A University of Texas historian scoffed at President Trump’s suggestions that Andrew Jackson had been “really angry” about the Civil War and that the battle could have been worked out, countering that “no one man, elected official or historical event could have prevented the bloodiest war in American history.”
CNN news contributor Peniel Joseph, founding director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, said the Civil War’s origins were rooted in the political and economic consequences of racial slavery.
“A system that produced horrific human costs even as it offered undreamed of wealth for a young nation,” Joseph said. “The war exploded after decades of sectional disputes, legal battles, and full-blown national crises over the fate of both enslaved blacks and American democracy.”
Joseph’s comments were in response to the claims made by Trump, who said during an interview Monday with the Washington Examiner that Jackson — himself a slave owner — was upset by the war, though the war didn’t begin until 16 years after Jackson’s death.