Lecture S10 --Jacksonian Democracy and the Second Party System
The Second Adams Administration:
Nationalist Agenda: Adams proposed a massive plan of national improvements
to be funded by the sale of public lands. This would use highways and canals to
tie the nation together. He also called for the establishment of a national
university, the financing of scientific expeditions, and creation of a national
observatory.
Backlash and Fumbling: Adams was a poor politician and was not good at
brokering deals to pass his measures; most of them were rejected by Congress. He
also lost control of Congress after the 1826 mid-term election. He did achieve a
fair amount towards transportation measures—the Extension of the Cumberland
Road to Ohio and a lot of canal projects.
Jacksonian Democracy:
Western Expansion and Liberty: Western Expansion had created a very
substantial portion of people with a strong frontier spirit, who preferred small
government, minimal law, and a farm economy. They hated banks and Eastern
business interests.
Extension of Democracy: The western farmers tended to support white male
universal suffrage; the franchise was extended to all white males, while excluding
blacks. Between 1816 and 1821, Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama,
Missouri, and Maine entered the Union—none of them required property to vote.
Racial sentiments were common in the north and the south. There was a demand
for equal rights for all whites. In 1800, only 2 states allowed popular choice of
the Electoral College electors in Presidential elections. By 1832, all states except
South Carolina allowed it. The rise of new classes which were not tied to land
(industrial workers, merchants, bankers, etc.) made property requirements seem
unfair.
Disenfranchisements: At the same time, blacks were clearly relegated to second
class status all over the country, losing voting rights once held in the north. Race
and gender became the boundaries of political power, not class and wealth. New
Jersey, for example, explicitly moved in 1807 to only allowing white men to vote.
Religious Ferment: The Second Great Awakening (1800-1840) channeled the
spirit of liberty into religious affairs. Those churches which could easily produce
congregations and ministers flourished. Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians
rode the wave west and flourished. By 1850, one in three Americans was a
regular churchgoer. Theologically, the Second Great Awakening tended to reduce
the emphasis on predestination and put more of the burden on those preached to to
accept salvation. This was accompanied by a great theatricality of preaching at
tent meetings and revivals and high emotionalism. The Second Great Awakening
appealed to women and blacks very strongly; twice as many women as men
underwent conversions, and evangelicalism became very popular with southern
slaves.
Religious Defense of Slavery: At the same time, however, the major southern
religious groups all came to endorse slavery. They swung around to deploying a
biblical defense.
Rise of the Jacksonians: Jackson, allied with Martin Van Buren, built a northsouth alliance which became the core of the Democratic Party. Jackson depicted
himself as a military hero and a man of the people who represented popular
interests, even though he was a wealthy slaveowner who lived in a mansion and
lived off the labor of others.
Southerners: Feared Adams would use federal power against slavery
Northerners: Led by Martin Van Buren and the New York political
machine—the Albany Regency. Van Buren was the son of a tavern
keeper and he was a brilliant politician who revolutionized American
politics by developing new methods of mass mobilization. Unfortunately,
he was rather more skilled at getting elected than having a plan for what to
do once in office.
Mass Mobilization: Van Buren pioneered the methods of mass
mobilization through printed propaganda, songs, rallies, marches, and
other public communications and activity. Newspapers carried the
message and local committees got out the vote for Jackson.
Victory in 1828: Jackson and Adams basically went crazy with ferocious,
hateful mudslinging. Jackson accused Adams of being the Tsar of
Russia's pimp during his time as Ambassador to Russia. This was false.
Adams accused Jackson of bigamy because he married a married woman
(Rachel Jackson). This was actually true because Jackson and Rachel
THOUGHT her husband had divorced her, but he hadn't actually finished
the process.
Jackson swept the South and the West and much of the Mid-Atlantic. This
was despite having no real party program beyond 'I KILL THINGS
WELL' and 'I AM AN ORDINARY JOE LIKE YOU, DESPITE MY
GIANT MANSION AND MANY SLAVES AND HUGE ESTATE'. .
Jackson took 56% of the popular vote and 15 states, plus a fraction of the
electoral votes of New York and Maryland.
The Jackson Administrations:
The Spoils System: Jackson amplified the policy of removing old officeholders
of rival factions and replacing them with his own supporters; this was a potent
tool to build party loyalty. Jackson believed anyone of good will and normal
intelligence could perform any government job and required no special training or
experience or any other qualification. He removed about 20% of the
officeholders, but most were replaced by similar members of the national elite
despite his rhetoric.
