User:Jengod/Rhea letter

The "Rhea letter" was an early 19th-century political controversy of the United States stemming from the annexation of Florida. The controversy involves four (or rather three) key documents:

• the "Jackson January letter" sent by U.S. Army general Andrew Jackson to President James Monroe in January 1818 with its later-day annotation that the "Rhea letter" had been burned
• the fictitious "Rhea letter" purportedly sent to Andrew Jackson by John Rhea at the behest of James Monroe in February 1818
• the second, vaguely threatening, Rhea letter sent to former U.S. president James Monroe on his deathbed in June 1831 by John Rhea at the behest of Andrew Jackson
• the "Denunciation of the Insinuations of John Rhea" document written by James Monroe as the last document he ever signed

This chain of evidence relates to Andrew Jackson's after-the-fact rationalization and defense of his unauthorized invasion of Florida in 1818, a campaign that now goes by the name First Seminole War. This conspiracy and the extended controversy over Jackson's 1818 Florida campaign played out against the background of the ethnic cleansing of the southeastern United States, the politics of the 1824, 1828, and 1832 U.S. presidential campaigns, and the three-way Jackson–William H. Crawford–John C. Calhoun hate triangle ("hate, hate, hate...double hate...loathe entirely!").

Since the late 19th century historians have broadly agreed that Andrew Jackson lied that he had been secretly granted secret special permission by James Monroe to invade Florida, when in fact he had been only CC'd on orders granting permission to pacify Seminoles as need but specifically prohibiting engagement with the Spanish forts in Florida, that he then conspired to create false evidence that such an order had been given. Both John Quincy Adams and historian Richard Stenberg described Jackson's "Rhea letter" scheme as "depraved." The first "Rhea letter" can fairly be put in scare quotes, as it has been termed variously, a hoax,[stenberg] a brazen lie, and "a complete fabrication"[howe] that "undoubtedly...did not exist." The current editor of The Papers of Andrew Jackson stated in 2010 that "the judgment of most historians" on the "Rhea letter" question is that "not only did [it] not exist, but could not have existed."

First Seminole War

"was merely the last and most successful" Porter 1971 p 210

"A United States general had demanded of an Indian chief the right to go slave-hunting on Spanish territory and had been refused." Porter 1971 p 224

Importance of military order - execution of militiamen?

Horny for CUBA TOO!! Negro Fort JACKSON TO SPANISH GOVERNOR: ""Negroes who have fled from their masters, citizens of the United States have raised the tomahawk, and in the char- acter of savage warfare have spared neither age nor sex. Helpless women have been massacred, and the cradle crim- soned with blood." By 1818 Jackson had been panting for Florida for a long time. In 1813 he wrote "I am now at the head of 2070 Volunteers the choicest of our citizens, and who go at the call of their country to execute the will of the Government; who have no constitutional scruples; and if the Government orders, will rejoice at the opportunity of placing the American Eagle on the ramparts of Mobile, Pensacola, and Fort St. Augustine." Monroe reassured Jackson in 1816 that the transfer of Florida from Spain to the United States was inevitable so calm down

Wright, J. Leitch (1968). "A Note on the First Seminole War as Seen by the Indians, Negroes, and Their British Advisers". The Journal of Southern History. 34 (4): 565–575. doi:10.2307/2204387. ISSN 0022-4642.

migration to florida

Negroes and

Maroons and fugitives

War path

2nd Spanish period

"Neither the evidence nor anyone's behavior in the months that followed indicates that Jackson ever received a direct answer from Monroe or an indirect response from Monroe through John Rhea that would have altered the instructions in the December 16 orders."[Heidler Heidler 2010 107]

Jackson's blitzkrieg into what is now know as the Panhandle was simultaneously criminal, popular with the electorate, and effective "diplomatically." The white male voters that elected the better part of the legislature wanted more Indian land dispossession so that the General Land Office would sell them cotton plantation real estate for cheap. And the U.S. government had been moseying toward Florida for quite some time; and Jackson's careening around declaring all your base are belong to us was just annoying enough that the Spanish finally shrugged and agreed to sell the land for $5 million; codified as the Adams Onis Treaty of 1819.

