Certainly Jackson's leadership at this time deserves high praise, combining clear warning that he would use force if necessary, but also giving South Carolina a way to back off while preserving some semblance of dignity.
While Meacham's praise for Jackson is well founded, it led me to reflect on what would have happened if someone other than Jackson had been president at that crucial time. In other words was this a meeting of the man and the moment such as Lincoln and the Civil War where it appears that no one else could have done what Lincoln did.
Historical speculation of this kind is both fascinating and risky. Suppose, for example, Jackson had died either between 1824 (the corrupt bargain election) and 1828 or some time during his first term as president. This was certainly a possibility as Jackson was in his 60's and not in good health.
It seems reasonable to conclude that in either case the presidency would have most likely been occupied by John Quincy Adams (right) and/or Henry Clay.
It would be hard to argue that either man would have been less than a Unionist than Jackson and both had qualities that Jackson lacked. The issue in 1832-33 was the tariff, but there already those in South Carolina who felt that the real underlying issue was slavery. As Meacham points out Jackson was a whole lot less interested in enforcing the constitution when it came to the right of abolitionists to send material through the mail to South Carolina. Adams, on the other hand, was opposed to slavery and his tenacity and skill in fighting the gag rule in the House of Representatives suggests that at the very least his position on the Union would have been more consistent and contributed to the anti-slavery cause.
No less committed to the Union than Adams or Jackson, Clay was a major force in the compromise that resolved the 1832-33 crisis as well as in the compromises of 1820 and 1850. Although a slaveholder, Clay was opposed to the war with Mexico that produced the territories that became the hot button issue of slavery expansion. Robert Remini has speculated that had Clay been president instead of Polk that the war would not have happened and the slavery issue might not have escalated so dramatically. He mentions other historians who believe that had Clay won what was a very close election that there would not have been a Civil War.
All of this is, of course, just speculation and is not to denigrate Jackson's role in resolving the secession crisis over the tariff. However it is still interesting to note that in Adams who was a president and Clay who could have been president there were to other leaders just as committed to the Union as Andrew Jackson. One more post to come on this book as I can't leave off without mentioning the bank war.
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