I | INTRODUCTION |
Andrew
Jackson (1767-1845), seventh president of the United States (1829-1837)
and the first Westerner to be elected president. His election marked the end of
a political era dominated by the planter aristocracy of Virginia and the
commercial aristocracy of New England. Jackson himself was an aristocrat, but
from a rougher mold than his predecessors. He fought his way to leadership and
wealth in a frontier society, and his success established a bond between him and
the common people that was never broken. Small farmers, laborers, mechanics, and
many other Americans struggling to better themselves looked to Jackson for
leadership.
Jackson’s followers considered themselves the
party of the people and denounced their political opponents, the National
Republicans and later the Whigs, as aristocrats. In fact, Jacksonian leaders
were nearly all as wealthy, and as different from the common people, as the
Whigs. For all of Jackson’s talk about helping working people, his policies
accomplished little for them. His banking policies destabilized the nation’s
currency and, some historians think, were designed to help bankers friendly to
his Democratic Party.
However benevolent Jackson may have been toward
blacks and Native Americans in his personal life, they clearly were not included
in the “common people” he sought to aid in his public life. His Native American
policy deprived America’s original peoples of millions of acres despite prior
treaties and the disapproval of the Supreme Court of the United States. His
party promoted the interests of slaveholders and thereby helped to delay a
solution to the slavery question until it erupted into the Civil War in
1861.
Jackson left a legacy of a strong presidency.
Since his time it has been commonplace for presidents to repeat his assertion
that the president represents the will of the people better than Congress does.
His example has also made it mandatory for presidents, as well as other American
politicians, to appeal to the people at large rather than special
interests.
II | EARLY LIFE |
Jackson’s Scotch-Irish parents, Andrew and
Elizabeth Hutchinson Jackson, emigrated to America from northern Ireland in
1765. At this time they had two sons, Hugh and Robert. The elder Jackson took up
farming in the backwoods Waxhaw settlement on the border between North and South
Carolina. He died in 1767. A few days later, on March 15, Andrew was born. The
widow Jackson moved her family into the home of a nearby relative, James
Crawford, where Andrew spent his boyhood. He attended frontier schools and
acquired the reputation of being fiery-tempered and willing to fight all comers.
He also learned to read, and he was often called on by the community to read
aloud the news from the Philadelphia papers.
A | American Revolution |
The American Revolution, begun in 1775, did
not reach the Carolinas until 1780. When it did, Andrew, then only 13 years old,
became an orderly and messenger in the mounted militia of South Carolina. He
took part in the Battle of Hanging Rock against the British and in a few small
skirmishes with British sympathizers known as Loyalists or Tories. His brother
Hugh was killed, and when the British raided Waxhaw, both he and Robert were
captured. Because Jackson refused to polish the boots of a British officer, he
was struck across the arm and face with a saber.
The boys were put in a British prison in
Camden, South Carolina, where an epidemic of smallpox broke out. Mrs. Jackson
gained her boys’ release, but Robert soon died. Mrs. Jackson then volunteered to
nurse other American prisoners, and she too caught smallpox and died.
Andrew was now 14 years old and without any
immediate family. With the war over, he took up saddle making and
schoolteaching. With a $300 inheritance from his grandfather, he went to
Charleston, South Carolina, then the biggest city in the South. There he cut a
dashing figure in society until his money ran out.
B | Lawyer |
Jackson next studied law under Spruce
Macay, a lawyer in Salisbury, North Carolina. He was admitted to practice in
1787, and he set up his office in McLeanville, Guilford County, North Carolina.
The next year he and a lawyer companion, John McNairy, crossed the Cumberland
Mountains. They settled in the frontier village of Nashville, which was then in
the western district of North Carolina. McNairy had connections and was made a
judge of the district’s superior court. He appointed Jackson solicitor general.
Jackson’s duty was to prepare court cases on behalf of the state.
Jackson quickly made a name for himself
prosecuting debtors. He built up a successful law practice and engaged in land
speculation. He also opened a store on the Cumberland River. Later he was forced
to sell the store when he unwittingly became involved in the financial
manipulations of his creditor, a Philadelphia speculator. This experience and
others like it made Jackson an opponent of paper credit.
