JACKSON
Democracy versus Republicanism
- Westward expansion dramatically encouraged democracy. The new western states expanded the right to vote to all white males over the age
of twenty-one. By 1820 most of the older states had followed suit. Property restrictions for voters remained in only seven of twenty-six states by
1840. As of that year, more than 90 percent of adult white males in the nation could vote. Nowhere else in the world was the right to vote so
widespread as it was in the United States. In England, for example, only10 percent of men could vote.
- This led to a sharply higher number of votes cast in presidential elections. Between 1824 and 1828 that number increased threefold. The
proportion of eligible voters who cast votes also grew, from about 27 percent in 1824 to more than 80 percent in 1840.
- At the same time, the method of choosing presidential electors became more democratic. Previously, a caucus of party leaders had done so in
most states, but by 1828, presidential electors were chosen by popular vote rather than by state legislatures in all but two of the twenty-four
states.
- A third change toward democracy in this period was a rise in the proportion of public officials who were elected rather than appointed. More
and more judges, as well as legislative and executive officeholders, were chosen by the people.
- Given these democratic advances, politicians began to appeal more directly to voters. In the early decades of the American republic, men of
great ability had sat in the seats of government, and the prevailing ideology had been republicanism, rule by property-owning “men of talent and
virtue.” The Founders had defined democracy as direct rule by the people; most of them rejected this concept of a democratic approach to
government because it was at odds with their conception of a republic led by a “natural aristocracy.” But by the 1820s and 1830s, the
watchword was democracy, which in practice meant rule by popularly elected party politicians. The new party politicians often pursued selfish
goals; but by uniting ordinary Americans through the developing national two-party system, they held together a social order increasingly
fragmented by economic change and cultural diversity. Moreover, political parties allowed the voices of diverse interest groups - and even
individual voters - to be heard. The founders of the American republic had condemned political factions and parties as anti-republican and
therefore refused to give parties a role in the new constitutional system. But as the power of the elite declined, the political party emerged as the
central organizing force in the American system of government. The new parties were disciplined groups run by professional politicians from
middle-class backgrounds, especially lawyers and journalists. Earlier politicians had regarded political parties as a threat to republican virtue and
embraced them only as a temporary expedient. But now, regular parties were an effective check on the temptation to abuse power. THE MAJOR
BREAKTHROUGH IN AMERICAN POLITICAL THOUGHT IN THE 1820S AND 1830S WAS THE IDEA OF A “LOYAL OPPOSITION,” READY TO CAPITALIZE POLITICALLY
ON THE MISTAKES AND EXCESSES OF THOSE IN POWER.
- In this atmosphere of democratic leveling, newspapers came to play an increasingly important role as a source of information and opinion,
ushering the mass of white Americans into the political arena.
- THUS, THE UNITED STATES DEVELOPED THE WORLD’S FIRST MODERN MASS DEMOCRACY, WITH THE DEMOCRATS LED BY ANDREW JACKSON AS THE
FIRST MASS DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL POLITICAL PARTY. Andrew Jackson’s election in 1828 ushered in a new era in American politics, an era that
historians have called “the Age of the Common Man.” (Jackson himself, however, was no common man: he was a military hero and rich slave
owner). For champions of popular government in the Jacksonian period, the people were sovereign and could do no wrong.
- Besides evoking a heightened sense of “popular sovereignty,” the democratic impulse stimulated a process of social leveling. By the 1830s,
the disappearance of inherited social ranks and clearly defined aristocracies or privileged groups struck European visitors such as Alexis de
Tocqueville as the most radical feature of democracy in America. Historians have described this development as a decline of the spirit of
“deference.” The decline of deference meant that “self-made men” of humble origins could now rise more readily to positions of power and that
aristocratic pretensions were likely to provoke popular hostility. Hence, Harrison had to be all “I grew up in a log cabin and drink hard cider like a
regular guy” in the 1840 election. But economic equality, in the sense of an equitable sharing of wealth, was NOT part of the mainstream
agenda of the Jacksonian period. This was, after all, a competitive capitalist society.
Jackson’s view of his role as president
- Jackson, like Jefferson before him, believed that there was no such thing as universal equality. Some people were blessed with greater
intellect, talent, and good fortune than others. But to Jackson, the real issue facing America and the world was not natural inequality - it was
artificial inequality, the ways in which some men manufactured privilege for their own benefit. Jackson believed that the American government
was designed to undo artificial inequality, and that this idea was the foundation of the American Revolution and the federal Constitution. He ran
his presidency accordingly.
- Coming to terms with Andrew Jackson’s presidency is crucial to any understanding of American history. The presidents whom we have been
saying that historians rate at the very top – Washington, Lincoln, and FDR – oversaw the three great political revolutions that have defined
America: the American Revolution and the framing of the Constitution, the Civil War, and the New Deal. All three also led the country through its
most momentous wars. All three left the presidency different from the way they had inherited it. Jackson’s presidency also saw significant trials
and changes. More than any other American, Jackson oversaw the decline and fall of the elitist order established by the Framers, and its
replacement with the “ruder” ways of democracy.