But Jackson's actions, while supported by the executive branch - President Monroe and Sec State Adams, were clearly both illegal and insubordinate. In the words of historians Jeanne T. and David S. Heidler, Jackson's capture of Pensacola and Spanish forts were "not only beyond the scope of Jackson's orders but explicitly prohibited by them. Quite obviously Jackson had made war on a foreign power without congressional approval." Moreover, they were setting him to be an even bigger political star than he already was after the Battle of New Orleans, which surely troubled U.S. Senators who had ambitions to be the first post-Founding Father president in the Whire House after Monroe left office. So, for reasons both civic-minded and selfish, in 1819 a Congressional investigation was opened in Jackson's homicidal Florida shenanigans.

Jackson's first-phase defense of the invasion was "ambiguity." He claimed during the 1818–19 something like "fog of war" -- there were maybe sorta Indian threats on the border, which he was compelled to address, and then since he was already there and maybe "national security" was at stake or something, the administration's approbation of self-defense could obviously be extended to a little light treason and freelance imperialism etc. Jackson was totally unbothered by evidence to the contrary, and had enough insane fury ("temper") and popularity to survive the criticism.

Stenberg concludes that Jackson's invasion of Florida was not just self-authorized and premeditated but that he intended to force the annexation of Florida on the Monroe administration. Per Stenberg, Jackson says as much in letters of June 1818 to James Monroe and August 1818 to Calhoun. Part of Jackson's motive was that he had unfinished business with Red Stick survivors of the Creek War. Many Red Stick warriors and their families had been killed in the battles at Tallusahatchee and Tohopeka, but a number of Red Stick refugees settled just beyond the southern border of Alabama in the Florida lands. Eventually the increasing population of white settlers in the area and the combined population of Creek refugees, fugitive slaves called "maroons," and Seminoles across the border were tangling with each other, raiding cattle and retaliating in turn. Then came one of those crisis cascades on which world history is built:

• Monroe had a brand new Secretary of War named John C Calhoun who was brand-new to the job and through no fault of his own had spotty communication with his southern commander, Pendleton Gaines
• Jackson was backup commander, so he always got CC'd on Pendleton's orders
• Everyone thought the important crisis was on Amelia Island, a Spanish controlled island in the Atlantic? gulf? near the border between Georgia and Florida (??) that was an absolute haven for pirates and slave smugglers[Heidler cite] (Of 4,000 slaves illegally imported from overseas to the U.S. in the 1810s, TK% were captured by the U.S. Navy in the vicinity of Amelia Island.) So they send Gaines to Amelia Island
• Just before he's been sent to Amelia Island, however, Gaines had invited a group of Indians to treat with him at Fort Scott. The Indians said no thank you we are not coming. Gaines burned their village at Fowltown.
• While Gaines is at Amelia Island, the Indians perpetrate what's known as the Scott massacre; slaughter a boatload of U.S. soldiers and their families who were in a boat on the Apachiola River.
• So. Gaines is out of radio contact, so to speak, across the peninsula, . Jackson has been absolutely panting for Florida anyway, and he has been CC'd on orders that tell Gaines you can go hunt Indians in Florida just do not mess with them if they take refuge in Spanish forts, just do not mess with the Spanish bc we don't want to deal with it.
• So, without getting to deep into the letters timeline , suffice it to say that Jackson writes Monroe saying the bar against attacking Spanish forts is dumb, and he strongly advises invading Florida and sticking it to the Seminoles ASAP, or the Spanish and the British and the Indians are going to conspire to win in some sort of way Jackson doesn't articulate bc he really is just bloodlusting for conquest. And then we get to the bizarre-ass line about send me a message through Rhea, just say the word and I'll release the hounds and I'll kill everybody in the way and get us Florida

Arriving with poorly provisioned troops and no logistics plan to speak of was a pattern for Jackson; he had very much the same problem during the War of 1812. He was a fastest-with-the-mostest commander who relied on "foraging" when he got wherever he wanted to be, and if foraging did not yield enough food and shelter for the troops, well that was a problem to be offloaded to someone else. In this case Fort Scott and the Navy barely filled the gap, but the Fort St Marks was chosen as a suitable provisioning drive-thru destination with the unfortunate situation that it was Spanish being easily resolved by conquest. it was at Fort St Marks that Jackson executed Hillis Hadjo, TK, Armbrister and Arbuthnot, a symbolic lineup of his enemies in the war of 1812, Red Stick Creeks and British nationals.

