Andrew Jackson and His Tennessee Lieutenants: A Study in Political Culture

by Lorman Ratner • 1997

Andrew Jackson and those Tennesseans who, along with him, were a major force in Tennessee and American political life can best be understood by examining the political culture they all shared. The ten men studied here were the children or grandchildren of immigrants from either the Scottish lowlands or the north of Ireland. All experienced the rise from the yeoman/artisan class to that of landed gentry, and all displayed in their adult lives the influence of that move from one socioeconomic class to another. This view of Jackson and his closest friends suggests a view of these men's motives; their values, attitudes, and beliefs were somewhat different than historians have pictured for us. These Jacksonians sought to preserve the world of their fathers while changing their place in the world. They looked back but moved ahead; they were self-interested but tempered always by a selfless ideal.