Dr. Daniel Feller, University of Tennessee
March 18, 2018

Donald Trump claims Andrew Jackson as his presidential model, and many of his critics agree.  Foreign Affairs has called the Trump phenomenon a resurgence of “Jacksonian populist nationalism,” and the president’s strident address to the United Nations was promptly dubbed “a very Jacksonian speech.”  But what is the so-called “Jacksonian tradition” in American politics, what substance does it have, and what does it have to do with Trump’s foreign policy?  In this talk Daniel Feller, the editor of the Andrew Jackson Papers and one of the nation’s leading experts on our seventh president, will explore the realities of Jackson’s diplomacy, the origins and meaning of the “Jacksonian” label in current public affairs, and the uses and abuses of historical precedent.

Daniel Feller is Professor of History and Director of The Papers of Andrew Jackson project at the University of Tennessee.  Professor Feller’s scholarly interests encompass mid-nineteenth-century America as a whole, with special attention to Jacksonian politics and the coming of the Civil War. He is currently at work on a biography of Benjamin Tappan, a Jacksonian politician, scientist, social reformer, and freethinker.

Dedicated by Sandy Sheehy to the memory of Daniel Rosenfelt

Supported by Urban Enhancement Trust Fund, Sandia National Labs and County Commissioner Wayne Johnson