Section 1: Jacksonian Democracy
 The
election of 1824 featured three favorite
sons, candidates supported by their home
states rather than a national party.
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Henry Clay of Kentucky
Andrew Jackson of Tennessee
John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts (son of
John Adams)
 Jackson
won the most popular votes, but no
one received a majority, over 50%.
 Jackson did receive the plurality, the largest
single share (99 of 162).
 The
Twelfth Amendment says that when no
candidate receives a majority, the House of
Representatives selects the president.
 Adams and Clay made a secret deal.
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Clay used his influence as Speaker of the House
to persuade the House not to vote for Jackson.
Adams was elected, and he named Clay as
secretary of state.
But this “corrupt bargain,” along with unpopular
policies (stronger navy, larger government) made
John Quincy Adams a very unpopular president.
 By

Democratic-Republicans supported Jackson and
supported states’ rights and smaller government.


1828, there were two parties.
They were generally frontier people, immigrants, and
city workers.
National Republicans supported Adams and
supported stronger government, a national bank,
and road-building.

They were generally farmers and merchants.
 This
campaign featured an extreme amount
of mudslinging, attempts to ruin the other
candidate’s reputation.
 This
was also the first use of slogans,
buttons, and rallies, all of which became
permanent parts of campaigning.
 Jackson ended up winning in a landslide, an
overwhelming victory.
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
56% of the vote, 178 electoral votes
John C. Calhoun switched parties to become
Jackson’s vice president (he was Adams’s V.P.).
 Jackson
was immensely popular, especially
with small farmers and craftsmen.
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He seemed like “a man of the people.”
He was a patriot.
He was a war hero.
He worked hard from poverty to wealth.
 Jackson
had gained his popularity during the
War of 1812.
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He defeated the Creek Indians at the Battle of
Horseshoe Bend and the British at the Battle of
New Orleans.
His troops called him “Old Hickory” because he
was as tough as a hard hickory tree.
 Jackson
promised “equal protection and equal
benefits” for all Americans.

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(This actually meant all white males.)
Still, the property requirements to vote began to
loosen, and many white males finally got to vote.
 Democrats
favored democracy, and they
sought to break up the bureaucracy, a system
in which nonelected officials carried out laws.


Jackson replaced many nonelected officials with
his supporters.
Some accused Jackson of acting as a tyrant.
 Jackson
and his supporters responded that “to
the victors belong the spoils.”
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In other words, since Jackson won, he and his
supporters earned the right to the benefits.
The process of replacing government employees
with the winning candidate’s supporters is called
the spoils system.
 Another
change was the abandoning of the
caucus system.
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Under the caucus system, political candidates
were chosen by special committees of Congress.
Under Jackson, nominating conventions of state
delegates replaced the Congressional committees.
 In
1828, Congress placed a tariff, a fee on
imported goods, on all goods from Europe.
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This encouraged Americans to buy American.
The North loved the tariff—it caused people to buy
their goods.
The South hated it—the South had little
manufacturing, and it meant higher prices.
 Vice
President John C. Calhoun argued that
the South had the right to nullify (cancel) a
federal law states disagreed with.


Some Southerners called for the South to secede.
Do states have the right to secede if they disagree
with the federal government?
 Calhoun
said it this way: Either the states
decide what’s constitutional, or the Supreme
Court and Congress will always tell states
what to do.

He argued that since the federal government was
a creation of the states, states can break away.
 Senator
Daniel Webster loudly declared that
nullification and secession were appalling.
 In 1830 Jackson finally made his view known:
he declared the Union must be preserved.

In 1832 Calhoun won election to Senate and
resigned as Jackson’s vice president.
 Eventually
John C. Calhoun and South Carolina
became President Jackson’s biggest enemies.
 In 1832, Jackson and Congress passed a new,
lower tariff to appease the South.

But the South Carolina legislature passed the
Nullification Act, refusing to pay the “illegal”
tariffs of 1828 and 1832 and threatening secession.
 Eventually
Henry Clay and President Jackson
struck a deal for a lower tariff with S.C.

Calhoun and S.C. claimed victory, saying they’d
forced a revision of the tariff, but they also
realized a state couldn’t secede without a fight.
Section 2: The Removal of Native Americans
 The
Native Americans of Georgia faced a large
problem when white settlers began to move
onto their land.
 Many wanted the tribes moved west of the
Mississippi River to free up the good Southern
soil for white farmers.

Jackson supported the calls for relocation.
 In
1830, Congress OK’d the Indian Removal
Act.