C | Marriage |
In Nashville, Jackson boarded at the home
of the widow of John Donelson, a founder of the city. He soon fell in love with
her daughter, Mrs. Rachel Donelson Robards, who was separated from her husband.
Believing that Mr. Robards had obtained a divorce, they were married in 1791.
Two years later they found that this was not so and the divorce had just then
become final. A second marriage ceremony was performed.
However, this failed to prevent gossips
and political opponents from attempting to make a scandal out of the Jacksons’
happy marriage. Mrs. Jackson endured in silence the many slanders that followed.
Jackson, however, preferred to use dueling pistols to avenge his wife’s
honor.
Although the Jacksons had no children,
they adopted Rachel’s infant nephew, who became Andrew Jackson, Jr. They also
raised three other nephews of Rachel’s, as well as a Native American boy whose
parents had been killed in Jackson’s campaign against the Creek nation in
1814.
III | EARLY CAREER |
In 1790 the western district of North
Carolina became a part of the newly organized Territory South of the River Ohio.
Jackson was appointed as the territory’s prosecuting attorney. In 1796, the
state of Tennessee was carved out of the new territory, and Jackson was elected
a delegate to the state constitutional convention.
A | Congressman, Senator, and Judge |
Tennessee was allotted one delegate to
the U.S. House of Representatives, and in 1796 Jackson was elected to the
office. He allied himself with the Jeffersonian Party against a resolution
praising President George Washington’s administration. Jackson claimed that
Washington’s policy toward Native Americans was too lenient and that Jay’s
Treaty, concluded with the British under Washington’s administration, was too
damaging to American interests.
After one year in the House, Jackson was
elected to fill out an unexpired term in the U.S. Senate, the other chamber of
the Congress of the United States. He served from September 1797 to April 1798
and then retired to private life.
In Tennessee, Jackson was appointed judge
of the state superior court. He held the judgeship from 1798 to 1804. His
decisions were said to be “short, untechnical, unlearned, sometimes
ungrammatical, and generally right.”
B | Active Retirement |
The years from 1804 to 1812 were happy
ones for both Jackson and his wife. He devoted his energies to improving his
plantation, the Hermitage, and breeding racehorses. Jackson owned 20 slaves but
was said to be a kind master. Eventually he owned more than 100 slaves.
Although Jackson was active in local
politics, he took little interest in national affairs. The one exception was his
brief involvement with the so-called Burr conspiracy. Former Vice President
Aaron Burr, determined to restore his personal fortunes, convinced Jackson that
he had government backing to lead a filibustering expedition into Mexico.
Jackson agreed to build him some boats, but when he realized that Burr and his
group were acting entirely on their own, he immediately dropped his connection
with the scheme.
Jackson’s hot temper involved him in a
number of feuds and duels. Many of them were caused by remarks made about his
marriage. The duel with Charles Dickinson in 1806 stands out as an example of
Jackson’s characteristic refusal even to acknowledge the possibility of defeat.
Jackson let his opponent fire first, because Dickinson was a faster and better
shot. Allowing himself time to take deliberate aim, Jackson planned to kill his
man with a single bullet, even “if he had shot me through the brain.” Thus,
Jackson took a bullet in the chest and, without flinching, calmly killed his
man.
Jackson was also involved in a brawl with
politician Thomas Hart Benton and his brother Jesse Benton. Jackson was shot
twice in the shoulder and arm by Jesse and was seriously wounded. However, in
later years, Jackson and Thomas Hart Benton became close political allies.
C | War of 1812 |
In 1802 Jackson was elected major general
of the Tennessee militia. When the War of 1812 broke out, he offered to lead an
invasion into Canada, but his suggestion was ignored by the administration of
President James Madison.
C1 | Old Hickory |
Early in 1813 the governor of
Tennessee, Willie Blount, ordered Jackson to New Orleans, Louisiana. Jackson got
as far as Natchez, Mississippi, when the War Department nullified the order.
Jackson was stranded without food, supplies, or equipment for his 2500 soldiers.
Instead of disbanding his command as ordered, Jackson personally led his troops
back to Tennessee. The men admired their leader’s concern for their welfare.
They said he was as tough as hickory. And so Jackson became known as Old
Hickory.
