Robert Merry can’t find enough good things to say about Andrew Jackson in a new article for The American Spectator. He imagines how Jackson might govern today:

On foreign policy, Jackson would argue that America must play a significant role in the world. We are a great nation and must stand tall. But he would warn against getting involved in unnecessary wars unrelated to vital American interests. And he would ferociously attack anyone who suggested, for example, that opposition to America’s Libyan adventure amounted to isolationism. He would insist on reasonable and accurate terms of debate.

All of this might be what Jackson would do if he were alive today, but I’m not sure how we could know this. Since Jackson was in the tradition of Jefferson, he might see no need to “play a significant role” in the world. Jefferson once wrote, “We wish not to meddle with the internal affairs of any country, nor with the general affairs of Europe.” Would Jackson disagree with that? I see no reason to think so, but to “play a significant role” the U.S. would inevitably be drawn into the affairs of many regions and possibly become involved in the internal affairs of some states. How would Jackson understand the phrase “vital American interests”? It is doubtful he would have defined them as expansively as many Americans do today, but that is another reason to doubt that he would have wanted the U.S. to “play a significant role.” A significant role doing what? To what end?

One reason why I have never liked using the term Jacksonian to refer to a distinctive foreign policy tradition in American history is that Jackson’s foreign policy did not represent a significant departure from the earlier tradition he inherited. There isn’t a specifically Jacksonian foreign policy, and a large part of what is defined as “Jacksonianism” involves treating Jackson’s character traits and the traits of populist nationalists generally as meaningful indicators of foreign policy views. It’s hard not to conclude that Merry’s description of what Jackson would have done is what Merry would like U.S. foreign policy to be, which is what he hopes Jackson would have also supported.