This week on q a, Mark Cheathem on his biography of Andrew Jackson. He talks about the comparisons made between president jackson and President Trump. Brian Mark Cheathem, author of Andrew Jackson, southerner, and a lot of other books about Andrew Jackson and the south, when you see this picture on the screen, what comes to mind . Mark all the comparisons between trump and jackson and how wrong they are, frankly. I dont see a lot of similarities in terms of depth between donald trump and Andrew Jackson. Brian really . Not a mark really. Brian not a thing . Mark im not saying there arent some similarities. They both have great hair, of course. But i think a lot of the comparisons try to push trump into a box with jackson and its not a viable comparison, in my opinion. Brian thats a picture of i mean, a painting in the oval office that he put up. Why do you think he did that . Mark steve bannon convinced him to do it, i think. I dont think trump had any clue as to who jackson was, probably, before he became president. Or maybe he had some clue. I was at the hermitage recently when trump was there, and someone afterwards said that trump studied jackson and knew all about him before he became president , modeled his campaign after jackson. And i just had to shake my head. I just dont think trump really has a good idea of who jackson is. Brian when did you first get interested in Andrew Jackson and why . Mark i was an undergraduate at Cumberland University and i had a professor, monty pope, who was one of the first trained docents at the hermitage. And one day he pulled me aside and said, mark, you really need to go work at the hermitage. He didnt tell me you had to dress in period costume, which when youre 21yearsold isnt the coolest thing in the world. But he convinced me to go work at the hermitage in between my junior and senior years and thats where i became interested in jackson. And from there, went through my graduate studies and up until today. Brian what is the hermitage . Mark the hermitage is Andrew Jacksons home near nashville. Its about 15 minutes east of nashville. Its a plantation home, like you would expect. Its actually not as big as a lot of people think it will be when they first come to it. But it was where jackson lived for most of his adult life, prepresident ial and postpresident ial years. Brian when did you work there and what did you do . Mark i worked there in the summer of 95. I was a docent, so i gave tours to guests who visited the hermitage and also those who visited tulip grove, which is a home on the plantation property that belonged to Andrew Jackson donaldson, who was one of Andrew Jacksons nephews. Brian so where is cumberland . How big is it . And what do you do there now . Mark Cumberland University is located in lebanon, tennessee, which is about 30 miles east of nashville. Lebanon is the home of Cracker Barrel. Thats where the first Cracker Barrel was founded. But cumberland has been around since 1842, were celebrating our 175th year. Its a university of about 2,000 students, a small liberal arts college. And ive been a professor there since 2008. Brian here is some video of donald trump in march of this year, talking about Andrew Jackson. [begin video clip] pres. Trump to clean out the bureaucracy, jackson removed 10 of the federal workforce. He launched a campaign to sweep out government corruption totally. He didnt want government corruption. He expanded benefits for veterans. He battled the centralized financial power that bought influence at our citizens expense. He imposed tariffs on Foreign Countries to protect american workers. That sounds very familiar. [end video clip] brian whats your reaction . Mark i think trump sees a comparison between himself and jackson in terms of draining the swamp. Jackson came into office and was determined to root out corruption, in terms of government workers who he thought were incompetent, who were not loyal to him. So theres some similarity between trump and jackson there. I think trump also sees himself in the same vein of jackson in terms of fighting the powers that be. You know, the great Financial Institutions and those types of things. And i think thats where one of those comparisons falls apart. Jackson was someone who had to work his way up to become wealthy. He was someone who had to fight hard to make it to the presidency. And i think trump, as most people know, had a lot of things handed to him from his father. Trump had a pretty easy life and so comparing himself to jackson in those regards is a false comparison. Brian lets do one more on video, to hear more of what President Trump had to say about jackson. [begin video clip] trump it was during the revolution that jackson first confronted and defied an arrogant elite. Does that sound familiar to you . [laughter] trump i wonder why they keep talking about trump and jackson, jackson and trump. Oh, i know the feeling, andrew. [laughter] [end video clip] brian how do they compare . Mark i think that they both came in on a populist wave. I think they both took advantage of a voting population that wanted change. In jacksons case, a lot of people think of him as someone who spurred democracy, but he really took advantage of it. A lot of the states had loosened suffrage restrictions by taking away property requirements, by allowing more white men to vote, and jackson rode that wave into the white house. So hes not the one causing the change, but hes benefitting from it. So in that sense, he benefitted from populism. I think trump benefits or benefitted from anger at the government, anger at big government, anger