C2 | Battle of Horseshoe Bend |
In 1813 the Upper Creek, who were
allied with the British, killed 250 settlers at Fort Mims, in what is now
Alabama. Jackson was ordered to lead a force of 2000 men against them. His
soldiers were poorly trained, and the federal government had again failed to
equip him with food and supplies. Jackson held his command together by force of
will. The decisive battle came in March 1814 at Horseshoe Bend on the Tallapoosa
River. After allowing the Creek women and children to cross the river to safety,
Jackson wiped out the Creek forces. Later he dictated a treaty that forced the
Upper Creek to cede 9 million hectares (23 million acres) of their land to the
United States. One-fifth of the area of Georgia and three-fifths of Alabama are
made up of this Native American land.
C3 | Battle of New Orleans |
In May 1814 Jackson was made a major
general in the regular (federal) army. He was ordered to New Orleans to defend
the city against a British attack. Before going, Jackson decided to march on the
British military base at Pensacola, Florida. Before the War Department could
send the necessary orders, Jackson had captured the base and had arrived in New
Orleans.
Jackson found the city virtually
defenseless. He declared martial law (rule by the military) and set up defenses.
Jackson’s command of 5000 included blacks, Creoles, Frenchmen, and pirates, as
well as sharpshooting Tennessee and Kentucky militia. The British seemed to have
the advantage, with an army of 8700 veterans of European warfare, led by
Lieutenant General Sir Edward Pakenham, who had fought with success against
France in the Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815).
On December 13, 1814, the British
quietly landed troops for a surprise attack on Jackson’s exposed flank. Jackson
heard of the plan that afternoon. The same night he launched his own surprise
attack and blunted the British offensive. He then set up a defense behind a dry
canal. On January 8, 1815, the British attacked in force. The American defenders
held, and the British were thrown back with more than 2000 casualties. American
casualties were 13 dead, 39 wounded, and 19 missing.
The Battle of New Orleans actually came
after the war, which had been ended two weeks earlier with the signing of the
Treaty of Ghent. Because of the slow communications of the time, neither side in
the battle knew that. However, Andrew Jackson was now a national hero. His
military exploits had captured the imagination of the nation.
D | Seminole Campaign |
In 1815 Jackson was named commander of
the Army of the Southern District. Two years later he was ordered to lead an
expedition against the Seminole people, who were raiding settlements in southern
Georgia and then returning to the sanctuary of Spanish Florida. Jackson was
instructed to end the raids by any necessary means.
In 1818 Jackson pursued the Seminole into
Florida. He seized a military post at Saint Marks, and he executed two British
subjects, Alexander Arbuthnot and Robert Chrystie Ambrister, for inciting the
Seminole against American settlers. Then, learning that the Seminole had fled
toward Pensacola, Jackson made a forced march and captured the post a second
time.
Both Spain and Britain were incensed by
Jackson’s activities in Florida. Many members of Congress and several in the
Cabinet of President James Monroe wished Jackson reprimanded and his action
repudiated. Only Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, who was then negotiating
with Spain for the purchase of Florida, defended Jackson. He convinced Monroe to
disregard the advice of those who argued that an apology was the only way to
avert war with Spain and Britain. Jackson’s Florida campaign increased his
popularity, especially in the West, and it undoubtedly influenced Spain’s
decision to sell the territory. In 1819 Adams concluded the purchase of Florida,
and in 1821 Monroe appointed Jackson governor of the newly organized Florida
Territory. Jackson was reluctant to leave the Hermitage, but he did so to
vindicate his actions in Florida. He was also interested in procuring jobs for
his friends. After four months as governor, however, Jackson resigned and
returned once more to private life.
E | Election of 1824 |
In 1822 Monroe had served half of his
second term as president, and politicians were looking forward to the election
of 1824. The Nashville Junto, a group of Jackson’s influential friends, notably
Senator John H. Eaton, John Overton, and William B. Lewis, were promoting
Jackson as the next Democratic-Republican presidential candidate.
E1 | Presidential Candidate |
In the summer of 1822, upon the urging
of the Junto, the Tennessee legislature nominated Jackson for president. In 1823
they again elected him to the U.S. Senate to give him a national platform. In
the Senate he followed the traditional Western position, voting for internal
improvements financed by the federal government and for a high protective tariff
(tax on imports).