Now to another crossing-letters drama. The cabinet decided to both stall and to try to have it both ways. The party line was going to be that Jackson did a great job and should get a cookie, but also he did it all by himself and would have to give back Pensacola and St. Marks to the Spanish because they weren't his toys to take. As this decision was being made:

Monroe and key cabinet members

• Monroe gentle parented Jackson in a letter saying he was not a good listener and explained how had invaded another kid's space and they had talked about how that's not OK and "Jackson would have to take responsibility for exceeding those orders. Attacking a foreign post was an act of war. Only Congress could authorize war and was likely to take o ense at Jackson's presumption. To keep Congress from taking action as well as to mollify Great Britain and Spain, Jackson had to provide more evidence supporting his extraordinary activities" but shine on shine on
• almost simultaneously, and certainly before receiving Monroe's letter, Jackson wrote Calhoun telling him (not asking permission) that it was time to take St. Augustine because strategy and he had a very good brain etc etc.
• jackson received Monroe's letter and absolutely blows a gasket. How dare they question him etc etc and general raging which then devolved into penny-ante legalistic hairsplitting about the December 1817 orders and blah blah word salad

BASSETT BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT - feller - "wishful thinking" - Thus the current best case possible defense for Jackson is that he did receive a letter from his Congressional squishmallow Rhea that tangentially mentioned Monroe and Florida, which in turn served as the microwave timer beep that triggered his Pavlovian Indian-killing response. However, in light of the voluminous evidence of Jackson's impulsivity and imperialist bent, giving him the benefit of the doubt in this case is surely the mincing "neutrality" that serves only the oppressor.

1819 investigation feat. a mostly feckless Congress

Congressional investigations

There were two notable speeches about the situation made in the Congress.

CLAY

For his part, William Lowndes of South Carolina, a widely respected member of the House, argued that the power to declare war is reserved to the Congress. Further, if Monroe had the power to order action against the so-called Seminoles, which was the legal basis for Jackson's attack, then so did he have the power to forbid engagement with the Spanish. This restriction had been stated in both Calhoun's orders to his officers (Gaines and Jackson), and had been reiterated when Monroe ordered the return of the forts to the Spanish. Moreover, Lowdnes reminded the Congress that the previous year they had collectively defeated a motion by John Forsyth urging the seizure of Florida. Thus, the position of both the executive and the legislature had been clear and explicit that U.S. forces were prohibited from engaging with Spanish forces or harassing Spanish installations.

crawford

censure

The House of Representatives bowed to Jackson's popularity and "defeated the censorious majority report." The U.S. Senate never held a vote on what to do with the report of the Select Committee.

1827–32 political warfare, starring Calhoun as the Villain to Jackson as the Hero, directed by Andrew Jackson, written by Martin Van Buren, cinematography by William H. Crawford

"...convinced at least himself that he in fact had entered Florida with positive instructions from Monroe to seize the Spanish posts." He manufactured a vendetta against Calhoun and set a trap for him, as he had done already done once with Monroe in 1818 and would clumsily do again in 1831.

1827 - "Jackson and his operatives here for the first time flirted with the lie they would brazenly tell four years later in the midst of another feud. They were in the process of inventing the myth that Monroe had authorized Jackson through John Rhea to seize Florida."

Jackson's government was not a team of rivals or a brain trust but a cabal of his Tennessee cronies (Eaton, Lewis ) and the most effective of Washington suckups (Van Buren)[cite Howe]. Jackson did not want sage advice from wise men on the issues facing the country, he wanted people who agreed with him, hated the same people as him, and were willing to submit to his imperious authority in exchange for the benefits of graft and modest levels of corruption in public administration, an operation that appears in AP U.S. history textbooks under the subheading "the spoils system." This setup was, however, a problem for Jackson's relationship with his vice president Calhoun, who was many things but not grabby, grubby nor submissive.