- THE FOUNDERS OF THIS COUNTRY, IN WRITING THE CONSTITUTION, PROVIDED FOR A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT BASED ON POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. THEY
HAD ATTEMPTED TO MAKE CONGRESS THE CENTERPIECE OF GOVERNMENT. However, Jackson believed that the president ought to dominate the
government, because the president best represented the will of the people. No government body, whether Congress or the Supreme Court,
could supersede the popular majority as expressed in elections, least of all on matters concerning the true meaning of the Constitution. No
private interests could be permitted to obtain special privileges that would bend the Constitution to fulfill their own selfish interests, over and
above those of the people.
- Who did Jackson see as “the people?” Not black Americans, the majority of them enslaved; not American women, of any class or color, who
lacked basic political and civil rights; and certainly not Indians. “The people,” for Jackson, were always the “humble members of society” - the
working classes of Americans. As president, he was, in many respects, a transitional figure in this history of democratic politics, who stood
midway between the founding of the republic and its rebirth in the Civil War.
Jackson as president
- The idea that as president he best represented the sovereignty of the people undergirded all of President Jackson’s major efforts.
In his pursuit of egalitarian reform, Jackson began with the presumption that the actual governing of the country should be conducted by the
people at large. Jackson’s presidency began with his open endorsement of rotation of officeholders, also known as the “spoils system.”.
Although he did not depart radically from his predecessors in the extent to which he removed federal officeholders and replaced them with his
supporters, he was the first president to defend the practice as a legitimate application of democratic doctrine. Jackson set a precedent that was
followed in national politics until the Pendleton Act of 1883 began reform of the civil service system.
- In 1830, Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Senator Robert Hayne of South Carolina debated states’ rights and the nature of the
union, with Webster eloquently defending New England and the republic and Hayne charging that the North was threatening to bring disunity.
Though sympathetic to states’ rights and distrustful of the federal government, Jackson rejected the idea of state sovereignty. He strongly
believed that sovereignty rested with the people.
- Jackson used his popular mandate to destroy the nationalistic American System. By doing this, he disrupted the movement toward stronger
central direction of American life and reinvigorated the JEFFERSONIAN TRADITION of a limited, frugal national government. The Bank veto and the
war on the Bank happened because of Jackson’s insistence on dismantling a tremendously powerful private institution that evaded democratic
checks and balances. This echoed JEFFERSON’S original opposition to Hamilton’s proposal for a national bank, even though JEFFERSON ended
up keeping it when he became president. Jackson’s successful attack on the Bank of the United States was his most important and
controversial use of executive power - thus, while he espoused a limited central government, he also used strong executive power, like Jefferson
with the Louisiana Purchase and enforcement of the Embargo Act. By restraining government and emphasizing individualism, Jacksonians
sought to restore traditional republican virtues, such as self-discipline and self-reliance, traits supposedly undermined by social and economic
change. Jackson looked to Jefferson and the founding generation as models of traditional virtues. Jackson’s use of executive power aroused
intense opposition to the president and his policies, an opposition that crystallized in a new national party – the Whigs. The destruction of the
Bank and the economic disruption that followed brought to the forefront the issue of the government’s relationship to the nation’s financial
system. Differences on this question helped to sustain and strengthen the new two-party system. In his veto of the Maysville Road Bill (the “I”
for internal improvements in the “BIT” of Clay’s American System), which would have funded construction of a 60-mile turnpike within Kentucky,
Jackson asserted that a federally subsidized internal improvement confined to one state was unconstitutional; he insisted that states bore
responsibility for such projects.
- Having restrained the reach of the federal government by attacking the American System, Jackson firmly defended it during the Nullification
Crisis, the most serious threat to national unity that the United States had ever experienced. Jackson’s attack on nullification grew from his
claim that the nullifiers were defying both the explicit terms of the Constitution and the people’s will. Although generally a defender of states’
rights and strict construction of the Constitution in the tradition of Thomas Jefferson, Jackson opposed the theory of nullification as a threat to
the survival of the Union. In his view, federal power should be held in check, but this did not mean the states were truly sovereign. More strongly
than any previous president, he had asserted that the federal government was supreme over the states and that the Union was indivisible.
Moreover, during the Nullification Crisis he justified the use of force against states that denied that federal authority.
- Jackson’s rejection of the Cherokees’ claim to tribal sovereignty and his pursuit of Indian removal rested partly on his belief that creating
separate nations within the borders of the United States violated the Constitution, permitted the federal government to violate states’ rights
(again in the JEFFERSONIAN tradition) and created an intolerable threat to national security.
- In pursuing these policy objectives, Jackson freely used the tools of his office to strengthen the executive branch of government at the expense
of the legislature and judiciary, IN THE PROCESS ESTABLISHING THE FOUNDATION OF THE MODERN DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENCY, WHICH IS NOW THE
CENTRAL PLAYER IN THE POLITICAL ORDER. Jackson vetoed more bills than all his predecessors combined. From George Washington to John
Quincy Adams, the first six presidents had vetoed nine bills; Jackson alone vetoed twelve. Previous presidents believed that vetoes were
justified only on constitutional grounds, but Jackson considered policy disagreements legitimate grounds as well. He made the veto an effective
weapon for controlling Congress, because representatives and senators had to weigh the possibility of a presidential veto as they deliberated.
Overriding a veto through a two-thirds majority in each house is difficult to do - historically, Congress has overridden fewer than ten percent of all
presidential vetoes.