Great Britain would no longer oppose American expansion into the South and West. In return, the United States demilitarized the northern frontier and relinquished any ambitions for Canada. This left Spain in an untenable position in Florida, where it had few military and administrative resources. Americans had wanted Florida since the days of Jefferson, if not before, but Congress never authorized any military action against the Spanish. Under prevailing practice at the time, a full offensive mission of conquest would have called for a declaration of war.

Seminole attacks on American territory in 1817 supplied Jackson with a pretext. The Seminoles had operated out of Spanish Florida and had refused to vacate lands under previous treaties, launching retaliatory attacks when American troops sought to relocate them. American settlers conveniently engaged in a separate raid into Florida, "liberated" Amelia Island, and then pled for help when Spanish forces moved to evict them. The Monroe administration authorized local commanders to pursue the Seminole raiders across the Florida line, but to stop short and await further orders should the raiders seek shelter in a Spanish outpost. Monroe placed Jackson in command of a broader expedition and ordered him to "[a]dopt the necessary measure to terminate a conflict" that the President claimed he wanted to avoid.
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Jackson concluded that the best way to end tensions was to seize all of Spain's territory in Florida. He sent a letter to Monroe seeking authorization, which Monroe subsequently claimed he did not read until a year later.
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Monroe independently sent Jackson a letter giving him command of the expedition against the Seminoles, the intervention at Amelia Island, and unspecified "other services."
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Monroe urged Jackson that "[t]his is not a time for you to think of repose," declared that "[g]reat interests are at issue," and asked that "every species of danger" be "settled on the most solid foundation."
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Jackson took this as presidential authorization to invade Florida. He did not question that the President had the authority to send him; in fact, he had promised Monroe that he would conquer the whole territory within 60 days. In the First Seminole War of 1818, Jackson led a force of 3,000 regulars and volunteers that destroyed the main Indian settlement near present-day Tallahassee, and captured two British citizens -- Alexander Arbuthnot and Robert Ambrister -- who had been advising the Seminole. He convened a military commission to try the two as outlaws under his authority as the commander in the field, and after a guilty verdict, he sentenced both to death. Jackson then marched his troops to Pensacola, the seat of Spanish rule in Florida, and quickly seized it on the ground that hostile Indians were massed inside. None were found. A small Spanish force surrendered after a short battle nearby, with no casualties on either side. In June, Jackson issued a proclamation declaring Florida ceded to the United States and established a provisional government.
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Jackson's battlefield successes sparked a political firestorm. After the fighting ended, Secretary of War John Calhoun and Treasury Secretary William Crawford argued that Jackson had violated the Constitution and demanded his punishment. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams defended Jackson on the ground that the seizure of Pensacola was justified by military necessity.
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Instead, Monroe sent Jackson a letter maintaining that the general had exceeded his orders, but that circumstances justified pursuit of the Indians into Spanish territory -- even though under the Constitution the attack on Pensacola required a declaration of war from Congress.
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Monroe was not about to admit that the conquest of Florida was illegal and return it to Spain.

Jackson took full responsibility for the invasion but continued to claim that Monroe had authorized it. Congress initiated an investigation, and Henry Clay sought Jackson's censure, along with legislation prohibiting the executive from invading foreign territory without congressional permission.
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As Jackson journeyed to Washington to manage his defense personally, public opinion turned strongly in his favor.
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Clay's proposals were resoundingly defeated in the House by 2-1 margins,
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and in the Adams-Onis Treaty Spain ceded Florida in exchange for American assumption of claims against Spain of up to $5 million.
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As President, Jackson had no occasion to lead the nation into war, yet he never lost his belief that the Spanish, and their Mexican successors, should give ground to their more enterprising neighbors. Jackson pursued the acquisition of Texas throughout his Presidency because he believed it erroneously to be part of the Louisiana Purchase. He blamed the Adams-Onis treaty for giving up Texas and "dismember[ing]" the American empire.
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Upon assuming the Presidency, he sent envoys to Mexico City to negotiate for Texas; they made matters worse by reporting on the Mexicans' susceptibility to bribery and corruption in letters leaked to the press.
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About 35,000 Americans, some with slaves, had settled in Texas at the open invitation of the Mexican government between 1821 and 1835. When Jackson's efforts to buy Texas failed, Americans in Texas took matters into their own hands.

In November 1835, Texans established a provisional government, and in the spring of 1836, declared independence. General Santa Anna, who had established a military government over Mexico, sought to quell the rebellion with 6,000 troops. After he reduced the Alamo and executed the survivors, he met defeat at the hands of Sam Houston, the former governor of Tennessee and Jackson's close friend, on April 21, 1836, at the Battle of San Jacinto. A captured Santa Anna ordered Mexican troops out of Texas and signed treaties recognizing the withdrawal. Although news of the victory thrilled the American public, it also reopened the question of slavery in the territories. Texas sent delegations seeking annexation, but abolitionists and Northern leaders worried that its addition would give the slave states an advantage in the Senate.
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Jackson was unwilling to move forward with annexation because he worried that sectional division over slavery would complicate the election of his chosen successor, Martin Van Buren; nor did he want to shift world opinion against the United States,
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He left the matter to Congress, which controlled the acquisition of new territory and the admission of states under the Constitution. After both the House and Senate appropriated funds and confirmed an envoy to Texas, Jackson decided (on his penultimate day) to recognize Texan independence, which paved the way for the incorporation of Texas in 1845.
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The Constitution nowhere granted the executive the explicit power to recognize foreign nations, but Presidents and Congresses had long considered it part of the executive power over foreign relations.

A second pillar of Jackson's support for western expansion was removal of the Indians to the frontier.
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Federal treaties guaranteed millions of acres in the Southwest to the Indian tribes; federal policy recognized them as self-governing sovereigns and encouraged missionaries to civilize them.
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The Cherokee, who had their own constitution and laws and held more than six million acres in Georgia, tried to force them to leave by imposing state law and prohibiting white Americans from assisting them.
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Jackson saw removal of the Indians as advancing America's economic development and enhancing its strategic position in the Southwest. Without the Indians, fertile lands in the West would open to white settlement, and an anomaly would be eliminated from America's sovereignty.
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In his mind, whites and Indians could not live together, and the best solution was to keep them apart.
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