Period 4.4
1824-1840

 During the 1820s, there was a movement to make
United States politics more democratic:
 Many states completely removed the property
qualifications in order to vote or hold public office
(still needed to be a white male)
 Four candidates campaigned
and ran in the 1824
presidential election:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Andrew Jackson
John Q. Adams
William Crawford
Henry Clay
 When the results came in,
Jackson had the most
electoral and popular votes,
but not the 51% majority of
the electoral college as
specified by the
Constitution.

 Because no candidate had the majority of the
electoral vote, the House of Representatives would
vote to decide the who the winner of the election
would be.
 Henry Clay who had finished 4th in the original
voting, was the Speaker of the House (the top position
in the House of Reps), and had a lot of influence on
how the vote would go.

 The “Corrupt Bargain”
 The House of Representatives elected John Q. Adams
over Andrew Jackson, and Adams appointed Henry
Clay as Secretary of State.
 (Significant because the previous 5 Presidents had been
Secretary of State immediately before winning the
presidency).
 Jackson accused Adams and Clay with having struck a
“corrupt bargain” and he immediately began
campaigning for an 1828 rematch against Adams.

 John Quincy Adams had an unremarkable
presidency.
 He asked Congress to spend for:
 “Internal Improvements” – roads, bridges, canals etc.
 Wanted to create a national public university
 Economic support to manufacturers in the North
The Tariff of 1828
(“Abominations”)

• The one significant piece of legislation passed during the
J.Q. Adams administration was the Tariff of 1828
 Tariffs were generally supported by the North because
their economy was heavily based on manufacturing, and the
tariff protected the price of American made products from
cheaper European imports.
 The South hated the tariff, calling it the “Tariff of
Abomination,” because their economy was based on
agriculture, and a lot of their product was sold on the world
market which was not protected by a tariff and subject to
price fluctuations.
The Election of 1828

 The election of 1828 was a rematch of the election of
1824 – John Q. Adams vs. Andrew Jackson.
 Jackson won easily.

 For many, Andrew Jackson’s election in 1828
signaled the beginning of mass democracy.
 It was the first presidential election where the
common man had a real political voice.
 Jackson was determined to be the voice of the
“common man” as president
 The decisions he made as president clearly reflect his
conviction.
The “Spoils System”

 One of the pitfalls of Jackson’s strong democratic
tendencies was that all classes of men should have an
equal opportunity at government jobs.
 When Jackson took office, he fired all government
officials that had served under John Q. Adams and
replaced them with his political supporters.
 The negative consequence of the “Spoils System” was
that many of the new appointees were inadequately
prepared or incompetent to correctly serve in their new
positions.
Westward Expansion

 Andrew Jackson was a westerner (from Tennessee),
and committed to westward expansion of the U.S.
1.
2.
His first hand experience fighting the Native
Americans on the western frontier bred a deep hatred
for many of the western tribes.
Andrew Jackson’s perceived his role as president as
being the voice of the common man, and the common
man wanted the west cleared for expansion.

 In 1830, the Indian Removal Act was passed by
Congress and signed by Andrew Jackson
 Forced the “five civilized tribes” to either become part
of the United States and adhere to U.S. law, or move to
a designated Indian Reservation west of the
Mississippi River:
 Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and
Seminoles

Fighting the Removal
Act

• The Cherokees decided to use the legal system to try and
retain possession of their ancestral land.
 The Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, and Worcester v.
Georgia cases goes to the Supreme Court for the
decision, where John Marshall is still Chief Justice.
 Marshall ruled that the law violated a previous treaty
with the Cherokee and was therefore unconstitutional
 Jackson ignored the ruling and forced the removal
anyways
The Trail of Tears

 During the winter of 1838-1839, 12,000 of the
Cherokee Nation were forced by the U.S. military to
evacuate their land and move west of the Mississippi
River.
 About 1/3 of all Cherokee died along the trail to
Oklahoma.

