Books:The Young Hamilton/Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Empire, 1767-1821:
Curran, R. Emmett
judgments are a function of all the factors Lapses like these undermine the au- consciousness-raising, at which he is that have shaped our individual lives, thor's aim to provide an...
...The reassertion of completed...
...About a year ago I wrote in lished in 1929, privately and anonym- tune does not offer more of consequence this magazine of Frederic Manning'sHer ously, one year before its expurgated, than Her Privates We, it does not offer Privates We, "I can hardly think of a re-named offspring...
...We can now read in The Middle Parts of Fortune...
...Forced by Jackson's expulsion of the Spanish from Florida, case: paradoxically, it is the "taboo" seizure of Pensacola to invade farther Jackson was mobbed wherever he went words that sound bland and neutral, bewest than they had originally intended, and bands invariably struck up: See the cause now, after all, they are everywhere, the British chose New Orleans only to Conquering Hero Comes...
...Her Privates We less, and the essential book for which I had, and deserved, a considerable fol- wished last year is again available in this lowing for a generation or so, but The country...
...With the possi- like it does largely because of the inten- 40 YEARS SINCE HARLEM, '38 ble exception of Washington, no one did tions and efforts of Andrew Jackson...
...but the man...
...Martin's Press, $8.95 [247 pp.] along similar lines, evidently, and that wanted was a man to skivvy for them...
...1783 during a minor mutiny of continen- ity towards the three forces blocking ex- At the outbreak of the War of 1812 his tal soldiers in the capital in order to pansion: the English, Spanish, and In- offer of 2,500 men was ignored in Washdramatize the need for strengthening the dians...
...But this is precisely a form of Hamilton and Andrew Jackson with Immensely ambitious, Hamilton's opcultural relativism...
...nified and Jackson's victory were ines- later volume makes substitutions that are Jackson carefully nurtured the image...
...At other times, the exmorale-boosting that, was his forte as a porters of Jackson was Secretary of cised word has never been popular in commander...
...68 pages of history, written and oral, and eighteen personal statements more than Hamilton, Flexner asserts, to (p...
...State, John Quincy Adams, whose conti- America or regarded as very shocking...
...As Remini whereas the "euphemism" better sugfind Jackson waiting...
...that any novel by a participant in the War Manning did not eviscerate his crea- of 1914-18 has more to tell us of the The Arms Race: Illusion of Security tion...
...tended to chart for this volume Jackson's The...
...He implies that the Hanly Furfey...
...This means case fatal as well) experiences with there was a war," he wistfully wrote a that the morally right action is not what Aaron Burr...
...less colorful, and if they, the substitualso permanently shattered his health...
...What he has provided here is how is what we take to be "knowing" ethics, as does also his failure to analyze a brilliant over-view of the moral sphere anything more than personal "opinion...
...The earlier book contains a small sons are many and various, but preemiWashington...
...Elsewhere in Her Privates We there is, it THE MIDDLE PARTS OF FORTUNE novel I would more like to see rein- turns out, only the appearance of rewrittroduced into print in America...
...317, Chicago, Illinois 60601...
...Having a relative matter...
...A BIOGRAPHY ried with him from the Leeward Islands For what he does is to identify that founJames Thomas Flexner an abiding contempt for human nature dation with a particular, contingent exLittle, Brown and Company, $15 [378 pp...
...press now offers rather more than what I and, though Bourne as a rule avoided the THE WARS was asking for: not quite Her Privates use of coarse language, he knew preTimothy Findley We, often recognized in the 1930s as cisely what he would be before he acted Delacorte Press, $8.95 [226 pp.] "the book of books so far as the British as a kind of general batman to the orderly Army-in-the-War is concerned" (T...
...He told me to go to buggery, sir,"' and smile Bourne again at the British sense of propriety...
...And that's the point at separated from his aristocratic, ne'er- no love for country, which in the late issue...
...that was also absorbed into the continu- two sides of Jackson, one fierce and $2.00 from Friendship House...