As a candidate, Jackson had few
political allies. Lacking a political base in Congress, his backers had to seek
support elsewhere. In so doing, they went over the heads of the politicians and
made a direct appeal to the people. Because in many states the vote was then
passing from property holders to all white men and the electoral vote was
passing from the legislatures to the people, this was a wise choice.
E2 | Disputed Election |
Jackson’s opponents were Secretary of
State John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts, Secretary of the Treasury William H.
Crawford of Georgia, and Speaker of the House Henry Clay of Kentucky. Jackson
received 99 electoral votes; Adams, 84; Crawford, 41; and Clay, 37. Jackson also
won pluralities in the states where the electors were chosen by the people, not
by the legislature. The popular vote was 152,899 for Jackson, 105,321 for Adams,
47,265 for Clay, and 47,087 for Crawford.
However, because none of the candidates
had a majority of the electoral votes, the election had to be decided by the
House of Representatives. Each state had one vote, and only the top three
candidates were eligible.
On February 9, 1825, the House elected
Adams president. He had 13 votes, Jackson had 7, and Crawford had 4. Three
Western states that had originally supported Clay switched to Adams. Later, when
president-elect Adams named Clay secretary of state, Jackson’s supporters
accused them of making a “corrupt bargain.” Jackson was determined to defeat
Adams in the election of 1828, and now he felt he had an issue that would help
him win.
F | Election of 1828 |
The campaign for the 1828 presidential
election began as soon as Adams was elected in 1824. As was the custom, Jackson
returned to the Hermitage while his supporters campaigned actively in his
behalf. In this campaign the real issues were quickly forgotten. Each side made
vicious personal attacks on the other. Jackson maintained that the political
manipulations that led to Adams’s victory went against the popular will. Besides
being a military hero, Jackson became a symbol of democratic reform, and a large
segment of the populace looked to him for leadership in the struggle ahead.
In 1828 Jackson received 178 electoral
votes to Adams’s 83. Jackson also won a majority of the popular votes, 647,286
to 508,064. Jackson ran strongest in the West and South, while Adams’s strength
came in the Northeast, chiefly New England. John C. Calhoun of South Carolina
was elected vice president.
G | Death of Rachel Jackson |
President-elect Jackson’s joy in
defeating Adams was turned to bitterness by the death of his wife. Soon after
the election, she died of a heart attack, which Jackson was convinced had been
caused by grief over the slanders made against her during the campaign. At the
funeral he said, “I can and do forgive all my enemies. But those vile wretches
who have slandered her must look to God for mercy.”
IV | PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES |
Jackson was almost 62 years old when he
arrived in Washington, D.C., for his inauguration. Old wounds and a tubercular
cough were causing him great pain, and he was still deep in mourning over the
death of his wife. The outgoing administration greeted the new president coldly.
Like his father, President John Adams, John Quincy Adams refused to attend his
successor’s inauguration.
A | Inauguration |
Thousands of people thronged the capital
for the inauguration. Some came seeking jobs and favors; most came to cheer
their president. In his inaugural message, Jackson said:
The Federal Constitution must be obeyed, states rights preserved, our national debt must be paid, direct taxes and loans avoided, and the Federal Union preserved. These are the objects I have in view, and regardless of all consequences, will carry into effect.
The Federal Constitution must be obeyed, states rights preserved, our national debt must be paid, direct taxes and loans avoided, and the Federal Union preserved. These are the objects I have in view, and regardless of all consequences, will carry into effect.
After the speech the crowd swarmed into
the White House (the presidential mansion) for a reception. They mixed freely
with government officials, broke china and glass, and roamed through the mansion
as if it were their own home. Jackson had to flee through a rear door, and the
crowd left only when the refreshments were placed on the lawn outside. Justice
Joseph Story, an Adams supporter, noted later that “the reign of King Mob seemed
triumphant.” However, a Jacksonian newspaper reported that “it was a proud day
for the people. General Jackson is their own President.”
