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On an historical level, Trump’s remarks are full of problems. It is difficult to know what the president means when he says that Jackson “was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War.” Jackson died in 1845, 16 years before the war began, though the challenge to national unity posed by slavery was clear by then. It’s possible Trump is referring to the Nullification Crisis, a conflict between the federal government and the state of South Carolina. The Palmetto State, outraged at high tariffs imposed by the federal government that aided industry but harmed slave states, announced it was “nullifying” the tariff—refusing to pay it. (The idea that states can nullify federal law has been rejected by courts, but keeps popping up throughout American history.)

Jackson, though born in South Carolina and an advocate for states’ rights, took a hard line, getting authorization to use military force against the state to enforce the law, though a compromise tariff ended up resolving the crisis without armed conflict.

But assuming that this type of strong leadership, leavened with compromise, would have staved off the Civil War is dubious, for reasons raised by the rest of Trump’s answer: “People don’t realize, you know, the Civil War, if you think about it, why? People don’t ask that question, but why was there a Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?”

In fact, of course, many, many people do ask that question. (One might imagine that Trump, as a creature of Twitter, might be aware of the endless debates about the war in that platform.) What’s more, it is a question that has been definitively answered. The Civil War was fought over slavery, and the insistence of Southern states that they be allowed to keep it. (You needn’t take my word for it: Read the statements of the states that seceded, and their leaders, making the case.)

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...school/524892/