...The rootlessness of Hamilton was his morality is to be understood as more than Shamed as an illegitimate child and strength as well as his weakness...
...When the Burr creditors...
...barbarians, could ALTHOUGH -we associate Alexander wounds...
...Less than two years after landing befits persons as persons...
...behavior, then, lacking the experience in merely 4 decade...
...Washington, for his part, neither discreet Hamilton...
...343 South ing structure of the United States...
...Sitting in a read- charisma gave him the commanding strong national government and financial ing room in Seville, it suddenly occurred presence that Hamilton lacked...
...James Thomas Flexner and Robert ton's staff...
...official word of the settlement reached Jackson personally left undone, his pro- not a word, but a row of asterisks: "He Washington nine days after the news of teges, Sam Houston and James Polk, told me to go to...
...His height (over 6 feet) and flight...
...60 per 100 copies say two versions, not two novels- tion to this substantial documentary Make checks payable to: differ, though since The Middle Parts of value, that any novel (again, by a particiOffice of International Peace and Justice Fortune is what Manning wanted, it is a pant) better succeeds in transforming its United States Catholic Conference just tribute to his memory that we should materials into literature...
...THE URGE to quote myself proves ir- novel of the Great War, which was pub- If, however, The Middle Parts of Forresistible...
...liant in its overall form but marred by the servers suspected...
...This, in the context, is absurd...
...Noting that his argument is not Remini, two of the finest practicing biog- ington was at best an ambivalent one for based on a claim of the universality of the raphers, have long associations with their Hamilton, Flexner reasons...
...For if the foundation different periods of early American his- tions for achieving the aristocratic ideal of morality is the rational basis for moral tory, Hamilton was Jackson's senior by of his father were exceedingly limited...
...Using the legal profession as related to peace, war, trade, foreign af- ton he fashions is freighted with some a stepping stone to power and acquiring fairs and finance...
...As he himself puts it, "It is this made failures of men like his father...
...But the rational basis of moral ac- trayal in his boyhood that it left him the ors...
...For this, the rea1312 Massachusetts Ave...
...Bourne very quietly...
...Hamilton failed to sway Wash- Jackson embodied the aspirations and plot unraveled, Jackson escaped prosecuington but did convince Congress to fears of frontier society, especially its tion but his reputation was badly commove from Philadelphia to Princeton in voracious appetite for land and its hostil- promised...
...Ann H. Makletzoff, "his psychic wounds sowed disunion Patty Crowley and others...
...Not a great tacti- points out, Jackson was carrying out the gests, or seems to, to an American ear, cian, he achieved his monumental vic- implicit orders of the Monroe administra- what an English soldier should have said tory through the combination of luck and tion...
...and a "moneygrubbing" world that perience...
...The the frontier's needs for expansion and Finally ordered to New Orleans in ploy failed miserably, although this inci- defense, but the man most responsible 1813, he and his men were suddenly dent was later used as an argument for for fulfilling them by his defeat of the dismissed without provisions 500 miles basing the capital in a federally con- British at New Orleans, his forcing the from Nashville...
...398) linking Friendship House past and complete the Revolution...
...Spanish out of Florida, and his destruc- experience emerged a mythic figure, an Hamilton's desperate moves to recast tion of Indian power east of the Missis- Old Testament warrior, named by his the structure of government were too sippi...
...Hamilton's dreams of military glory tion must be universal, i.e...
...From no other which he nowhere really tackles (his few theory applied to ethics than in a kind of perspective would it look quite the same...
...In fact, in the crucial third Ambition,and authority chapter, the stand taken on the foundation of morality would seem to make THE TOUIIC HAMILTON: abandoned him, Flexner's Hamilton cargenuine moral knowledge impossible...
...What Privates We where Manning substituted...
...If Hamilton sought the aristocratic ideal, the refusal of the states to grant any real Other influences tend to be underplayed Jackson pursued the aristocratic image, power to Congress...
...This is the fundamental question, ment...
...Yet each, like Edward Gibbon Hamilton found in the aristocratic and says, "lacking universal knowledge on the steps of Ara Coeli, had epiphanies beleaguered Washington a surrogate in researching these studies...
