Jacksonian Democrats viewed themselves as the guardians of the United States Constitution,
political democracy, individual liberty, and equality of economic opportunity. In light of the
following documents and your knowledge of the 1820s and 1830s, to what extent do you agree
with the Jacksonians’ view of themselves?
A FEW PRELIMINARY COMMENTS:
•
•
•
ONE TIME-TESTED TECHNIQUE FOR TEACHING WRITING IS MODELING. What you are seeing
here is a MODEL ANSWER. Modeling is not meant to make you feel inferior. Rather, it is a
way of showing proper techniques.
THIS IS LONGER THAN YOU WOULD BE ABLE TO WRITE IN 45 MINUTES (ROUGHLY 900
WORDS). I produced this length because I wanted you to see many examples of the
incorporation of documents.
WRITING HISTORY ESSAYS, on one hand is CHALLENGING, but also NOT THAT CHALLENGING if
you are willing to work at it. WRITING IS A CRAFT and you cannot get better without
PRACTICE!
I tried something different here with the intro paragraph. Some of the
Martineau language, it seems to me, really helped set up an approach to the
question and also worked as an opener. The question itself provided me
with an outline and I placed the thesis at the end of the paragraph – IT IS
UNDERLINED.
OUTSIDE
INFO
HERE
“I had been less than three weeks in the country and was in a state of something like
awe . . . the absence of poverty, of gross ignorance, of all servility . . “ (Document D). This
was America in 1834, according to British author Harriet Martineau. Was she accurate in
her glowing assessment? Was America indeed the land of opportunity? The land of
equality? Those that referred to themselves as Jacksonian Democrats certainly believed so.
In fact, the Jacksonians viewed themselves as the guardians of everything that was good
and unique about the young nation – the Constitution, political democracy, individual
liberty, and equality of economic opportunity. {PROOFS} Were they accurate in their selfassessment? Clearly their record was mixed and remains open to interpretation.
Andrew Jackson certainly believed that he was the guardian of the US Constitution
and that he was correcting faulty interpretations of the document put forth by his
opponents. For example, in July of 1832 he killed the Bank of the US when it came up for
recharter. He saw the Bank as a “monopoly of the foreign and domestic exchange” and
believed that the wealthy were using the Bank to line their pockets (Document B). Further,
the Bank, in Jackson’s estimation, violated the Constitution, an argument that had been
around for a long time. Jackson’s opponents, among them the powerful Daniel Webster of
Massachusetts, believed that Jackson was off base in his assessment and, in fact, saw the
veto as an alarming “pretension” by the executive branch “over every power of the
government” (Document C). In Webster’s view, Jackson was simply using the
Constitutional argument to support his own power grab. The Whigs, like the Federalists
before them, viewed the National Bank as both necessary and constitutional.
Along with protecting the Constitution, {TRANSITIONAL PHRASING}
Jacksonians were the champions of the evolving political democracy of the United States. It
is no coincidence that Jackson’s election coincided with the extension of voting rights to
non-property owning males and to the changing US economy. Hamilton’s 1790s vision of
an industry-based economic system seemed to be coming true and industrial workers in
eastern cities sought to be active participants in the political process. Though the labor
movement was still a long way off, one can start to see a new rising voice during the 1830s.
George Henry Evans, for example, spoke for the emerging class in his Declaration of 1829
claiming that it was the duty of workers to “use every constitutional means to reform the
abuses” of government and provide “guards for their future security” (Document A).
RECALL the
formula for
incorporating the
documents.
1. Outside Info
2. Identify the
document
3. Paraphrase and
or brief quoting
4. Parenthetical
reference
5. Commentary
and possible
interaction with
other documents
Jackson provided hope for the workers who could identify with his common background.
And while the system was becoming more democratic in terms of who could participate
in government, women and minorities still had no right to vote, hardly a democratic
situation.
Along with this mixed record concerning the US Constitution and political
democracy, {THIS IS CALLED “LOOPING”} the Jacksonians present a complicated picture
when examining the concept of individual liberty. Extending voting rights certainly
illustrated a greater degree of freedom for many, but there were also glaring
contradictions. For example, southerners were able to push a resolution through Congress
that made it “highly penal to print, publish, and distribute newspapers, pamphlets, tracts . .
. calculated and having an obvious tendency to excite the slaves to insurrection” (Document
F). Jackson apparently gave in to southern pressure on this, a clear violation of the freedom
of speech. In addition, Jackson’s record concerning Indian removal indicates a complete
lack of regard for the individual liberties of Native people. The tragic episode known as the
“Trail of Tears,” the removal of Cherokee people from Georgia to Oklahoma, meant the
death of thousands of innocent people (Document G). This was a segment of the population
completely “off the radar” of foreign visitors like Harriet Martineau (Document D) and
dramatically contradicts the notion of Jackson as a guardian of individual liberty.
Finally, though it can be argued {TRANSITIONAL PHRASING AND SET UP FOR
PRESENTING CONTRARY EVIDENCE} that Jacksonians promoted the idea of equal
economic opportunity, their record in this regard was also mixed. As mentioned
previously, the voices of workers were more evident than before and Jackson certainly
perceived that he was helping the common man when he struck down the bank. In
addition, Chief Justice Roger Taney, himself a Jacksonian, believed that the “happiness and
well-being of every citizen” depended on the “faithful preservation” of the rights of local
communities to establish private enterprises, even if competing with federally granted
charters (Document H). On the other hand, {GOOD PHRASING FOR SHOWING
COUNTER-VIEWS) in spite of these developments and the rosy observations of Harriet
Martineau, there clearly were groups in society that were no part of the “equal” economic
opportunities. Philip Hone, a Whig businessman in New York City, for example, recorded
his impressions of “dreadful riots” between the “Irish and the Americans” as well as
“hostility to the blacks” in New York and Philadelphia in 1834 (Document E). Certainly, we
might assume that Hone was “anti-Jackson” and therefore willing to paint a dark picture of
urban life, but the historical evidence is clear that America has always had “out-groups”
that simply do not have the same economic opportunities as the mainstream of society.
In summary, the Jacksonian self-perception was only partially correct. As with any
political faction, they tended to have an idealized version of themselves while glossing over
their weaknesses.
One final thought: As we get further into the essay
work, I fully expect more of you to come in and visit
with me about your work in the process. You need to
be willing to do that to get better. This isn’t rocketscience.
THE MIXED
BAG – YOU
SHOULD SEE
THAT IN
EACH
PARAGRAPH
STICKING
WITH THE
MARTINEAU
THING HERE