An indispensable introduction to the
subject is Charles G. Sellers, "Andrew Jack-
son versus the Historians," Mississippi Valley
Historical Review, XLIV ( March 1958), 615-
634. A helpful guide in the selection and
organization of the extensive literature is
the bibliographical essay in Glyndon Van Deusen
, The Jacksonian Era, 1828-1848 ( New
York, 1959), 267-283.

The various works from which the selec-
tions in this volume have been taken should
be read in full. The reader who consults the
published sources will not only familiarize
himself with the writings of Jackson and
his contemporaries, but will obtain a better
perspective from which to judge the varied
interpretations. The correspondence, diaries,
and memoirs of several of the leading par-
ticipants will be found listed in Van Deusen,
page 269. New editions of the works of
John Q. Adams, Calhoun, Clay, and Madison
are now being published and will eventually
supplant the older collections of these men
cited by Van Deusen. Two convenient and
worthwhile source collections not cited are
Joseph L. Blau (ed.), Social Theories of
Jacksonian Democracy ( New York, 1954), and
Harold C. Syrett (ed.), Andrew Jackson: His
Contributions to the American Tradition
( Indianapolis, 1953). Both contain helpful
introductions.

Lest the reader mistakenly assume, from
the organization of this volume, that the
five interpretive schools cited here constitute
the entire literature of the subject, or that all
writers within a particular school agree com-
pletely with one another, he should consult
additional representatives of each school.
William G. Sumner, Andrew Jackson As A
Public Man: What He Was, What Chances
He Had, and What He Did With Them
( Boston, 1882), spoke for the patrician school
as did Parton, included in this pamphlet,
and Herman E. Von Holst, The Constitu-
tional and Political History of the United
States, 8 vols. ( Chicago, 1876- 1892). Yet each
differed in his appraisal of Old Hickory and
his followers. M. Ostrogorski two volumes
entitled Democracy and the Organization of
Political Parties ( New York, 1902) should
be added to the list. Yet, in several respects,
he differs from each of the others.

No student of Jackson can ignore Fred-
erick J. Turner. His interpretation, em-
bodied in The Frontier in American History
( New York, 1920, 1962), and The United
States, 1830-1850: The Nation and Its
Sections ( New York, 1935), influenced all
later writers of the Democratic agrarian
school. Even such transitional figures as
Woodrow Wilson, A History of the American
People, 5 vols. ( New York, 1902), and William MacDonald
, Jacksonian Democracy,
1829-1837 ( New York, 1906), whose interpre-
tations were in part influenced by the patri-
cian school, acknowledged their debt to
Turner by emphasizing the influence of the
West in the democratic upheaval they be-
lieved an integral part of the movement.
Both Vernon Parrington, included in this
pamphlet, and Charles and Mary Beard,
The Rise of American Civilization, 2 vols.
( New York, 1927), owed a similar debt,
although their accounts noted the signifi-
cance of classes as well as sections in the
movement. And thanks, at least in part, to
Turner, Carl R. Fish, The Civil Service and
the Patronage ( Cambridge, Mass., 1904),
would interpret the removal policies of the
Jacksonians in a completely different manner
than did Parton and Von Holst. Later
biographers reflect the same influence. Bas-
sett emphasized Jackson's "masterly leader-
ship of the democratic movement," and
Marquis James, The Life of Andrew Jackson,
2 vols. ( Indianapolis, 1933, 1937), painted a
warm and highly sympathetic portrait of Old
Hickory as soldier, patriot, and democrat.
The height of pro-Jackson partisanship was
reached with the publication of Claude G.Bowers

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