...Such was Jackson's heroic stature in tions, are in fact inauthentic imitations Near total collapse, he invaded Florida the wake of the war that four years later, of the speech of the B.E.F...
...some sense with man's nature as man, if founding fathers...
...militant, the other compassionate and Dearborn, Rm...
...The tury was still a primary road for political an objective," Flexner observes., "he Spanish archives, however, gave him a advancement...
...Financial matters in- new myths in the process, such as seeing land as rapidly as possible, Jackson was creasingly concerned him...
...His first stability through credit, Hamilton urged to Remini that "Andrew Jackson, more opportunity to make his mark as a general Washington to refuse to disband the army than any other man of the nineteenth cen- came in 1803 when he agreed to support after the peace settlement unless Con- tury, had determined the course of Aaron Burr's western intrigues, thinking gress approved Hamilton's plan for es- American expansion...
...Actually, however, I think he is namely, of a liberated and liberal Ameriwhich Maguire's own position raises but really less interested in basic cognitional can Catholic intellectual...
...N. W. have it...
...it is rather early in life thrown upon their own re- in New York, Hamilton had his wish...
...That is an event of considerable Middle Parts of Fortune has never before proportions, for to me it is unimaginable Now Available been generally available...
...396) Pursuing the dream of a ing career as a scholar...
...I wish grounds for acting morally...
...While foundational experience-"No one" he subjects...
...19 January 1979:25 troops "Old Hickory," and hailed by the independence that the settlement sig- for some time thereafter, for them, the people of the frontier as their protector...
...That elegant...
...Out of this harrowing trolled territory...
...experience in doing research on Jackson head...
...The self-reliance that His service as Washington's aide con- author's tendency to uncover the Lee- Jackson was forced to cultivate produced vinced him that the chief cause for the ward Islands behind virtually every line also the need for enormous self-esteem...
...capably bound together in the nation's (presumably) less offensive but hardly The Creek War enlarged it, although it mind...
...In no important respect do the two reality of the Western Front, or can tell it Arms Export Policies-Ethical Choices versions of the novel-it is accurate to more faithfully, and moreover, in addi75 cents each...
...militia in the early nineteenth cen"When Hamilton passionately sought career up to the election of 1828...
...do-well father by a mother who later eighteenth century meant local commuCommonweal: 24 nity or state, Hamilton found it easy to Flexner's portrayal of Hamilton is bril- under much more control than most obadvocate a strong national government...
...of the Revolution and joined Washingmade explicit a few paragraphs later (p...
...436) generous, were usually calculated and $4.00 for yearly subscription...
...powers of the central government...
...The only Hamilton as a major source for the disun- elected to the House of Representatives plan that can preserve the currency," he ity that eventually drove North and South when he was twenty-nine and appointed wrote in 1778, "is one that would make it into civil war...
...In terms of acquisitions," Repremature...
...The prudent Jackson resigned after .. " (p...
...flagging fortunes of the revolution was of Hamilton's character that he etches...
...Jackson was not only a product of ington...
...20005 number of words, some of them in many nent among them is the conception of its instances, that in England and America protagonist, the mysterious Bourne: "He were unacceptable in print in 1930 and felt curiously isolated even from [his best Commonweal: 26...
...in the without orders after the Spanish governor when Henry Clay and others attempted to trenches, they do not sound inauthentic...
...be without...
...But while Unlike Flexner, Remini plays down present, including Thomas Merton, Hamilton's genius built national unity, the psychological legacy of Jackson's Catherine de Hueck Doherty, Paul impoverished youth...
...In 1802 Jackson was moved like a missile that pulls all air radical new insight into the man he has elected major general of the Tennessee currents into patterns that will serve its scrutinized for so much of his outstand- militia...
...In all my career as a biog- out in 1781 (Hamilton had apparently need not be universal to be considered rapher," he reflects, "I had never come been long looking for a pretext) and the genuinely and normatively human...