In the midst of the growing strife with Calhoun and the oncoming presidential election, Jackson changed his story. Immediately after the expedition to Pensacola, he claimed he was acting on his own best judgement in the absence of timely direct orders from the distant federal government. A dozen years later, now President, he changed his defense to "President Monroe had explicitly authorized him" to attack. According to the Heidlers, "The prism of his egocentrism was again bending the truth to shape it as he saw it, recasting a series of events that unfolded in the Florida wilderness as he had made war on Spaniards, Seminoles, and Creek refugees." To Jackson this was the truth because he wished it to be so, because it felt good, because it was easier, and because all these liars telling the truth were being very very unfair to Mr. Jackson.

"John C. Calhoun was not a man who generally invites sympathy, but in this case one almost has to feel sorry for him. He was being set up and he knew it."

"Denunciation of the Insinuations of John Rhea"

He was called "John Rhea of Tennessee" distinguish him from "John Rea of Pennsylvania" who served in many of the same Congresses; "Denunciation of the Insinuations of John Rhea" was the last document Monroe ever signed, on June 19, 1831; William Wirt served as Attorney General of the United States for 12 years; Monroe died at the New York City home of his daughter Maria and her husband Samuel L. Gouverneur, on July 4, 1831 (building photographed in 1891)

Legacy

File:Luis de onis.jpg

The claims of 1831 were

• That Representative Rhea had in fact "written him a letter conveying Monroe's authorization to seize Florida" in response to the January Jackson letter
• Jackson received the "Rhea letter" late in February 1818 on his march towards Florida; circa 20 or 22 "on my way to fort scott" Feb 12 1818 "Allegedly received a letter from John Rhea conveying Monroe's approval for invasion of Florida "
• April 12 1818 "John Rhea letter detailing President Monroe's approval for invasion of Florida reportedly burned"
• In spring 1819 while in Washington for a Congressional investigation into his invasion of Florida "he was told by Rhea that Monroe and Secretary of War Calhoun wanted him to destroy the 'Rhea letter'" and did indeed burn the alleged (non-existent) letter "writing at the same time in his letter book (of copies) the following note on the margin of the copy of his letter to Monroe of January 6, 1818: 'Mr. J. Rhea's letter in answer is burnt this 12th April 1819.'" [stenberg] According to the editors of The Papers of Andrew Jackson, "The notation on the copy is not in Jackson's hand. "

To top all that off, "so far from knowing of any authorization for Jackson's seizure of Florida, Rhea had written Jackson on December 18, 1818, after reading such documents on the Seminole War as were published: 'I will for one support your conduct, believing as far as I have read that you have acted for [the] public good.'"

Jackson's preserved correspondence from 1831 show that the second Rhea letter was written at the behest of Jackson with specific instructions about what to say with Rhea seemingly happily volunteering to lie ("As you are on the defensive I will help you all I can") and asking "Jackson to send him the necessary documents so that he could 'refresh' his mind and give Jackson a helpful 'recollection.'"

Per Stenberg, he further "openly confessed" his imperial intent, enacted on his own whim, in his "Exposition against Calhoun" in 1831.

Stenberg argues that Jackson's 1831 narrative is "so completely at variance with the facts, and so circumstantially narrated" that intentional misrepresentation and falsehood--"pure, deliberate fiction"--is the only reasonable explanation. (Stenberg is remembered for consistently attacking what was then consensus view of history--represented in his time by figures including John S. Bassett and Eugene Barker--and he "particularly assaulted the reputations of Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk and Sam Houston." As part of Stenberg's "debunking" set-the-record-straight style, he was in the habit of "ignoring any other possible interpretation of his evidence, unless he use[d] it to show how wrong it was.")

"Jackson's January letter, it is perceived, indicates on the general's part a personal wish to carry the war into Spain precisely as he afterwards did. Heedless, perhaps, of the duplicity, of the lawlessness to which such a course must have committed the responsible Executive of the United States, Jackson urged Monroe to drop only a sly hint, and in sixty days the Floridas would be ours. The secret channel indicated was through John Rhea, better known to statesmen of the day as 'Johnny Rhea,' — a member of Congress for many years from Tennessee, a native of Ireland, a man never of much reputation, who is remembered in history only as one of Jackson's constant parasites."