B | Cabinet |
Jackson rewarded his political supporters
with Cabinet positions. Martin Van Buren of New York became secretary of state,
and Senator Eaton of the Nashville Junto became secretary of war. Three backers
of Vice President Calhoun were also given Cabinet posts. Senator John Branch of
North Carolina was named secretary of the navy; Senator John M. Berrien of
Georgia, attorney general; and Samuel D. Ingham of Pennsylvania, secretary of
the treasury. John McLean was retained as postmaster general and given Cabinet
rank. However, after four days he was appointed to the Supreme Court, and
William T. Barry of Kentucky was appointed in his place.
Jackson relied less on his official
Cabinet in forming policy than he did on a group of close friends who became
known as the Kitchen Cabinet. Van Buren was the only Cabinet officer who
belonged to the informal group. Others included editors and journalists of
influential pro-Jackson newspapers.
C | Rotation in Office |
The custom of rewarding political
supporters with public office had existed since the founding of the republic.
Jackson was more open in his use of the system and, in fact, made it a policy of
his administration. Besides providing jobs for friends and supporters, Jackson
used it to prevent the growth of an entrenched bureaucracy. He replaced a number
of political veterans with younger men who approved of his policies. However,
this “rotation in office,” as Jackson called it, affected only about 20 percent
of the government employees.
Most of Jackson’s appointees were
competent and honest. An outstanding exception was Samuel Swartwout, a loyal
Jacksonian who was appointed New York collector of customs. Within a few months
of his appointment, Swartwout had appropriated more than a million dollars of
public funds. Rotation in office gained a far more sinister name in 1832, when
Senator William L. Marcy of New York defended the rule that “to the victor
belong the spoils of the enemy.” Henceforth rotation in office was called the
spoils system.
D | Van Buren-Calhoun Rivalry |
Both Martin Van Buren and Vice President
Calhoun wanted to succeed Jackson as president. The conflict between them
crystallized over Margaret (Peggy O’Neill) Eaton, the wife of Senator Eaton.
Peggy was the daughter of a popular Washington innkeeper, with whom Eaton and
Jackson had boarded on earlier trips to Washington. At that time, Peggy was
married to a naval officer, John B. Timberlake. The gossip of Washington was
that her relationship with Eaton had begun before Timberlake died in 1828. After
his death, she and Eaton were quickly married.
The Cabinet members’ wives, led by Mrs.
Calhoun, snubbed Mrs. Eaton in society. Jackson, who himself had once been the
victim of gossip, defended Mrs. Eaton’s reputation. However, of the entire
Cabinet only Martin Van Buren came to the Eatons’ defense.
Jackson and Calhoun also disagreed on the
legality of state nullification of federal laws. In his 1828 essay called
South Carolina Exposition and Protest, Calhoun had stated his belief that
the 1828 Tariff of Abominations, which placed high import taxes on both
manufactured goods and raw materials, was unconstitutional. He also affirmed the
doctrine of nullification, which said that a state had the right to nullify any
federal legislation it deemed oppressive. In 1830 Robert Hayne of South Carolina
defended nullification in a famous Senate debate with Daniel Webster of
Massachusetts.
The entire nation waited expectantly for
President Jackson to take a stand for or against nullification. The Southerners,
confident of Jackson’s views on states’ rights, invited him to a Jefferson’s
birthday dinner. This gave Jackson the opportunity to take a public stand. He
did. Looking directly at Calhoun, he proposed the toast “Our Federal Union! It
must be preserved!” Calhoun’s reply was: “The Union, next to our liberty, most
dear.”
E | Cabinet Reorganization |
The rift with Calhoun became complete when
the Kitchen Cabinet told Jackson that Calhoun, as secretary of war in 1818, had
favored his arrest for his activities in Florida. Van Buren, whose political
shrewdness had earned him the nickname “Little Magician,” helped work out a
scheme to end Calhoun’s influence in the administration. First, Van Buren and
Eaton resigned from the Cabinet in 1831. This gave the president an excuse to
ask the rest of the Cabinet to resign for purposes of reorganization. Once the
Calhoun men, Ingham, Branch, and Berrien, were gone, Jackson named a new Cabinet
composed entirely of his own supporters.
