during the Jacksonian era, which showed that the rich grew
richer and the poor, poorer. Robert Remini (1984), on the other
hand, argued that Jackson adhered to republican ideals: He
was truly a “man of the people.” Daniel Walker Howe (2009)
disagreed vehemently. The fundamental impulse behind
Jacksonian democracy, Howe insisted, was “the extension of
white supremacy across the North American continent,” espe-
cially as reflected in Jackson’s removal of the Indians. Whatever
the reality, however, many different types of people believed
that Jackson represented them. Note that at the public recep-
tion, some wore formal attire and others, work clothes. But all
got cheese.I
n 1837, his last year as president, Jackson distributed hunks
of a 1,400-pound cheese, a gift from New York farmers. They
thought it the best present the “farming class” could give to
someone who so forcefully had represented “their interest.” In
1855 historian George Bancroft maintained that Jackson him-
self embodied America, for he “shared and possessed all the
creative ideas of his country and his time.” ( This sort of non-
sense gives nineteenth-century historians a bad name.) By the
turn of the twentieth century, progressive historians following
Frederick Jackson Turner regarded Jackson as an expression of
the democratic ethos of the western frontier. In 1945 Arthur M.
Schlesinger Jr.—son of a progressive historian—shifted from a
regional interpretation to one based on class: Jackson fought
for farmers and workers against big business. Richard
Hofstadter (1948) thought otherwise. Jackson had been no
friend of the “common man,” Hofstadter wrote, for he had con-
sistently promoted the interests of well-to-do farmers and
local entrepreneurs. This point received some confirmation
from Edward Pessen’s (1969) study of wealth accumulation
DEBATING THE PAST
For Whom Did Jackson Fight?
261Source: George Bancroft, Literary and Historical Miscellanies(1855); Arthur M.
Schlesinger, Jr., Age of Jackson(1945); Richard Hofstadter, The American
Political Tradition, (1948); Edward Pessen, Jacksonian America(1969); Lee
Benson,The Concept of Jacksonian Democracy(1961); Robert Remini, Andrew
Jackson and the Course of American Democracy(1984); Daniel Walker Howe,
What Hath God Wrought(2009).