"Monroe never read nor reflected upon Jackson's January letter at all until after Pensacola had fallen." Letters written by Monroe in both 1818 (to Jackson) and 1827 (to Calhoun) both state this, and Monroe's claim is validated by J. Q. Adams' contemporaneous journal entries. Beginning in December 1818, Jackson's communications team began suggesting that perhaps it was "Monroe's failure to answer his January letter" that was at fault, and from "the General may have inferred sanction of his proposal," but historian Richard Sternberg deems this argument "as unsound as it was improper." That the feeble excuse of "misunderstanding" was untenable was also the holding of the Monroe administration, which "parsed the orders to show that his reading of them made no sense. How could Jackson argue, Monroe asked Calhoun in exasperation, that Gaines's orders did not apply to him? If that had been so, Jackson had not possessed authority even to invade Florida. Calhoun's December 26 orders had only told Jackson to repair to the border and, if necessary, request militia reinforcement."

In December 2 1817 Monroe wrote specifically to Jackson explaining the chain of command in his administration: himself to Calhoun, from Calhoun to division commanders, and anything that was to happen outside of that should be taken to Calhoun for approval before action

The mode, which, suggests itself, is, for the Secretary of War, Mr [John Caldwell] Calhoun, lately appointed, & who is daily expected here, to digest a system of regulations, by my order, to be observed, in communi cating the orders of the President, to the commanders of divisions, or any persons under them, at a distance from their Hd. Qrs. A few rules, will be sufficient for the purpose, & in them, the principle may be laid down, that, as a general rule, the order should go to the Commander of the division, and that in all cases, when deviated from, a copy should be sent at the same time, to him. 4 This will, I presume, terminate the affair, with perfect deli cacy to you. No mention will be made of the affair, but it may be under stood, that the case was held in view, & with sentiments of, delicacy, & regard, for you. If on seeing what is done, you are satisfied, nothing more need be said on the subject, unless indeed you may be disposed to intimate it. I shall do for you, what I should wish, to have done, for myself, in such a case. I need not add, my most earnest wish, that you may remain in the public service, at least as long as I do. with great respect and sincere regards yours James Monroe

The journal of Secretary of State John Quincy Adams shows "the capture of Pensacola was an entire surprise to the Cabinet, Calhoun included, and to the President, who had summoned them for counsel." When the news reached Washington (the news arrived before separate dispatches about Jackson having executed British nationals TK Arbuthnot and TK Armbrister), President James Monroe concluded that while there might be some circumstances in which it was reasonable to capture Pensacola, those circumstances had not been extant prior to Jackson's action, and the cabinet agreed that Jackson's capture of Spanish forts must be disavowed by the U.S. government as an independent filibuster expedition in breach of orders. Among other issues, the government had just reopened negotiations with the Spanish, with an assist from the French legation in Washington, about purchasing the remainder of Florida. The Monroe administration thus walked a fine in its management of Jackson's freelance imperialism: Monroe declined to censure Jackson, which would have "exculpated the Spanish authorities in Florida" and undermined the pretext for the Spanish cession and the consequent Adams–Onís Treaty of February 22, 1819. Nonetheless, Monroe assigned Adams to write a defense of the action, and when Adams produced an apparently too strong defense of Jackson, Monroe restrained him and asked him to revise it further because (per Adams' journal), "I am decidedly of opinion that these proceedings have been attended with good results and are in the main justifiable; but that certainly they were not contemplated in any of the instructions issued to Jackson. I think the public will not entirely justify the general; and the true course for ourselves is to shield and support him as much as possible, but not commit the administration on points where the public will be against us." In correspondence with former president Monroe, Madison characterized Jackson's actions as "a mistake," in part to rationalize his own refusal to punish Jackson for acting as an officer of the U.S. military without orders or in violation of existing orders. Meanwhile, as Monroe and the cabinet met daily to manage the crisis, "Calhoun remained intractable about the event itself, especially its author. He argued that Jackson had set a dangerous precedent by disobeying orders, particularly by making war on his own authority, and he must be publicly reprimanded." Calhoun's argument was always left lying on the table where it fell; no one argued that Calhoun was wrong or that Jackson had been acting righteously, but nor did anyone want to carry this high-minded but otherwise inconvenient argument into the public sphere.

crime is cowardly

+ Benton

Maybe he was confused? Bassett

"conclusively that Jackson had no belief whatever that his acts had been previously secretly authorized or sanctioned by Monroe.21 This fact appears also in Jackson's letter to Monroe of June 2, 1818, quoted earlier in this paper."

