Books: Lucky Jackson

ANDREW JACKSON: PORTRAIT OF A PRESIDENT—Marquis James—Bobbs Merrill ($5).

With his Pulitzer-Prizewinning biography of Sam Houston (The Raven) and the first volume of a biography on Andrew Jackson (Andrew Jackson: The Border Captain), Marquis James has made a name for himself as one of the few conscientious U. S. historians whose books give the historical novelists a run for their money. Last week, in his concluding volume on Andrew Jackson, Author James offers a frankly-hinted explanation: ”Many good writers,” he avers, “who now and again dash showily into the biographical lists are careless, lazy and shallow about their research, whereas most of the honest and competent researchists can’t write for sour apples.”

Except for its duller opening chapters, covering Jackson’s brief retirement at the age of 55, Andrew Jackson: Portrait of a President matches the calibre of the first volume. Once Andrew Jackson is launched on the campaign that made him seventh U. S. President, Author James is pleasantly at home with a career which translated into politics “Old Hickory’s” roaring virtues as an Indian and British fighter, frontier gallant, gambler, duelist. Apart from its fresh portraiture of Jackson, the book offers a well-lighted view of the background events which provided the dress rehearsal for the Civil War.

A long book (627 pages), Andrew Jackson clips along because its subject had more surprises up his sleeve than other Presidents. Highly unpleasant surprises to many a contemporary, they were nevertheless marked by one characteristic on which all could agree: Jackson’s luck. Author James makes hay with the evidence : Jackson’s two landslide elections in the face of some of the most savage mud-slinging in U. S. politics; his lucky solution of the four-year Government crisis precipitated by his defense of the notorious black-eyed Peggy Eaton; his strong-armed solution to the problem of South Carolina’s attempted secession; collection of a long-outstanding debt of 25 million francs from France by the simple device of threatening to dispatch warships; his ungloved fight to overthrow the Bank of the United States; his support of Protégé Sam Houston in the fight to annex Texas (“about which,” says Author James, “the less said by Jackson partisans the better”).

Retiring as the only President ever to leave office more popular than when he came in, Old Hickory spent his last eight years trying vainly to pay off the fancy debts piled up by his adopted son Andrew Jr. (one of eleven or more raised and educated by the Jacksons). On his deathbed, calling for his spectacles in an effort to make out the stricken faces around him, the old man whispered staunchly: “I hope and trust to meet you all in Heaven, both white and black. . . .” But he gave no sign that he repented of having said, not long before, that he only regretted he had not been able to shoot Henry Clay and hang John C. Calhoun.