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Congress paid Indians to move west.
In 1834 Congress created the Indian Territory in
modern-day Oklahoma.
 The
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Cherokee Nation refused to move.
In the 1790’s the federal government had
recognized the Cherokee people as a separate
nation with its own laws.
But Georgia refused to acknowledge them.
 The
Cherokee sued Georgia (Worcester v.
Georgia), a Supreme Court case in which Chief
Justice John Marshall sided with the
Cherokee.
 But Jackson overstepped the Supreme Court.

“John Marshall has made his decision. Now let
him enforce it.”
 In
1835, the federal government persuaded a
few Cherokee to sign over their land.
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But most Cherokee refused and petitioned the
government for understanding.
Jackson and the federal government were not
persuaded.
In 1838, federal troops under Gen. Winfield Scott
removed the Cherokee.
The Cherokee did not fight back, and thousands
died on their forced march west through bad
weather.
“The Trail of Tears”
 Some

Black Hawk, a Sauk chief, led a force to recapture
their homeland in Illinois.
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Natives did resist, however.
Hundreds were killed, others pursued and slaughtered.
The Seminole people, led by Chief Osceola,
teamed up with former slaves to attack white
settlers in Florida.
They used guerilla tactics, ambushes and surprise
attacks and retreats.
In 1835, they killed most of a force of 110 under
Major Francis Dade and outlasted the troops.
The Seminole were the only Native tribe to
successfully resist removal
 In
the end, few Natives remained east of the
Mississippi.

They had given up over 100 million acres and
received 32 million acres and $68 million in return.
 The
“Five Civilized Tribes” were relocated to
present-day Oklahoma.

Cherokee, Creek, Seminole, Chickasaw & Choctaw
Section 3: Jackson and the Bank
 President
Jackson had long hated the Bank of the
United States.

It was chartered by Congress, but run by wealthy
Eastern bankers instead of elected officials.
 In
1832, Senators Daniel Webster and Henry Clay
asked the president of the Bank, Nicholas Biddle,
to help them defeat Jackson’s reelection.
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The Bank’s charter was to be renewed in 1836, but
Clay and Webster asked Biddle to apply for a new
charter in 1832.
They thought the Bank was popular.
If Jackson rejected the Bank charter, he’d be
defeated, they figured, and Clay would be elected.
 Jackson
was sick in bed when the charter came
to him.
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He told his friend Martin Van Buren, “The bank…is
trying to kill me. But I will kill it!”
He vetoed (rejected) the charter.
 McCulloch
v. Maryland had declared that the
Bank was constitutional.

But Jackson once again fought the Supreme Court.
 Clay

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and Webster’s plan backfired.
Most people supported Jackson’s veto, and he was
reelected in another landslide.
Martin Van Buren was elected vice president.
 Reelected,

Jackson tried again to kill the bank.
He ordered all government deposits withdrawn from
the Bank and placed in smaller state banks.
 Jackson
won his battle—the Bank was dead
without government deposits.
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However, the death of the National Bank led to
economic problems later.
Cartoon, pg. 460
 Jackson
did not run a third time, but his vice
president, Martin Van Buren, easily won in 1836.

His opposition was the Whig Party, a new party of
anti-Jacksonians and former National Republicans.
 In
1837, the country fell into a deep depression,
a period of low employment and poor business.
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“The Panic of 1837”: Land values dropped sharply,
investments declined, and banks failed.
What is a “bubble”?
Almost immediately, businesses failed and many
Americans lost their jobs.
People were terribly poor and angry.
 Although
Van Buren was a laissez-faire president,
he did persuade Congress to create a federal
treasury in 1840 to combat the depression.
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What’s laissez-faire?
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Government should interfere as little as possible.
Unlike Jackson, Van Buren believed the government’s
money had to be kept somewhere outside private
banks to guard against bank crises.
But Van Buren’s own party (Democratic) and many
Whigs disagreed with him, and a split formed in the
Democratic party.
This gave the Whigs a chance to come to power.
 The
Whigs’ candidate, William Henry Harrison,
was popular from the Battle of Tippecanoe in the
War of 1812. His running mate was John Tyler.
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“Tippecanoe and Tyler Too!”
Harrison was also portrayed as “a man of the people,”
just like Jackson.
He supported small farmers and common people, just
like Jackson.
Whigs generally supported a stronger
federal government.
Whaaa?!
 Harrison
won, but he died four weeks after his
inauguration.

He gave his 1½-hour inauguration speech in a blizzard
and later died of pneumonia.

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D’oh!
John Tyler became the nation’s first vice president to
gain presidential office after a president’s death.
 But
Tyler backed mostly Democratic ideas, and
the Whig party abandoned him.
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Four years later, the Whig party was in disarray.
Democratic candidate James K. Polk won in 1844.
The Whig Party was out of power after only four years.