"MAP TO ILLUSTRATE THE ACQUISITION OF WEST FLORIDA" from Isaac Joplin Cox's The West Florida Controversy, 1798–1813: a Study In American Diplomacy (1918) I. Territory added to the original jurisdiction of West Florida by Great Britain in 1767; in dispute between Spain and the United States, 1783–1795; relinquished by Spain in the Treaty of 1795 and definitely occupied by the United States in 1798. II. Territory claimed by the United States, 1803–18I0, as part of the Louisiana Purchase; proclaimed independent by its inhabitants, September, 1810, and occupied by the United States in the following December; incorporated with the State of Louisiana in 1812. III. Claimed by the United States as above; brought under its military and civil jurisdiction in 1811; incorporated with Mississippi Territory in 1812. IV. Claimed by the United States as above; American jurisdiction proclaimed there by Orleans Territory Governor William C. C. Claiborne (1811) and by Governor of Mississippi Territory David L. Holmes (1812), except in the town of Mobile; occupied by the military forces of the United States, April, 1813, and the civil jurisdiction of Mississippi established there; later part of Alabama. V. Invaded by Andrew Jackson, in 1814 and 1818; ceded by Spain to the United States in the Treaty of 1819; part of Florida.

Schouler, writing in 1884, described this letter as conveying violence in its very appearance: "Even to this day, that letter, deliberately composed and appearing to have been carefully copied out, bristles with hate and defiance, every line resembling a row of rattlesnakes."

Schouler, joining Parton in saying huh? "Is it not singular that, while we are told that Rhea's letter to Jackson was burnt, neither Rhea nor Jackson has pretended to state what was its substance, what the dates of Rhea's interview with Monroe, what the terms of the supposed authority, or any other details?"

The editors of The Papers of Andrew Jackson comment "The case for the existence of a Rhea document relies ultimately on Jackson's credibility. The corroborating testimony he obtained from John Overton and from a nearly senile and obviously eager to please Rhea was weak, and he apparently did not seek or obtain support from former military associates who might have seen Rhea's letter."

As of 19TK "there is no independent evidence to suggest that the president approved the invasion."

Jackson's defense is based on his claim that Monroe issued a secret order to him (through Rhea), and thus all evidence was supposed to be obscured and destroyed and hidden from everyone in government and the military except for Jackson and Monroe. The editors of The Papers thus state that the "existence or non-existence of Rhea's letter can probably never be established with certainty."

The Jackson January letter in Congress was written in the handwriting of Andrew Jackson Jr. "a true copy" -- the 1818 letters are missing?!!

Denunciation "two weeks before his death"

Depth of depravity

Luis_de_onis

John_Rhea_of_Tennessee

Denunciation John Rhea

Schouler on Benton history "main purpose is to...convict [John C. Calhoun] of duplicity, and its whole strain is passionate and bitter"

Jackson's summary seizure of the Spanish posts was a popular act, and such he had meant it to be. Our people, and those especially of the Western States, had long borne with impatience the delays of a fruitless diplomacy, confident all the while that in order to obtain a full settlement of spoliation claims, old and new, and gain title to a territory once paid for, as to West Florida at least, when Louisiana was purchased, nothing could be easier than to march a resolute body of troops into Florida, dislodge the Spanish garrisons, and take possession in the name of the United States. This Jackson did on his own responsibility; and already the most conspicuous man of the age among our military generals, he leaped at once into prominence as a candidate for the next presidency.

American historian Daniel Walker Howe has compared the behavior pattern in the construction of the "Rhea letter" fiction to the elaborate construction in 1828 of a false timeline (along with the recruitment of cronies to swear to Jackson's version) that plausibly excused his legally adulterous/bigamous marriage situation of 1789 to 1793. In both cases, Jackson benefited from the evidence of absence problem, or rather the impossibility of proving the negative ("the letter definitely did not exist," "the Natchez marriage definitely did not happen"), or as historian Feller put it the whole trap was laid from the beginning with "no paper trail, no smoking gun."

