THE AGE OF JACKSON

TENSION BETWEEN ADAMS AND JACKSON Election 1824 – Jackson won the popular vote but lacked the majority of electoral votes to take office. The House of representatives decided the outcome, since no candidate had received a majority of the votes of the Electoral College.

TENSIONS BETWEEN ADAMS & JACKSON Adams was elected president by a majority of the states representatives in the House. Jacksonians claimed Adams has struck a corrupt bargain. The Jacksonians withdrew from the Republican Party to form the Democratic Republican Party (today’s Democratic Party)

DEMOCRACY & CITIZENSHIP Over the next 4 years, Jacksonians did what ever they could to sabotage Adam’s polices. Aware that many voters distrusted the national bank and disliked tariffs, Jacksonians opposed both.

DEMOCRACY & CITIZENSHIP During Adam’s presidency – requirements for voting eased ,000 males voted 1828 – three times the amount in 1824 voted, and their votes helped Andrew Jackson.

JACKSON’S NEW PRESIDENTIAL STYLE 1828 election – Jackson characterized Adams as an intellectual elitist, and himself as a man of humble origins. Jackson won by a landslide. Record numbers of people came to Washington to see “Old Hickory” inaugurated.

JACKSON’S SPOILS SYSTEM In order to give common people a chance to participant in government, his appointees to federal jobs would serve a maximum of four-year terms. This policy of “rotation in office” enabled Jackson to give away huge numbers of jobs to friends and political allies.

JACKSON’S SPOILS SYSTEM Jackson’s administration essentially practiced the spoils system of government. Saying- “To the victor belong the spoils of the enemy.” In the Spoils System, incoming officials throw out former appointees and replace them with their own friends.

REMOVAL OF NATIVE AMERICANS Five Civilized Tribes – Cherokees, Choctaw, Seminole, Creek, and Chickasaw. Cherokee – created their own formal government. (just like the U.S.) George Guess (Sequoya) – devised an alphabet, the tribe published it’s own bilingual newspaper.

INDIAN REMOVAL ACT OF 1830 Federal govt. provided funds to negotiate treaties that would force the Native Americans to move west. 90 treaties were signed. Trail of Tears – 1830, Jackson forced the Choctaw to move from Mississippi. 1831, he forced the Sauk and Fox from theirs lands in Illinois and Missouri.

TRAIL OF TEARS 1832, he forced the Chickasaw to leave their lands in Alabama and Mississippi. Cherokee Nation tried to win just treatment through the U.S. legal system. Chief Justice John Marshall – refused to rule because in his view the Cherokee had no federal standing. It was neither a foreign nation nor a state, but rather a “domestic dependent nation.”

TRAIL OF TEARS Cherokees teamed up with Samuel Austin Worchester. A missionary who had been jailed for teaching Indians without a state license. They knew the court would have to recognize a citizen’s right to be heard. The court ruled on Worcester v. Georgia in 1832.

WORCHESTER V. GEORGIA Won all the rights that were due to them. The court recognized the Cherokee Nation as a distinct political community whose people Georgia was not entitled to regulate by law and whose lands Georgia was not entitled to invade. Jackson – “John Marshall had made his decision; now let him enforce it.”

THE TREATY OF ECHOTA 1835 – gave the last 8 million acres of Cherokee land to the federal government in exchange for 5 million and land in Oklahoma. This marked the beginning of the Cherokee exodus – nearly 20,000 Cherokee still remained in the East, Pres. Martin Van Buren ordered their forced removal.

TRAIL OF TEARS October – November 1838, 800 mile trip. As winter came on, more and more Indians died. Government officials stole their money, outlaws made off with their livestock. Cherokee buried more than a quarter of their people along the trail of tears. They ended up on land far inferior to that which they had been forced to leave.

JOHN C. CALHOUN Jackson’s vice-president – called the 1828 tariff a “Tariff of Abominations.” “A disgusting and loathsome tariff.” High tariff reduced British exports to America, Britain bought less cotton. With the decline of British goods, the South had to buy more expensive Northern manufactured goods.

HAYNE AND WEBSTER DEBATE STATES’ RIGHTS January 1830 – Tariff question & the underlying states’ right issue. Senator Robert Hayne of South Carolina debates Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts. Hayne – “The measures of the federal government…will soon involve the whole South in irretrievable ruin.”

HAYNE AND WEBSTER DEBATE STATES’ RIGHTS Webster – “the union was for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people.” Once the debate ended the people wanted to hear Pres. Jackson’s position. “Our union: it must and shall be preserved.”

SOUTH CAROLINA REBELS 1832 – South Carolina declares the tariffs of 1828 & 1832 “unauthorized by the Constitution” and “null, void, and no law.” They threatened to secede or withdraw from the Union, if customs officials tried to collect taxes. Jackson was furious – he threatened to hang Calhoun and march federal troops into South Carolina to enforce the tariff.

FORCE BILL Jackson urges Congress to pass the Force Bill in 1833, to allow the federal govt. to use army or navy against South Carolina if state authorities resisted paying proper duties. Henry Clay – forged a compromise in 1833 between all parties. This would gradually lower duties over a ten-year period.

JACKSON ATTACKS THE NATIONAL BANK (BUS) 1832 – vetoed a bill to recharter it. In Jackson’s eyes – the national bank symbolized Eastern wealth and power. He regarded the national bank as an agent of the wealthy, whose members cared nothing for Jackson’s common people.

PET BANKS 1832 – Jackson told Martin Van Buren “The Bank is trying to kill me, but I will kill it.” Pressured the Sec. of Treasury to withdraw all govt. deposits and place them in certain state banks called “pet banks.” Sec. of Treasury refused and Jackson replaced him.

WHIG PARTY 1834 – the discontented, including Henry Clay and Daniel Webster channeled their frustrations into action, they formed a new political party called the Whig party. Whigs were a group in Britain that tried to limit royal power, and Whig had come to mean anyone opposed to an excessively powerful chief executive.

PANIC OF 1837 Bank closings and the collapse of the credit system cost many people their savings, bankrupted hundreds of businesses, and put more than a third of the population out of work.

HARRISON AND TYLER 1841 – Harrison won election, a month later dies of pneumonia. John Tyler - (vice-president) becomes president. Legacy of two parties: Jacksonian Democrats or Whigs, these parties held center stage from 1830s -1850s.