F | Maysville Veto |
Jackson had pledged to reduce the national
debt. He was therefore opposed to the rising number of bills before Congress
that proposed to finance internal improvements with public money. His opposition
was at variance with his own stand while he had been senator and was also highly
unpopular with his Western supporters. The Maysville Road Bill gave him the
opportunity to make his opposition clear. It authorized the use of federal funds
to construct a road between the towns of Maysville and Lexington, both in
Kentucky. Jackson vetoed the bill, calling it unconstitutional because it
concerned only the state of Kentucky.
G | Native American Removal |
Jackson supported Georgia in its effort to
deprive the Cherokee nation of its land. Jackson claimed that he had “no power
to oppose the exercise of sovereignty of any state over all who may be within
its limits.” The Cherokee appealed to the Supreme Court, and in Worcester
v. Georgia, Chief Justice John Marshall ruled against Georgia. Marshall
stated that the federal government had exclusive jurisdiction over Native
American lands. To this Jackson is said to have replied, “John Marshall has made
his decision. Now let him enforce it.” Of course the court had no enforcement
power of its own, so the decision was ignored. Within a few years most of the
Cherokee were removed in a 1285-km (800-mi) forced march, during which thousands
of them died.
In 1834 the Indian Territory (now
Oklahoma) was created as a permanent homeland for the Native Americans who lived
east of the Mississippi River. By the end of Jackson’s second administration the
army had forcefully moved most of these eastern tribes to their new “home.” The
Black Hawk War of 1832 and the Seminole War that was renewed in 1835 represented
the last efforts of the eastern Native Americans to retain their ancestral
lands.
Henry Clay called Jackson’s Native
American policy a stain on the nation’s honor. However, Jackson’s antipathy
toward these peoples was typical of the frontier settler, and because this
policy opened more land to settlement, most Westerners supported it with
enthusiasm.
H | Foreign Affairs |
Jackson scored two diplomatic triumphs,
one with Britain and one with France, that ended long-standing disputes with
those countries. Since the end of the American Revolution, Great Britain had
restricted and at times barred American trade with British ports in the West
Indies. The restrictions varied from high import duties to tonnage limits and
bans on certain goods. All U.S. presidents had tried, using both diplomacy and
retaliation, to regain free access to this prosperous overseas market. When
Jackson came into office, neither power was allowing direct West Indies trade
with the other. He and Van Buren reopened discussions. In 1830 they succeeded in
getting a treaty that opened American ports to British shipping, duty free, in
exchange for similar rights in the British West Indies.
During the Napoleonic Wars, France had
plundered American ships trading with its enemy, Britain, even though the United
States remained neutral in that conflict. In 1831 Jackson got France to agree to
pay damage claims. However, by 1834 the first two installments had not been
paid. Jackson asked Congress to authorize the confiscation of French holdings in
the United States. The French government indignantly severed diplomatic
relations, but Jackson stood firm. Finally, in 1836, France paid four overdue
installments, and diplomatic relations between the two countries were
restored.
I | Second Bank of the United States |
Jackson opposed renewal of the charter of
the Second Bank of the United States. Although this was to a large extent a
privately owned bank, it had a government charter to regulate the flow of
currency, control credit, and perform essential banking services for the
Department of the Treasury. Of its 25 directors, only 5 were appointed by the
government. Its stock was held by investors in America and abroad and by the
U.S. government. The existence of the bank was based on the idea of Alexander
Hamilton, the nation’s first secretary of the treasury, that cooperation between
commercial interests and the government would assure a strong national
economy.
Jackson objected to the existence of a
bank that had a powerful voice in national affairs yet was not responsive to the
will of the people. He contended that the bank benefited only the creditor,
investor, and speculator at the expense of the working and agrarian classes that
produced the real wealth of the nation by their labor. The financial procedures
of the commercial or moneyed class, he said, created a boom-and-bust economic
cycle. When the economy was booming, the creditor was rewarded with a large
financial return on his investments. When depression came, credit became scarce.
Workers and farmers, who were usually debtors, had no money to pay their debts
and went bankrupt. Their lands and properties were then seized by their
creditors. Thus, wealth became concentrated in the hands of a few. With wealth
came power and the opportunity to reinforce this beneficial position by
law.
