JACKSONIAN DEMOCRACY
• “Democratizing” Politics
– Jefferson believed ordinary citizens could
be educated to determine what was right
– Jackson believed they knew what was right
by instinct
– new western states drew up constitutions
that eliminated property qualifications for
voting and holding office
– they opened many more offices to election
rather than appointment
– only in Delaware and South Carolina did
legislatures continue to choose presidential
electors
– this period saw final disestablishment of
churches and beginning of free-school
movement
– officeholders came to regard themselves
as representatives and leaders, and
appealed more openly and intensely for
votes; this empowered the party system
that exists today
• 1828: The New Party System in
Embryo
– Jackson believed that he had been
cheated out of the presidency in 1824, and
he began campaigning for 1828 almost
immediately after Adams’s selection by the
House of Representatives
– in campaign of 1828, Jackson avoided
taking a stand on issues
– both sides resorted to character
assassination
– voters turned out in far greater numbers
• The Jacksonian Appeal
– some historians point out Jackson was
neither a democrat nor a friend of the
underprivileged
– he owned a large plantation and many
slaves
– nor was Jackson quite the rough-hewn
frontiersman he sometimes seemed; his
manners and life-style were those of a
southern planter
– his supporters liked to cast him as the
political heir of Jefferson, in many ways
Jackson more closely resembled the more
• The Spoils System
– Jackson’s policy appeared revolutionary
since there had not been a major political
shift in many years
– Jackson offered the principle of rotation as
an underpinning of his policy
– he believed the duties of public officials
were so simple that anyone could perform
them
– rotating offices would permit more citizens
to participate in tasks of government and
prevent the development of an entrenched
bureaucracy
• President of All the People
– Jackson conceived of himself as direct
representative of people and embodiment
of national power
– he vetoed more bills than all of his
predecessors combined, yet he had no
desire to expand federal authority at the
expense of the states
• Sectional Tensions Revived
– Jackson steered a moderate course on
issues dividing the sections, urging a slight
reduction of the tariff and “constitutional”
internal improvements
– he proposed that surplus federal revenues
be “distributed” to the states
– however, if the federal government
distributed its surplus revenues, it could not
reduce the price of public lands without
going into debt
– in the Senate, Webster successfully
blocked a West-South alliance based on
cheap land and low tariffs
• Jackson: “The Bank . . . I Will Kill It!”
– Jackson won reelection in 1832, partly
based on his promise to destroy second
Bank of the U.S.
– Marshall declared its constitutionality and
Landon Cheves established it on a sound
footing, the Bank of the U.S. flourished
– Cheves’s successor, Nicholas Biddle,
realized that the Bank of the U.S. could act
as a rudimentary central bank
– he attempted to use the institution to
control credit and compel local banks to
maintain adequate reserves of specie
– at the same time the nation had an
insatiable need for capital and credit
– some bankers chafed under Biddle’s
restraints
– regional jealousies also came into play, as
did distrust of chartered corporations as
agents of special privilege
• Jackson’s Bank Veto
– opposition to the Bank remained
unfocused until Jackson brought it together
– Biddle drew closer to Clay and Webster,
who hoped to use the bank issue against
Jackson
– Clay and Webster urged Biddle to ask
Congress to renew Bank’s charter early
– the bill passed Congress, and Jackson
vetoed it
– after his reelection, Jackson withdrew
government funds from Bank
– faced with withdrawal of so much cash,
Biddle contracted his operations
– he further contracted credit by presenting
all state bank notes for conversion into
specie and limiting his own bank’s loans
– money became scarce, and a serious
panic threatened
– Pressure mounted on Jackson, who
refused to budge
– eventually, pressure shifted to Biddle, who
began to lend freely; the crisis ended
• Jackson Versus Calhoun
– Calhoun coveted the presidency, moreover,
personal animosities separated him from
Jackson
– the two men were not far apart
ideologically except on the paramount
issue of the right of a state to overrule
federal authority
– like most westerners, Jackson favored
internal improvements, but he preferred
that local projects be left to the states
– he vetoed the Maysville Road Bill because
the route was wholly within Kentucky
• Indian Removals
– Jackson also took a states’ rights position
in the controversy between the Cherokee
Indians and Georgia
– he pursued a policy of removing Indians
from the path of white settlement
– Some tribes resisted and were subdued by
troops
– the Cherokee attempted to hold their lands
by adjusting to white ways
– in spite of several treaties that seemed to
establish the legitimacy of their
government, Georgia refused to recognize
it
– Georgia passed a law declaring all
Cherokee laws void and the Cherokee
lands part of Georgia
– in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, Marshall
ruled that the Cherokee were “not a foreign
state” and therefore could not sue in a
federal court, but in Worcester v. Georgia,
he ruled that the state could not control the
Cherokee or their territory
– Marshall also overturned the conviction for
murder of a Cherokee named Corn Tassel
on the ground that the crime had taken
place in Cherokee territory
– Jackson backed Georgia and insisted that
no independent nation could exist within
U.S.