at the status quo, anger at you know, lots of different things. I dont necessarily see that with jackson, and thats one of the gaps in historiography. I think that the study of the jacksonian period is, what was it that motivated voters to vote for jackson . Was it they saw him as a democratic hero . Was it he was a military hero . Were they tired of the John Quincy Adams administration . Was it the campaigning innovations that were put together by Martin Van Buren and the rest of the jacksonian democrats . I think thats one of the things we need to understand to be able to make a better comparison between trump and jackson in terms of their first winning president ial campaigns. Brian when was he president and how old was he at that time . Mark Andrew Jackson was elected in 1828. He took office, of course, in march of 1829. At that point he was just about to turn 72 sorry, 62yearsold. So he was relatively older man. He had a long military career. A shorter political career. He was someone who wanted to retire in the early 1820s, live out his life as a farmer and as a husband and as a father, and was coaxed into politics by some of his friends in tennessee and wound up becoming president. Brian whats the rachel controversy . Mark its a long story. When jackson came to tennessee to nashville in 1788, he was 21yearsold. Nashville was on the edge of the western frontier at that point. And jackson started to rent a room from a woman by the last name of donelson. She was the widow of one of the cofounders of nashville. Her daughter, Rachel Donelson robards, was living in the area as well, and andrew and young rachel apparently struck up a friendship. Now, whats interesting is that rachel was married. So, she and andrew strike up this friendship of some sort. Her husband, Lewis Robards, is not happy as you can imagine. There are lots of accounts of him being jealous and perhaps of even being abusive toward rachel. In any case, andrew and rachel continue their friendship. Lewis leaves town, abandons her, and andrew and rachel go down to spanish natchez on the mississippi river. They come back, they say that theyve been married. And a few years later they find out that Lewis Robards has just now filed for divorce. So andrew and rachel had actually living in adultery. And rachel was actually a bigamist legally, because she was still married to lewis and saying she was married to jackson. So the divorce does go through and andrew and rachel do legally marry in early 1794. And at the time its not that big of a deal outside of probably Lewis Robards and a couple of other people. But looking ahead 30 years, it is a big deal when it comes to the president ial election of 1828. Brian what happened . How did it have an impact on 1828 . Mark in 1828, henry clay who was secretary of state at the time, and John Quincy Adams who was president , used the jackson marriage as one of the angles to try to derail jacksons president ial campaign against adams. They besmirch rachels character and her honor by insinuating that she was a bigamist, that she was an adulterer, that she was a whore. If i can use that kind of language. And its something that enrages jackson and his friends have to constantly tell him, just let it go. Its not that important. You know, focus on the big prize of the presidency. There are times when jackson is ready to fight duels. Hes ready to go back to his youth when he was a little bit more violent and to do something with clay or with others, but his friends convince him, let it go, its not that important. Brian in your research, how much did John Quincy Adams, who has an image that doesnt sound like hed be throwing around epithets, and henry clay, who ran for president how many times . Mark oh gosh. Brian three times . Three, four times . Mark yes. Brian but their image in history is quite prominent. What did you find at the core of that . Were those two men actually responsible for this controversy about rachel . Mark well, thats what jackson believes. In fact, theres one newspaper editor in cincinnati, ohio, by the name of charles senior hammond who is actually the one who is doing most of the mudslinging in that regard. He is one of those who spreads rumors about jacksons mother being a prostitute, about jackson being the offspring of jacksons mother elizabeth and an African American slave. So, hammond seems to be really the central person who is involved in the mudslinging. But clay and adams dont do a whole lot to stop it. And it is kind of interesting, even though theyre not actively propagating these ideas, they had the power to stop them and they dont. Brian how big did Andrew Jackson win in 1828 . Mark he won substantially. He wins all the regions of the country except for new england. I dont remember the exact numbers in terms of electoral vote count, but it was considered a landslide. He wins a fairly large majority for the time, and what you have to remember is that between 24 and 28 theres nearly a doubling of the number of voters in the United States. And so for jackson to win after having lost in 24, and to win big, solidifies within himself and within his coalition this idea that he is the choice of the people. He is the one that the people have given a mandate to effect change in the United States. Brian where do you put yourself and the writers of jackson currently alive . I mean, whats the difference between say im going to show a clip in a moment of Robert Remini who you quote almost on every page. But where do you put yourself . Whats your philosophy of Andrew Jackson, compared to some of the others that are still