All that said, Jackson was the hard man who readily did dirty deeds, cowing enemies in both North America and Europe, all while Monroe and Adams kept their hands clean. The fact was that everyone wanted Florida, and "In a way the mystery over whether Monroe did or did not unleash Jackson through John Rhea misses the real issue. The real issue is that Jackson thought he could, and that Monroe did not correct him." Further to the point, Congress investigated, but to no end: the House said Jackson did a great job, the Senate investigated carefully and did nothing with their report.

This pattern was the case through the entirety of Jackson's military and political career. He was the devil who did not care about his immortal soul (long gone) or about his posthumous reputation or the high-toned rhetoric of the revolution, he was the grubby grabber who served both his own basest instincts and the greed for land and serfs that dominated the frontier south of the United States in the first half of the 19th-century. He was supported by the electorate, he defeated his opponents one by one, and he never suffered a single consequence, which unfortunately cannot be said for the rest of America.

Secondary sources

• Feller, Daniel (2010). "The Seminole Controversy Revisited: A New Look At Andrew Jackson's 1818 Florida Campaign". The Florida Historical Quarterly (2009 Catherine Prescott Lecture). 88 (3): 309–325. ISSN 0015-4113.
• Heidler, Jeanne T.; Heidler, David S. (2010). "Mr. Rhea's Missing Letter and the First Seminole War". In Belko, William S. (ed.). America's Hundred Years' War: U.S. Expansion to the Gulf Coast and the Fate of the Seminole, 1763–1858. Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida. doi:10.5744/florida/9780813035253.003.0005. ISBN 978-0-8130-4514-6. LCCN 2010024271. OCLC 801840927. Project MUSE book 19493.
• Howe, Daniel Walker (2007). What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848. The Oxford History of the United States. New York City: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-1950-7894-7. LCCN 2007012370. OCLC 122701433.
• Morgan, George (1921). The Life of James Monroe. Boston: Small, Maynard and Company. pp. 442–452. ISBN 978-0-404-00594-8.
• Odom, E. Dale (1970). "A 1934 Attack on Mainstream History and the Establishment". Social Science Quarterly. 50 (4): 941–943. ISSN 0038-4941.
• Porter, Kenneth W. (1971). The Negro on the American Frontier. The American Negro, His History and Literature. New York: Arno Press. ISBN 978-0-405-01983-8. LCCN 77135872. OCLC 153515.
• Schouler, James (1896). "Monroe and the Rhea Letter". Historical Briefs. New York: Dodd, Mead, and Company. hdl:loc.gdc/scd0001.00114169651. LCCN 04016614. OCLC 1492064. OL 7033424M. (originally published as ——— (October 1884). "Monroe and the Rhea Letter". The Magazine of American History. Vol. XII, no. 4. New York: A. S. Barnes. pp. 308–322. ISSN 0361-6185. OCLC 1590082.) (Public Domain in the United States)
• Stenberg, Richard R. (November 1936). "Jackson's "Rhea Letter" Hoax". The Journal of Southern History. 2 (4). Rice University. Southern Historical Association: 480–496. doi:10.2307/2192034. ISSN 0022-4642. JSTOR 2192034.

|title=The Life of James Monroe |date=1921 |publisher=Small, Maynard

Further reading

• "Andrew Jackson versus the legal order of things. by Frances Norene Ahl ..." HathiTrust. Retrieved 2025-01-04.
• "The West Florida controversy, 1798-1813; a study in American diplomacy, by Isaac Joslin Cox". HathiTrust. Retrieved 2025-01-03.
• Capers, Gerald M. (1948). "A Reconsideration of John C. Calhoun's Transition from Nationalism to Nullification". The Journal of Southern History. 14 (1): 34–48. doi:10.2307/2197709. ISSN 0022-4642.
• Phinney, A. H. (1926). "The Second Spanish-American War". The Florida Historical Society Quarterly. 5 (2): 103–111. ISSN 0361-624X.
• Various; Jackson, Andrew (1994). Moser, Harold D.; Hoth, David R.; Hoemann, George H. (eds.). The Papers of Andrew Jackson, Volume IV, 1816–1820. University of Tennessee Press. ISBN 978-0-8704-9219-8.

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Categories:

• Andrew Jackson administration controversies
• Seminole Wars
• 1818 in the United States
• 1831 in the United States