Indian Removal: 125,000 Indians lived east of the Mississippi in 1828. Jackson
followed a consistent policy of forcing the Indians of the West to move further
west. The Indians of the old Southwest had made a strong effort to modernize,
but Jackson made them move to open up their lands for growing more cotton.
The 1830 Indian Removal Act put forth 500,000 dollars for negotiating treaties to
move the Indians west. Choctaws—1830, Creeks and Chickasaws in 1832 and
the Cherokee in 1838 (The Trail of Tears, in which the Cherokee were forced to
march to Oklahoma on foot in the winter killed around a quarter of them.)
Black Hawk’s War: In 1832, in Illinois, the Sauk and Fox Indians attempted to
return to their old hunting grounds, triggering a war that ended with a massacre of
500 Indians. Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln both served in this war.
Seminole War: The Seminoles held out from 1835-1842 in the longest Indian
War of American history. They defeated four generals who tried to put them
down before final defeat.
The Nullification Crisis: The 1828 ‘Tariff of Abominations’, which levied a
50% tax on many imports, was repugnant to the South, as it failed to protect
southern interests, while guarding northern manufactures. It had been erected by
supporters of Jackson in 1828 to win him Northern support. Southerners
denounced them as an unconstitutional extension of Federal authority.
South Carolina: By 1832, anti-tariff forces controlled South Carolina.
They developed the doctrine of nullification, arguing a state could,
through a political convention, exercise the authority to nullify the
enforcement of a national law, unless a constitutional amendment was
passed to force its enforcement. Many nullifiers hoped to use this to
defend slavery if necessary in the future. South Carolina was the only
Southern state where slaves outnumbered whites. John C. Calhoun, a
former major nationalist, came to lead this movement. He drew on
Jeffersonian ideas expressed in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions to
fight against the Alien and Sedition Acts. In November 1832, a
convention nullified the Tariff.
Jackson: This drove Jackson berserk. He made it clear he would use
force to enforce the collection of customs if he had to, and had the Force
Bill passed to get Congressional approval. In addition, Jackson’s foes
managed to pass the Compromise Tariff of 1833, which lowered tariffs to
20% by gradual reductions over time. However, Jackson’s actions drove
many planters out of the Democratic party.
The Bank War: Western farmers hated the National Bank. Henry Clay and
other supporters of it tried to recharter it early in 1832, to create a campaign issue.
This misfired; the Bank had become a symbol of monstrous monopoly. The head
of the Second National Bank of the United States was Nicholas Biddle, an eastern
banker who hated Jackson for blocking national development and being a thug.
Jackson vetoed the rechartering of the bank. This angered business interests,
who, as the planters had begun to do, left the Democratic party. But Clay lost the
election.
‘Wildcat’ Banks: With a new Secretary of the Treasury, Jackson withdrew all
federal monies from the Bank and began depositing them in various state banks
controlled by Democrats.
The Consequences: The economy was flooded with easy credit. Combined with
high commodity prices, this created a land purchase and speculation bubble which
would explode horribly in the Van Buren Administration. Land purchase from
the federal government rose from 4 million acres in 1833 to 20 million acres in
1836. Americans piled up debt believing rising land values would enable them to
pay it off.
The Second Party System
The Van Buren Administration and the Rise of the Whigs
Stand Pat: Van Buren was elected in 1836 on the strength of his ties to Jackson;
like Jackson in 1828, he essentially had no platform beyond ‘staying the
Jacksonian course’.
Panic of 1837: Jackson’s movement to the US government depositing funds in
state banks created a group of rich banks who loaned massive amounts to land
speculators. The Specie Circular, issued by Jackson in 1836 specified that land
could only be bought with specie (gold and silver coins). Unfortunately, in 1836,
the Bank of England tightened up credit for fear of loss of specie to the United
States and raised interest rates. The demand for cotton fell, pushing many
American banks into bankruptcy or heavy loss. Business now stagnated and
many lost jobs. Unemployment hit the level of 20%.. Depression lasted until
1843. This panic led to the creation of the Independent Treasury system, a set of
regional vaults which would hold government revenues in the form of gold and
silver coins. Unfortunately, this prolonged the depression by taking a large chunk
of the money supply out of circulation.
The Rise of Abolitionism: In the north, during the 1830s, a new phase of antislavery began with William Lloyd Garrison’s paper, The Liberator. The new antislavery agitators called for immediate emancipation. They launched a
propaganda offensive in 1835 which led to the 1836 articulation of the ‘Gag
Rule’, which immediately tabled any anti-slavery petitions sent to the House of
Representatives. It lasted until 1844, though John Quincy Adams fought it tooth
and nail.