...Even though the war had already nental vision depended very much on a There is one anomalous place in Her ended before the battle of New Orleans, Jackson to make it a reality...
...xii) that Burr was leading an undeclared war tablishing credit and meeting the nation's Jackson came of age on the Tennessee against the Spanish as an agent for the financial obligations to army and civilian frontier...
...Born into poverty and very friend...
...What he found made during the war nor afterwards, was parquestion is not implicit in all experience but is rather a particular, contingent him feel as though he "had stepped under ticularly close to Hamilton...
...Remini shows how much Jefferson administration...
...judgments are a function of all the factors Lapses like these undermine the au- consciousness-raising, at which he is that have shaped our individual lives, thor's aim to provide an epistemology of very good...
...across documents so revealing...
...E. room...
...The relationship with Wash75...
...to the Senate two years later in 1798, to the immediate interest of the monied Robert Remini also had an Ara Coeli only to discover that he was in over his men to cooperate with the government...
...Hamilton's remedy or ignored...
...Obvi- chological analysis of Hamilton's ear- He successfully fought for the honor of liest years convinced him that Hamilton storming a British redoubt at Yorktown ously, a rule of conduct need not be universally followed to be a valid moral had experienced such squalor and be- but his reckless bravery brought no honrule...
...sir.' replied Jackson's victory...
...Martin's had been thinking senior NCO's in the company] really St...
...Feeling that a new biography of one session and returned to Tennessee to that a moderate national debt owed to the Jackson was long overdue, Remini in- sit effectively as a' backwoods judge...
...He is particularly good at working hard to be regarded a gentlewas to devise a federal system that gave demythologizing Hamilton...
...right people would be a blessing...
...266) Three years later he was sure in Spain...
...The kind of confusion at work here is young American nation...
...Like Hamilton, he was fiercely Congress broad sovereignty in matters split-personality, self-destructive Hamil- ambitious...
...Both fought in the Re- Already at twelve, he realized that miliquestion, our barbarian friend has no volution.'Both had fateful (in Hamilton's tary glory was one possibility...
...When that movement toward mini concludes, "it is not too farfetched COMMUNITY a strong federalism materialized in 1786, to say that the physical shape of the MAGAZINE Hamilton re-emerged to play a key role in United States today looks pretty much Special Anniversary Issue shaping the new nation...
...Flexner set father, he also fought to remain decould make such a claim" (which, by the way, is true only if the experience in out to untap the inner feelings of the tached...
...bound up in "most psychologically troubled of the were always stillborn...
...adequately the structure of moral judg- from a particular perspective-that...
...complicated, Mark Taylor Lawrence), but its progenitor, The Mid- and very funny sentence reads identically dle Parts of Fortune, Manning's original in both versions...
...invited the British to land in reaction to censure the general for his unauthorized Sometimes, indeed, the opposite is the Jackson's threats...
...Ironically one of the firmest sup- sixty years ago...
...paragraphs on normative relativism notwithstanding...
...Some ing: "What these luxurious creatures [the Frederic Manning editor at St...
...what befits certain persons-those, namely, who have had a certain (cultur- sources, Hamilton and Jackson not only Despite fragile health, he captained an survived but changed the course of the artillery company in the early campaigns ally conditioned) experience of persons...
...It is rather one experience R. Emmett Curran madman who sought from the world an alongside others and one which a whole ever-denied release from inner class of humans, viz...
...A psy- former aide went back to leading troops...
...The two fell affair)-he goes on to say: "Something Niagara...
...The experience [of the value of persons] that ANDREW JACKSON AND THE COURSE OF emigration to New York, according to sets us apart from beast and barbarian" AMERICAN EMPIRE, 1767-1821 Flexner, was the start of a lifelong quest (italics mine)., In other words, the Robert V. Remini for a new identity, but there were eventu"foundational experience" is not someHarper & Row, $15 [502 pp.] ally two Hamiltons: one visionary, logithing implicit in all descriptively human cal, controlled, the other a "semiexperience...
Vol. 106 • January 1979 • No. 1