– eventually, the U.S. forced about 15,000
Cherokee to leave Georgia for lands in
Oklahoma; about 4,000 died on the way
• The Nullification Crisis
– South Carolina’s planters objected to a
new tariff law passed in 1832 that lowered
duties less than they had hoped
– they also resented northern agitation
against slavery
– radicals in the state saw the two issues as
related (both represented the tyranny of
the majority), and they turned to Calhoun’s
doctrine of nullification as a logical defense
– Jackson believed that if a state could nullify
federal law the Union could not exist
– South Carolina passed an ordinance of
nullification prohibiting collection of tariff
duties in state and voted to authorize the
raising of an army
– Jackson began military preparations of his
own
– in a presidential proclamation, he warned
that “disunion by armed force is treason”
– Congress compromised by reducing the
tariff and by passing a Force Bill granting
the president additional authority to enforce
the revenue laws
– Sobered by Jackson”s response and
professing to be satisfied with the token
reductions of the new tariff, South Carolina
repealed the Nullification Ordinance
– South Carolina attempted to save face by
nullifying the Force Act
• Boom and Bust
– an increased volume of currency caused
land prices to soar
– proceeds from land sales wiped out the
government’s debt and produced a surplus
– alarmed by the speculative mania, Jackson
issued a Specie Circular, which required
purchasers of government land to pay in
gold or silver
– demand immediately slackened, and prices
sagged
– speculators defaulted on mortgages, and
banks could not recover enough on
foreclosed property to recover their loans
– people rushed to withdraw their money in
the form of specie, and banks exhausted
their supplies
– panic swept the country
– numerous factors caused such swings in
the economic cycle, but Jackson’s policies
exaggerated them
• Jacksonianism Abroad
– Jackson’s exaggerated patriotism led him
to push relentlessly for the solution of
minor problems, and he did achieve some
diplomatic successes
– Great Britain agreed to several reciprocal
trade agreements, including one that finally
opened British West Indian ports to
American ships
– France agreed to pay compensation for
damages to American property during the
Napoleonic wars
– when the French Chamber of Deputies
refused to appropriate the necessary
funds, Jackson sent a blistering message
to Congress asking for reprisals against
French property
– Congress wisely took no action, which led
Jackson to suspend diplomatic relations
with France and order the navy readied
– the French government finally appropriated
the money
• The Jacksonians
– Jacksonian Democrats included rich and
poor, easterners and westerners,
abolitionists and slaveholders
– if it was not yet a close-knit national
organization, the party agreed on certain
basic principles: suspicion of special
privilege and large business corporations,
freedom of economic opportunity, political
freedom (at least for white males), and
conviction that ordinary citizens could
perform tasks of government
– Democrats also tended to favor states’
rights
– Jacksonians supported opportunities for
the less affluent (such as public education)
but showed no desire to penalize the
wealthy or to intervene in economic affairs
to aid the underprivileged
• Rise of the Whigs
– Jackson’s opposition remained less
cohesive and dissident groups began to
call themselves Whigs
– those who could not accept the
peculiarities of Jacksonian finance or had
no taste for the anti-intellectual bent of the
administration were drawn to the Whigs
– the Whigs were slow to develop an
effective party organization
– in 1836, they relied on a series of favorite
son candidates in an effort to throw the
election into the House of Representatives
– the strategy failed to defeat Jackson’s
handpicked successor, Martin Van Buren
• Martin Van Buren:
Without Jackson
Jacksonianism
– Van Buren approached most problems
pragmatically
– he fought the Bank of the U.S. but opposed
irresponsible state banks as well
– while favoring public construction of
internal improvements, he preferred state
rather than national programs
– Van Buren had the misfortune to take office
just as the Panic of 1837 hit
– just as the country recovered from the
Panic of 1837, cotton prices declined
sharply in 1839
– state governments defaulted on their
debts, which discouraged investors
– a general economic depression lasted until
1843
– Van Buren did not cause the depression,
but his policies did nothing to help
– his refusal to assume any responsibility for
the general welfare has led at least one
historian to argue that the Whigs, not the
– the depression convinced Van Buren that
he needed to find some place other than
the state banks to keep federal funds
– he settled on the idea of removing the
government from all banking activities
– the Independent Treasury Act called for the
construction of government-owned vaults
to store federal revenues; all payments to
government were to be made in hard cash
– the plan was economically irresponsible,
but system worked reasonably well for
many years, thanks to a lucky combination
of circumstances
• The Log Cabin Campaign
– the depression hurt the Democrats, but it
did not cause Van Buren’s defeat in 1840
– Whigs were better organized than four
years earlier, and they stole the Democrats’
tactics by nominating a popular general
and shouting praises of the common man
– they contrasted simplicity of William Henry
Harrison with the suave Van Buren
– huge turnout elected Harrison by large
margin; less than a month after his
inauguration, Harrison fell ill and died
– with the succession of John Tyler, events
took a new turn, one that would lead to civil
war