# Was Andrew Jackson a flat-earther? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 20, 2011, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-andrew-jackson-a-flat-earther/568388 "2011-01-20T22:23:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-andrew-jackson-a-flat-earther/568388/1 "2011-01-20T22:23:41Z")
OK, we know Andrew Jackson was the evil version of Cletus, the Slack-Jawed Yokel. But was he, as I’ve found some mention of, a flat-earther? He wasn’t well-educated but was he really that ignorant? ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-andrew-jackson-a-flat-earther/568388/2 "2011-01-20T22:41:26Z")
Andrew Jackson was educated. He was a Lawyer, Judge and Legislator before his military career. > **[Andrew Jackson: Lawyer, Judge and Legislator](https://www.historynet.com/andrew-jackson-lawyer-judge-and-legislator/?f)** > > Long before his rise to national fame during the War of 1812, young Andrew Jackson, as lawyer, judge and legislator, helped shape the American frontier. He took the skills, attitudes and quirks developed there all the way to the White House. I don’t know his position on the curvature of the earth. But, we did have international commerce when he was President. Ships from the U.S. routinely circumvented the globe. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-andrew-jackson-a-flat-earther/568388/3 "2011-01-20T22:44:31Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Ships from the U.S. routinely circumvented the globe. 🙂 That would be a pretty neat trick (but I know you really meant “circumnavigated”). ETA: Full disclosure compels me to point out that I just noticed that “circumvent” **can** also mean literally “to make a circuit around”, although it’s most commonly used in the sense of “getting around” something figuratively, i.e., avoiding it. Someday I’ll look up this stuff **before** I post about it. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-andrew-jackson-a-flat-earther/568388/4 "2011-01-20T22:45:39Z")
Those big words trip me up every time. 😃 Thank you for the correction. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-andrew-jackson-a-flat-earther/568388/5 "2011-01-21T00:06:19Z")
Quite the opposite. In 1828, John Cleves Symmes, Jr., lobbied Congress to send an expedition to find the hole in the North Pole to explore the hollow Earth. John Quincy Adams seemed to indicate he was willing to sign a bill, but when Jackson came into office, he immediately quashed it. While this isn’t a flat Earth, it would indicate that Jackson accepted then-current scientific knowledge. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-andrew-jackson-a-flat-earther/568388/6 "2011-01-21T00:08:22Z")
I wondered where it came from and finally found this at Google Books: > [@](#): > > The hero in America: a chronicle of hero-worship > Dixon Wecter - 1963 > > ANDREW JACKSON is probably the only President of the United States who did not believe that the earth is round. You only get the one-line snippet, so I can’t see the context. [This site](http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ug02/reno/jackson.html) says" > [@](#): > > The historian Dixon Wecter relays a line from A Brief and Impartial History of…Andrew Jackson. By a Free Man, published in 1831: “Andrew Jackson is probably the only President of the United States who did not believe that the earth is round.” However, that 1831 book is searchable and contains no such reference or any combination of earth and round. ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-andrew-jackson-a-flat-earther/568388/7 "2011-01-21T00:32:50Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > While this isn’t a flat Earth, it would indicate that Jackson accepted then-current scientific knowledge. No, no, no. A “hole” into a “hollow Earth” via the North Pole makes no sense if the Earth is flat. He was clearly saving hard-earned tax payers dollars from being wasted in such a quixotic pursuit based on misguided spherical assumptions. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-andrew-jackson-a-flat-earther/568388/8 "2011-01-21T06:10:48Z")
> [@bonzer](#): > > No, no, no. A “hole” into a “hollow Earth” via the North Pole makes no sense if the Earth is flat. But that’s not what **Realitychuck** said. He just said that Jackson accepted then-current scientific knowledge, and I’m pretty sure his belief that the Earth was not hollow and that there was no hole at the North Pole through which you could get inside was current scientific knowledge at the time. ---
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-andrew-jackson-a-flat-earther/568388/9 "2011-01-21T08:24:48Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > But that’s not what **Realitychuck** said. He just said that Jackson accepted then-current scientific knowledge, and I’m pretty sure his belief that the Earth was not hollow and that there was no hole at the North Pole through which you could get inside was current scientific knowledge at the time. But if he believed that Earth was not hollow with a North Pole access hole because he believed the Earth was flat, then it wouldn’t indicate that he really accepted then-current scientific knowledge at all, right? I wonder if that’s where the whole idea that he was a flat-earther came about – the idea that he quashed the North Pole expedition because he believed the planet was flat, not because he knew the earth was spherical but solid. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-andrew-jackson-a-flat-earther/568388/10 "2011-01-21T09:01:06Z")