In addition, many business people and
state bankers opposed the national bank because of its restrictive control over
their financial interests. Thus, in Jacksonian terms, the bank and what it
represented were a threat to political and economic democracy.
In 1832 Henry Clay, who wanted to make the
bank the major campaign issue of that year, persuaded Nicholas Biddle, president
of the bank, to request an early renewal of its charter. (The current charter
would not expire until 1836.) In July 1832, Congress passed a bill rechartering
the bank. Although the new charter gave the government more control over bank
policy, Jackson still opposed it. In his veto message, Jackson claimed that some
of the provisions were unconstitutional and that too many of the stockholders
were foreign investors. He then went on to say:
It is not conceivable how the present stockholders can have any claim to the special favor of government .... Many of our rich men have not been content with equal benefits, but have besought us to make them richer by an act of Congress.
It is not conceivable how the present stockholders can have any claim to the special favor of government .... Many of our rich men have not been content with equal benefits, but have besought us to make them richer by an act of Congress.
J | Election of 1832 |
The election of 1832 was a landmark in
American history because the candidates were chosen by party conventions for the
first time. The Jacksonians chose Martin Van Buren to run for vice president
with Jackson. The history of the Democratic Party is traced from this
convention.
The supporters of the bank called
themselves the National Republicans. They nominated Henry Clay for president and
John Sergeant, a member of the bank’s legal staff, for vice president. They
accused “King Andrew” of seeking dictatorship over Congress.
The election was centered on the bank
issue, and Jackson won a second term easily. He had 219 electoral votes to
Clay’s 49. William Wirt, who ran on the Anti-Masonic Party ticket, received 7
votes, and South Carolina gave all 11 of its electoral votes to its states’
rights candidate, John Floyd. The popular vote was 687,502 for Jackson, 530,189
for Clay, and 33,108 for Wirt.
K | Nullification |
Before Jackson’s second term in office
began, nullification became an issue again. In 1832 Congress passed a tariff
that South Carolina deemed as oppressive to its interests as was the 1828 Tariff
of Abominations. When the nullification forces, or nullies, gained control of
the state in the election of 1832, they called a convention to deal with the
tariff. The convention declared that the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were “null,
void, and no law.” Nor were they “binding upon this state, its officers or
citizens.” South Carolina also threatened to secede from the Union if the
federal government tried to collect the tariff duties in the state.
Jackson was a champion of states’ rights.
However, in a struggle that placed the interests of a state above those of the
Union, he always stood firm behind the supreme powers of the federal government.
Speaking out against nullification, Jackson stated:
I consider, then, the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed
by one State, incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded, and destructive of the great object to which it was formed.
I consider, then, the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed
by one State, incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded, and destructive of the great object to which it was formed.
Jackson also pushed through Congress a
force bill that authorized the use of federal troops to collect the tariff. The
crisis was eased when, through the efforts of Henry Clay, Congress passed a
compromise tariff in 1833 along with the force bill. As a last defiant gesture,
South Carolina accepted the tariff but nullified the force bill. Jackson had
preserved the Union, but nullification remained a great question.
V | SECOND TERM AS PRESIDENT |
A | Second Battle Over the Bank |
Jackson believed that his reelection was a
mandate from the people to break the power of what he called “this hydra of
corruption,” the Second Bank of the United States. To accomplish this, Jackson
decided to withdraw government money from the bank to pay current expenses and
to deposit future government revenues in selected state banks. These banks were
called pet banks. Jackson appointed Roger B. Taney of Maryland as secretary of
the treasury to carry out this policy after his two previous secretaries
refused.
Bank President Biddle and his congressional
supporters, led by Clay and Webster, were determined to save the bank. Biddle
used the bank’s money to buy political favors. In 1834 the Senate passed a
resolution of censure against Jackson and refused to confirm Taney’s appointment
to the Cabinet. Biddle said, “This worthy President thinks that because he has
scalped Indians and imprisoned Judges he is to have his way with the bank. He is
mistaken.”
Biddle began to restrict credit and call in
loans from state banks. Business leaders pleaded with Jackson to approve the
bank and end the crisis. However, Jackson placed the blame for the panic on the
doorsteps of Biddle’s bank and advised all callers to “Go to Nicholas Biddle.”
