I just finished "American Lion", a Jon Meacham biography of Andrew Jackson. Jackson is a complex figure - quite compelling in some ways (the nullification crisis), and odious in others (The Trail of Tears, his views on slavery). However, I think the way Meacham sums him up is worth pondering:

"The Triumph of his life is that he held together a country whose experiment in liberty ultimately extended its protections and promises to all - belatedly, it is true, but by saving the Union, Jackson kept the possibility of progress alive, a possibility that would have died had secession and separation carried the day"

So I'm willing to take Jackson in his historical context - his triumphs and his failings - and understand that things could have gone a lot worse with a man like Calhoun at the helm. It's a good read, and well worth your time if you are interested in that period (the 1830s for the most part) of American history.

One other thing that I really noticed while reading this: death was a much more common experience for people of that era. We now think of the death of someone in their 20s or 30s as very unusual (at least in the developed world). In the America of the 1830s, it was very, very different.

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