 The Second Bank of the United States (Run by Nicholas
Biddle)
 About the Bank:
 The Bank was a privately run corporation, accountable only
to its shareholders, not to the government or the people of
the United States.
 The U.S. government used the bank as a depository for the
revenue collected from taxes and tariffs.
 How the Bank worked:
 It used the government’s deposits, money that had been
collected through tariffs and taxes, and loaned it out with
interest to make money.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
How to Make Money
from Nothing

Government increases the tariff which increases the
price that Farmer Joe has to pay for farm equipment.
Farmer Joe has to work harder and produce more to
make enough money to pay the inflated prices for farm
equipment.
The money made by the government from the increased
tariff is deposited into the Bank of the United States
The Bank of the United States loans that money to
Farmer Joe so he can afford to pay the high prices for
farm equipment.
Farmer Joe has to pay that money back to the Bank of
the United States with interest.
The Bank War

 Like his political hero, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew
Jackson hated the Bank of the U.S., and it’s president
Nicholas Biddle
 He felt it was monopolistic and concentrated power in
the hands of the wealthy privileged
 He felt that the bank was taking advantage of the
common man to become rich, while implementing
policies designed to keep the common man poor.
The Bank War Erupts

 In 1832, Congress passed a bill call for the re-charter
of the Bank of the U.S. (4 years before the last charter
was up)
 Nicholas Biddle and Henry Clay wanted to make the
re-charter of the bank, the central issue of the 1832,
presidential election.
Election Issues

 Henry Clay was running for president, and wanted
to make it an election issue because:
1. If Jackson signed it into office, he would alienate the
people of the South and West (they hated the bank)
2. If he vetoed the Banks re-charter, he would alienate
the industrial people of the northeast (they loved the
bank)
 Jackson decided to veto the bank calling it
unconstitutional
Burying Biddle’s Bank

 Even though Jackson vetoed the bank’s re-charter,
it didn’t actually expire until 1836
 After Jackson was sworn into office for his second
term, his focus was to destroy the Bank of the
United States.
 How he did it:
1. Jackson stopped depositing federal money into the
bank and gradually depleted the money in the vaults
2. Jackson used the money that had previously been
deposited into the bank to pay off national debt
The 1832 Election

 Andrew Jackson’s veto only served to make him
more popular with the “common man” and he beat
Henry Clay in a landslide.
Problems in the South
John C. Calhoun (Jackson’s
Vice President)

wrote an essay called The South Carolina Exposition and
Protest(1828)
1.
2.
Denounced the tariff as unjust and unconstitutional
Perpetuated the theory of nullification that had been
proposed in the VA and KY Resolutions, as well as
the Hartford Convention.
 Stated that if the federal government purposefully violated
the agreement between the states and the Federal
government, then the states had the right to nullify federal
law.

 How did Congress Respond to the Protests that were
beginning to develop in South Carolina?
 Congress attempted to appease the South by slightly
lowering the Tariff of 1828 through a new tariff (1832)
 The South still rejected it because it only slightly lowered
the cost of manufactured goods.
The “Nullification
Crisis”

 The S.C. State Legislature organizes the Columbia
Convention
1.
2.
Agreed to nullify the tariff
Threatened to leave the union if the government
forced them to abide by the “unconstitutional” Tariff.
 This was one of the early indicators of the
dangerous divisions between North and South.
Henry Clay to the
Rescue…Again

 Henry Clay introduced a bill into Congress called
the Compromise Tariff of 1833
 Provided a gradual reduction of the Tariff of 1832 (10%
over 8 years)
 Ended the dispute between S.C. and the federal
government over the 1832 Tariff for the time being
The Birth of the Whigs

 After the election of 1832, The Whig Party was formed
by a coalition of Andrew Jackson Opponents
 Supported:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Social and political reforms such as restrictions on slavery
High tariffs
National banking system
Building the Infrastructure of America
•
•
•
Canals
Railroads
Telegraph lines
The Election of 1836

 1836
 Martin Van Buren
(Jackson’s 2nd Term
Vice President) ran
against William Henry
Harrison (Whig) for
President
 Van Buren wins,
primarily because of
Jackson’s continuing
popularity with the
masses.
Depression Doldrums and the
Independent Treasury

 Panic of 1837
 Caused by:
 “get-rich quick schemes” and the over-speculation of
western land
 Jackson had crushed the Bank of the United States,
which had provided stability to the United States
 Two major British banks failed simultaneously (America
was still very much dependent on Britain’s economy)
The Result of the Panic
of 1837

 The Results:
 Banks failed
 Commodity (gold, silver, cotton, tobacco) prices
plummeted
 Mortgage foreclosures skyrocketted.
Too Little too late..
 The Independent Treasury Bill of 1840

 Called for a federally run independent treasury
 Wealthy investors would not own stock in it like they did
with the Bank of the United States
 Federal money would be deposited and locked in vaults
and not leant out with interest like with had done with the
Bank of the United States.