> [@chorpler](#): > > But if he believed that Earth was not hollow with a North Pole access hole because he believed the Earth was flat, then it wouldn’t indicate that he really accepted then-current scientific knowledge at all, right? That’s right, but nobody in this thread ever claimed that this was the reason why Jackson thought such a hole was impossible. What RealityChuck said was simply that Jackson quashed suggestion to send an expedition to a supposed hole at the North Pole. He never said, nor did anyone else, that Jackson did so because he believed that the flat nature of the Earth would make such a hole impossible. Where do people get the idea from that the flat-Earth theory was the rationale behind Jackson’s refusal to support this Norht Pole expedition? ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-andrew-jackson-a-flat-earther/568388/11 "2011-01-21T09:43:27Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I wondered where it came from and finally found this at Google Books: > > You only get the one-line snippet, so I can’t see the context. > > [This site](http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ug02/reno/jackson.html) says" > > However, that 1831 book is searchable and contains no such reference or any combination of earth and round. OK, so the working hypothesis is that Dixon Wecter just make it up? It’s like the George Washington cherry tree story, then. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-andrew-jackson-a-flat-earther/568388/12 "2011-01-21T13:36:49Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > OK, so the working hypothesis is that Dixon Wecter just make it up? It’s like the George Washington cherry tree story, then. More like the jokes about (fill in the recent president you dislike). Looks more like a one-off throwaway line to disparage the man’s intellect rather than a serious accusation. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-andrew-jackson-a-flat-earther/568388/13 "2011-01-21T13:56:01Z")
Add to all this the fact that the idea of a flat Earth was completely discredited by Columbus\*. It was taught as a fact in any school, and people did not question such things. It wasn’t until 1849 – four years after Jackson’s death – that anyone seriously brought back the idea. That was Samuel Rowbotham, who published a pamphlet about it in England, **Zetetic Astronomy: Earth Not a Globe**. The Flat Earth Society dates from the 1950s, and seems to be a bit of a joke by its founders. \*Yes, I know Columbus didn’t claim the Earth was flat, but that’s how it was taught in schools: he proved the world was round. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-andrew-jackson-a-flat-earther/568388/14 "2011-01-21T15:04:21Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > \*Yes, I know Columbus didn’t claim the Earth was flat, but that’s how it was taught in schools: he proved the world was round. And thus we see disproved the notion that schooling is even moderately logically self-consistent. ---
**Author:** ![dangermom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-andrew-jackson-a-flat-earther/568388/15 "2011-01-21T15:20:58Z")
I just have to post here that I got a book for kids on skepticism called _How do we know it’s true?_ It was pretty good if you didn’t mind the rantiness about astrology…right up until the author started talking about how everyone believed the earth was flat until Columbus proved otherwise. The Anvil of Irony needs to fall on that guy’s head. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-andrew-jackson-a-flat-earther/568388/16 "2011-01-21T15:32:49Z")
Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition completed the first circumnavigation of the Earth in the 1520’s. He also lead the first expedition to sail from the Atlantic Ocean into the Pacific Ocean via the Strait of Magellan. > **[Ferdinand Magellan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Magellan)** > > Ferdinand Magellan\[a\] (c. 1480 – 27 April 1521) was a Portuguese explorer best known for planning and leading the 1519–22 Spanish expedition to the East Indies. During this expedition, he discovered the Strait of Magellan, performed the first European crossing of the Pacific Ocean, and made the first known European contact with the Philippines. Magellan himself was killed in battle in the Philippines in 1521, but his crew, commanded by Spanish navigator Juan Sebastián Elcano, completed the ... By Jackson’s time sea travel was so common I can’t imagine anyone supporting the flat earth idea anymore. Heck, the famous American clipper ship’s were setting new time records in trips back and forth to trade with China. This was only a few years after Jackson’s death. > [@](#): > > After gold was discovered in California, the Sea Witch’s owners, Howland & Aspinwall, transferred her from the China trade to the new Cape Horn run from the East Coast to San Francisco. In early 1850 the Sea Witch completed this passage in 97 days, the first vessel ever to do so in less than 100 days. > **[Sea Witch (clipper)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Witch_%28clipper%29)** > > Sea Witch was an American clipper ship designed by naval architect John W. Griffiths for the China trading firm of Howland & Aspinwall. She was launched at Smith & Dimon in Manhattan on December 8, 1846. > "In 1845, John Willis Griffiths built the fast ship Rainbow and followed it in the next year with the even faster Sea Witch. Both vessels would have tremendous impact on merchant hull design. Sea Witch, in fact, had more influence on the configuration of fast vessels than any other ship built i... ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-andrew-jackson-a-flat-earther/568388/17 "2011-01-21T15:54:08Z")
