- Andrew Jackson
Jackson (1829–1837) was the architect of the Indian Removal Act (1830), which forced Native Americans off their lands in the Trail of Tears. Jackson owned enslaved people and defended slavery as essential to the republic. Historian Matthew Clavin wrote a book about Jackson, “The Battle of Negro Fort: The Rise and Fall of a Fugitive Slave Community.” In an interview, he said:
“Andrew Jackson was willing to use any means necessary to both encourage and promote slavery and remove the so-called “Indian problem.” A lot of people today don’t understand that there were, in fact, many Americans throughout the early 19th century who wanted Indians removed, but wanted it done peacefully, maybe even contractually. A lot of people were willing to pay the Indians for their land. A lot of people were advocating slavery and its expansion, but there were limits to that point of view. There were limits to what they would do to make that dream a reality.
But for Andrew Jackson, there really were no limits. I don’t think that Andrew Jackson set out to kill runaway slaves and kill Indians in order to expand America’s southern and western boundaries. I don’t think that was his preferred method. However, when it became clear that slaves would not stop escaping, and that Indians would not forfeit their land to all these white settlers, Andrew Jackson was very quick to adopt violence and death and murder to achieve his dream for the United States moving forward.
- Andrew Johnson
Johnson (1865–1869) opposed Reconstruction and vetoed civil rights legislation. He famously declared the U.S. was a “government for white men.” Johnson replaced Hannibal Hamlin, who was Abraham Lincoln’s first vice president when Lincoln ran for re-election. Jackson was a segregationist from Tennessee and was seen as a peace offering to the Southern states as they returned to the Union after the Civil War. When he found himself president after Lincoln’s assassination, he did all he could to immediately restore the South to all its former glory with little concern for Reconstruction. Fortunately, a Republican Congress was able to impose its will, consistently overriding Johnson’s vetoes of their legislation.
“This is a country for white men, and by God, as long as I am President, it shall be a government for white men.”
- Woodrow Wilson
Wilson (1913–1921) re‑segregated the federal workforce. He praised The Birth of a Nation (1915), a film that glorified the Ku Klux Klan, which was the first film ever screened at the White House. His administration institutionalized Jim Crow practices at the federal level.
When Wilson entered the White House in 1913, his administration reversed decades of slow but meaningful progress toward integration in federal employment. Under previous Republican presidents, Black and white civil servants had worked side by side in Washington. Wilson, however, appointed segregationist Southern Democrats to key cabinet posts, including Postmaster General Albert Burleson and Treasury Secretary William McAdoo, who quickly moved to separate offices, restrooms, and cafeterias by race. Black federal employees were demoted, dismissed, or forced into segregated, lower‑paying positions. Photographs were even required on civil service applications to facilitate racial screening.
Wilson defended these measures as “beneficial” rather than humiliating, claiming segregation would reduce friction in the workplace. In reality, his policies institutionalized Jim Crow practices at the federal level, legitimizing racial discrimination in the very heart of government. This rollback not only devastated the careers of thousands of Black civil servants but also sent a powerful signal nationwide: the federal government itself endorsed segregation. Wilson’s actions helped entrench white supremacy in public institutions at a moment when Black Americans were fighting for greater inclusion in civic life.
“The white men were roused by a mere instinct of self-preservation — until at last there had sprung into existence a great Ku Klux Klan, a veritable empire of the South, to protect the Southern country.”
The American eugenics movement (1900s–1930s) influenced immigration law, sterilization policies, and public health campaigns. Some presidents echoed or supported its ideas:
- Theodore Roosevelt
(1901–1909) advocated for the “race suicide” theory, warning that white Anglo‑Saxon birthrates were declining. The theory claimed that if the birth rate of the “superior race” (defined as white, native‑born Americans of Northern European descent) fell below that of “inferior races,” the nation would face “suicide” of its dominant racial stock.
Roosevelt often said he wasn’t against all immigration, but against the “wrong kind.” He supported immigrants from Northern and Western Europe, whom he considered racially fit, while warning against “undesirable” immigrants from Asia and Southern/Eastern Europe.
