Jackson, Andrew

Jackson, Andrew (b. Waxhaw, S.C., 15 Mar. 1767; d. near Nashville, Tenn., 8 June 1845), president of the United States, 1829–1837. During his two terms, President Andrew Jackson made six appointments to the high court, more than any other president except George Washington, William Howard Taft, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Though Jackson took account of such traditional criteria as geography and public service, he calculated the political gain to be realized through his selections. In nominating John McLean of Ohio, a presidential aspirant popular in the West, Jackson extracted from him a promise not to seek the presidency in return for a place on the Court. Jackson thereby shelved a potential rival. Politics also figured in Jackson's other Court nominations. In 1830 he selected Henry Baldwin, a Pennsylvania congressman who had helped deliver that state to Jackson in 1828. James M. Wayne (1835), Philip P. Barbour (1836), and John Catron (1837) had also rendered valuable political service to the president. Jackson's most controversial nominee, however, was Roger B. Taney of Maryland. Taney as secretary of the treasury had played a crucial role in Jackson's attack on the Second Bank of the United States. Senate Whigs and disaffected Democrats thwarted Taney's first nomination in 1835. Jackson refused to make another appointment, however, and when Chief Justice John Marshall died on 6 July 1835, the president had not one but two positions to fill. In December he nominated Philip P. Barbour, a strong states' rights Democrat from Virginia, to replace Gabriel Duvall and Taney to fill Marshall's post. The Senate agreed to the selections only after three months of wrangling.

Jackson's appointees dominated American constitutional development down to the Civil War, and some historians even argue that they, especially Taney in Dred Scott (1857), contributed to the war's coming. Yet like most of the justices that he appointed, Jackson's view of the Court and constitutional law blended states' rights and nationalism. He was pragmatic though assertive; he pushed his criticism of the Court when it was effective and backed off when it was not. He was also determined to use his office to shape the nation's destiny without being encumbered by the other branches. Jackson used the appointment process to impress his political views on the Court but also claimed that as the tribune of the people he was obliged to interpret the Constitution as he understood it. In his veto of the act rechartering the Second Bank of the United States in 1832, Jackson argued for strict construction of the Constitution and asserted a departmental theory of constitutional interpretation. He held that each of the branches of government had the right and duty to interpret the Constitution independently of the other branches. No previous president, not even Thomas Jefferson, had ever gone so far in claiming that the Court's opinions could be ignored.

Yet Jackson's hostility to the Court had limits. He allegedly remarked, following the Supreme Court's decision in Worcester v. Georgia (1832), that “ John Marshall had made his decision, now let him enforce it” (see Cherokee Cases). Jackson did not make that statement (although he did nothing to stop Georgia from defying the Court's decision) and he never asserted an inherent prerogative to disregard judicial decisions. He merely wanted equality among the branches of government in matters of constitutional interpretation.

See also Selection of Justices; Judicial Power and Jurisdiction.

Bibliography

Henry J. Abraham , Justices and Presidents: A Political History of Appointments to the Supreme Court, 2d ed. (1985).

Kermit L. Hall