Apart from when the idea of a flat Earth may have been seriously held by large numbers of people, note that the OP’s assertion of Andrew Jackson as the “evil version of Cletus, the Slack-Jawed Yokel” should be considered further. As already noted, he was educated enough to pass the bar and become a frontier lawyer. In discussions of Jackson, one should remember that much of his image as a backwoods hick was just that - image. By the time the war of 1812 made him nationally prominent, he was a wealthy plantation owner, a successful merchant and an upcoming land speculator. He was no rube. He was the first “populist” president - one of the earliest American politicians savvy enough to realize that playing up humble origins and a “common man” background would win votes. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-andrew-jackson-a-flat-earther/568388/18 "2011-01-21T16:03:22Z")
There is a book on everything, and therefore there is a book on this. It’s [Hollow Earth: The Long and Curious History of Imagining Strange Lands, Fantastical Creatures, Advanced Civilizations, and Marvelous Machines Below the Earth’s Surface, by David Standish](http://www.amazon.com/Hollow-Earth-Imagining-Fantastical-Civilizations/dp/0306815338/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1295624182&sr=8-1). And it’s sitting on a to-be-read shelf and I forgot I had it. The idea of a hollow earth originally sprang from the very sane mind of Edmund Halley. Yes, that Halley. He championed the notion until his death, after which it was forgotten for a century until one Captain John Cleves Symmes posted a circular on April 10, 1818 that read: To all the World: I declare the earth is hollow and habitable within…" Symmes made one devoted convert, a Jeremiah Reynolds. Reynolds took over the lecture circuit for the ailing Symmes (who would die in 1829) and played down the crazy parts, emphasizing a possible open sea around the Pole that would be commercially valuable. It was all talk until 1828, when Congress passed a resolution - not a bill - asking the President to send a government ship to explore the Pacific. No funds were appropriated, so it had to be a currently operating ship that would make a detour. The point of the expedition was to explore the Antarctic, an area that the British and French were already exploring and America was getting itchy for being left out. However, if you could enter a Hollow Earth at either pole, the Antarctic was just as good. Adams named Reynolds, who was a supporter, as a special Navy Department agent and told him to recruit scientists. Reynolds > [@](#): > > oversaw the rebuilding of the war sloop Peacock at the New York Navy Yard, which was launched to great hoopla in September 1828. But then things started to go wrong. A tangled series of reverses followed, due largely to the Adams’ administration lame-duck status. On taking office in March 1829, after handily beating Adams in the 1828 election, Democrat Andrew Jackson killed it for political reasons. If Congress didn’t want to spend the money, private investors might. They did and the expedition set sail in October 1829. It went as badly as most Antarctic voyages did in those days and the crew faced horrible deprivations, while making a few modest scientific finds, like the first Antarctic fossils. They got nowhere near the South Pole, of course. That’s the only mention of Jackson in the book. Neither the expedition nor the cancellation had any real connection in Washington to a Hollow Earth, so it really didn’t matter what Jackson’s scientific beliefs were. A dead end, literally, for our discussion. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-andrew-jackson-a-flat-earther/568388/19 "2011-01-21T16:17:02Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Add to all this the fact that the idea of a flat Earth was completely discredited by Columbus\*. It was taught as a fact in any school, and people did not question such things. > > … > > \*Yes, I know Columbus didn’t claim the Earth was flat, but that’s how it was taught in schools: he proved the world was round. Virtually no-one in Europe or the Middle East believed in a Flat Earth since Aristotle. The Chinese, and probably other East Asians, did until about 300 years ago, and possibly Mohammed ( but not later muslim astrologers ). And if inclined to sneer at those in the past who believed it, from a practical ordinary person’s viewpoint back then there would be little evidence on land to argue the earth was any particular shape: one only saw one’s own horizon. We are all dependent upon what science ( or anything else ) we individually have been taught, and lucky to have predecessors who passed on what they were taught. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-andrew-jackson-a-flat-earther/568388/20 "2011-01-21T16:26:04Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Add to all this the fact that the idea of a flat Earth was completely discredited by Columbus\*. It was taught as a fact in any school, and people did not question such things. The myth that those who opposed supporting Columbus’s voyages did so because they believed the Earth was flat (rather than that the distance to Asia was too far) was popularized in Washington Irving’s [A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_and_Voyages_of_Christopher_Columbus) (1828). As you say, by the time of Jackson’s presidency, the idea that the Earth was round was solidly accepted by pretty much everyone, even the least educated. And given that the [United States Exploring Expedition (Wilkes Expedition)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilkes_Expedition) to circumnavigate the world was authorized during the Jackson administration, it’s not the least bit plausible he didn’t believe the Earth was round. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-andrew-jackson-a-flat-earther/568388.md?page=2)