writing about him . Mark i think im fairly evenhanded on jackson. One of the criticisms of remini was that he was too soft on jackson. That the more he studied jackson, and remini studied jackson for over 50 years that the more he studied jackson, the more he liked him and so he wasnt as critical of him. He excused a lot of the things that jackson did. I think im fairly evenhanded. I think im definitely critical of jackson, which we have a right to be. Even living in the 21st century, we have a right to be critical of the stances that he took on certain issues during his lifetime. But at the same time, i think we have to be fair and understand that the times he lived in are different from the times we live in. And one of the things i tell my students is, you should always take a twopronged approach to history. You should look at the people in their times, understand them within the context of their times. And in jacksons case, that meant that white supremacy, that racism, that his attitude toward native americans, all those things were really part and parcel of the american character at the time. So we look at people in their times, but we also have to look at them from our perspective. And we can be critical of them. So when we look back at jacksons racism, when we look back at his treatment of native americans, we should be critical of him just as people during his lifetime were critical of him. Brian Robert Remini has passed, but he was his last job was historian of the house of representatives and he wrote a number of books on Andrew Jackson, including a book on henry clay. But here he is talking about this back in 2001, about Andrew Jackson. [begin video clip] Robert ReminiAndrew Jackson was once considered one of the great heroes in american history. And as a matter of fact, a lot of president s still regard him as one of the most important. And historians as well, including me, and that his life needs to be known. But the one thing that has diminished him has been the removal of the indians, and how it was done, and the awful suffering that resulted from it. [end video clip] brian when was he a great hero and do you agree with professor remini . Mark i think jackson was a great hero at a number of points in his life. Certainly during the war of 1812, at the battle of new orleans in december of 1814, january of 1815. He was able to defeat the greatest army in the western world, the british. And he did so facing overwhelming odds. So certainly he was a hero then. I think as president we could consider him a hero. In 1832, 1833, he stood up to South Carolina and the Nullification Movement there, and kept the union together. Brian what does that mean, nullification . Mark nullification was the idea that a state if they considered at federal law unconstitutional, could nullify or void that law and thus protect the people of that particular state. Brian why did they South Carolina want to nullify a law . Mark congress had passed two tariffs, the tariff of 1828 and the tariff of 1832. And south carolinians thought that those tariffs were unconstitutional because they adversely affected southerners as compared to northerners. Because southerners, from their perspective, southerners were going to pay more for imported goods, which is what a tariff is, a tax on imported goods. That southerners would pay more on in terms of tariffs, than northerners. But there was also this other interesting facet to that, that south carolinians and other southerners were afraid that congress would use the revenue generated by tariffs to emancipate slaves. To fund either compensated emancipation or colonization, which is sending enslaved African Americans back to africa. So there was a lot going on with nullification, but the tariff was really sort of the focal point. And so, jackson when South Carolina passed a nullification ordinance saying that these two tariffs are unconstitutional jackson stepped in and issued his own proclamation that said that this is treason and we cannot allow this, because it will destroy the union. And he threatened to send the military into South Carolina to keep the union together. Brian i want to go back to that photograph in the oval office of President Trump. Lets just say that he calls you up and says, come to the oval office. [laughter] brian and hes sitting there looking at that portrait of Andrew Jackson, and he says, what do you think of this comparison, and what would you do if you were president of the United States and you know me and you know Andrew Jackson. Would you leave that up there on the wall of the oval office . Mark i would tell him to take it down, because i dont think he represents the positive values that jackson represented. He certainly represents some of the negative values that jackson represented, but i think i would tell President Trump that if he wants to be like Andrew Jackson, he has to put nation in front of his own personhood. He has to put nation in front of his own family, has to put nation in front of his own interest. Because thats what jackson did for most of his presidency. Brian well lets talk about hermitage. How did he get the money to build a hermitage . Mark a number of different ways. Jackson was a land speculator in middle tennessee. So he would buy and sell land, basically flip it and make a profit from that. He was a lawyer, practiced law for a number of years before he started his military career. He owned enslaved people, so he bought and sold African Americans and a lot of his wealth was generated from the fact that he had a large number of enslaved people. When he became preside