The Rise of the Whigs
Whigs are born: The Whigs were an alliance of southern planters and northern
merchants who were in opposition to ‘Jacksonism’. They took shape during the
Van Buren administration, coalescing around the leadership of Henry Clay, John
C. Calhoun, and Daniel Webster. But they began with opposition to the attack on
the national bank. They took their name from their opposition to “King Jackson”.
‘King’ Jackson: Jackson was a strong executive, vetoing a dozen times (all
previous presidents combined had levied only ten before him.) He openly defied
the Supreme Court and Congress, always appealing to the people. The AntiJackson forces saw him as a tyrant in the making. They also saw him as a threat
to elite leadership.
Anti-Masons: The secrecy of the Masonic fraternal order aroused suspicion in
New York in the 1830s, culminating in scandals and crime accusations and the
rise of anti-Masonic political party. It had a strongly nativist streak, and accused
the Masons of being anti-Christian. It was unable to sustain itself long-term and
was absorbed by other anti-Jackson forces.
1836: Unable to achieve national unity, the Whigs tried running 4 regional
candidates (William Henry Harrison—West, Hugh Lawson White—South, Daniel
Webster—New England, Willie Person Mangum--South), in hopes of each having
enough local influence to crush Van Buren in that region. Instead, Van Buren
triumphed, though weakened in the South. He took 170 electoral votes and 50.8%
of the popular vote.
The Second Party System: The Second Party System was the opposition of
Whigs and Democrats which emerged by 1840. By that point, the Whigs had
developed sufficient organization and propaganda skills to battle the Democrats
on even terms.
The Whig Platform:
Limited Executive Power: The Whigs sought to check possibly
tyrannical and over-extended executive authority.
Reluctance to Accept Parties: Despite having to form a party, the Whigs
tended to fear party divisions as a source of demagogic power; this tended
to hamper Whig mass organization
Pro-Development: The Whigs endorsed governmental action to develop
the economy—roads, canals, harbors, tariffs, grants to new industries, and
so forth. They embraced an industrial future.
Evangelicalism: The Whigs embraced evangelical religion and moral
reform. This often took the form of pushing anti-Catholicism and
prohibition of alcohol. It also included things like asylums, sabbath laws,
and public education.
Nativism: The Whigs tended to be anti-immigrant, in part because of
often seeing those immigrants as morally corrupt.
The Election of 1840 and After (Harrison/Tyler administrations)
William Henry Harrison: A former governor, William Henry Harrison was a
military hero with a popular touch (despite being a very wealthy aristocrat). He
had done well in 1836, and was chosen as presidential candidate of the Whigs, in
part because many feared Henry Clay, who wanted the job desperately, was
unelectable due to too many enemies.
‘Log Cabin and Hard Cider’: An editorial meant to be insulting enabled WHH
to take on a populist aura despite an aristocratic upbringing and life. It also
reflected the general ‘hoopla over content’ approach of the Whigs in 1840. They
had successfully appropriated the Democratic tactics of 1828 and 1832.
Whig Victory: The Whigs took 53% of the popular vote and carried most of the
South. 78% of voters voted, up from 55% in 1828, 1832, 1836.
‘Tyler Too’: WHH died within a month of his inauguration. He was replaced by
John Tyler, an anti-Jackson Whig who was really rather more of a Democrat in
policy than a Whig, united only by his fear of the abuse of executive authority and
his anti-party spirit.
Clay Stymied: Clay tried to push through his American system—recreation of
the National Bank, a protective tariff, and distribution of land sale funds to the
states for internal improvements. Tyler began vetoing everything in sight.
Tyler’s cabinet resigned and he replaced it with a more pliant one, but the Whig
agenda was stymied.
Impeachment Attempt: After Tyler vetoed a Whig tariff bill in 1842, there was
an attempt to impeach Tyler in 1842-3, led by John Quincy Adams, but they
failed to get the two-thirds vote needed in the House of Representatives to
actually pull it off.
Foreign Policy:
The Webster-Ashburton Treaty: This established the Canada-US border
in Maine and the upper Midwest. The US also agreed to work with
Britain vs. the slave trade internationally. Webster then resigned.
Pro-Southern Foreign Policy: Tyler now pursued a pro-Southern
foreign policy in hopes of moving over to the Democratic party in 1844.
Texas: Tyler began annexation talks with Texas in 1843. In 1844, he
submitted to the senate a treaty of annexation. The Senate rejected it by a
2 to 1 margin.