Biddle’s reply was: “All the other banks and all the other merchants may break,
but the Bank of the United States shall never break.”
In this struggle for power, Biddle was
doomed to defeat. Jackson rallied public opinion behind him, and Biddle was
pressured into restoring credit and loans. All he had proved was that Jackson
was correct in his contention that a private monopolistic bank, independent of
government regulation, should not be entrusted with public finances. Jackson won
his greatest political victory, and the Second Bank of the United States passed
out of existence when its charter expired in 1836.
B | Specie Circular |
Jackson was the only president who ever
paid off the national debt. Income to the federal government from tariffs and
the sale of public land in the West soon created a surplus in the U.S. Treasury.
This led to a wave of speculation and overinvestment. Jackson had less control
over the pet banks than he had had over the Bank of the United States. These
banks began to overextend credit by issuing notes far in excess of the gold and
silver, or specie, that they actually had in their vaults.
Following the lead of the pet banks,
so-called wildcat (financially unsound) banks, especially in the West,
issued notes of their own that were backed by insufficient specie reserves. Soon
the ratio of paper notes to gold or silver was 12 to 1: $12 of paper money was
in circulation for every $1 of gold or silver in the nation’s banks. The result
was runaway inflation: people had little confidence in the money, so they spent
it faster and prices went higher (see Inflation and Deflation). Since the
federal government accepted paper money for the Western land it was selling, the
Treasury was filled with bank notes of doubtful value.
On July 11, 1836, Jackson issued his Specie
Circular. It directed government agents to accept only gold and silver coin for
the sale of land. Jackson hoped that this would stop speculation, especially in
public lands. Speculators had been using paper money to buy up huge tracts of
land from the government. They would then sell small parcels to the actual
settlers at a huge profit. Jackson wanted to enable the settlers to buy land
directly from the government rather than from profiteering speculators.
C | Texas Question |
During Jackson’s presidency, large numbers
of slaveholding Southerners settled in Texas, a part of Mexico that was only
sparsely colonized by the Spanish and Mexicans. Most of these new settlers
favored annexing Texas to the United States, as did Jackson himself. In his
first term, he offered to buy Texas from Mexico, but Mexico refused. In his
second term, the Texans fought for and won their independence from Mexico, and
requested annexation. Texan leader Sam Houston was an old friend of Jackson’s.
Nevertheless Jackson refused to press for annexation because feeling in the
Northern states ran high against the creation of a new slave state. On his last
day in office, however, he took a first step by recognizing the independent
republic of Texas and appointing a diplomat to represent the United States
there.
D | Supreme Court |
One of the most significant and lasting
effects of the Jackson administration was felt in the U.S. Supreme Court. Chief
Justice John Marshall died in 1835. Jackson named Secretary of the Treasury
Taney to succeed him. While president, Jackson also named five associate
justices to the Court. The Court under Taney’s direction perpetuated the
political principles of Jacksonian democracy for many years thereafter.
Ironically, Taney’s most famous decision was to be in the Dred Scott Case in
1857, where he denied the right of a slave to sue for freedom, although he
himself had freed his slaves.
E | Election of 1836 |
By 1836 Jackson was weak from tuberculosis
and had no thought of seeking a third term. However, he stubbornly continued
with affairs of state and party, including ensuring that the party nominated Van
Buren as his successor. Although he was eager to return to the Hermitage after
Van Buren’s election, he grimly fulfilled the duties of his office until the
inauguration the following March.
The last day of Jackson’s presidency was as
much a personal triumph as his first. Thousands came, not to see the new
president but to bid good-bye to their beloved hero.
VI | LAST YEARS |
Jackson spent the last eight years of his
life at the Hermitage. Although he had to borrow money to keep the plantation
going, he continued to entertain political supporters and kept a close watch on
national affairs. He never wavered in his devotion to the Union. In his will he
left a nephew “the elegant sword presented to me by the state of Tennessee, with
the injunction that he fail not to use it when necessary in support and
protection of our glorious Union.” He died on June 8, 1845. On his deathbed
Jackson said, “My dear children, and friends, and servants, I hope and trust to
meet you all in Heaven, both white and black—both white and black.”
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