Theodore Roosevelt’s immigration stance helped lay the cultural and political groundwork for the restrictive policies that followed in the 1920s. By framing immigration in racial and eugenic terms — arguing that only certain groups from Northern and Western Europe were “fit” to become Americans — he legitimized the idea that the nation’s vitality depended on controlling who could enter. While Roosevelt did not personally author sweeping immigration laws, his influence was profound: he gave presidential weight to the notion that immigration was not just an economic issue but a racial one. This intellectual and political climate directly shaped the Immigration Act of 1924, which codified national origins quotas designed to preserve a white, Northern European majority, and it echoed in U.S. policy for decades.
One thing that can be said about Roosevelt. He looked down on everyone other than white people:
“The Negro is not the equal of the white man; but he can be made infinitely more useful to himself and to the community of which he forms a part, if he is given the chance to develop what capacity he has.”
“We cannot afford to let the Japanese or Chinese come in in large numbers, because they do not amalgamate with us, and the result would be that we would have in this country two wholly distinct peoples.”
“The most ultimately righteous of all wars is a war with savages, though it is apt to be also the most terrible and inhuman.”
“I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are the dead Indians, but I believe nine out of every ten are. And I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth.”
- Calvin Coolidge
Coolidge (1923–1929) supported the Immigration Act of 1924, which sharply restricted immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe, influenced by eugenicists. He stated, “America must remain American,” reflecting fears of “racial dilution.”
Before becoming president, Coolidge wrote that he believed that preserving the “racial stock” of the United States was essential to its stability and prosperity. While he did not personally champion sterilization laws (as some state governments did), his rhetoric aligned with the broader eugenics movement that sought to control reproduction and immigration based on racial hierarchies.
Coolidge strongly supported the Immigration Act of 1924 (Johnson‑Reed Act), which imposed strict quotas favoring immigrants from Northern and Western Europe while severely restricting those from Southern and Eastern Europe and completely barring immigration from Asia.
Although he expressed regret about the exclusion of Japanese immigrants (calling it “unfortunate”), he nonetheless signed the law, which became one of the most restrictive immigration measures in U.S. history.
If actions speak louder than words, Coolidge spoke volumes with his handling of the Great Mississippi (River) Flood of 1927. While most White communities were saved, riverside Black communities were flooded to reduce the pressure on the levees. And then these thousands of displaced Blacks were forced to work for their rations under the gun of the National Guard and area planters, leading to a conflagration of mass beatings, lynchings, and rapes. Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, whom President Coolidge eventually appointed to head the relief efforts, capitalized on the support of southern segregationists for his flood mismanagement and succeeded Coolidge in the White House.
- Herbert Hoover
Hoover (1929–1933) entered the presidency fresh from his widely publicized role in the Mississippi River flood relief, where white communities were prioritized while Black communities were deliberately sacrificed and subjected to forced labor. Once in office, he appointed officials sympathetic to eugenics and upheld restrictive immigration quotas rooted in eugenic ideology.
Hoover became the first Republican since Reconstruction to carry several Southern states. To consolidate that foothold, he dismantled the influence of Black Republicans in the South, replacing them with white conservatives. This “lily‑white” strategy alienated Black voters and hastened their long‑term migration to the Democratic Party. W.E.B. Du Bois charged that Hoover treated Black Americans as “sub‑men,” while Walter White of the NAACP branded him “the man in the lily‑White House.” Even Robert Moton, Booker T. Washington’s moderate successor, concluded that Hoover had shown contempt for Black citizens. The racial realignment he engineered would later be echoed by Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump.
Hoover also corresponded with Leon Whitney, executive secretary of the American Eugenics Society, acknowledging that immigration was not merely an economic issue but a “social” and even “biological” one. His willingness to frame policy in such terms and his placement of eugenics sympathizers in positions of influence reinforced the idea that immigration and population policy should be guided by racial science.
This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of William Spivey's work on Medium. And if you dig his words, buy the man a coffee.